ChEnected Posts by Kent Harrington

Kent Harrington

Kent is a videographer and professional storyteller. He regularly blogs for AIChE on ChEnected. See his latest posts below. You can also follow Kent on twitter @harringtonkent.

Small Modular Reactors Closer to Reality

March 22, 2012. By Kent Harrington

The Department of Energy's vision for the future of nuclear energy will probably combine light water fission reactors along with a panoply of small modular reactors (SMRs) currently in development.

US Surpassed Russia as Top Producer of Dry Natural Gas

March 20, 2012. By Kent Harrington

Solar Nanotrees Turn Water into Hydrogen Fuel

March 19, 2012. By Kent Harrington

Bill Gates and Steven Chu Discuss Global Energy Challenges

March 16, 2012. By Kent Harrington

At the ARPA-E 2012 summit recently held just outside Washington, DC, Bill Gates and DOE Secretary Steven Chu sat down and discussed the world's largest energy challenges in front of a large audience. Watch in the window on the right.

Celebrate Pi With a Theme Song

March 14, 2012. By Kent Harrington

Technically, a Pi Day song should never end, but that would crash YouTube. And probably bore most listeners. So the music video in the right hand window will get you started and then you can hum it as long as you want.

Spain's Gemasolar: The World's First Baseload Solar Power Plant

March 12, 2012. By Kent Harrington

Located in the hot, dry Spanish countryside near the village of Fuentes de Andalucia,Torresol Energy's Gemasolar commercial-scale concentrated solar power plant (CSP) achieved a global milestone last summer by using an innovative storage system – molten salt – to provide uninterrupted power for an entire day, sunrise to sunrise.

US Oil-Product Exports Beat Imports First Time Since 1949

March 12, 2012. By Kent Harrington

A new economic trend emerged during 2011. The United States actually began exporting more petroleum products than it imported for the first time since 1949.

ChemE Miles C. Barr Given Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for His Solar Innovation

March 08, 2012. By Kent Harrington

Miles C. Barr, who recently received his PhD in chemical engineering from MIT, has just been awarded the prestigious $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for developing an innovative solar technology. His innovation is a new way to print solar cells directly onto a variety of surfaces, such as paper.

Three US ChemE's Win Prestigious 2012 Gates Cambridge Scholarship

March 07, 2012. By Kent Harrington

Siemens Buys UK Tidal Energy Pioneer

March 01, 2012. By Kent Harrington

Although tidal energy is a micro-niche market over-shadowed by wind and solar, global giant Siemens has recently upped its stake from 45 to 90 percent in tidal energy pioneer, Marine Current Turbines (MCT). Currently, the small, 25-employee, UK-based company has only one grid-connected prototype, which may not appear very auspicious.

Theo Gray’s Periodic-Table-Palooza

February 29, 2012. By Kent Harrington

Two US Colleges to Help India Create Global University for Polymer Technology

February 29, 2012. By Kent Harrington

Four LCD Pioneers Honored with $500,000 Draper Prize

February 24, 2012. By Kent Harrington

National Engineers Week: Giving Back

February 22, 2012. By Kent Harrington

UMass ChemEs Invent Basic Tool Needed to Optimize Biofuel Production

February 20, 2012. By Kent Harrington

BP's 'Video 2030' Reveals 20-Year Energy Trends

February 17, 2012. By Kent Harrington

Free Rice Genome Database Will Speed Biofuel Research

February 15, 2012. By Kent Harrington

Built on 24 known data sets, the first genome-scale model for predicting the functions of genes and gene networks in a grass species, called RiceNet, is expected to help speed the development of new advanced biofuels from Miscanthus and switchgrass.

Students Find Amazon Fungus That Binges on Petrochemical Junkfood

February 14, 2012. By Kent Harrington

Each year 16 students sign up for the Yale rainforest lab, which features a two-week expedition during spring break, followed by intensive research analyzing hundreds of samples brought back from the headwaters of the Amazon. This year, one of the samples has shown potential for landfill cleanup, given its appetite for polyurethane.

Featured Series

Interviews: 2014 Annual Meeting

BY ON November 16, 2014

Stay tuned to this series as AIChE publishes interviews with key speakers and award winners from the 2014 meeting.

The Second Phase of ChE Education

BY ON October 23, 2013

This series highlights the learning that new ChE professionals need that isn’t taught in school. They’ll describe the types of responsibilities they've had in their work to date, as well as the skills or expertise they needed or had to learn that go beyond what they learned as students. You’ll also hear from their mentor or a senior person offering their perspective on the skills or expertise that new professionals must learn.

Water Innovations

BY ON September 10, 2013

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