Download : Download high-res image (263KB) Download : Download full-size imageJesse D. Jenkins is an assistant professor at Princeton University in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. He is a macro-scale energy systems engineer with a focus on the rapidly evolving electricity sector and leads the Princeton ZERO Lab, which focuses

Dirk Weiss leads technology assessment at First Solar, where he is responsible for finding and incubating new opportunities beyond the company’s cadmium-telluride core technology and assessing current and future competitive landscapes. He studied physics at Freie Universität Berlin, received a doctorate in materials science from Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart, Germany, and was

Computational methods with real-time forecasting of embedded energy and water networks are critical for resource management and conservation. In the August 1, 2021 issue of Energy & Environmental Science, Liu and Mauter propose a high-resolution computational framework of the embedded energy in water delivery systems to guide efficient management of water resources.

Micro-supercapacitors are attracting increasing attention due to their potential applications in multiple real-world energy scenarios such as wearable electronic devices, powering the internet of things, and medical applications. While tremendous efforts are being made in the performance enhancement, one of the bottleneck issues inhibiting their upscaling is the complicated manufacturing process. In

Personal thermal management with textiles can save energy in buildings and mitigate thermal stress. In a recent issue of Science, Zeng et al. developed a metafabric that can emit mid-infrared to the sky while reflecting the sunlight, resulting temperatures 5°C to 10°C cooler than those in common textiles.

After more than a decade of organic photovoltaics making introductory steps into the market, the scientific and industrial communities keep working toward the consolidation of this technology in the market. The recent development of materials that yield simultaneously high levels of efficiency and transparency brings the opportunity to enter important niche markets, such as transparent photovoltaic

The electrification of mass transportation is hailed as a solution for reducing global greenhouse-gas emissions and dependence on unsustainable energy sources. The annual sales of electric vehicles (EVs) has continued to rise since 2011, with a global sale of EVs of 2.1 million in 2019. This increase in sales is mainly due to continued improvement in the cost and performance of commercial EVs, increased

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries promise high energy density for next-generation energy storage systems, yet many challenges remain. Li-S batteries follow a conversion chemistry, which radically differs from intercalation-based lithium-ion batteries. Recently, it has become clear that the chemistry of electrolyte solutions and their ability to stabilize polysulfide Li2Sx species formed by sulfur reduction

Arun Majumdar is the Jay Precourt Professor at Stanford University, a faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and a Senior Fellow and former Director of the Precourt Institute for Energy. He served in the Obama administration as the Founding Director of the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) (2009–2012), as the Acting Undersecretary for Energy (2011–2012)

Dr. Le Xie is a Professor, Chancellor EDGES Fellow, and Presidential Impact Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M, and the Assistant Director-Energy Digitization at Texas A&M Energy Institute. He was awarded the 2017 IEEE PES Outstanding Young Engineer Award for the best power engineer under 35. He is the founding chair of IEEE PES Subcommittee on Big Data & Analytics

Download : Download high-res image (186KB) Download : Download full-size imageEdward Barbour obtained his bachelor’s degree in Physics from Oxford University and his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Edinburgh in 2013. His doctoral thesis focused on the development of ACAES and the economics of energy storage within the UK market framework. He held subsequent postdoc positions at

Hydrogen production by electrolysis provides a sustainable energy vector, but current electrolyzers use ultrapure water. In some regions clean water is limited, but seawater is a widely available abundant resource. In a recent analysis, J. Niklas Hausmann and colleagues carry out a quantitative analysis to assess—does an economic case for direct seawater electrolysis exist?

The O–O bond-forming step in the oxidation of water to dioxygen is the key to how nature converts solar energy into renewable fuel, yet remains not fully understood. A recent report in Nature Chemistry from Casadevall et al. features structural characterization of a catalytically relevant elusive peroxo intermediate.

Expanded deployment of renewable energy technologies can help society mitigate climate change. However, solar and wind energy resources are inherently variable. In this issue of Joule, Hunter and colleagues quantitatively compare a diverse set of energy storage and backup power technologies that can help variable energy resources meet demand. They estimate current technology costs, consider improvement

Through energy efficiency and demand flexibility, buildings can play a prominent role in mitigating the urgent and severe consequences associated with a changing climate. In this issue of Joule, the paper by Langevin et al. provides clear insight into the magnitude of impact buildings can have.

Reducing energy demand on buildings’ heating and cooling systems is fundamental to reaching a carbon-neutral future. Writing in iScience, Xu and Raman show that by controlling radiative heat flows in buildings with novel materials, we can expand the set of thermal conditions in which we feel comfortable, thereby reducing energy demand on building systems.

Accurate battery life prediction is a critical part of the business case for electric vehicles, stationary energy storage, and nascent applications such as electric aircraft. Existing methods are based on relatively small but well-designed lab datasets and controlled test conditions but incorporating field data is crucial to build a complete picture of how cells age in real-world situations. This comes

Negative-emission technologies (NETs) are widely viewed as a risky backstop technology for climate change mitigation. In this perspective, we challenge this limited view of NETs. We show how, notwithstanding their merit, integrated assessment models (IAMs) are largely responsible for establishing this opposition to NETs. This is because IAM-based assessments of NETs dominate the policy-facing literature

Jonathan Koomey is president of Koomey Analytics and has in the past been a visiting professor at Stanford University, Yale University, and UC Berkeley. He's one of the leading international experts on the economics of climate solutions and the energy and environmental effects of information technology. Dr. Koomey holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley and an

Download : Download high-res image (291KB) Download : Download full-size imageJeffrey Ball is scholar-in-residence at Stanford University’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, an initiative of Stanford Law School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He also is a lecturer at Stanford Law School and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He writes widely about

In Nature, Mefford, Chueh, and colleagues describe how they investigated the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in situ at sub-micrometer resolution. Nanoscale variations of current density, geometry, and oxidation states show that the currently emerging and potentially paradigm-shifting picture of redox-active, structurally dynamic catalyst materials might need to include the nanoscale.

Flow batteries are prospective devices for cheap, grid-scale storage of electricity generated from renewable power. Writing in Science, Feng et al. demonstrate how functionalization can activate the organic molecule fluorenone as a promising charge-storing reactant in aqueous organic redox-flow batteries.

As an abundant and ubiquitous energy source, solar energy has successfully demonstrated its potential in tackling the water-energy dilemma in an eco-friendly way. In this issue of Joule, Wenbin and co-authors creatively propose the co-generation of electricity and freshwater via an integrated PV-membrane distillation system.

Recently, Bogdanov et al. provided a global 100% energy transition pathway by 2050. Although this pathway seems feasible judging by the appreciable progress in renewable energy generation in most developed economies each year, one wonders how realistic this pathway is for developing economies given the capital investment needed.