The rising sea levels along Georgia’s Savannah coast and an uptick in more severe storms during hurricane season are bellwethers to looming ecological challenges stemming from climate change.

Ongoing research to study sea level rise led by Georgia Tech researchers, a coalition of universities, Savannah and Chatham County government leaders, and local community groups is creating what could be a national model for coastal regions across the country facing similar challenges.

Launched in 2018 with a Georgia Smart Communities Challenge Grant, the data collected from the sea level sensors is used to inform city and county planners and emergency responders on resource deployment following major weather events.

Now in its fourth year, the sea sensor project is now slated to receive $5 million from Congress. It is secured by U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, and U.S. Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter to expand the network of sensors — currently 50 are deployed off Chatham County’s coast — to blanket Georgia’s 11-county coastal region.

“With this new funding, we are recognizing a new phase of our project which has evolved,” said Kim Cobb, former director of Georgia Tech’s Global Change Program and a professor who studies climate, oceanography, and weather in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

Cobb and Russell J. Clark, senior research scientist in the School of Computer Science at Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, co-lead the project. Allen Hyde, assistant professor in the School of History and Sociology in Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, leads a National Science Foundation project focused on youth disaster resilience as part of the effort.

The funding will support expansion of building out more hyperlocal flood forecasting models, resilience planning tools for underserved communities, and further development of a K-12 education curriculum, paid internships, and other workforce development programs.

Georgia Tech and its partners — which includes Savannah State University, the University of Georgia, and the University of South Carolina — is using these low-cost sensors to gain real-time data that over time will help inform the policies on infrastructure design and retrofitting, Cobb said. It will also further expand first responders and emergency planners’ ability to forecast extreme rainfall and storm surge events on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood specific basis.

“It's going to translate into a saved lives and saved infrastructure,” Cobb said.

A National Model
Hub researchers say the data being collected from the sensors and additional information gleaned from the sensor expansion has immediate applications in terms of flood disasters and hurricanes. Those findings over the long-term could also help frame the national dialogue and help inform policy as leaders in Washington shape it to tackle rising sea levels and climate change.

The award is part of a broader federal push, including a $12 billion funding package, to help Georgia and other states along the Eastern Seaboard, as well as the West and Gulf coasts, develop resiliency and flooding plans and protocols to mitigate damage from future floods.

Cobb said this new funding allows the Hub to further efforts in its research that further expands education and workforce development — particularly in underserved minority communities — as components of the broader strategy.

“Our project started out anchored on the sensors and trying to provide real-time data to emergency planners and emergency response responders, but it’s no longer just a small team of people who are interested in sensors or physical scientists, engineers and researchers on the science and technology side,” she said, explaining the research team of some 30 people also includes policy and planning experts, along with community advocates.

“We're trying to think about solutions in the context of history, geography, — the history of people, cultures, and economies down on the coast,” Cobb said. “There’s no waving a magic wand and making this all right, especially for the most vulnerable communities.”

Community Voice
In broad terms, the project touches flooding, infrastructure, property, and pollution. But this newer phase brings in aspects that go beyond scientific modeling of risk, said Dean Hardy, an assistant professor in the University of South Carolina’s Department of Geography.

It’s what he calls the “human dimension” phase.

“There are disaster plans, there's resiliency plans, and there's community level thinking. But what we need is systemic change,” said Hardy, whose research expertise is in geography and integrative conservation, which marries preservation and social and community goals with public policy.

“So, what I hope partially comes out of this is not just a bunch of scientific publications or better scientific understanding of these issues, but capacity-building with community organizations that leads to the capacity for self-determination.”

That acknowledgement is important to marginalized communities, said Dawud Shabaka, interim director of Harambee House, in Savannah. The organization, which is involved in the sensor project, promotes and advocates for civic engagement from the coastal city’s Black residents and youth.

Shabaka noted that the engagement component, particularly local high school and middle school students working on the sensors and coding, has allowed the participants to see themselves not only as budding scientists, but as future community leaders.

“When you’re dealing with or managing or mitigating an issue that’s affecting society, it’s got to involve research and dialogue with the community. This project is allowing us to recognize that the community themselves are the subject matter experts,” said Shabaka. “Having the students involved at an early age, benefits society as a whole and lets them know that the work they’re doing is having a much wider impact. This is the type of community engagement that needs to happen to make people feel like they’re worthwhile.”

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Since June, Lalith Polepeddi and Akhil Chavan have been using their skills in computer science and machine learning to help study biodiversity in Georgia Tech’s new EcoCommons.

Both research staff at the Georgia Tech Global Change Program, Polepeddi and Chavan teamed up to apply for a micro research grant from the Kendeda Living Building last summer. The grants empower research and innovation at a student, staff, and faculty level through small, accessible, amounts of seed funding.

Decarbonizing U.S. electricity production will require both construction of renewable energy sources and retirement of power plants now operated by fossil fuels. A generator-level model described in the Dec. 4 issue of the journal Science suggests that most fossil fuel power plants could complete normal lifespans and still close by 2035 because so many facilities are nearing the end of their operational lives.

Meeting a 2035 deadline for decarbonizing U.S. electricity production, as proposed by the incoming U.S. presidential administration, would eliminate just 15% of the capacity-years left in plants powered by fossil fuels, says the article by Emily Grubert, a Georgia Institute of Technology researcher. Plant retirements are already underway, with 126 gigawatts of fossil generator capacity taken out of production between 2009 and 2018, including 33 gigawatts in 2017 and 2018 alone.

“Creating an electricity system that does not contribute to climate change is actually two processes — building carbon-free infrastructure like solar plants, and closing carbon-based infrastructure like coal plants,” said Grubert, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “My work shows that because a lot of U.S. fossil fuel plants are already pretty old, the target of decarbonization by 2035 would not require us to shut most of these plants down earlier than their typical lifespans.”

Of U.S. fossil fuel-fired generation capacity, 73% (630 out of 840 gigawatts) will reach the end of its typical lifespan by 2035; that percentage would reach 96% by 2050, she says in the Policy Forum article published in Science. About 13% of U.S. fossil fuel-fired generation capacity (110 gigawatts) operating in 2018 had already exceeded its typical lifespan. 

Because typical lifespans are averages, some generators operate for longer than expected. Allowing facilities to run until they retire is thus likely insufficient for a 2035 decarbonization deadline, the article notes. Closure deadlines that strand assets relative to reasonable lifespan expectations, however, could create financial liability for debts and other costs. The research found that a 2035 deadline for completely retiring fossil fuel-based electricity generators would only strand about 15% (1,700 gigawatt-years) of capacity life, along with about 20% (380,000 job-years) of direct power plant and fuel extraction jobs that existed in 2018. 

In 2018, fossil fuel facilities operated in 1,248 of 3,141 counties, directly employing about 157,000 people at generators and fuel extraction facilities. Plant closure deadlines can improve outcomes for workers and host communities — providing additional certainty, for example, by enabling specific advance planning for things like remediation, retraining for displaced workers, and revenue replacements.

“Closing large industrial facilities like power plants can be really disruptive for the people who work there and live in the surrounding communities,” Grubert said. “We don't want to repeat the damage we saw with the collapse of the steel industry in the 1970s and ’80s, where people lost jobs, pensions, and stability without warning. We already know where the plants are, and who might be affected. Using the 2035 decarbonization deadline to guide explicit, community grounded planning for what to do next can help, even without a lot of financial support.”

Planning ahead will also help avoid creating new capital investment that may not be needed long-term. “We shouldn't build new fossil fuel power plants that would still be young in 2035, and we need to have explicit plans for closures both to ensure the system keeps working and to limit disruption for host communities,” she said. 

Underlying policies governing the retirement of fossil fuel-powered facilities is the concept of a “just transition” that ensures material well-being and distributional justice for individuals and communities affected by a transition from fossil to non-fossil electricity systems. Determining which assets are “stranded,” or required to close earlier than expected, is vital for managing compensation for remaining debt or lost revenue, Grubert said in the article.

CITATION: Emily Grubert, “Fossil electricity retirement deadlines for a just transition” (Science, 2020). https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6521/1171

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Georgia Tech Arts is still seeking projects for the 2021 ACCelerate: ACC Smithsonian
Creativity and Innovation Festival in Washington, DC. All Georgia Tech students, faculty, and staff are invited to apply by May 1, 2020.

Even if you do not have a finished project exploring the intersection of science,
engineering, art, design, and technology, we encourage you to speak with Es
Famojure at esther.famojure@arts.gatech.edu about your concepts.

Learn about Georgia Tech's 2019 participants for some inspiration.

The festival brings together all institutions included in the Atlantic Coast Conference to
celebrate creativity and innovation with a specific focus on science, engineering, arts, and
design. It will be held April 9 -11, 2021 at the Smithsonian National Museum of American
History.

Submit your project for consideration by May 1, 2020 to be considered.

LEARN MORE & APPLY

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WHEN: June 7-9, 2017

WHERE: UN City, Copenhagen

WHAT: Panels and interactive sessions focusing on topics such as:

• Global Health Emergencies
• Innovation and Influencing Markets
• Strengthening Health Supply Chains

TO REGISTER ONLINE please visit chhs.gatech.edu/conference/2017/registration. 

*As the 2017 conference will be hosted at the United Nations City, it will be free of charge. All attendees must be registered online prior to the event and must present an official form of government-issued photo ID to enter the UN City conference venue.

OVERVIEW:

The HHL Conference is pleased to announce the opening Keynote address from Dr. Richard Brennan, Director of Emergency Operations, Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization (WHO) in geneva, who led the Ebola Response from October 2014 to January 2016 as the Director at the WHO HQ. Dr. Brennan now oversees WHO’s response to health emergencies globally as part of the new Emergencies Programme which brings together several departments to streamline WHO’s role in emergencies globally, from prevention and preparedness to response, and from humanitarian emergencies to disease outbreaks. See full bio here.

Each year the Conference on Health & Humanitarian Logistics (HHL) provides an open forum for the discussion of challenges and new solutions in disaster preparedness and response, long-term development and humanitarian aid, and global health delivery. This neutral platform encourages learning and collaboration within and across institutions; promotes system-wide improvements in organizations and the sector as a whole; identifies important research issues; and establishes priorities in terms of strategies, policies and investments.

Speakers and participants in the event come from across global health and humanitarian sectors, from governments, NGOs, foundations, private industry, and academia, and share diverse perspectives in health and humanitarian challenges. The agenda features keynote addresses, panel discussions, focused interactive workshops, oral presentations, lunchtime group discussions, and interactive poster sessions covering a broad set of research topics and applications.

Submissions were accepted for 3 categories this year: interactive workshops, oral presentations, and posters, which explore challenges and solutions for building efficient and effective supply chains for health and humanitarian challenges. Particular topics of interest include public private partnerships, innovative uses of data or technology, and creating sustainable supply chain systems.More information about these sessions is available here. The final list of presentation, workshop sessions, and posters will be online at the links here as they are confirmed.

2017 Conference Co-organizers:

• Özlem Ergun, Northeastern University
• Jarrod Goentzel, Humanitarian Response Lab, MIT
• Etleva Kadilli, UNICEF Supply Division, Copenhagen
• Pinar Keskinocak, CHHS, Georgia Tech
• Julie Swann, CHHS, Georgia Tech
• Luk Van Wassenhove, Humanitarian Research Group, INSEAD

2017 Speakers and presenters include representatives from:

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, (CDC), Central Medical Stores Trust of Malawi, Chemonics International, DHL, Earthquake Reconstruction & Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) Pakistan, GS1 Nigeria, Global Scientific Solutions for health, Imperial Health Sciences, John Snow Inc., Laerdal Global Health, Logistimo India, Medecins Sans Frontieres, National Medical Stores Uganda, National Primary Health Care Development Agency of Nigeria, Nexleaf Analytics, North Star Alliance, Partnership for Supply Chain Management, UCLA, Vienna University of Economics and Business,  UNICEF Supply Division, UN World Food Programme, UPS, World Health Organization, USAID, and more.

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