Gemini News

Turning Waste Heat Into Hydrogen Fuel

By Gemini News 2019-11-08 10:22:06

[By Nancy Bazilchuk] Hydrogen as an energy carrier can help us move away from fossil fuels, but only if it is created efficiently. One way to improve efficiency is to use waste heat that’s left over from other industrial processes. In June, the International Energy Agency confirmed what most experts already know: that the world should work harder to boost the use of pure hydrogen as an emissions-free energy source. One of the challenges of creating hydrogen, however, is that...

Tracing the Journey of Microplastics in the Arctic

By Gemini News 2019-10-18 13:08:42

[By Nancy Bazilchuk] When two of Jacob Berg Lofthus’s friends invited him to sail to Greenland this summer, his first thought was, “Yes!”. His second thought was, “Can I do some science during the trip?” So he went to see his supervisor, Chantel Nixon, an NTNU geologist who specializes in physical geography and ice age geology. Berg Lofthus is one of Nixon’s master’s students, but is studying avalanches. “When I decided to go on the trip, I wanted to do...

Insecticide-Resistant Sea Lice Spread to Wild Fish

By Gemini News 2019-10-11 18:28:49

A new study confirms the role of the aquaculture industry in the spread of resistant salmon lice in Norway. Until a few years ago, chemical delousing was the most important tool for fighting sea lice in Norwegian salmon farming operations. But after a while, most of the drugs became less effective, because changes in the genes of the sea lice made them resistant. As a result, chemical treatments no longer work as well. Instead, the continued use of chemicals has...

Six Years Into the Ice

By Gemini News 2019-09-27 13:26:16

[By Nancy Bazilchuk] The Arctic’s once impenetrable ice cap is melting away, with profound consequences for everything from ocean circulation patterns to fish numbers and diversity. The Nansen Legacy Project, including NTNU biologists, chemists and engineers, is working to better understand what these changes mean for the Barents Sea and the Arctic Basin The microscopic marine world is full of predators, a world where who eats what can make a difference to how an entire ecosystem is structured. That’s especially important...

The Perils of the Arctic

By Gemini News 2019-09-06 13:53:25

[By Christina Benjaminsen and Åse Dragland] On a light June night in 1989 the Russian cruise ship Maxim Gorkiy glides peacefully along the coast of Svalbard. Suddenly there is a loud impact and alarm bells ring all over the ship. Just like Titanic, the ship carrying 973 German passengers has hit an iceberg. It takes on water and begins to sink immediately. Fortunately a rescue helicopter is stationed on Bjørnøya, and the Norwegian Coast Guard ship Senja is on patrol...

New Experiments Prove the Physics of Ship's Wakes

By Gemini News 2019-08-30 19:30:55

[By Steinar Brandslet] He solved a 127-year-old physics problem on paper and proved that off-centred boat wakes could exist. Five years later, practical experiments proved him right. “Seeing the pictures appear on the computer screen was the best day at work I’ve ever had,” says Simen Ådnøy Ellingsen, an associate professor at NTNU’s Department of Energy and Process Engineering. That was the day that PhD candidate Benjamin Keeler Smeltzer and master’s student Eirik Æsøy had shown in the lab that...

Norwegian Team Discovers Cheaper Way to Make Hydrogen Fuel

By Gemini News 2019-08-23 13:58:48

[By Georg Mathisen] Norwegian scientists have developed a material which can make hydrogen from water vapor, instead of liquid water. It pays off, because heat is cheaper than electricity. The research results were published recently in Nature Materials in an article titled “Mixed proton and electron conducting double perovskite anodes for stable and efficient tubular proton ceramic electrolysers.” Hydrogen can take over when batteries can no longer do the job. When it is important to store large amounts of energy, for...

Giving Ferries Wings to Optimize Wave Power

By Gemini News 2019-07-05 18:56:38

The boat wings started as an unfinished idea in Eirik Bøckmann’s head. Now they’re being mounted on a ferry in the Faroe Islands. Actually, he doesn’t call them boat wings, but wavefoils. Eirik Bøckmann won the regional finals of the NTNU Researchers’ Grand Prix with a lecture on wave-propelled ships in 2013. The wavefoils on the front of the ship enable the waves to contribute to propelling the ship forward. This reduces fuel consumption. At the same time, the foils...

Researchers Look to Efficiency to Cut Ship Emissions

By Gemini News 2019-06-14 16:42:53

[By Håvard Egge] Shipping is the most efficient way of moving goods around the world, in terms of energy consumption per unit transported, but there is still a great deal to be gained by making shipping more environmentally friendly. Emissions from international shipping come to around 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 a year, which is equal to 2 – 3 per cent of total global emissions. If measures are not taken, these emissions will rise, probably by 50 – 250...

Svalbard's Reindeer Adapt to Climate Change by Eating Seaweed

By Gemini News 2019-05-05 23:30:24

The Arctic archipelago of Svalbard is already experiencing dramatic effects from climate change. A new study shows how these changes can force wild reindeer to graze on seaweed, a strategy that increases their likelihood of survival. The bodies of Svalbard reindeer are extremely well adapted to their arctic home at 79 degrees N latitude. As the northernmost reindeer population on the planet, they are thick and round, which makes it easier for them to tolerate the cold. They’re shorter, smaller...