Tag: sustainability

New article: Entropy explains why combustion is so inefficient, why electricity is so much better, and how the energy transition is dramatically increasing efficiency

~ Axel Kleidon ~ 1 Comment

The new article (original in German) explains the energy transition from a simple but fundamental physical perspective. And something very basic sooner or later leads us to entropy. It helps us understand why electricity-based technologies are much more efficient than those that use combustion and heat as an intermediate step. And why the energy transition is therefore much more of a technical revolution, namely away from heat and towards electricity, with significantly higher efficiency. 

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#EGU25: We will be in Vienna to share our latest insights on energetic constraints shaping maximum temperatures, temperature variations with altitude, and potential evaporation estimates.

~ saroshalam ~ Leave a comment

April is here, and geoscientists are once again heading to Vienna. Why? Because Europe’s largest Geoscience Union, EGU, is all set to convene for its General Assembly, EGU25, which take place from 27 April – 2 May 2025. We are thrilled to be there again and share our science. Our group will be contributing to three oral presentations by our PhD student Saurabh and postdocs Tejasvi and Sarosh.

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New PhD position: Using Energy and Optimality to Unearth the Secrets of Soil

~ Axel Kleidon ~ Leave a comment

Soil might not seem like the flashiest player in the Earth system, but make no mistake – beneath its humble surface lies a complex and dynamic world. It is a critical component of our planet, cycling carbon and nutrients, supporting life, and shaping ecosystems. My research group jointly with colleagues from the Soil Biogeochemistry group at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, we are embarking on an exciting new journey: applying thermodynamic principles to soils to better understand their processes, dynamics, and limits. And we are looking for a curious mind to join us as a PhD researcher! More infos in this blogpost.

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New paper:  Towards better, simpler, and physically-based estimates of regional wind resource potentials – Testing our KEBA approach with simulations for Kansas

~ Axel Kleidon ~ Leave a comment

Wind turbines generate electricity by removing kinetic energy from the winds – after all, that is what they are designed to do.  The more wind turbines are deployed within a region, the more the wind speeds must be reduced, thereby impacting the wind resource potential of the region.  In our new paper we tested our KEBA approach with much more complex numerical weather simulations and found that accounting for the removal of kinetic energy captures the dominant effect, but one also needs to distinguish between daytime and nighttime conditions.  This removal effect lowers the resource potential of Kansas by more than 60%, but still yields substantial amounts of electricity – more than Germany currently consumes. More infos in the blogpost and in the paper.

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Notes from vacation: Thoughts on why climate change impacts in the Alps and Italy are already much more severe than what a 1.5 degree target suggests

~ Axel Kleidon ~ Leave a comment

We just finished our summer vacation, but that‘s no break from feeling the impacts of global warming.  This year we crossed the Austrian Alps and the Appenin mountains in central Italy with our bikes – but where were the ice-covered peaks and why was Italy so hot?  Some thoughts on the basic physics involved and why climate change may already be more severe than what some models anticipate.

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