Larry Penley’s Access With Success

The Obama administration has strongly supported the development of America’s renewable energy, and this blog has added its endorsement of the R&D required for achieving major advances in this area.  This support is the reason for expressing concern that the new policy adopted by the administration for advancing energy storage may stifle critical advances in science and engineering.

The recently announced energy storage hub funding opportunity is intended as an enlargement of the administration’s support for the infrastructure required for expansion of  renewables and transportation.  The Energy Innovation Hub for Batteries and Energy Storage will be a project of $120 million over a five-year period.  Few areas of energy research are as important as research on batteries and energy storage.  This is no doubt the reason for the announcement by the Department of Energy of the Energy Innovation Hub for Batteries and Energy Storage with the following statement:

Improved storage is essential to effectively integrate intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power into the electrical grid; it will also be a critical component of more efficient “smart grid” systems for electricity delivery.

The announced approach of the hub is to create an intense, focused and localized research effort directed at energy storage, using the past models of the Bell Laboratories and World War II’s Manhattan Project.  Both produced astounding advances in science and its application.

What troubles me about the announcement is its potential impact on limiting battery-related research funding for the many scientists and engineers not involved in the hub.  As this blog has observed before, there is very widespread interest in batteries and energy storage by a large and varied number of engineers and scientists. To the degree that the work of this diverse group of scientists and engineers goes unfunded, then the newly announced hub may have the inadvertent effect of stifling some very important research by those not directly involved.

While we can hope that the models upon which this hub is being built are still viable today, it is entirely possible that more widespread and diverse support of research may be what is needed.  During World War II, the very best scientists were brought together in the Manhattan Project.  Today’s cadre of related and interested scholars associated with energy storage is much larger, more diverse, and more geographically dispersed than any single, localized project can accommodate, when compared with the days of the Manhattan Project.  I recognize that this decision for the formation of a hub has been made, but I hope that additional research dollars will be provided beyond those dedicated to the hub.  The risk of not doing so is that we may well miss out on the needed discoveries than can come from a continued level of competition among these scientists and engineers.

My interest in biofuels and their potential for our energy future was substantially increased by my work on sustainable energy with former Vice President Curt Peterson at West Virginia University.  I was reminded of the importance of the role of capital investment from traditional oil companies in biofuel development by the comments last week of Curtis Frasier, the Executive Vice President for the Americas at Shell Gas and Power.  Mr. Frasier was speaking at the Economic Club of Phoenix as he described the significant investment of Shell in Brazilian biofuel generated from sugar cane and its cellulosic residual.

Investment in biofuels from companies like Shell is already producing significant improvements in the technology associated with Brazilian biofuels (see Nature article).  Of course, other oil companies like Exxon are also involved in biofuel production; in the case of Exxon, the most notable example has been its investment in biofuel from algae.

There are many reasons for interest in biofuels.  Among them is their renewability.  They also do not release additional carbon into the atmosphere as do traditional fossil fuels, and they do not pose risks of oil spills that come from the oil extraction process.  Biofuels can be produced from a wide variety of products, including, of course, corn, but they can also be produced from sugar cane and more cellulosic materials such as straw and grasses.

Biofuels have, however, developed a bad reputation in the U.S. as a result of a federal policy of subsidies and state requirements for their use in a mixture of traditional vehicle fuel.  They are also criticized for their contribution to increased prices for food, for their role in substituting energy production for food production, and for their potential for damage to the environment from the agricultural processes and the production processes associated with them.

Yet, increasing evidence suggests that biofuels can play a very significant and constructive role as a part of our energy mix and as one of its components that offer a sustainable substitute to fossil fuels.  What is needed is research that addresses a number of the issues that limit biofuels’ utility.  Among them is the capital investment required for the devolopment of  new enzymes along with the technology for more efficiently using enzymes to break down cellulose from wheat straw and bagasse, the residual, fibrous matter that remains after sugar cane is crushed.

Another needed advancement is in the area of molecule development.  Ethanol, the product produced as a fuel from sugar, is a molecule that is distinctive from the one we find in gasoline.  Ethanol is limited in its use in blending to relatively small (e.g., 10%) amounts with traditional fuels, in part, because of the structure of the molecule.  The good news is that research into second generation molecules that more closely resemble gasoline is going on.  Deepak Dugar described some of the associated issues with this line of research in the December 2011 issue of Nature.

Biofuels represent a very significant opportunity for us.  Their long-term potential will depend on additional research, the very important role of investment capital from companies like Exxon and Shell, and policies that are supportive of biofuels.

Energy and climate change became news again with the recent attention to the article by Drew Shindell and his colleagues, published in Science. The media’s attention has mostly focused on the scientists’ contributions to modeling the role of methane and soot on climate change.  But I would like to draw attention to the role that new technology can play in improving our health in the face of global dependence on an increasing supply of energy and the particulates associated with the use of energy.

The issue of soot caught my attention, not because of its impact on climate change, but because of the ongoing scientific work associated with the impact of particulates on health.  When I read the article I was reminded of my Mom’s requirement that I sweep the large soot particles from our front porch in Kingsport Tennessee nearly every morning.  I grew up in that small industrial town in northeast Tennessee in the fifties and sixties when soot was a considerable nuisance.

Today, we increasingly understand the link between atmospheric particulates and a variety of health issues. In this case, particulates refer to a variety of microscopic substances, including solid bits of dirt, ash and soot.  The impact of microscopic particulates comes from their ability to lodge deep inside our lungs.  A reminder of the health issues of particulates came in the 2008 Summer Olympics with photos of the masked face of cyclist Mike Freedman as he arrived in Beijing with some apparent anxiety about the quality of the air there.

That air quality can have an effect on our health is drawing increasing scientific research attention.  Scientists from the Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences at Colorado State University are finding a relationship between atmospheric particulates and a number of diseases, including ischemic heart disease.  Scientists at Arizona State University have found similar relationships with the incidence of asthma.  Maria Eugenia Monge and her colleagues from Lyon’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique reached the conclusion that soot photochemistry may well be a key player in urban air pollution.  Light appears to prevent surface deactivation of soot.

In their recent Science article, Professor Shindell and his colleagues modeled a number of measures related to reducing the emission of soot.  They included targeting emissions from incomplete combustion, the use of clean-burning biomass stoves, brick kilns, coke ovens, and high emission vehicles.  Already there is considerable work in areas like cleaner burning stoves, primarily used in developing countries; Shell Foundation has partnered with Colorado State University’s Engines & Energy Conversion Laboratory to introduce a new design for a simple cook stove.  Exxon Mobil is taking serious the role that new technology can play in developing cleaner energy; Senior Vice President Andy Swiger addressed the company’s support for new technology in a speech he made in Dubai a little more than a year ago.

We are an energy-dependent 21^st century society.  We are also a society where science is increasing our understanding of the relationship between health and the particulates associated with incomplete combustion of fuels.  While policy changes may well improve our health, it is the new technology on which we will fundamentally depend for solutions.

The onset of 2012 brings two new articles worth reading relative to the smart grid.  The first is Links to the Future: Communication and Challenges in the Smart Grid and the second is Smart Grid – Safe, Secure, and Self-healing, both published in the January-February 2012 issue of Power and Energy Magazine, IEEE.  Together they raise two very significant issues for the smart grid: (a) the additional R&D necessary for the viability of distributed power generation and (b) the need for increased security.

It is now seven years since I first went to Washington D.C. in my role as university president to promote more funding for the smart grid.  At that time, I found the public and most members of Congress were unaware of what the term even meant; that has since changed.  Still, the issues for which I sought research funding are still ones that are, for the most part, unaddressed.  Yet, the advances in the distribution and use of natural gas engines for power generation, solar and wind generation and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles make smart grid-related issues more pressing today than they were a decade ago.

The smart grid is characterized by a two-way flow of electricity, customer-created and less predictable variability in power use, and very significant increases in data-related issues.  There are immediate consequences for R&D and security of the grid.  Among the R&D issues that should be addressed are the need for new communication protocols for data-routing from the billions of data points that are created by numerous system devices and new customer behavior.  Data must move more efficiently for the effective functioning of control devices and a robust, large bandwidth communication structure will be required.  While much of this R&D will occur at the private sector level, incentives can encourage its development.  Moreover, a strategic focus of the government’s support for R&D in this area will contribute to more rapid advances, especially where research dollars are deployed for collaborative commercial development as in the request for proposal (RFP), Department of Energy – Smart Grid Data Access with a March 1 2012 deadline for application.

The security issues associated with the smart grid are also considerable as they encompass national security, the economy and our quality of life.  The threats from a truly smart grid have already been identified by the Cyber Security Working Group of the U. S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).  They include personal profiling, customer surveillance, identity theft, the potential for controlling and limiting specific uses of power, and data accuracy.  It is likely that what we already know about data security will be required along with further enhancements that provide the ability to securely monitor data detection, that inhibit and prevent access to data, and that provide for sophisticated encryption of data.  Additionally, the secure capabilities associated with deception are likely as well.

The dawn of the smart grid is often viewed as important only to utilities or perhaps only to those with a focus on and an interest in distributed power generation from renewable sources.  Instead, it is an issue that is important to both of these interest groups as well as to the oil and gas industry, the car and truck industry and many others.  In the end, the smart grid is of interest to our national security as well as a prosperous economy and the quality of life of our citizens.  Issues associated with the smart grid are here to stay.

A little more than a week ago, the EPA released its report, Investigation of Ground Water Contamination near Pavillion, Wyoming.  This draft research report offers an initial investigation into suggestions that local groundwater in Pavillion could have been impacted by migration of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) fluids.  This report and other related investigations of fracking by the EPA depend upon good science for their contribution to policy, and the report, as it stands right now, fails to pass the test of good science.

It has been my view that we should support sound science as a fundamental solution to our energy security and energy independence, and that is why I have endorsed a carefully defined role for the Federal Government in R&D and why I have documented significant advances in energy research in areas such as energy storage.  Good science matters for our energy future and our economic prosperity.  That is why it is so essential that the EPA’s reports represent good science.  The alternative is to foster bad policy with poorly done research that represents bad science.

Media coverage of this draft report erroneously assumed the EPA had confirmed evidence that, for the first time, fracking fluid was proven to have migrated out of a well because of the hydraulic fracturing process. It is important to understand that the findings only now are currently undergoing peer review; in its current state, the report offers only suspicions, not causes, of the groundwater issues at hand in Pavillion.

Like many in the media who got the story wrong, upon reading the EPA’s most recently released draft report, I found myself with more questions than answers.  Those questions about a research report are normally issues addressed with either substantial revisions to the report or the rejection and disposition of a research report prior to its publication. The peer review process results in a procedure whereby experts in the field carefully read and evaluate a draft research report, providing the authors with challenges, questions and areas for clarification.  The dialogue and background involved in initial peer review is essential to improving the quality of any research report that is finally accepted for publication, thereby increasing the potential for understanding an issue by other researchers, media, and the public. The process is an important one for science. It is the foundation of respected scientific journals.  Where it fails, good science fails.

The questions that I asked myself upon reading the report were ones that could have been addressed in an appropriate peer-review process.  For example, the draft report observes that some surface casings were “as shallow as 110 meters below ground surface.”  The report goes on to state, “With the exception of two production wells, surface casings of gas production wells do not extend below the maximum depth of domestic wells in the areas of investigation.”  Petroleum engineers in their review of the report could have addressed the extent to which any ground water contamination resulted from improper design and construction associated with the well bore or cement bond, thereby leading to the migration of fracking fluids into the ground water supply.  If the design and construction were a probable cause, then the conclusions and the implications of the report could have been altered to provide better context for that possibility rather than leaving an apparent implication about the general role of the hydraulic fracturing process.

The report also raised questions that could have been addressed by peer review from geologists, for example, questions about the appropriateness of the Pavillion substrata for the sort of technology employed there.  The EPA report notes that, “There is little lateral and vertical continuity to hydraulically fractured tight sandstones and no lithologic barrier to stop upward vertical migration of aqueous constituents of hydraulic fracturing in the event of excursion from fractures.”  This area is known as the Wind River Formation, and it has been subject to previous research, e.g., a 1984 article by Osiensky et al., Monitoring and Mathematical Modeling of Contaminated Ground-Water Plumes in Fluvial Environments.  Their work addressed contamination from uranium mill waste, and it made the following observation about the Wind River Formation, “The pattern of seepage migration suggests that zones of high hydraulic conductivity (i.e., buried stream channels) . . . are controlling the movement of contaminants.”  It is possible, then, that the particular characteristics of the Wind River Formation may have led to natural seepage that could have contaminated ground water.  It is also possible that the Wind River Formation is significantly disparate from areas such as Utica and Marcellus where hydraulic fracturing technology is also employed.

Questions arise as well about other areas of the draft report, including the chemistry used.  For example, are the detected variances in the presence of certain chemicals reasonably linked to fracking, and is the failure to find similar results in different test wells realistic, given the methodology?  In light of the questions raised already in just the first few days since release of the report, chemists or chemical engineers weighing in during the peer review process may well find other significant areas for further study, thereby limiting  or circumscribing conclusions of this report.

To make the claim that contamination is “likely” prior to the scrutiny associated with a peer review process undermines the research, leaving its methodology and initial results open to questions about the extent to which this research represents good science.  In the end, the draft report offers us little that is useful in addressing the questions that have been raised about fracking.  Instead, the report implies unsubstantiated policy implications that risk our energy future and our economic recovery.  We should expect more from any federal agency.

Thursday morning, William Colton, ExxonMobil Vice President for Corporate Strategic Planning, presented the ExxonMobil Annual Energy Outlook.  For many people, the most surprising aspects of the outlook are probably associated with three issues: (1) the decline in the energy use of light duty vehicles, (2) the drop in the role of coal in our global energy supply, and (3) the very significant impact of technology on the growth in the supply of tight oil and natural gas as well as renewables.  The forecast also makes clear that renewables will become a larger part of our energy supply, rising the most rapidly at a 6% growth rate but still representing only 4% of our energy supply by 2040.

Mr. Colton forecast that the energy consumption of light duty vehicles will peak around 2015 and decline through 2040, despite the continued significant growth in the number of vehicles on the road due to both growth in population and rising standards of living in the developing world.  The forecast is premised upon substantially higher fuel economies and declining average miles-driven per vehicle.  By 2040, 40% of light duty vehicles are expected to by hybrid vehicles and substantial improvements in technology will also contribute to the increased mileage-per-gallon of gas.

While coal represents one-half of the generation capacity of electricity today, global demand for coal is expected to decline after 2030.  While the reasons for this decline are complex, they are associated primarily with the extent to which coal is a source of greenhouse gases and other harmful emissions and the likely policy-driven limits on the number of new coal-generated plants that are built and the gradual reduction in coal-generated power plants taken out of electricity-production.  The forecast also considers the potential impact of a widely accepted price of carbon factored into energy production, but it does not rely on this as the primary reason for the decline.  The forecast expects a carbon price to be introduced slowly with relatively low prices per ton by 2040; it also considers the potential that nuclear, natural gas, and renewables such as wind and solar will be able to play in the mix of electricity production.  For example, the forecast expects that between 2030 and 2040, natural gas will represent 30% of the share of energy production for electricity.  Global gas reserves are massive, especially from non-conventional sources such as shale in places like the U. S.  The forecast of the global supply of natural gas represents a 250 year supply.

The forecast depends upon the role of new technology as a foundation for its forecast.  Economic growth theory (see, for example, the work of Paul Romer) makes new technology the primary source of economic growth, and this blog has discussed the impact of new technology with a variety of examples from the research of university-based faculty.  Of course R&D from business is also a very significant source of new technology.  In this ExxonMobil forecast, we are seeing the impact of technology in many ways – in terms of the decline in energy use by light duty vehicles, in the recent technology-related development of the capacity to extract natural gas from non-conventional sources like shale, and in the likely role of technology in the growth of the supply of tight oil.

The ExxonMobil forecast provides a pragmatic view of our energy future, one that continues to depend upon carbon based fuels but one where renewables and new sources of carbon-based fuels play an increasing role.  This is a forecast that is complex in its foundation but clear in its predictions.

The OECD’s release of its report, OECD Environmental Outlook to 2050, late last week has the potential to reignite the discussion of the role of fossil fuels in our energy mix and climate change; I hope that is the case.  This blog, when it has addressed energy issues, has maintained a pragmatic view toward our energy supply.  I know that pragmatism is eschewed by many today, but pragmatism leads many of us to accept that the development of fossil fuels is essential to our economic prosperity.  It also leads many of us to accept that growth in the use of fossil fuels like oil and gas will continue for many years and to support increased investment in energy-related R&D.  That pragmatism is why this blog has argued for the exploitation of shale beds for natural gas while supporting more R&D associated with renewable energy sources like solar or algae.

Although the full report will be released in March 2012, the OECD has already presented its key findings.  I believe that a knee-jerk dismissal of this report would be a real error.  Pragmatism about the role of fossil fuels and the potential role of renewables in our energy mix should lead us to embrace science, including climate science.  But science will not give us definitive answers.  The preliminary report, while containing policy implications about which there should be reasonable debate, states its conclusions in probabilistic terms that are associated with a sound scientific model.

Without more ambitious policies, the Baseline projects that atmospheric concentration of GHG (greenhouse gases) would reach almost 685 parts per million (ppm) CO2-equivalents by 2050. This is well over the concentration level of 450 ppm required to have at least a 50% chance of stabilising the climate at 2 degrees (2°C) global average temperature increase . . .

Our reaction to this 50% probability should be one that is pragmatic, neither leading us to adopt policy measures that stagnate economic recovery and growth nor ignore what some have labeled as the catastrophic potential of human-induced climate change from our use of fossil fuels.

The work that is being done in materials science has, as this blog has observed before, significant potential for our energy future.  While I have primarily focused in the blog on R&D associated with solar energy, there is much work that is being done on increasing our capacity to capture and sequester carbon that is released from the burning of fossil fuels.  This work in materials science contrasts starkly with the more widespread discussion of geologic sequestration of CO2.  For example, one article published this past year in Applied Energy examined the fabrication and characterization of superhydrophobic polypropylene hollow fiber membranes.  The science reported in this article addresses the potential for making modifications in a membrane for use in CO2 absorption.

Like related materials research, this work offers optimism about our potential capacity to mitigate atmospheric carbon release while continuing to use fossil fuels.  The OECD report is good news, especially if it leads us to pragmatic action like that associated with the increased recovery and use of cleaner natural gas, the investigation of means to mitigate the release of carbon with fossil fuel use or the development of renewable alternatives to fossil fuels.

The OECD report, World Energy Outlook 2011, was released just a week ago.  It makes clear not only the potential that natural gas has as a global source of energy, but it clarifies its increasing potential role in utilities as well as in industries such as steel that have depended primarily on coal.  The Outlook 2011 observed, “Natural gas is projected to play an increasingly important role in the global energy economy. It is the only fossil fuel for which demand rises in all three Outlook scenarios. In the New Policies Scenario, world demand increases to 4.75 tcm in 2035 at an average rate of 1.7% per year.”

The OECD Outlook 2011 examines by regional sector.  In light of the especially significant, anticipated growth in energy demand from China, it is worth noting the likely impact of this single, developing country on demand for natural gas.  China had announced in March its anticipated growth in dependency on natural gas with the release of its 12th Five Year Plan for 2011 – 2015.  As a part of China’s stated commitment to the Copenhagen pledge, the Plan included natural gas along with nuclear and renewables as energy sources for which it foresees an increasing dependency.

Related to China’s Copenhagen pledge, this blog along with others has observed that natural gas is an increasingly important transition fuel.  Very substantial global increases in energy demand will continue to make fossil fuels a major part of the energy mix.  With some possibility of carbon regulation, the advantages of natural gas grow, and as coal becomes more expensive, the potential for natural gas as a substitute fossil fuel is evident.

Commenting on China’s anticipated growth in dependency on natural gas, the World Energy Outlook 2011 observed, “The share of natural gas in total generation increases from a mere 2% in 2009 to 8% in 2035. . . .”. The OECD outlook also foresees growing dependency  on natural gas in the U.S.  While part of this forecast is dependent on some form of carbon regulation’s being introduced, Outlook 2011 observes that prices of natural gas will be a primary driver of increased demand.  Of course, prices will be held low by the abundance of U.S. natural gas supplies from shale beds.

The failure of Solyndra is having enormous implications – for the role of government in providing loans, for the appropriateness of particular tax incentives and for the value of government-backed business subsidies.  Therefore, it was no surprise to see the Wall Street Journal’s opinion on the complex set of government subsidies in the article, The Corporate Welfare State.  As many of us urge that governments extricate themselves from areas where they distort the marketplace and provide unfair competitive advantage to particular products, businesses and industries, it is worthwhile to ask again: what should be the role of government in the energy sector?

And there is a role for the government in the energy sector, I believe.  That role is one of a assuring that new energy resources are developed and that they are exploited for the benefit of U. S. citizens.  That role means that the government should support the development of new sources of energy and new technologies that make energy more widely available, cheaper and cleaner.  Essentially this is a role associated with research & development – R&D – a role that can be exercised in collaboration with contributing partnered, businesses and industries.

Just published last week in the Journal of the American Chemical Society was a representative and important research contribution from Sandra M. Feldt and her colleagues from Uppsula University’s Department of Physical and Analytical Chemistry.  Their work addressed the viability of using dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) in the place of the more typical technology of silicon-based photovoltaic cells in today’s solar panels.  In DSC technology, light is absorbed by a dye molecule which then emits an electron into the surrounding electrolyte. The advantage of DSC is evident from a manufacturing process that could use a relatively cheap, polymer printing process in the place of constructing photovoltaic cells.  The current technology’s inefficiencies and costs of materials inhibit the use of the process.

Among the potential solutions to the increased use of the DSC technology is the discovery of a mediator for the emitted electron that is capable of raising efficiency of the dye and lowering the costs from corrosion in the manufacturing process.  Sandra Feldt and her colleagues have contributed to our understanding of alternatives that raise the probability of viable, printable polymer solar cells – and their work was supported by the government, i.e., the government of Sweden and the Swedish Energy Agency.

Despite the focus here on solar energy research, I do not believe that the role of government in supporting R&D should be confined to renewable energy sources.  Elsewhere I have written about the long-term reliance that we will have on fossil fuels, the potential for new technology that decreases the negative impacts of fossil fuels on health and environment, and the importance of transition energy sources like natural gas from shale beds.  But there is a role for government in the solar industry as well, and it is in supporting solar-related R&D, despite the apparent debacle of the loan to Solyndra through the U. S. Department of Energy.

The most recent meeting of The Economic Club of Phoenix featured a discussion of our energy future by Gary Dirks, the director of an innovative research center, called LightWorks, at Arizona State University.  LightWorks brings together University-wide faculty whose work on sunlight has energy implications.  Perhaps his focus on photovoltaics rather than storage was no surprise; this was Arizona where sunlight is abundant.  However, Mr. Dirks’ comments on energy storage especially drew my attention.  It was just a few days ago that Ucilia Wang had written about a West Virginia lithium-ion battery farm for grid storage in her blog, The World’s Largest Lithium-Ion Battery Farm Comes Online.

Mr. Dircks had stated that the future of energy storage was unclear.  After all batteries, especially lithium-ion ones, are very expensive in addition to having other current shortcomings, including capacity.  In the face of these challenges, Mr. Dircks argued for the need to time shift energy use in order to diminish the importance of the challenges of storage for our use of renewable energy derived from sun and wind.

Certainly, some shifting of the time of day for our use of energy is feasible with alternative life styles and new materials that retain heat and cooling for longer periods.  However, the widespread availability of electrical energy, derived primarily from fossil fuels, especially coal, has led humans to make very rapid and attractive changes in their lifestyle.  And attractive, reinforcing lifestyles make substantial change to human behavior unlikely without attendant, significant increases in energy prices.  For the foreseeable future, the availability of coal, oil and natural gas make such significant price increases unlikely.

In the longer run, however, many of us believe that increasing dependence on renewable energy is likely.  As nonrenewable supplies decline, prices for fossil-fuel-generated energy rise, and climate-related issues impinge upon us, renewables become far more attractive.  With their attractiveness, reasonable energy storage solutions become essential.

The essential role of energy storage and rechargeable batteries like lithium-ion batteries can easily be understood in terms of the need to shave peak demand and level the intermittent supply of energy generated from renewable sources such as sun and wind.  As these renewables become increasingly significant sources of our energy supply, the demand for efficient storage of large amounts of energy grows.

The good news is that the issue of energy storage draws the attention of a wide variety of researchers as can be seen from the annual Materials Science and Technology Conference  that was held in Columbus Ohio a few days ago.  Energy storage was a topic of some attention.  Professor Xingbo Liu of West Virginia University chaired a program on Energy Storage: Materials, Systems and Applications.   He and his colleagues from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are investigating advances in materials that will make energy storage devices affordable and efficient.

Professor Liu’s work concerns novel materials that can be highly conductive at low temperatures, and it has the potential to produce the kind of advances that will make energy storage something that we can depend upon.  And with that dependability, we will be able to take advantage of the work on renewables coming from centers like ASU’s LightWorks without the need for fundamental and large-scale changes to human behavior.