Transcript

8.27.26 · Science Show KY

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Radio Eye's Diary of Science and Nature. Your
0:04
Speaker 1: reader is Kelly Taylor. I'll have articles on science and nature,
0:08
Speaker 1: but first a reminder that Radio Eye is a reading
0:11
Speaker 1: service intended for people who are blind or have other
0:15
Speaker 1: disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material. From
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Speaker 1: the Washington Post, we have an article that's headlined, The
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Speaker 1: Invisible Force Driving Destructive Floods Across the United States. This
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Speaker 1: is from August 23rd. Some of the most extreme weather
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Speaker 1: in the United States this summer has been driven by
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Speaker 1: an invisible force pooling in the skies above, water vapor.
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Speaker 1: Although recent destructive floods in Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, New York, Texas,
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Speaker 1: West Virginia, and many other states may seem geographically disconnected,
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Speaker 1: they share a link to something happening thousands of miles
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Speaker 1: away in a remote stretch of the tropical Pacific Ocean.
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Speaker 1: That's where the combination of a record-breaking El Nino, a
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Speaker 1: marine heat wave, and the ocean-warming tailwind from climate change
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Speaker 1: have sent much more moisture into the atmosphere than normal.
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Speaker 1: So far this summer, total atmospheric moisture levels have been
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Speaker 1: about 5 to 15 percent above average in the Pacific
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Speaker 1: and across much of the U.S. An analysis by the
1:27
Speaker 1: Washington Post shows that since June, This extra moisture transported
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Speaker 1: by winds has spilled into the contiguous United States, helping
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Speaker 1: to fuel record-breaking rainfall in parts of 44 out of
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Speaker 1: 48 states, covering about 90,000 square miles. This is important,
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Speaker 1: wrote Tampa-based meteorologist Jeff Berardelli about the widespread nature of
1:56
Speaker 1: above-average moisture. He added, That's why we keep getting these
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Speaker 1: 1 to 1,000-year rain events. It's because that probability is
2:04
Speaker 1: based on the past climate. We now have a new climate.
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Speaker 1: Much more moisture is available for storms. El Nino is
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Speaker 1: supercharging this effect at the moment, but the underlying mechanism
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Speaker 1: is long-term climate warming, end quote. Although the level of
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Speaker 1: moisture flowing through the sky doesn't have a one-to-one relationship
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Speaker 1: with rainfall amounts, Having more moisture can boost the odds
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Speaker 1: for rainfall extremes if there's a force to squeeze that
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Speaker 1: moisture out, such as a front or low-pressure system. The
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Speaker 1: Post recently reported how this powerful El Nino, on the
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Speaker 1: backdrop of climate change, will act like a climate time machine,
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Speaker 1: temporarily pushing global temperatures to levels it might not otherwise
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Speaker 1: be reached for another decade or so. That's important because
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Speaker 1: temperature rises are directly linked to the amount of moisture
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Speaker 1: that can pulse across the planet. Because the water vapor
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Speaker 1: carrying capacity of air increases at a rate of 7%
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Speaker 1: per degree Celsius, it's possible, if not likely, that 2027
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Speaker 1: also sets a new global moisture record surpassing 2024. In 2025,
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Speaker 1: the Post mapped the planet's rising moisture zones and showed
3:24
Speaker 1: how they are closely connected to an increasing risk for
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Speaker 1: rainfall extremes. Those risks are amplified when atmospheric circulation patterns
3:34
Speaker 1: work in tandem with warming, funneling, I'm sorry, the circulation
3:41
Speaker 1: patterns work in tandem with warming, funneling increasingly moisture-laden air
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Speaker 1: toward the same places where it can be tapped by storms.
3:51
Speaker 1: That double whammy has already contributed to numerous flooding events
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Speaker 1: in the U.S. this summer, and there are probably more
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Speaker 1: to come. These summer floods are probably a harbinger of
4:02
Speaker 1: more extreme rain to come during fall and winter. The
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Speaker 1: exceedingly warm Pacific waters are forecast to turbocharge the southern
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Speaker 1: branch of the jet stream, also called the subtropical jet stream,
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Speaker 1: which could create a storm highway from California to Florida
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Speaker 1: and end up along the the East Coast. NOAA's recently
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Speaker 1: released Winter Outlook shows that above average precipitation totals are
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Speaker 1: expected to span from California to the East Coast, suggestive
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Speaker 1: of a stormier than normal winter. Baradelli is particularly concerned
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Speaker 1: about heavy rain events and severe weather across the Deep
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Speaker 1: South and Florida. Quote, I expect that we will see
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Speaker 1: much above normal rainfall. And I bet some flood events
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Speaker 1: as well, he said, citing strong climate model support for
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Speaker 1: a very wet winter in the south. Quote, all effects combined,
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Speaker 1: we should see some eye-opening weather, perhaps even events to
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Speaker 1: a level we have not experienced before, Baradale said. The
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Speaker 1: consequences of this atmospheric moisture boost will be felt globally.
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Speaker 1: The storm highway may stretch from the U.S. all the
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Speaker 1: way to drought-stricken parts of Europe with elevated potential for flooding,
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Speaker 1: as heavy rain falls on dry, cracked grounds. No two
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Speaker 1: El Nino events are exactly alike, but the strength of
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Speaker 1: this one is unlike anything people alive today have experienced,
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Speaker 1: or anything measured in the instrumental record, stretching back to
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Speaker 1: about 1850. What we are about to see this fall
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Speaker 1: and winter may be without precedent, said Miradelli. Now we
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Speaker 1: have another story related to El Nino. This is from
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Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Times. The headline, El Nino could bring
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Speaker 1: highest sea levels ever recorded to the California coast. This
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Speaker 1: is from August 10th. A strengthening El Nino could bring
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Speaker 1: the highest sea levels ever recorded to the California coast
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Speaker 1: this year, raising the risk of widespread and damaging flooding.
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Speaker 1: It's the latest effect forecast for what's expected to be
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Speaker 1: an historically strong event. One forecaster has warned could also
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Speaker 1: lash Southern California with powerful rain and broil both land
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Speaker 1: and sea with punishing heat waves. Quote, we're expecting likely
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Speaker 1: the highest sea levels ever recorded on the California coast
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Speaker 1: associated with this event, said Mark Merrifield, director of the
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Speaker 1: UC San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Center for Climate
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Speaker 1: Change Impacts. During a recent online town hall, Merrifield presented
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Speaker 1: a NASA satellite image showing sea levels already more than
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Speaker 1: half a foot higher in the Eastern Pacific Ocean compared
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Speaker 1: to the reference state and said by this fall and winter,
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Speaker 1: we should be seeing sea levels far above the average
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Speaker 1: seasonal cycle. According to NASA, El Nino's warmer ocean water
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Speaker 1: displaces colder water close to the sea surface. Warmer water
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Speaker 1: causes a rise in the sea surface height because water
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Speaker 1: expands as temperature rises. Data collected by scientists over the
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Speaker 1: years also have shown how El Ninos contribute to enormously
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Speaker 1: strong waves, which can cause beaches to erode and narrow,
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Speaker 1: Merrifield said. It's well documented that during El Nino events,
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Speaker 1: beaches across the entire state tend to move landward by
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Speaker 1: about 30 meters or so. With less of a coastal buffer,
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Speaker 1: any large waves that come in will have even greater
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Speaker 1: impact on the shoreline, with more likelihood of of flooding
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Speaker 1: and undercutting of cliffs. That combination, high waves, high sea levels,
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Speaker 1: high tides, and high rainfall, will contribute to considerable coastal flooding,
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Speaker 1: intrusion of saltwater into the groundwater, and coastal erosion, Merrifield says.
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Speaker 1: Flooding along the Southern California coast is likely to be
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Speaker 1: a major issue for the winter season. This has proven
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Speaker 1: true in recent editions of The Climate Pattern. In 2324,
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Speaker 1: Significant flooding struck portions of Ventura, Los Angeles, and San
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Speaker 1: Diego counties. During one memorable moment, a powerful wave crashed
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Speaker 1: over a seawall in Ventura, injuring eight people. Quote, usually
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Speaker 1: the entire California coast sees these higher waves as the
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Speaker 1: storm track is perturbed by the El Nino, Merrifield said.
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Speaker 1: That was during a town hall hosted by State Senator
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Speaker 1: Mike McGuire, representing the North Coast. Any El Nino-influenced rise
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Speaker 1: in sea level would only add to a wider trend
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Speaker 1: influenced by human-caused climate change. In the San Francisco Bay Area,
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Speaker 1: where sea levels have risen over the last century, notable
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Speaker 1: peaks have been observed during El Nino seasons of 1982-83, 97-98,
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Speaker 1: and 2023-24. The average sea level at La Jolla Pier
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Speaker 1: was significantly above average during the last two very strong
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Speaker 1: El Ninos, in 97-98 and 2015-16, according to data. And
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Speaker 1: this year's El Nino could be similarly powerful in a
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Speaker 1: matter of months. Sea level rise is expected to increase
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Speaker 1: in all sorts of areas from San Francisco Bay to
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Speaker 1: San Diego and impact the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Quote, historically,
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Speaker 1: these kind of events have led to, in San Francisco,
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Speaker 1: anywhere from half a foot to a foot of anomalously high,
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Speaker 1: a not anomalously high sea level, Merrifield said. That typically
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Speaker 1: starts to peak in November, December. El Nino is a
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Speaker 1: climate pattern characterized by warmer ocean waters in the central
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Speaker 1: and eastern Pacific Ocean, coupled with changing atmospheric conditions in
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Speaker 1: which the typical east-to-west trade winds weaken or even reverse.
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Speaker 1: That shift can train a veritable fire hose of tropical
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Speaker 1: moisture at Southern California, potentially leading to significant rainfall across
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Speaker 1: the region, albeit at the cost of of drier than
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Speaker 1: usual conditions elsewhere. There's a high chance that this El
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Speaker 1: Nino could be very strong, perhaps one of the strongest
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Speaker 1: on record, forecasters say. Let's turn now to Scientific American.
10:35
Speaker 1: Solid state batteries have reached a make or break moment.
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Speaker 1: For years now, Tim Holm has watched the same drama
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Speaker 1: repeat itself roughly once a week. A headline arrives. Some
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Speaker 1: laboratory somewhere has cracked the problem, invented the battery of
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Speaker 1: the future, solved in a paper what industry has chased
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Speaker 1: for decades. Quote, and approximately zero of those have come true,
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Speaker 1: says Holm, co-founder and chief technology officer of QuantumScape, a
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Speaker 1: San Jose, California company that has spent 15 years chasing
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Speaker 1: the most promised and least delivered idea in energy storage.
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Speaker 1: and it has run up an accumulated deficit of more
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Speaker 1: than $ 3. 9 billion. The solid-state battery. The most recent cautionary
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Speaker 1: tale was Donut Lab, a Finnish startup that drew breathless
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Speaker 1: coverage after unveiling what it said was a high-performance solid-state
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Speaker 1: cell with about double the energy density of typical lithium-ion
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Speaker 1: batteries and without rare earth minerals or fire risk. It
11:47
Speaker 1: didn't release data backing its boldest claims. In June, battery
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Speaker 1: researcher and YouTuber Ryan Hughes and outside experts presented evidence
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Speaker 1: that Donut's cell was high-performance lithium-ion with liquid inside. Quote,
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Speaker 1: people who spend a long time in the battery industry
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Speaker 1: have a healthy dose of skepticism, Holmes says. But amid
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Speaker 1: the noise, the race is speeding up. Announcements are tumbling
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Speaker 1: out of China, Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. as
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Speaker 1: battery makers move from lab to factory. Toyota, which holds
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Speaker 1: the most corporate patents, says solid-state cells will finally start
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Speaker 1: appearing in cars within two years. Chinese companies, which already
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Speaker 1: make more than 80% of the world's lithium-ion batteries, have
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Speaker 1: begun shipping semi-solid-state cells. In the U.S., two frontrunners are
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Speaker 1: taking alternative paths to the same goal. Volkswagen-backed QuantumScape, which
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Speaker 1: now produces its ceramic-based cells on a pilot line in
12:54
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley, and Factorial Energy, a Billerica, Massachusetts company led
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Speaker 1: by founder and CEO C.U. Wong, whose polymer cells are
13:06
Speaker 1: being tested in vehicles by Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis. The companies
13:12
Speaker 1: claim energy densities well beyond today's typical electric vehicle, or
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Speaker 1: EV cells, up to 301 watt-hours per kilogram for QuantumScape's
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Speaker 1: cell and 391 watt-hours per kilogram for factorials, gains that
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Speaker 1: could quiet range anxiety. By volume, QuantumScape's cell packs the
13:38
Speaker 1: slightly bigger punch 844 watt hours per liter versus 748.
13:45
Speaker 1: QuantumScape is building a new battery chemistry that demands a
13:49
Speaker 1: new manufacturing process. Factorial is designing a cell that can
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Speaker 1: run on much of the industry's existing equipment. Their bet
13:58
Speaker 1: is similar. Rather than compete with China at its lithium-ion game,
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Speaker 1: skip past it. The biggest test is still electric cars.
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Speaker 1: But amid cooling EV sales and supply chain concerns, both
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Speaker 1: companies are already looking beyond them. The underlying technology was
14:17
Speaker 1: largely pioneered in the US by M. Stanley Whittingham, developed
14:22
Speaker 1: the first functional rechargeable lithium battery in the 1970s while
14:27
Speaker 1: doing research at Exxon. John Goodenough, whose foundational work on
14:32
Speaker 1: lithium ion cells won him a share of the 2019
14:34
Speaker 1: Nobel Prize in Chemistry, spent much of his career at
14:39
Speaker 1: the University of Texas at Austin. The technology was commercialized
14:43
Speaker 1: by Sony in Japan for its Handycam, then mass-produced in
14:48
Speaker 1: Korea and increasingly China. The battery that now powers most
14:52
Speaker 1: of our EVs and electric devices was invented in the
14:59
Speaker 1: United States, and unfortunately we lost sight of manufacturability for
15:03
Speaker 1: quite a bit. Who's winning the race can be hard
15:07
Speaker 1: to know, partly because the definition of solid state isn't
15:10
Speaker 1: itself so solid. The term describes an architecture, not a
15:15
Speaker 1: set of chemistries, one that replaces most or all of
15:18
Speaker 1: the liquid electrolyte with a solid. In a conventional lithium-ion battery,
15:24
Speaker 1: the liquid electrolyte shuttles lithium ions back and forth to
15:28
Speaker 1: the anode as you charge your phone and back to
15:31
Speaker 1: the cathode as you use it. That liquid is highly
15:35
Speaker 1: conductive but flammable, and the fires it feeds burn hot
15:40
Speaker 1: and toxic. Solid electrolytes replace most, if not all, of
15:44
Speaker 1: that flammable liquid, while also opening up the next frontier,
15:49
Speaker 1: swapping out the graphite anode with pure lithium metal. Because
15:53
Speaker 1: graphite stores only one lithium ion for every six carbon atoms,
15:58
Speaker 1: typical rechargeable batteries top out. and an energy density of
16:02
Speaker 1: around 250 watt-hours per kilogram. Lithium metal needs no host
16:08
Speaker 1: at all, boosting the anode's storage capacity around tenfold. The
16:14
Speaker 1: challenge with pure lithium is that it's highly reactive, hence
16:19
Speaker 1: the solid electrolyte. As it allows ions to pass through,
16:23
Speaker 1: the solid helps physically block dendrites, the branch-like lithium deposits
16:29
Speaker 1: that caused early lithium metal batteries to short circuit and
16:33
Speaker 1: catch fire. Ditching graphite saves space and weight, too, and
16:38
Speaker 1: removes a key ingredient whose supply chain China dominates. Quote,
16:44
Speaker 1: the best lithium cell chemistry can be using pure metallic lithium,
16:50
Speaker 1: says Jeff Sakamoto, materials scientist at the University of California,
16:54
Speaker 1: Santa Barbara. The solid electrolyte, he says, is what physically
17:00
Speaker 1: and ideally thermodynamically stabilizes a lithium metal electrode. A battery, quote,
17:07
Speaker 1: can go on forever if it's thermodynamically stable, end quote.
17:12
Speaker 1: But solid state is also to some degree a marketing term. Quote,
17:16
Speaker 1: there are people introducing terms like quasi-solid state, hybrid solid state,
17:22
Speaker 1: condensed state, Holmes says, all kinds of terms that are
17:25
Speaker 1: never defined. In practice, most solid-state batteries contain some liquid,
17:32
Speaker 1: usually in the cathode region, to help with conductivity, making
17:35
Speaker 1: them semi-solid at best. All solid-state batteries are the goal.
17:41
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, the real question is what the
17:44
Speaker 1: architecture unlocks. Higher energy density, faster charge, longer range, better safety,
17:51
Speaker 1: and ultimately lower cost. Central to battery design is the
17:56
Speaker 1: choice of electrolyte, typically a ceramic, a sulfide, a polymer,
18:01
Speaker 1: or some combination. A polymer can be easier to manufacture
18:06
Speaker 1: but comes with conductivity challenges. A sulfide is more conductive
18:12
Speaker 1: but requires careful dry room manufacturing. A ceramic oxide is
18:17
Speaker 1: the hardest to process at thin dimensions and high volumes,
18:21
Speaker 1: but home wagers the most rewarding. The bet we made
18:26
Speaker 1: was to pick the material that has the best material properties,
18:29
Speaker 1: he says, but it's brittle and very, very challenging to make.
18:34
Speaker 1: QuantumScape has dispensed with two of the four components of
18:37
Speaker 1: a typical battery. Its ceramic electrolyte supports an anode-free architecture
18:45
Speaker 1: in which the lithium metal anode forms on the first
18:49
Speaker 1: charge rather than being preloaded. Factorial has gone with the
18:54
Speaker 1: grain of existing manufacturing. Its FEST, factorial electrolyte system technology,
19:06
Speaker 1: is a polymer with an ultra-thin lithium metal layer at
19:09
Speaker 1: the anode and designed for about 80% of existing lithium-ion equipment.
19:15
Speaker 1: Both companies insist they have moved from science to engineering,
19:19
Speaker 1: but some in the research community remain skeptical. Quote, there
19:23
Speaker 1: is now a significant deviation between what's possible and where
19:27
Speaker 1: the technology really is, Sakamoto says. He and his colleagues
19:32
Speaker 1: use operando microscopy to observe batteries working, mapping the tiny
19:38
Speaker 1: defects that accumulate in the electrolyte as it charges and recharges.
19:43
Speaker 1: The gap between public expectations and the technology's true maturity
19:48
Speaker 1: risks draining public confidence if commercial milestones slip once more.
19:54
Speaker 1: The most fundamental challenge is the interface, the boundary between
19:57
Speaker 1: the solid electrolyte and the electrodes, where dendrites and voids
20:02
Speaker 1: take root. Moving ions through a solid is inherently harder
20:06
Speaker 1: than through a liquid. It's like humans, Bellaroc says. Imagine
20:11
Speaker 1: migrating across a vast landscape. If there's a river, you
20:15
Speaker 1: can swim. But if there's a mountain, you have to
20:18
Speaker 1: climb it somehow. Tiny voids left behind as lithium strips
20:23
Speaker 1: from and redeposits onto the electrodes become roadblocks and bottlenecks.
20:30
Speaker 1: As ions take detours, lithium piles up. It's as soft
20:34
Speaker 1: as taffy, but as it forms at the interface, The
20:37
Speaker 1: metal can frack through even hard ceramic, like tree roots
20:42
Speaker 1: through concrete. Expanding and contracting with each cycle, the electrodes
20:48
Speaker 1: also tend to lose contact with the electrolyte, creating gaps.
20:53
Speaker 1: Maintaining contact often requires external mechanical force, but too much
20:57
Speaker 1: can crack the brittle electrolyte or force lithium metal through it,
21:01
Speaker 1: causing a short circuit. Both companies have had to design
21:05
Speaker 1: battery packs with mechanisms that breathe with the cells, adding
21:10
Speaker 1: weight and complexity. Holm is mostly mum about how QuantumScape
21:15
Speaker 1: tamed its interface problem. He says the company used density
21:19
Speaker 1: functional theory, that's quantum chemical simulations, to develop a ceramic
21:24
Speaker 1: that is compatible with lithium at the interface without requiring
21:27
Speaker 1: an extra lithium foil that's costly and hard to process.
21:33
Speaker 1: That was a real breakthrough that to my knowledge hasn't
21:35
Speaker 1: been solved elsewhere, he says. Then comes the bigger challenge.
21:39
Speaker 1: You have to figure out how to actually make at
21:41
Speaker 1: high scale and high quality the material that you've simulated
21:45
Speaker 1: in silico, end quote. Manufacturing at automotive scale amplifies every challenge.
21:52
Speaker 1: Quality and yield requirements are exacting. A ceramic defect invisible
21:58
Speaker 1: at a small scale becomes a failure mode at volume.
22:02
Speaker 1: Since January 2025, at least 14 battery startups have gone
22:06
Speaker 1: under trying to make that leap. QuantumScape is trying to
22:11
Speaker 1: avoid that fate with its Eagle line, an automated pilot
22:15
Speaker 1: facility that it unveiled in February, and Cobra, a proprietary
22:21
Speaker 1: heat treatment process for baking the ceramic electrolyte. We got lucky,
22:27
Speaker 1: Holmes said. it wasn't guaranteed that nature provides us a
22:30
Speaker 1: rapid processing window where we can still achieve the best
22:33
Speaker 1: material properties. Like Factorial, the company has integrated artificial intelligence
22:39
Speaker 1: for quality control, and it has enlisted Corning and Murata
22:43
Speaker 1: as manufacturing partners. Now from Popular Mechanics, summer could be
22:51
Speaker 1: 42 days longer by the end of the century, scientists say.
22:58
Speaker 1: Although we all don't have the hard data directly in
23:01
Speaker 1: front of us, it's been easy to feel like the
23:03
Speaker 1: heat of summer is slowly stretching into other seasons. If
23:07
Speaker 1: you do feel that, you're not alone. Scientists have also
23:10
Speaker 1: taken notice. In 2021, a team of Chinese researchers analyzed
23:14
Speaker 1: the slowly changing lengths of the traditional four seasons and
23:19
Speaker 1: found that under a business-as-usual scenario, conditions we typically associate
23:24
Speaker 1: with summer could soon last half the year. while winter
23:27
Speaker 1: dwindles to less than two months. Four years later, research
23:31
Speaker 1: led by scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London, have
23:35
Speaker 1: drilled deeper into these climactic changes as they relate to
23:39
Speaker 1: the European continent. In a new study published in the
23:42
Speaker 1: journal Nature Communications, lead researcher Celia Martin-Puertas and her team
23:49
Speaker 1: discovered that Europe could see its summers extend a full
23:52
Speaker 1: 42 days by the end of the century. To arrive
23:56
Speaker 1: at this conclusion, the team studied ancient layers of mud
24:00
Speaker 1: buried in the bottom of European lakes that act as
24:03
Speaker 1: a type of climate calendar, allowing scientists to revisit a
24:06
Speaker 1: time when conditions mimicked our own, the Holocene climatic optimum.
24:13
Speaker 1: During this period, which stretched from 9,500 to 5,500 years ago,
24:18
Speaker 1: the world experienced a noticeable bump in global average temperatures.
24:22
Speaker 1: But the effect wasn't uniform. the Arctic and Northern Europe
24:26
Speaker 1: were particularly impacted, and this balmy climatic outlier was driven
24:31
Speaker 1: by natural Arctic warming that stretched summers far past their
24:36
Speaker 1: typical limits. Fast forward to today, and our polar regions
24:42
Speaker 1: are warming four times faster than the global average, driven
24:45
Speaker 1: in large part by the ice albedo effect. This warming
24:51
Speaker 1: Arctic changes the latitudinal temperature gradient, LTG, that is, the
24:57
Speaker 1: overall difference in temperature between the Arctic and the equator,
25:02
Speaker 1: which weakens air currents. The result? Longer summers and more
25:07
Speaker 1: intense heat waves. According to researchers, for every degree that
25:12
Speaker 1: the LTG decreases, European summers will last roughly six days longer.
25:19
Speaker 1: Right now, we're on track for seven degree declines, resulting
25:22
Speaker 1: in 42 extra days of summer in Europe. Quote, We
25:29
Speaker 1: have known for many years that summers are getting longer
25:32
Speaker 1: and hotter across Europe, but there is a high uncertainty
25:35
Speaker 1: about why, Martin Puertas says in a press statement. Quote,
25:40
Speaker 1: The findings underscore how deeply connected Europe's weather is to
25:43
Speaker 1: global climate dynamics and how understanding the past can help
25:48
Speaker 1: us navigate the challenges of a rapidly changing planet. End quote.
25:54
Speaker 1: And now for Popular Mechanics. Scientists want to use one
25:58
Speaker 1: of the most dangerous volcanoes in the U.S. to power
26:01
Speaker 1: our future. The planet is a roiling ball of geothermal energy,
26:07
Speaker 1: but so far the U.S. hasn't been great at tapping
26:09
Speaker 1: into this nearly limitless energy source. According to the U.S.
26:14
Speaker 1: Energy Information Administration, the country has geothermal plants located in
26:19
Speaker 1: only seven states, all out west, producing roughly 0.4% of
26:24
Speaker 1: utility-scale electricity generation as of 2023. However, it doesn't take
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Speaker 1: much imagination to see the untapped potential of geothermal energy. Iceland,
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Speaker 1: for example, generates more than a fourth of its electricity
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Speaker 1: needs from geothermal energy directly. In an effort to tap
26:43
Speaker 1: into that potential, a startup called Mazama Energy is focusing
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Speaker 1: its sights on Newberry Volcano, a large active shield volcano
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Speaker 1: located roughly 20 miles south of Bend, Oregon. While not
26:56
Speaker 1: as well known as other Cascade volcanoes, such as Mount St. Helens,
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Speaker 1: Mount Rainier, or Mount Hood, Newberry is the largest volcano
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Speaker 1: in the Cascade volcanic range, and the United States Geological
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Speaker 1: Survey considers it a very high threat volcano, similar to
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Speaker 1: Mauna Loa and Kilauea in Hawaii. However, mixed within that
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Speaker 1: danger is also an unprecedented geothermal opportunity. The reason why
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Speaker 1: so many geothermal projects lie out West is because these
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Speaker 1: superheated resources lie much closer to the surface than in
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Speaker 1: the Eastern US. And for the past 50 years, the
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Speaker 1: area around Newberry has been explored for geothermal opportunities. With
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Speaker 1: super hot rock, energy companies inject water into areas with
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Speaker 1: dry superheated rock at temperatures preferably over the threshold of
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Speaker 1: 705 degrees Fahrenheit. At this temperature, and also under a
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Speaker 1: lot of pressure, water becomes supercritical and begins acting like
27:57
Speaker 1: a mix of liquid and gas. This supercritical water can
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Speaker 1: hold more heat like a liquid, but flow like a gas,
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Speaker 1: providing 5 to 10 times more energy than typical geothermal operations. Well,
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Speaker 1: that's all for today's Diary of Science and Nature. Your
28:15
Speaker 1: reader was Kelly Taylor. Now stay tuned for further programming
28:18
Speaker 1: on Radio Eye.