Qualities like amazing tensile strength and electrical conductivity offer a huge range of uses for carbon nanotubes. In a new policy brief, fellow Rachel A. Meidl and her co-authors Dana Goerzen and Daniel A. Heller explain that to ensure carbon nanotubes’ role in a circular, sustainable economy, a coordinated system for classifying, testing, and identifying CNTs and a life cycle approach to risk assessments are needed to better understand impacts to facilitate consistent communication among researchers, industries, and policymakers.
Dana Goerzen, Daniel A. Heller, Rachel A. MeidlFebruary 28, 2024
Are our views of sustainability becoming distorted by the often unsubstantiated “green” actions of companies and organizations? This brief explores why we urgently need a new framework for sustainability — one that relies on a holistic, cross-disciplinary, and multidimensional life cycle approach.
Rachel A. Meidl, Kenneth B. Medlock IIINovember 8, 2023
With the 45V tax credit, the U.S. is well poised to compete for the growing pipeline of clean hydrogen projects globally, writes fellow Rachel Meidl. But if the Treasury adds restrictions to the new tax credit, the U.S. could lose its advantage and a key opportunity for large-scale decarbonization.
Building on the success of hunter education courses in Texas and experience in other states, fellow Sandra McKay and other Texas physicians explain how mandatory firearm safety courses and waiting periods for young firearm buyers could reduce gun violence.
Ryan Sorensen, Richard Bui, Jade Evenstad, Bolatito Adeyeri, Sarah Kim, Emily Wang, Joyce Tiong, Usman Baig, Sandra McKayMarch 29, 2023
Addressing young refugees’ health needs in adolescence can prevent negative health outcomes in the transition to adulthood and affirms their rights to equitable health access and dignified lives.
Carbon nanotubes are critical components for future decarbonization strategies and a clean energy revolution. If the U.S. is to reestablish climate leadership, advanced nanotechnology solutions must be a national priority, argues the author.
Integrating a life-cycle dimension into future policies to assess the social, environmental and economic implications of various products across their life cycle and throughout their value chain is critical to achieving sustainability and a circular economy, writes Rachel A. Meidl, fellow in energy and environment.
Energy fellow Rachel A. Meidl writes that it is imperative to consider and assess innovative recycling technologies that could have enormous economic value in transforming waste plastics into the building blocks for new, higher-value products.
Two federal income tax incentives for business investment are scheduled to end after 2021 and 2022, just as the small business sector will be recovering from the economic downturn of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this policy brief, Jennifer Rabb and Lisa Lin of the McNair Center propose that Congress, under the leadership of the new Biden administration, should extend these tax incentives to bolster the recovery of small businesses.