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Lithium mining: Does a global good require local sacrifice in the Southwest?
Decarbonizing global transportation requires building a huge quantity of batteries so fleets can convert to electric power. This will mean more mining to supply the lightweight metal lithium. So far, most lithium has come from Australia, South America, and China, but eyes are turning to deposits in the United States. (Source: Bill Lane Center for the American West)
The economics of making fish feed with 'stranded' methane
Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, can be captured and transformed into protein-rich feed for farmed fish – an increasingly important food sector. A new analysis shows how to make the approach more cost-effective than current fish feeds.
Improve or remove: Funding for U.S. dams
Key ideas and proposals from an agreement between the hydropower industry and environmental community, facilitated through a Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment Uncommon Dialogue, have been included in the $1 trillion infrastructure package adopted by the U.S. Senate. (Source: Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment)
COP26: Promise and limits of vows to rein in methane and protect forests
Stanford experts discuss strengths and weaknesses of major pledges at the UN climate summit that target methane emissions and deforestation.
Carbon emissions rebound to near pre-pandemic levels
Global emissions of carbon dioxide are surging once again as power plants and industry burn more coal and natural gas, narrowing the remaining window for limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Improved computer simulation can build faster, cleaner, cheaper planes
Faster supercomputers and better modeling are being paired with optimized wind tunnels and flight testing to design new-age commercial airplanes. (Source: Stanford Engineering)
Living near oil and gas wells increases air pollution exposure
Researchers found increased concentrations of air pollutants downwind from oil and gas wells in California, likely affecting millions of Californians who live near them.
California's oil spill and the challenges of regulating off-shore drilling
Environmental law expert Professor Deborah Sivas discusses the spill off the coast of Southern California and regulations surrounding off-shore oil drilling.
Researchers make alkali metal-chlorine batteries rechargeable
A new type of rechargeable alkali metal-chlorine battery developed at Stanford holds six times more electricity than the commercially available rechargeable lithium ion batteries commonly used today.
A better way to track methane in the skies?
Several studies have found that the EPA underestimates the amount of methane leaking from U.S. oil and gas operations by as much as half. A new Stanford-led study shows how better data can lead to more accurate estimates and points to some of the causes of the EPA’s undercount.
Simona Onori: How ready are we for our electric future?
An expert in energy resources engineering says “battery biopsies” are key to a tomorrow filled with electric vehicles. (Source: The Future of Everything)
What it may take to harness solar energy on Native lands
The Navajo Nation has the most capacity, but its troubled energy history and culture of livestock grazing make solar development fraught.
Local impacts from fracking the Eagle Ford
Stanford scientists simulated the local risk of damaging or nuisance-level shaking caused by hydraulic fracturing across the Eagle Ford shale formation in Texas. The results could inform a new approach to managing human-caused earthquakes.
The science behind decarbonization
A collection of research and insights from Stanford experts who are revealing the stakes of emission cuts, enabling better carbon accounting, predicting the consequences of future emission pathways and mapping out viable solutions.
How to close the clean-energy divide
An engineer and clean-energy entrepreneur discusses the troubling socio-economic gap in access to sustainable energy and the things we can do now to narrow and, perhaps, close it.
Revealing the cost of a key climate solution
While most climate scientists agree on the need for carbon capture and storage, there has been little clarity about the full lifecycle costs of carbon storage infrastructure.
Breaking U.S. nuclear waste stalemate could be key to Biden’s climate goals
Stanford University experts are cautiously optimistic that the Biden administration can change the U.S. trajectory on nuclear waste, and they offer their thoughts on how it can be done.
First closeups of how a lithium-metal electrode ages
Scientists have documented a process that makes these next-gen batteries lose charge – and eventually some of their capacity for storing energy – even when a device is turned off.
Lessons from the Fukushima disaster 10 years later
A decade after a powerful earthquake and tsunami set off the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown in Japan, Stanford experts discuss revelations about radiation from the disaster, advances in earthquake science related to the event and how its devastating impact has influenced strategies for tsunami defense and local warning systems.