NNA Track 1: Innovations in Energy Technologies and Empowerment in Arctic Fishing Communities

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Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) is one of NSF's 10 Big Ideas. NNA projects address convergence scientific challenges in the rapidly changing Arctic. The Arctic research is needed to inform the economy, security and resilience of the Nation, the larger region and the globe. NNA empowers new research partnerships from local to international scales, diversifies the next generation of Arctic researchers, and integrates the co-production of knowledge. This award fulfills part of that aim. Cold Arctic conditions, twenty-four-hour summer sunlight combined with twenty-four-hour winter darkness, and a frozen ocean coastline for much of the year are threatening survival of Arctic communities. These communities currently rely entirely on expensive fossil fuels for their energy needs. The joint impacts of energy cost, changes in fisheries and the environment, and a young self-rule national government are intertwined in ways that are currently threatening the culture and lifestyles of people who have long called the region home. This project discovers sustainable technological innovations and identifies an achievable and affordable pathway to the future for small communities in a changing Arctic. The research identifies, creates, tests, and demonstrates cutting-edge and next-generation energy technology systems suited to cold, harsh Arctic conditions, including, for example, next-generation batteries, solar and wind technologies for polar conditions, and ocean-linked heat pumps. The discoveries will be published so that the findings will be widely available. Educational activities with the youth and schools in the Arctic will provide inquiry-based, hands-on activities for learning about renewable energy systems that are also useful in schools in the U.S. The learning activities will contribute to self-confidence needed by students to pursue community or four-year college programs for technology-oriented careers. Sustainable technological solutions will also benefit remote communities in the mid-latitudes. Availability of affordable renewable energy will enable cultural continuity, enhance health and safety, and strengthen community resilience. An iterative, systems-based approach that is driven by stakeholder values and objectives is being used to define energy and fishery-related research needs faced by Arctic communities who rely on fishing for their food and income. Initiated by an invitation from local fishers to a Dartmouth professor, this project represents stakeholder-driven science with knowledge co-generation between community members and academics. Research by faculty, graduate and undergraduate students in this project will produce mission-relevant insights and prototypes and will enable identification of robust and resilient adaptation strategies. Engineers, scientists, students, hunter-fishers, utility managers, local government representatives, and citizens will collaborate to address challenging interdisciplinary problems in this region where planning and adaptation to environmental change is not already in place. Issues of adaptation will be pursued in ways that embrace energy self-reliance, identify an achievable and sustainable pathway to a resilient future, and contribute to capacity-building for engineering in changing conditions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.