A new study sheds light on the benefits and implications of the use of electric vehicles in rural Alaska.
Electric vehicles, or EVs, are widely thought to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Many rural communities in Alaska are not connected to larger electric grids. They use diesel fuels to generate most of their electricity and face extremely cold conditions not experienced elsewhere.
Would those communities benefit from EVs?
Event Type: Webinars, Seminars and Presentations
Nov 20, 2024
11:00am - 12:00pm AKST
Contact Alison York ayork@alaska.edu
Location
Online only, please register here.
Unalaska Island, Alaska, served as a US military base during World War II. The military installed bases on Unalaska and nearby islands, many of which were built adjacent to Unangan communities. The military used toxic compounds in its operations and left a legacy of pollution that may pose health risks to residents and local wildlife.
Increased wildfire activity has raised concerns among communities about how to assess and prepare for this threat. There is a need for wildfire hazard assessment approaches that capture local variability to inform decisions, produce results understood by the public, and are updatable in a timely manner. In this article, Schmidt and her co-authors describe how, in partnership with wildfire practitioners and communities, they created a tool that rapidly assesses wildfire hazards and is easily modified to help identify and prioritize mitigation activities.
ISER Faculty Member Jennifer Schmidt partnered with Toby Schwoerer at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Jim Powell at the University of Alaska Southeast on a study of threats from climate-related hazards to homeowners in Fairbanks and Anchorage.
Proposal Numbers: UAF: 2318384/ UAA: 2318385
Project Title: Collaborative Research: NNA Research: Electric Vehicles in the Arctic (EVITA) - Interactions with Cold Weather, Microgrids, People, and Policy
In this paper we modified an existing landcover dataset to better identify vegetation associated with wildfire and permafrost in Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Whitehorse over the past 4 decades (1984-2014) and make predictions for the next 4 decades (2024-2054). We used an existing fire model called FlamMap and several statistical analyses to determine where future fires could be possible.