Whatever force controls Upstate NY weather had one more trick up its sleeve for the season as a winter storm warning came into play this past Tuesday (April 19). Ithaca itself missed most of the storm, but Dryden and Tompkins Cortland Community College skipped out on in-person instruction due to the weather while nearby areas nearby like Binghamton made it to national news for the impact the storm had and the thousands it left without power and heat.
Even my poor tree back home had its final bloom cut short with the storm finally taking down the old cherry.
Of course later in the week it went right back to warm spring temperatures that you could argue felt like summer. Oh well! Part of the price of living here is learning to roll with the punches of the weather.
⚗️But what else is happening regarding science in Ithaca? Let’s see:
Earth Day celebrations throughout Tompkins
Between the Electric Vehicles for Earth Day event (stay tuned for more on that), Cornell’s sustainability month events, and organizations like the Paleontological Research Institution hosting their own events, there was plenty to do on Earth Day in Tompkins!
Some Cornellians also wrote up a useful guide for fellow students to make their life more sustainable, which I highly recommend checking out!
Some key points from it include:
- Use alternative transportation methods to cars
- Make reusables (like water bottles or utensils) an essential part of your routine rather than disposables
- Make sure your recyclables are completely clean before being placed in a bin so they are properly disposed of
- Turn things off when you leave the room!
Cornell often walks its talk too – the campus just took 1st in a waste reduction competition for New York!
An Alternative Alternative Energy Project
From the Cornell Chronicle – the University and two research startups in the school’s extended family of incubated startups and related companies, Ecolectro and Standard Hydrogen Corporation are coming together with other partners including New York State to try to find a new energy source away from carbon-based fossil fuels.
With New York set to lead, these and more partners are looking to form a multistate collaboration organized by the NYSERDA with $9.6 billion in federal funding towards making a Northeast research hub for hydrogen energy.
The idea is that hydrogen can be a clean energy alternative with more efficiency if the infrastructure is there. This February, a group of Cornell chemists announced a new way to make fuel cell reactions for hydrogen much more affordable (previously it required Platinum, making the catalyzing a premium cost), helping open the door to new development.
With New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and other universities like Colombia, Rochester Institute of Technology, and SUNY Buffalo and Stony Brook putting effort behind this as well, it can be an exciting effort to watch for future developments!
Some More Before You Go!
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