Projects

The objective of this project is to develop a novel methodology to evaluate alternative designs for a State Implementation Plan to comply with Clean Air Act Section 111(d) greenhouse gas emissions ...

Project Objective: This research project will employ and advance state of the art power systems modeling to evaluate an updated Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) for Michigan. In addition to met...

Dow Distinguished Awards for Interdisciplinary Sustainability The Graham Sustainability Institute administers the Dow Sustainability Fellows on behalf of the university.  To foster high-im...

New approaches are needed to assess in parallel the benefits and impacts of changes in the amount of dairy products in the US diet. Thus, we propose a framework to compare both nutritional/health b...

Background of U-M Third Century Initiative As the University prepares to celebrate its bicentennial in 2017, the President and Provost have established the Third Century Initiative (TCI), a $50...

Background of U-M Third Century Initiative As the University prepares to celebrate its bicentennial in 2017, the President and Provost have established the Third Century Initiative (TCI), a $50...

This project works to characterize the life cycle aspects of natural fibers such as hemp and kenaf and to develop a tool for evaluating the sustainability of lightweighting materials to better unde...

Michigan's existing renewable energy standard will plateau at 10% in 2015. The recent ballot initiative to expand this standard failed and there is currently no mandate to increase it...

Overview- Detroit Climate Action Collaborative: In 2011, Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice (DWEJ), the oldest urban environmental justice organization in Michigan, convened ...

One of the largest challenges in integrating large quantities of wind power into the grid is the variability in its power output. The fast ramping up or down of its power output can have negative c...

The Kohala Center, an independent, community-based institute for research, education, and conservation based on Hawaii Island, has just completed a plan for the County of Hawaii Energy Sustainabili...

The World Wildlife Fund's Market Transformation Initiative aims to reduce the environmental impact of global commodity production through partnership with major companies and their supply networks....

Natural fibers such as coconut, hemp, and kenaf, are being researched as a replacement for glass fibers and mineral fillers in polymer composites due to potential environmental, cost, and weight-sa...

The residential buildings account for 22% of the U.S. primary energy consumption and 17% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission in 2011. Individual housing units are becoming more energy efficient in per...

Increasing population, modernized diet, and climate change will impose various pressures on global food systems - from agricultural production to nutrition consumption - for the next decades. On th...

Intellectual Merit      Electricity accounts for ~40% the energy consumed in the U.S. and most is derived from non-renewable resources including fossil and nuclear fuels.&nb...

There are two major goals for this project. The first is to advance offshore wind siting methods by utilizing multi-criteria assessment that includes concepts and methods from life cycle assessment...

Learning how to make liquid fuels from algae oil under water This project aims to develop a better understanding of the chemistry of hydrothermal catalytic deoxygenation of fatty acids over early t...

Recent advances in directional drilling have made extraction of natural gas and oil from shale formations economically viable via high-volume hydraulic fracturing, a process by which a mixture of w...

This project seeks to understand the broad, complex and potentially unanticipated impacts on humans and the environment that could emerge from the deployment of emerging innovative technologies cur...

Particulate Matter (PM) is related to cardiopulmonary mortality, leading to a high annual burden of disease of around one million premature deaths, 65% in Asia. Identifying causes and remedies need...

Renewable energy development involves not only the energy system but also the economy, the environment, policy, and the society. Clean vehicle development in China, for example, has tremendous impa...