By: Pep Canadell, CSIRO; Corinne Le Quéré, University of East Anglia; Glen Peters, Center for International Climate and Environment Research – Oslo, and Rob Jackson, Stanford University

For the third year in a row, global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry have barely grown, while the global economy has continued to grow strongly. This level of decoupling of carbon emissions from global economic growth is unprecedented.

Global CO₂ emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels and industry (including cement production) were 36.3 billion tonnes in 2015, the same as in 2014, and are projected to rise by only 0.2% in 2016 to reach 36.4 billion tonnes. This is a remarkable departure from emissions growth rates of 2.3% for the previous decade, and more than 3% during the 2000s.

Given this good news, we have an extraordinary opportunity to extend the changes that have driven the slowdown and spark the great decline in emissions needed to stabilise the world’s climate.

This result is part of the annual carbon assessment released today by the Global Carbon Project, a global consortium of scientists and think tanks under the umbrella of Future Earth and sponsored by institutions from around the world.

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ECS member Steve Martin receives a $2.5M grant to pursue research in glassy solids.
Image: Christopher Gannon

The world relies on battery power. The smartphone market alone – which is powered by lithium-ion batteries – is expected to reach 1.5B units in 2016. ECS member Steve Martin believes he may be able to take those batteries to the next level through efforts in glassy solids.

Martin, a professor at Iowa State University and associate of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory, has been in the field of battery research for over 30 years. Throughout that time, his main focus of research has shifted to measuring the basic properties of glassy solids and trying to understand how their ions move and the thermal and chemical stability.

Martin believes that using glass solids as the electrolytes in batteries would make them safer and more powerful. This is an effort to diverge from traditional liquid-electrolyte batteries, which have experienced issues with safety and energy capacity.

To push this research, Martin recently received a three-year, $2.5M grant from the DOE.

“This is my dream-come-true project,” Martin says. “This is what I’ve been working on for 36 years.”

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Renewable energy efforts around the world have grown exponentially over the past few years. Countries such as Japan have developed the world’s largest floating solar project, initiatives like Solar Hope are working to provide clean energy to sub-Saharan Africa, and Hawaii is leading the charge in the U.S. with its commitment to 100 percent clean energy by 2045. Now, the Netherlands has marked a new milestone in renewables by implementing a total of 2,200 wind turbines.

According to Dutch News, the turbines in the Netherlands produce enough energy to power 2.4 million households.

However, the 3,379 megawatts of power produced by the turbines is only a third of what the Netherlands needs to meet the European Unions’ energy 2023 energy targets. But Gijs van Kuik, head of the Wind Energy Institute at Delft University, believes that the Netherlands is still on track to meet these goals due to recent developments in offshore wind farms.

By: Mark Barteau, University of Michigan

President…Donald…Trump. For those on both sides of the aisle who vowed “Never Trump!,” that’s going to take some getting used to. On this morning after a stunning election, the first impulse may be to describe the future in apocalyptic phrases. Game over for the climate! Game over for NATO! Game over for the Clean Power Plan! Game over for Planned Parenthood!

While there are certainly extreme outcomes possible for these and many other issues that divide our nation, we may see some moderation, especially on matters where the divisions do not rigidly follow ideological fault lines.

Of course, the president-elect himself is famous neither for hewing to right wing orthodoxy nor for consistency between his various pronouncements. As he has said: “I like to be unpredictable.”

But make no mistake, in the energy and climate space Trump’s number one priority is to dismantle the Obama legacy as he sees it. And he sees it largely through the lens of organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute, pro-fossil fuel organizations severely allergic to regulations.

A prime target is the Environmental Protection Agency and its regulation of greenhouse gases via the Clean Power Plan and methane emissions measures, which are described as “job killers.”

Fossil fuel revolution

The Clean Power Plan, which sets limits on carbon emissions from power plants, has been stayed by the courts for the moment, but one should not forget that EPA’s responsibility to regulate CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act was affirmed by the Supreme Court. This sets up a potential conflict among the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

President Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress may hollow out and handcuff the EPA, but EPA’s responsibility to regulate greenhouse gases will remain unless existing law is modified by Congress or by a Court returned to full strength with Trump appointees.

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John Staser, professor of chemical engineering at Ohio University
Image: Ohio University

ECS member and Ohio University professor, John Staser, was recently granted $1.5M from the U.S. Department of Energy for biofuels research. Staser and his team will work to develop technology to make biorefineries more efficient and profitable, thereby reducing the cost of environmentally friendly biofuels.

Biofuels are combustible fuels created from biomass. Currently, they are the only viable replacement to petroleum transportation fuels because they can be used in existing combustion engines. Biofuels are typically produced from food crops (sugar cane, corn, soybean, etc.) or materials such as wood, grass, or inedible parts of plants. Ethanol and biodiesel are prominent forms of biofuels that offer an alternative to such transportation fuels as petroleum and jet fuel.

Staser will lead an interdisciplinary team to develop ways to process a class of complex organic polymers known as lignin, which is one of the many waste products produced in the biorefining process.

“It’s not really competitive with gasoline, especially if oil is $40 a barrel,” Staser says. “Before this biofuel becomes feasible, we have to find a way to reduce the manufacturing cost. One way to do this is to come up with a secondary revenue stream for the refinery. So, if biorefineries could waste lignin to do so, biofuel would become a more financially feasible option.”

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Check out the PRiME 2016 award winners for best paper, best poster, and best presentation.

Saya Takeuchi
Best Oral Presentation Award
Challenges in Advanced Analytical Tools and Techniques for Batteries: A Symposium in Honor of Prof. Zempachi Ogumi
Focused Ion Beams for Lithiation of High Capacity Host Materials for Negative Electrodes

Jingshu Hui
Best Oral Presentation Award
Challenges in Advanced Analytical Tools and Techniques for Batteries: A Symposium in Honor of Prof. Zempachi Ogumi
Layer Number Dependence of Li+ Intercalation on Few-Layer Graphene and Electrochemical Imaging of Its Solid-Electrolyte Interphase Evolution

Munekazu Motoyama
Best Oral Presentation Award
Challenges in Advanced Analytical Tools and Techniques for Batteries: A Symposium in Honor of Prof. Zempachi Ogumi
In-Situ Scanning Electron Microscope Observations of Electrochemical Li Deposition and Dissolution at Lipon/Pt, Au Interfaces

Koji Kitada
Best Poster Presentation Award
Challenges in Advanced Analytical Tools and Techniques for Batteries: A Symposium in Honor of Prof. Zempachi Ogumi
Inhomogeneous-Lithiation/Homogeneous-Delithiation Occurring in the Composite Electrode at Continuous Cycling

Melike Baytekin-Gerngross
Best Student Talk Award
Pits & Pores 7: Nanomaterials – Fabrication Processes, Properties, and Applications
Chemical Sculpturing of Al Micro-Particles for Polymer Composites and Universal Polymer-Polymer Joints

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Mark Glick speaking at the 6th International ECS Electrochemical Energy Summit.

Global investments in renewable energy have continued to grow over the past five years, exceeding $329 billion in 2015. As technological solutions that drive down costs continue to emerge, more countries are adopting standards to encourage the growth of renewable energy. In the United States, Hawaii is looking to set the standard in clean, sustainable energy for the entire country.

During the October PRiME 2016 meeting in Honolulu, HI, policy makers and researchers from around the world came together for the 6th International ECS Electrochimical Energy Summit, focused on Recent Progress in Renewable Energy Generation, Distribution, and Storage.

“For us, it’s important that we continue to bring the opinion leaders as well as the leading scientists and researchers to Hawaii because we believe that we’re the center of a lot of important activity,” Mark Glick, summit moderator and Hawaii State Energy Office Administrator, tells ECS. “There’s nothing more exciting to demonstrate relevancy than to have the leading scientists in the world in the largest research conference of its kind come to Hawaii.”

One hundred percent renewable standard

Since 2008, Hawaii has been on the cutting-edge of the renewable energy industry in the United States. As oil prices rocketed from $74.44 to $102 a barrel (inflation adjusted), the state found itself in a unique position to commit to greater utilization of renewable energy sources.

“After the oil price shock, we decided we needed to change our course,” Glick says. “So we set forth a renewable portfolio standard. At that time, we aimed for 40 percent renewable energy by 2030. Since then, we’ve been so successful at getting ahead of the curve on that renewable portfolio standard.”

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A scanning tunneling microscope image shows two three-wheeled nanoroadsters.
Image: Alex Saywell/Leonhard Grill

Past ECS lecturer James Tour and his team at Rice University have developed a tiny three-wheeled, single-molecule call they’ve dubbed the “nanoroadster.”

This new research builds on Tour’s light-driven nanocars, which he developed six years ago. Since then, additional research efforts have allowed researchers to drive fleets of the nanoroadsters at once.

“It is exciting to see that motorized nanoroadsters can be propelled by their light-activated motors,” Tour says. “These three-wheelers are the first example of light-powered nanovehicles being observed to propel across a surface by any method, let alone by scanning tunneling microscopy.”

This from Rice University:

Rather than drive them chemically or with the tip of a tunneling microscope, as they will do with other vehicles in the upcoming international NanoCar Race in Toulouse, France, the researchers used light at specific wavelengths to move their nanoroadsters along a copper surface. The vehicles have rear-wheel molecular motors that rotate in one direction when light hits them. The rotation propels the vehicle much like a paddle wheel on water.

Read the full article.

“If we have to ‘wire’ the car to a power source, like an electron beam, we would lose a lot of the cars’ functionality,” Tour says. “Powering them with light frees them to be driven wherever one can shine a light—and eventually we hope they will carry cargo.”

The ability to activate multiple fleets of nanocars at once opens possibilities of using nanomachines like ants, in which they could work collectively to perform some construction.

By: John Besley, Michigan State University

Earlier this fall, the nonpartisan nonprofit ScienceDebate.org released Donald Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s responses to a set of questions about science policy. Shortly after, a group of 375 scientists wrote an open letter focused specifically on the United States honoring commitments around climate change. Seventy Nobel laureates then penned a more general Clinton endorsement; President Obama had garnered similar numbers of Nobel winners’ support in the previous election cycles.

As someone who both studies science communication and thinks of himself as a part of the scientific community, I applaud scientists’ desire to engage with our broader society. The scientific community has substantial expertise to share and a responsibility to share it.

On the other hand, I worry that doing things like asking candidates to weigh in on scientific questions in the context of a “debate” may have unintended consequences that need to be thought through as a community.

None of the below should be taken as a rebuke. Rather, the point is to honestly consider whether the scientific community is making strategic communication choices when it comes to this election. Poor choices could give the dangerous impression that scientific questions can be debated like policy choices – while also cutting into the public’s overall trust in science.

What happens when scientists engage politically

I’m very hesitant to suggest that scientists bite their tongues about things such as the threat of a political candidate who doesn’t believe in climate change. But I also worry that the scientific community’s tendency to respond to many Republicans’ unhelpful views about science policy with continued feigned surprise, and occasional derision, might have negative consequences for the continued strong place of science in society.

As might have been predicted, the ScienceDebate.org efforts, for example, showed that one of the major party candidates has limited interest in reassuring the scientific community that its views are respected. The climate change open letter similarly reiterates that our best scientists know the Republican candidate for president doesn’t care what they think and find it (understandably) disheartening.

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The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has recently been in the headlines for safety concerns pertaining to its lithium-ion battery. Now, a lawsuit filed in California claims that the issues extend beyond the Note 7, and that many other generations of Samsung smartphones “pose a risk of overheating, fire, and explosion.”

While Samsung claims that the Li-ion safety issues are isolated to only the Note 7, researchers in the field of energy storage are still looking for a way to develop an efficient, non-combustible battery. CBS recently stopped by the University of Maryland to discuss just that with ECS member Erich Wachsman.

Watch the full CBS interview.

In an effort to build safer batteries, Wachsman and his group at the University of Maryland are focusing their research efforts on lithium conducting ceramic discs, which can handle thousands of degrees without any issues.

“Because it’s ceramic, it’s actually not flammable,” says Wachsman, director of the university’s Energy Research Center. “You cannot burn ceramic.”

(MORE: Listen to Wachsman discuss his work in water and sanitation.)

Since the rise of Li-ion battery safety in the news, Wachsman’s research has received more attention from industry. He and his group are currently working on scaling up the technology.