Category: Energize NM Project

NM EPSCoR researchers Dr. Janie Chermak and Dr. Jennifer Thacher of UNM’s Department of Economics, assisted by PhD student Kara Walter, polled nearly 2,000 New Mexico residents on their opinions about energy sources, environmental policy, and the state’s energy future. The survey included questions about preferences regarding energy sources, such as renewable sources and extraction methods, as well as environmental and economic concerns.

New Mexico depends heavily on revenue generated by oil and gas extraction throughout the state, but significant environmental concerns remain about extraction and production, especially with regards to water use. Oil and gas production generates billions of gallons of what is referred to as "produced water", much of it with very high concentrations of dissolved solids, and much of it originates as fresh groundwater, a precious commodity in the desert southwest.

Energize New Mexico PhD student Sumant Avasarala recently had his research for the Uranium Transport & Site Remediation team published in Environmental Science and Technology, an academic journal from the American Chemical Society. Sumant is working for his PhD under Dr. José Cerrato and Dr. Ricardo Gonzáles-Pinzón. The article, "Reactive Transport of U and V from Abandoned Uranium Mine Wastes," focuses on research pertaining to how uranium (U) and vanadium (V) interacts with the environment around the abandoned Blue Gap/Tachee Claim uranium mine on the Navajo Nation.

Two Uranium Transport & Site Remediation Team members—Bonnie Frey and Ginger McLemore—recently received prestigious awards for their hard work and achievements.

Geothermal co-lead Laura Crossey recently traveled to Tibet as part of an international research team tasked with studying geothermal systems in the complex tectonic boundary region of Tibet. Her team is looking at the system that formed the Himalayan mountains—where the Indian Plate, moving north, collides with the Eurasian Plate—because scientists still don’t understand the geometry of how and where exactly the two plates meet.

Two New Mexico faculty have each recently received funding approval as Project Investigators on NSF grants. Kateryna Artyushkova at UNM received an EPSCoR Track 4 grant, and Energize New Mexico faculty hire Hatim Geli at NMSU received a INEFWS award.

NM EPSCoR research through the Osmotic Power Team is getting some much deserved attention in Socorro for their collaborative work with Masson Greenhouse, a large local greenhouse using geothermal energy. Team lead Frank Huang and his students have spend the last four years fabricating and testing membranes with the ability to clean brackish geothermal waters so it can be used to water the plants grown at the greenhouse. New Mexico Tech's newsroom published an article that was picked up by the local Socorro county newspaper, the El Defensor Chieftain.

The Externship Program is a research exchange program that allows New Mexico graduate students (with an existing assistantship) to spend a semester or summer doing research at a partnering New Mexico university or research facility. This report is from New Mexico State University student Meshack Audu (pictured center in the group photo) about his time as an extern at the Santa Fe Community College (SFCC).

The Externship Program is a research exchange program that allows New Mexico graduate students (with an existing assistantship) to spend a semester or summer doing research at a partnering New Mexico university or research facility. This report is from University of New Mexico student Taylor Britton about his externship experience at the New Mexico Consortium in Los Alamos.

Mark Person, co-lead of the Geothermal Team for Energize New Mexico, is currently working on a proposal that will fund research to find freshwater in the unlikeliest of places: trapped beneath the salty sea floor. Dr. Person's proposal focuses on drilling off the New England coast for a water sample to determine if there is a reservoir of freshwater hidden below the shelf of Martha's Vineyard.