2023 One year ago
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said he is impressed with the proposed biodiesel plant that a company wants to locate in Pullman. The governor visited Whitman County on a trip that included a meeting with the Port of Whitman commissioners. The commission has received a $5 million loan from the Washington Community Economic Revitalization Board to acquire property for a Agriculture Advancement Center, where the biodiesel plant would be the anchor tenant. AgTech OS is the company behind the plant, which would manufacture biodiesel from canola seeds. Inslee also spoke to Washington State University students at The Foley Institute on campus and talked about the proposed plant.
2019 Five years ago
Lucas Moller had his eyes on the sky when he attended Moscow High School in the early years of the new millennium. Starting in middle school, Moller worked on an experiment that would eventually touch down on the surface of Mars and nearly ended up aboard the Opportunity Rover, which was declared dead last week after nearly 15 years of exploring the red planet. Opportunity’s original mission was expected to last 90 days. ... Washington state lawmakers are considering bills banning single-use plastic bags that aim to reduce waste and pollution, but the legislation may also cost consumers extra at grocery stores. Bills in the House and Senate with similar language would ban retail stores from giving out noncompostable single-use plastic bags starting in 2020 and require retailers to charge customers 10 cents to buy paper bags or plastic reusable bags.
2014 10 years ago
Throughout the years, there have been little advances in how U.S. roads are made. Paved roads are surfaced with asphalt, which is made with fossil fuels. It’s been that way for a long time. “We have been using this method for a century,” said Haifang Wen, Washington State University civil engineering professor. In the near future, that could change thanks to a research project Wen started four years ago. Wen has been working with graduate students and a chemist to develop a substitute for crude oil — cooking oil.
It seems everything today can be done online — going to school is no exception. The University of Idaho is beginning to focus on offering degrees that can be completed entirely online. “We are still warming up,” said Keith Ickes, executive director of Planning and Budget for the university. “We made the major change this past spring and have been announcing the changes to funding structures and the new direction we wanted to pursue.” Ickes said the university currently has a few programs in place where students can get almost an entire degree online but may need a few more classes to fully complete. He said faculty in different colleges have expressed interest in being able to offer those missing classes.
