Social Sciences Newsblog

Category: News

MTU’s Mine Water Geothermal Team Wins Awards in DC

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MTU Mine Water Geothermal Energy Team at DC
Edward Louie, David Anna, Andrew Garrod, Dana Savage, Melissa Michaelson, Krista Blumberg, Nicolette Slagle, and Theresa Tran

Michigan Tech’s Mine Water Geothermal team won 2 awards at the EPA’s National Sustainable Design Expo in Washington DC this weekend (April 10-13). The team won an EPA Honorable Mention Award and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ (AIChE)s Youth Council on Sustainable Science and Technology (YCOSST) Award.

The Honorable Mention Award signifies that the EPA believes the project deserves strong merit for funding and that they would have loved to fund the project for Phase II ($75,000) had funds been available for more teams. The AIChE’s YCOSST award for $1,000 goes to the team which best meets the criteria of award which include: interdisciplinary collaboration, work products which are accessible to people without significant financial ability, and the inclusion of youth in the implementation.
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Lafreniere on Mapping Time-Space in GIS

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From Tech Today:Lafreniere

Assistant Professor Don Lafreniere (SS) co-authored a paper, “All the World’s a Stage: A GIS Framework for Recreating Personal Time-Space from Qualitative and Quantitative Sources,” in Transactions in GIS, Vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 225-246.

Abstract:

This article presents a methodological model for the study of the space-time patterns of everyday life. The framework utilizes a wide range of qualitative and quantitative sources to create two environmental stages, social and built, which place and contextualize the daily mobilities of individuals as they traverse urban environments. Additionally, this study outlines a procedure to fully integrate narrative sources in a GIS. By placing qualitative sources, such as narratives, within a stage-based GIS, researchers can begin to tell rich spatial stories about the lived experiences of segregation, social interaction, and environmental exposure. The article concludes with a case study utilizing the diary of a postal clerk to outline the wide applicability of this model for space-time GIS research.

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SS Talk: Jessica Smith Rolston on “Undoing Gender in Macho Industries: Ethnographic Perspectives on Women, Men and Mining in Wyoming”

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Rolston 2015-2As part of the Visiting Women and Minority Lecture Series (VWMLS), the Social Sciences Department, and a grant from the Office of Institutional Equity from the State of Michigan’s King-Chavez Parks’ Initiative, Jessica Smith Rolston, Hennebach Assistant Professor of Energy Policy a the Colorado School of Mines will present: Undoing Gender in Macho Industries: Ethnographic Perspectives on Women, Men and Mining in Wyoming– based on her recent book, “Mining Coal and Undermining Gender.”
Dr. Rolston has extensive experience both researching and working in the coal mining industry.  The talk will be at noon in AOB 201 on Monday, April 13th.
Abstract:
While mining is popularly perceived as an exceptionally masculine industry, women constitute an average of twenty to twenty-five percent of production crews and at least half of engineering teams in northeastern Wyoming¹s surface coal mines. These mines produce a majority of the country¹s coal with fewer fatalities and accidents than other sectors of the industry. In this talk, Dr. Rolston draws on her experiences working and conducting research in the mines to argue that coal miners and engineers both construct and undo gender differences in their everyday working lives. The ethnographic materials show that even in an industry infamous for gender difference and discrimination, particular historical, cultural, and institutional factors open up spaces for men and women miners alike to debate, discuss and attempt to unmoor their understandings of work ethic from dominant masculinities and femininities. At the same time, she explores the limits of the miners¹ gender-neutral ideals by investigating the cultural notions and material conditions that make it differently difficult for men and women to embody the expectations crews hold for ‘hard work.’
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SS Talk: Erin Pischke on “Forms and Justifications of Fracking-Related Collective Action in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale Play”

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Erin Pischke-112:00 noon on Friday, April 10th in AOB 201.

Erin Pischke, Environmental and Energy Policy PhD student,  will present on “Forms and Justifications of Fracking-Related Collective Action in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale Play“. This work considers the complex relationships between formal and informal advocacy organizations with hydraulic fracturing by examining two different, but related, forms of organizing:  participation in established non-governmental organizations and involvement in nascent anti-fracking organizations.

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Tapping into Mine Water Geothermal

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image120830-horiz
Old mine tunnels, like ones under this hoist, are filled with water, which may be a valuable geothermal resource. Credit: Edward Louie

From Tech Today:

by Allison Mills, science and technology writer

The water filling abandoned mine tunnels could be a major geothermal resource, both on the Keweenaw Peninsula and across the United States.

Student researchers at Michigan Tech have put together the first comprehensive guidebook communities can use to explore the feasibility of using mine water for geothermal energy to heat and cool buildings. While there is great potential for this resource, there are less than 30 active mine water geothermal systems in the world. One is at Michigan Tech’s Keweenaw Research Center just north of Houghton.

The research team will present their work to the public in Calumet on April 6 in the atrium of the CLK School from 7 to 9 p.m. Community members can interact with a tabletop model showing how mine water geothermal works, calculate the distance from their own home to the nearest mine shaft and make approximate cost calculations for installation and pay-back using a calculator tool. People of all ages are welcome.

Next week they travel to Washington D.C. to present their work at the Sustainable Design Expo, funded by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Learn more about how mine water geothermal works in the full article here.

See additional articles published on Mining-Technology.com and Hydrogen Fuel News.

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Winkler Published in Policy Journal

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GrowthandChange

Professor Richelle Winkler co-authored the article Recreational Housing and Community Development:  A Triple Bottom Line Approach published in the journal Growth and Change: A Journal of Urban and Regional Policy.

ABSTRACT:

In this study, we explore the impact of recreational housing on community development within a triple bottom line (economic, social, environmental) framework. We empirically assess the relationships between recreational housing and social, environmental, and economic conditions in nonmetropolitan counties and explicitly model spatial relationships, considering the potential for indirect spillover effects of recreational housing presence in one county to be associated with social, environmental, and economic conditions in neighboring counties. We employ a spatial Bayesian model averaging method to determine the set of control variables and find that higher concentrations of recreational homes are associated with lower levels of economic well-being, but somewhat higher levels of environmental quality.

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Solomon: In Print

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image65900-pers

From Tech Today:

Professor Barry Solomon (SS) published a paper, “Socioeconomic Analysis Options for Pesticides Management in Developing Countries: A Review,” in Environmental Practice, Vol. 17, No. 1 (March 2015), pp. 57-68.

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Professor Barry Solomon (Social Sciences) published a review of Nadesan, M., et l., eds. Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization? (The Dispossession Publishing Group, 2014). In Energy Research and Social Science, Vol. 6 (April 2015), pp. 161-162. To read the review, visit the ScienceDirect site.

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Three Present at Graduate Research Colloquium

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Three graduate students from the Department of Social Sciences presented at the 2015 Graduate Research Colloquium Poster & Presentation Competition.  The Colloquium is an opportunity for graduate students at Michigan Tech to share their research with the university community and to gain experience in presenting research to colleagues.

Gohman
Sean Gohman

Sean Gohman, PhD student in the Industrial Heritage and Archaeology program, gave a presentation titled “The Residues of Industry:  Identifying and Evaluating Mine Waste in Michigan’s Copper Country”.

 

 

 

Louie
Edward Louie and Abhilash Kantamneni

Edward Louie, MS student in the Environmental and Energy Policy program and Abhilash Kantamneni, graduate student from the Department of Computer Science presented about the impact of potential solar net metering policy changes and how it will impact people unequally in different states.

 

Strozier
Ronesha Strozier

Ronesha Strozier, MS student in the Environmental and Energy Policy program gave her presentation titled “Making Connections: Mobility, Accessibility, and Policy Failure”.

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