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In April, Yi Cui was named the Director of the Doerr School’s Sustainability Accelerator. He currently serves as the Director of the Precourt Institute for Energy and is a professor of materials science & engineering and energy science & engineering whose work primarily concerns batteries.
ClimateWorks is a nonprofit organization that works to amplify the impact of philanthropy to accelerate climate solutions around the globe
New research reveals that, rather than being influenced only by environmental conditions, deep subsurface microbial communities can transform because of geological movements. The findings advance our understanding of subsurface microorganisms, which comprise up to half of all living material on the planet.
Researchers led by Adam Brandt estimated that the amount of methane being lost to the atmosphere from the Permian basin in New Mexico was equivalent to just over 9% of the methane being produced. Because a very small number of sites with large leaks dominate the picture, you can only see what is really going on if, as his team did, you have very thorough coverage.
A new certificate program provides a framework for Stanford Earth graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to learn new skills, gain practical experience, and produce portfolio pieces that will broaden their professional preparedness. The program will be carried into the new school focused on climate and sustainability.
Tapas Peshin (PhD Student in Energy Resources Engineering) will be working with California Air Resources Board (CARB) this summer as part of the Shultz Energy Fellowship. He will be working on Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) refueling including hydrogen and electric vehicle fueling station utilization for priority populations, such as disadvantaged and low-income communities that are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and air pollution.
Congratulations to Tapas!
Madalsa Singh will be working with California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) this summer. Specifically, she will be working in the Office of Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves and helping with evaluating the new net metering policy for California, which probably will be the most hotly contested energy debate in the state.
Congratulations Madalsa!
Jon Huster (Masters Student in Stanford Energy Resources Engineering) was selected for a summer internship with the Federal Energy Resource Commission (FERC) as an "Energy Industry Analyst". He will primarily be using data analysis tools to ensure electricity producers are following regulations. Click here for more info on the FERC Summer Intern Program.
Congratulations, Jon!
"This is the symptom of a larger issue, which is deregulation," said Stanford professor Sally Benson in an interview about Texas' power crisis. "In a world where the climate is changing quickly – and how, when and where people use energy is changing quickly – it's not clear that the market can keep up."
U.S. air pollution emissions dropped dramatically from 2008 to 2014, driven in part by the closure of coal-fired power plants. Now researchers, like Inês M.L. Azevedo, an associate professor in Stanford University’s Department of Energy Resources Engineering, have documented that health damages from air pollution dropped just as dramatically during that time.
The Precourt Institute for Energy’s Stanford StorageX Initiative is expanding its work beyond batteries to other means for storing electricity, such as in heat, carbon-neutral fuels and physical mechanisms.
Removing carbon dioxide from the Earth’s atmosphere will be a crucial part of addressing climate change, but we must holistically assess technology and address tradeoffs, according to a recent panel hosted by Stanford University’s Global Energy Dialogues series.
Stanford Earth’s summer internships have been redesigned from in-person, one-on-one mentorships to an online lecture series due to COVID-19 restrictions. An unexpected side effect is that more local high school students are being exposed to research opportunities in the environmental sciences than ever before.
New research finds that air pollution from sources in the U.S. leads to 100,000 deaths in the U.S. each year. While about half of all air pollution-related deaths from fine particulate matter result from burning fossil fuels, the remaining are largely from animal agriculture, dust from construction and roads, and burning wood for heating and cooking.
Geothermal energy is difficult to understand because it is located underground. How can geospatial mapping increase our understanding of this important renewable energy resource? How can GIS improve how we visualize and communicate it? Create a map (digital interactive or static) showing how GIS could portray or enhance the communication of geothermal technology.
Prof. Inês M.L. Azevedo and her team calculate carbon intensity. The carbon intensity of the U.S. power sector reached a new low in 2019, more than a third below its 2005 level, according to a new analysis from Carnegie-Mellon University. The drop tracks an accelerating collapse in the burning of coal.
An environmentalist group is starting a year-long project to map methane emissions in the Permian Basin as oil and gas production booms and concerns grow for emissions damaging the environment and wasting potential revenue. Eric Kort at the University of Michigan, Mary Kang at McGill University, and Adam Brandt at Stanford University will serve as scientific advisers for the project.