Environment

Rice Architecture faculty among New York’s finest

Rice Architecture's Wortham Fellows are among recipients of this year's Architectural League of New York Prize for Young Architects.

Rice process aims to strip ammonia from wastewater

Engineers develop a high-performance nanowire catalyst that pulls ammonia and solid ammonia (fertilizer) from nitrate in wastewater.

Treated plastic waste good at grabbing carbon dioxide

Rice University chemists treat waste plastic to absorb carbon dioxide from flue gas streams more efficiently than current processes.

Humanities hosts daylong visit for high schoolers hoping to study the environment

These students picked Rice for a reason

Gas flares tied to premature deaths

Rice engineers suggest that flaring of natural gas at oil and gas fields in the United States, primarily in North Dakota and Texas, contributed to dozens of premature deaths in 2019.

Environmental champions win Rice grants

The Rice University Sustainable Futures Fund backs six projects to help bolster the planet’s environmental health.

Rare earth elements await in waste

Rice University scientists applied their flash Joule heating process to coal fly ash and other toxic waste to safely extract rare earth elements essential to modern electronics and green technologies.

Machine learning fine-tunes flash graphene

Rice University scientists are using machine learning techniques to streamline the process of synthesizing graphene from waste through flash Joule heating.

Rice conference on natural disasters draws international panelists, attendees

The Nov. 19-20 conference focused on narratives around natural catastrophes in the Americas and Circum-Caribbean

Matthew Tejada to talk environmental justice and humanism Oct. 26

Top-ranking EPA official headlines this semester’s Walter Isle Lecture 

Urban mining for metals flashes electronic trash into treasure

Flash Joule heating recovers valuable and toxic metals from electronic waste. The process allows for “urban mining” of resources that could be a win for the environment as well as for manufacturers.

Sylvia Dee wins fellowship to launch Gulf of Mexico study

Sylvia Dee, an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences, wins an early-career fellowship to pursue Gulf of Mexico research.

People, papers and presentations for Aug. 16, 2021

The Baker Institute for Public Policy’s Kelsey Norman, fellow for the Middle East and director of the Women’s Rights, Human Rights and Refugees Program, has been awarded the 2021 Emerging Scholars Policy Prize

Iran’s water crisis is a warning for the US

HOUSTON – (Aug. 3, 2021) – Iran’s groundwater depletion and food security crisis is an issue of global importance reflecting not only climate change, but also a pattern of policy mismanagement, according to an expert from Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

Timothy Morton on giving up flight — at least when it comes to lectures

The environmental philosopher wants to model a new work-life balance that sends a message of care.