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Most people would rather not think twice about their waste, but Kartik Chandran spends hours a day considering the limitless potential of sewage. Chandran, an associate professor of earth and environmental engineering, studies how to improve wastewater treatment and extract energy from sewage.
His latest work involves converting the dangerous greenhouse gas methane, a byproduct of sewage treatment plants that is typically burned off or released into the atmosphere, into the reusable biofuel methanol. He does this by finding microbes that can be put into giant treatment tanks to render the substance harmless.
Right now sewage treatment plants use microbes that break down waste by oxidizing ammonia, a chemical in sewage that has uses in fertilizer and cleansers but is toxic to wildlife when released into the water stream. In a treatment plant, a combination of microbes turns ammonia into benign nitrogen gas; the process has been standard in wastewater treatment plants in the United States for the last century.
These bugs are equally useful for processing methane because they don’t have the ability to completely oxidize it. If methane is oxidized, it simply turns to carbon dioxide—another greenhouse gas—but if it’s only partially oxidized, it leaves methanol, which can then be recycled and sold.
“The plants are just blowing off methane, but we’re putting it right back into the tanks and converting it into methanol,” says Chandran. “The beauty of it is, The tanks we use are already in place.”
For now, Chandran is developing the process in his lab in Mudd but is working toward perfecting the technology so it can be incorporated at existing sewage treatment plants around the United States. “Today, chemists are trying to create catalysts to convert methane to methanol, but it’s not a trivial problem,” he says. “On the other hand, these bugs do this conversion anyway, so I thought, ‘Why not use a process that happens in nature all the time?’” Chandran is the first to study implementing this conversion process on a large scale.
The work involves studying which strains of bugs are most effective and developing mathematical models to describe the process and better understand how the microbes work. In October, Chandran presented preliminary results of this project, which was funded by the $100,000 Paul L. Busch award from the Water Environment Research Foundation, to the largest conference of water quality experts in the world.
Chandran has a complementary project in Accra, Ghana, for which he won a $1.5 million Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation award, to develop technology to transform fecal sludge into biodiesel fuel and create an urban sanitation facility in the country’s capital. The goal of both projects is to understand how to convert a wastewater treatment plant using existing technology into a biorefinery that can also be a source of fuel.
Chandran’s other research involves implementing a more efficient type of sewage treatment with microbes that don’t require oxygen—a process called anaerobic ammonia oxidation, or anammox. This method of breaking down human waste takes 62 percent less oxygen (and thus less energy) and emits much lower amounts of the byproduct nitrous oxide than other processes.
Nitrous oxide is a more dangerous greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide as it traps heat at a rate 300 times as effectively as carbon dioxide, and the molecules can remain in the atmosphere for up to a century. With Chandran’s help, anammox will be introduced in plants within the next two years in New York City, Washington, D.C. and the Hampton Roads region in Virginia.
Chandran has always been interested in technology, taking apart transistors and other gadgets when he was growing up in New Delhi, India. His interest in waste conversion was piqued as an undergraduate studying chemical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology. “I was learning about how to build reactors and use technologies to synthesize chemicals, but I realized we should probably do something with all the pollutant streams we were creating,” he recalls. “My dream dissertation project was to develop technologies to address these pollutant streams.”
Chandran moved to the United States to get his Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut and was a research associate at Virginia Polytechnic Institute before arriving at Columbia in 2005. In the interim, he was involved in helping to redesign the wastewater treatment plants of New York City. “My adviser at the University of Connecticut planted the seed of the nitrogen cycle, and it was a real eye-opener,” says Chandran. “And I’ve been doing this ever since.”
By Beth Kwon
The University launched its sixth Global Center in Istanbul in early November with a series of events and scholarly panels in that city attended by University President Lee C. Bollinger, Interim Provost John Coatsworth and a host of Columbia faculty and deans as well as scholars of the region.
Columbia University Trustee H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest (LAW'58, HON'09), a benefactor whose previous gifts of more than $100 million place him among Columbia’s most generous donors, has made a new pledge of $30 million to support the construction of a multi-arts venue on the University’s Manhattanville campus. The gift was announced Nov. 17 at Columbia College’s Alexander Hamilton Dinner honoring Lenfest. It is the largest gift ever made for the arts at Columbia and the new venue will be named the Lenfest Center for the Arts in his honor.
“The breadth of Gerry Lenfest’s philanthropy and generosity to Columbia is truly remarkable,” said Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger, who announced the gift. “From the law school he attended to the humanities and sciences, from the Earth Institute to our medical center, Gerry has provided the sustainable source of energy for excellence across a diversity of University life and scholarship. This latest gift not only reflects the extraordinary leadership in the arts that he and Marguerite have long demonstrated in their home city of Philadelphia, it ensures that our thriving School of the Arts will finally have a facility that matches its astonishing creativity and the university will have a vital new space for engagement in the robust cultural life of Harlem.”
“For Marguerite and me, naming the new arts center is a wonderful way of doing two things we care deeply about—supporting the arts and supporting Columbia University as a leading center of creative thought in New York City and throughout the world,” said Lenfest. “As Columbia develops a new campus, it is great to think that the arts will play a central role, and that a beautiful new building by Renzo Piano will welcome audiences across New York City, and make new partnerships possible.” Renzo Piano Building Workshop, which co-created the Manhattanville campus master plan along with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, will design the six-floor, 53,000 square foot structure. It will stand prominently on a small public plaza on West 125th Street between Broadway and 12th Avenue, just west of the Jerome L. Greene Science Center which will house the University’s Mind Brain Behavior interdisciplinary neuroscience initiative. The building will contain an art gallery, a state-of-the-art film screening room, a flexible performance space, and presentation space for readings, symposia and seminars. “Our goal is to create a welcoming venue where every space can be activated, to showcase the School of the Arts and to collaborate with other schools, departments and centers at the University,” said Carol Becker, dean of the School of the Arts. “We look forward to featuring the work of students, faculty, and guest artists in film, theater, writing, and visual arts, to opening the doors to new and established neighborhood relationships and to fostering stronger connections to the always vibrant art scene in Harlem and beyond.” Faculty and students of the School of the Arts—and across the University—are actively engaged in a variety of partnerships in the community, teaching, mentoring, and performing for local students on a regular basis. In just the last year, these have included the children’s Let’s Read afternoon and the summer Shall We Dance series which welcomes families and neighbors to Columbia’s campus. The University was a partner in the Harlem Jazz Shrines Festival, a collaboration with the Apollo Theater, Harlem Stage and Jazzmobile. Miller Theatre, Columbia’s performing arts presenter, partnered with Friends of Morningside Park to produce a free outdoor performance of contemporary composer John Luther Adams’ Inuksuit, which attracted an audience of thousands. With a range of spaces suited to presentation of work in multiple genres, the Lenfest Center presents an unprecedented opportunity to support and expand these kinds of partnerships between Columbia and the diverse, dynamic arts community that has long defined Harlem’s unique cultural legacy. Lenfest’s philanthropy is notable for both its scale and variety. His 2006 pledge of $37.5 million to match gifts for endowed faculty chairs in the Arts and Sciences inspired other donors to create 25 new endowed professorships. The Distinguished Columbia Faculty Awards, established by Lenfest in 2005, helps support the faculty by recognizing those who excel not only in research but in the instruction and mentoring of students. So far 53 faculty members have received the honor. For his alma mater, Columbia Law School, he pledged $15 million for endowed professorships and has supported the Lenfest Hall residence. Owing to his interests in sustainable development, global climate change and acute poverty, he has supported the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy, the Gary C. Comer Geochemistry Building at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, and a professorship and related initiatives within Columbia’s Earth Institute. Lenfest’s most recent commitments to Columbia College include establishing, together with Board of Visitors Chair and University Trustee Jonathan S. Lavine (CC'88), a matching fund to endow five assistant professorships in the Core Curriculum. His record of giving includes support for the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the School of Nursing, Miller Theatre, Columbia Libraries andColumbia Athletics. He chairs the University’s 1754 Society, an association of all who have named Columbia in their estates. A graduate of Washington and Lee University, Lenfest rose to become managing director of the communications division of Triangle Publications in 1970. He started Lenfest Communications in 1974 with the purchase of two cable television companies from Triangle, and sold the company to Comcast in 2000. He serves currently as chairman of the Curtis Institute of Music, the American Revolution Center and the James Madison Council of the Library of Congress. He is former chairman of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He is a generous patron of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Barnes Foundation, and established the Lenfest Scholars program, which helps low and moderate income students from rural south-central Pennsylvania attend college. A University Trustee since 2001, Lenfest was presented with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Columbia in 2009. The Alexander Hamilton Medal is awarded annually by the Columbia College Alumni Association for distinguished service to the College and accomplishment in any field of endeavor.
In the first statewide climate change outlook for New York, scientists say that the state may suffer disproportionate effects in coming decades compared with other regions, due to its geography and geology. The report paints a harsh picture, including possible extreme temperature and sea-level rises, downpours, droughts and floods. The changes are projected to affect nearly every region and facet of the economy by the 2080s, from ski resorts and dairy farms to New York City’s subways, streets and businesses.
The 600-page report and a shorter synthesis were released today by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). With it, New York joins California, Maryland and a growing number of states in trying to predict and plan for disruptions that warming climate and related extreme weather events could bring. Researchers at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, Cornell University and the City University of New York coordinated the research and drew input from more than 50 scientists.
“The climate is already changing,” said Cynthia Rosenzweig, a climate scientist at Columbia’s Center for Climate Systems Research (CCSR) and one of the study’s three lead investigators. “We have a responsibility to prepare for the increasing risks of the future. Let’s roll up our sleeves and be ready.”
Global warming is not evenly distributed; because of its northerly latitude, New York has already warmed 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 40 years—more than twice the global average. The report projects a further 1.5 to 3-degree rise by the 2020s; 3 to 5.5 degrees by the 2050s; and 4 to 9 degrees by the 2080s. Winters will be milder, and summers will see more extreme heat waves and droughts, say the researchers.
Sea level rise--a foot in the last century—has also surpassed the global average of 7 inches. Ocean currents and other factors unevenly distribute ongoing sea-level rise around the globe; New York is one place where seas have risen higher and will continue to do so. The interior of the state is still slowly rebounding from heavy glaciers that pushed down the surface tens of thousands of years ago—but as land rises inland, the coast, like a hinge, is slowly tilting into the rising water. As a result, the study predicts 8 to 23 inches of relative sea-level rise by the 2080s. But it warns that a drastic 55 inches—four and a half feet—is possible if melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets accelerates. The ice sheets’ future pace of reaction to warming is still a big unknown in climate science.
The Empire State is at risk of losing one of its signature crops—the Empire apple—if temperatures keep rising.
Credit: Flickr/Conbon
Inland and upstate, heavier and more frequent precipitation events, like those that have caused massive damage in the last few months, are also expected, especially during milder winters. “New York State is highly vulnerable to extreme climate events,” said Radley Horton, a climate scientist at CCSR who led the report’s climate projections. New York City is at risk because of its extensive shoreline, but so are towns and cities along the Hudson River as far north as the Troy Dam, 150 miles away, he added. Horton and Rosenzweig are also with the Earth Institute-affiliated NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
New York City and Long Island are at greatest risk from rising sea level and more severe storms. For instance, the report says that by 2020, nearly 96,000 people on the barrier island of Long Beach, off Long Island, could be at risk from rising seas, at a potential cost of $6.4 billion. Currently, 11 percent of New York City streets are at risk of flooding during a 100-year storm. With two feet of sea level rise, a quarter of its streets are at risk, and at four feet of sea level rise, 34 percent are at risk.
A four-foot rise in sea level by the 2080s would also put the New York City subway system (much of it already below sea level and subject to flooding) at risk of extreme flooding once a decade, instead of once every hundred years. Klaus Jacob, a scientist at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who led the chapters on transportation and telecommunications, said, “You can’t have the whole system being shut down once a decade. What’s important is that we’re vulnerable right now to the 100-year storm. After 40 minutes of rain the entire subway system could be underwater.”
Drinking water and the health of coastal and river ecosystems may also be at risk if flooding increases. “If the increase in extreme precipitation events over the last 50 years continues, we can expect more severe combined sewer overflows and curb and drainage problems, and more severe inland flooding of rivers and low-lying areas,” said Horton. “More intense precipitation events may lead to fouling of coastal waters and rivers and also more sediment washing into drinking-water reservoirs. It could potentially harm the quality of our drinking water.”
Patrick Kinney, an epidemiologist at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, who led the report’s public-health chapter, said that heat-related illnesses and deaths are expected to increase, especially in urban areas, which tend to build up and hold heat during the summer. Heat-related deaths could rise 70 percent over the 1990s, he said, and declining air quality from added ground-level smog and rising pollen counts may lead to more asthma and other respiratory illnesses. The poor and the elderly are projected to be most vulnerable to the added risk of heat waves and floods. (Maps included in the report show where poverty is concentrated in the far north of the state, along the western tier, and in parts of New York City and Long Island.) Demand for air conditioning would also strain the energy grid.
Farms cover a quarter of New York, according to the report, and contribute $4.5 billion a year to the state economy. While a longer growing season may benefit some crops, others are at risk of heat stress, including New York’s famous Empire and McIntosh apples. Some plants, such as the grapes that feed the state’s wine industry, are vulnerable to spring frosts if they become active too early due to warmer temperatures. Milk production may also decline, because heat-stressed cows produce less milk.
In the Catskill and Adirondack mountains, shorter and warmer winters with less snow could hurt ski- and snowmobile-related tourism. Both regions may also see declines in native brook trout—the state fish--as their cold-water habitat warms, and if the hemlock trees that shade their streams succumb to the woolly adelgid, an invasive insect that has recently spread into central New York from the south.
The report offers practical strategies for the state to adapt. It says that when municipalities upgrade or build bridges, sewers and other infrastructure, they should choose designs that can withstand heavier rains. Flood zones can be expanded, along with shoreline setbacks for new construction, and flood walls expanded. In the long term, the state may want to buy out some coastal property owners.
It recommends that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority invest in more pumps to vacuum water from New York’s subway system, and barriers to keep water from raining through sidewalk grates and other openings. In New York City, there are already plans to build berms to divert water away from highway tunnel entrances.
To cool the air during summer heat waves, cities can plant trees and paint dark surfaces white to reflect the sun. The state could also provide incentives for people to use their air-conditioners and other appliances at off-peak hours. The researchers also recommend more uniform regulations for the telecommunications industry, and for phone and internet cables to be decoupled from the energy grid, which has repeatedly shown itself vulnerable to storms. The report says that for every $1 put toward climate adaptation, $4 may be saved in avoided losses.
The other lead investigators are William Solecki of City University of New York’s Hunter College and Arthur DeGaetano of Cornell University. Funded by NYSERDA, Columbia, Cornell and CUNY, the report will eventually be published separately by the New York Academy of Sciences.
A boy with leg braces and crutches rests against a fire alarm. A woman hangs laundry from a clothesline strung across an airshaft behind a row of tenement buildings. Pushcarts line a crowded street in lower Manhattan.
Dirk Englund is developing technology that tackles one of the most pressing problems of the Information Age— keeping information secure.
Columbia men’s basketball Head Coach Kyle Smith has a long history of leading his teams to victory. While a junior at Hamilton College, his team had a 26-1 record and was ranked #1 in the NCAA Division III. Later, as an associate coach at St. Mary’s College of California, he oversaw that school’s surprising ascent into the Sweet 16 in 2010.
For the first time this fall, entrepreneurial-minded engineering students are living together in Res. Inc., an initiative of the Engineering School in which 72 students—45 of them first-years—share more than kitchen space in their suites on the eighth floor of Hartley and Wallach halls.
When Kenneth T. Jackson began teaching his course "The History of the City of New York" 37 years ago, he decided to take his students out of the classroom to grasp the full impact of the urban environment.
Health costs exceeding $14 billion dollars and involving 21,000 emergency room visits, nearly 1,700 deaths, and 9,000 hospitalizations are among the staggering impacts of six climate change-related events in the United States during the last decade, according to a first-of-its-kind study published in November 2011 edition of the journal Health Affairs.
The article was part of a special issue of Environmental Research Letters on the greening of the tundra. Other authors of the study include Rosanne D’Arrigo, Lamont-Doherty; Pieter Beck and Scott Goetz, Woods Hole Research Center and David Frank, Swiss Federal Research Institute.
The study received funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation's Seasonality of the Arctic program.
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(Editor's Note: Every year, Columbia honors veterans by sponsoring a float in New York City's Veterans Day parade, which this year is Wednesday, November 11. The University is proud to recognize its 652 student veterans, the most among our peer institutions.)
Columbia student veterans, ROTC members and others in the University community marked Veterans Day with the first of what will be regular flag raisings by a student color guard on the University’s main campus. Each week, the color guard will raise Columbia’s American flag Monday morning and lower it on Friday evening.
The color guard ceremony, conducted by Columbia’s ROTC members, presented the flag at 9 a.m. on a crisp autumn morning at the main flagpole outside of Low Memorial Library. It was the first on-campus flag raising ceremony in more than 40 years. Afterwards, many Columbia student veterans made their way to midtown Manhattan to participate in the New York City Veterans Day Parade, riding the Military Veterans of Columbia University float sponsored by the University’s School of General Studies. “I’m in uniform today on campus as a tribute to all veterans,” said Rudy Rickner (SIPA'11, BUS’12), a Marine aviator who was deployed to Iraq as a pilot and ground controller. “I may be a veteran myself but I also want to pay tribute to my grandfather and people who fought before him. If I were to encourage anybody to feel any certain way, I would just ask them to look to the past and see what others have done for America and for the ideals that America represents.” “It is definitely a community that we are creating here on campus,” said John McClelland (GS’11), a special operations combat medic with the U.S. Army’s 1st Ranger Battalion who did four rotations in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. “It’s one that is also open to dialogue with other aspects of the community, and it is really putting a face and a relationship to the United States military and public in general.” The flag raising was endorsed by the administration and the University Senate, which had received a proposal from students who are cadets in off-campus ROTC programs. Last month, the Senate released a statement that said “Columbia should welcome the participation of all Columbia students—indeed, of all members of the Columbia community—in campus ceremonies honoring the flag.” The University has nearly 400 veterans who are students on campus, and is an active supporter of the Yellow Ribbon program, the new federal initiative that makes private universities like Columbia more financially accessible to student-veterans. The veterans themselves are aware that they are contributing a new and very different set of life experiences to the diversity of University life. Yet the military presence on Columbia’s campus goes beyond merely an influx of student-veterans. In April, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, kicked off a national speaking tour by participating in aWorld Leaders Forum with University President Lee C. Bollinger and meeting with Columbia student veterans. And in December 2008, the University dedicated Columbia’s War Memorial in Butler Library andRoll of Honor website. “The University is very supportive of veterans,” said Marco Reininger (GS’12), president of the Columbia MilVets, the school-wide veterans group. He is an Army veteran of Afghanistan, where he conducted investigations and counter-IED operations. “We have been working together with the administration very successfully on a variety of different projects and different areas, and just the fact that we can have a flag raising ceremony here today and a float in the parade today, just shows how supportive they are of the veterans community here on campus.” Fourteen Columbia schools participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program, and half of the student-veterans matriculate at the School of General Studies, which was originally established in 1947 to meet the needs of veterans returning from World War II. Columbia’s embrace of the Yellow Ribbon program has been noted in the national media, including The New York Times, WNYC public radio, Newsweek, USA Today and the BBC.Kelly Posner is trying to save lives. As director of the Center for Suicide Risk Assessment, she led a team from Columbia’s Department of Psychiatry in developing a tool that successfully predicts suicidal intent.
Anyone who uses multithreaded computer programs—and that’s all of us, as these are the programs that power nearly all software applications including Office, Windows, MacOS, and Google Chrome Browser, and web services like Google Search, Microsoft Bing, and iCloud—knows well the frustration of computer crashes, bugs, and other aggravating problems.