NEWSLETTER

NGI Update

Stanford NGI Community,

These are turbulent times for energy. Conflict in Europe, unlike any seen in our lifetimes, threatens the energy lifeblood of a continent. An unsteady emergence from a once-in-a-century pandemic is causing demand uncertainty and erratic price swings. And the earth is sending ever-more-obvious signs that the world needs to switch to a climate friendly energy system as quickly as possible.

Against this backdrop, I see even more importance in the work we are doing here at the Natural Gas Initiative. Since taking over as faculty director last year, Naomi and I have been working hard on sharpening the strategic focus of NGI. We are happy to be able to present, after much discussion with industry partners and faculty, a new unifying theme for NGI: sustainable gas for a clean energy future. While sustainability was always a major focus of NGI, Naomi and I have been working in concert to emphasize the sustainability mission in all NGI projects and events.

Along with this new theme, we have re-crafted our traditional “flower” diagram to accurately reflect the evolving NGI research portfolio. Some exciting changes that are worth noting. First, a new focus area is emerging that we are calling “Integration of Natural Gas and Renewables Underground”. In areas with high renewables penetration such as California, Texas, and Germany, it is increasingly clear that gas is vital to provide backup and reliability services, wintertime bulk energy when renewable outputs drop, and resilience in times of crisis such as storms and wildfires. However, making sure that the gas system is robust and economically viable in this new high-renewables future presents many major research questions. This new area, led by my faculty co-director Frank Wolak, will focus on the increasingly urgent issues faced by utilities and system integrators as this transition occurs.

The faculty leaders for the methane conversion focus area (Jaramillo, Cargnello, and Zheng) are shifting focus from liquefaction and methanol production toward a “products + clean energy” framework. Methane contains carbon and hydrogen. An obvious target then emerges: can we convert methane into both high value carbon products and CO2-free hydrogen? Such a “two-for-one” approach has the potential to remake materials markets, improve construction and manufacturing, and supply large quantities of CO2-free energy in the form of hydrogen. Such goals have long been sought, but recent developments in catalysis, new reactor designs, and improved materials science techniques have the potential to allow progress where it has been slow to date. This is a research area with great growth potential.

Finally, the unconventional reservoirs and data science areas will be combining forces in a new area called “Subsurface Solutions”. This area will include all manner of topics related to climate-friendly geologic gas resources. Exciting new areas include: underground storage of energy molecules for supplying wintertime energy in a clean energy economy, understanding the potential and possibility of natural hydrogen deposits, in situ conversion of hydrocarbons to low-carbon products, and potential for co-located energy production and CO2 storage.

Existing focus areas on Methane Emissions, Global Markets and Governance, and Hydrogen will continue to be important pillars within the NGI portfolio. Energy Access will be expanded to Energy Access and Energy Equity to incorporate work related to achieving energy equity as a basic human right as energy systems evolve during this transition.

I think there could hardly be a more exciting time to be doing the work we do at NGI. As the old saying goes: “rough seas make strong sailors.” There are incredible challenges and opportunities ahead, and I am looking forward to continuing our important work on natural gas in partnership with our NGI members to ensure a sustainable energy system for the future.

Adam Brandt

Photo Credit: WildEarth Guardians/ Flickr

Rethinking how to measure methane’s climate impact

The study’s lead author, Sam Abernethy, and senior author, Rob Jackson, discuss the history of the current global warming potential metric, how a shorter timeframe could help policymakers realign their climate commitments and more.

Jackson is the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor of Energy and Environment in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Precourt Institute for Energy. Abernethy is a PhD student in applied physics and earth system science who works in Jackson’s lab. The study was funded by a seed grant from the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

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A new catalyst can turn carbon dioxide into gasoline 1,000 times more efficiently

Captured CO₂ can be turned into carbon-neutral fuels, but technological advances are needed. In new research, a new catalyst increased the production of long-chain hydrocarbons in chemical reactions by some 1,000 times over existing methods.

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Hydrocarbon Ladder Polymers with Ultrahigh Permselectivity for

Membrane Gas Separations

Authors: Holden W. H. Lai, Francesco M. Benedetti, Jun Myun Ahn, Ashley M. Robinson, Yingge Wang, Ingo Pinnau, Zachary P. Smith, Yan Xia

Abstract:

Membranes have the potential to substantially reduce energy consumption of industrial chemical separations, but their implementation has been limited due to a performance upper bound, the trade-off between permeability and selectivity. While recent developments of highly permeable polymer membranes have advanced the upper bounds for various gas pairs, these polymers typically exhibit limited selectivity. We report a class of hydrocarbon ladder polymers that can achieve both high selectivity and high permeability in membrane separations for many industrially relevant gas mixtures, and their corresponding films exhibit excellent mechanical and thermal properties. Tuning the ladder polymer backbone configuration was found to have a profound effect on the separation performance and aging behavior.

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Biocatalytic Formation of Novel Polyesters with para-Hydroxyphenyl

groups in the Backbone – Engineering Cupriavidus necator for

production of high-performance materials from CO2 and electricity

Authors: Nils JH Averesch, Vince E Pane, Frauke Kracke, Marika Ziesack, Shannon N Nangle, Pamela A Silver, Robert W Waymouth, Craig S Criddle

Abstract:

Synthetic materials are integral components of consumables and durable goods and indispensable in our modern world. Polyesters are the most versatile bulk- and specialty-polymers, but their production is not sustainable, and their fate at end-of-life of great concern. Bioplastics are highly regarded alternatives but have shortcomings in material properties and commercial competitiveness with conventional synthetic plastics. These constraints have limited the success in global markets. Enabling bio-production of advanced bioplastics with superior properties from waste-derived feedstocks could change this.

We have created microbial cell factories that can produce a range of aliphatic and aromatic polyesters. A ΔphaC1 mutant of Cupriavidus necator H16 was complemented with hydroxyacyl-CoA transferases from either Clostridium propionicum (pct540) or Clostridium difficile (hadA), respectively. These were combined with a mutant PHA synthase (phaC1437) from Pseudomonas sp. MBEL 6-19, which rescued the PHA–phenotype of the knock-out mutant and allowed polymerization of various hydroxy carboxylates, including phloretic acid. This is the first-time, incorporation of an aromatic ring in the backbone of a biological polyester was achieved. Polymers contain para-hydroxyphenyl subunits are structurally analogous to synthetic aromatic polyesters like PET and high-strength polyarylates.

In a further advance, the transgenic strain was cultivated in a bio-electrochemical system under autotrophic conditions, enabling synthesis of aromatic bio-polyesters from H2 and O2 generated in situ, while assimilating CO2. Follow-up elementary flux-mode analysis established the feasibility of de novo production of twenty different polyesters from five different carbon- and energy-sources. This comprehensive study opens the door to sustainable bio-production of high-performance thermoplastics

and thermosets.

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Identifying coal plants for early retirement in India: A multidimensional analysis of technical, economic, and environmental factors

Authors: Nada Maamoun, Puneet Chitkara, Joonseok Yang, Gireesh Shrimali, Joshua Busby, Sarang Shidore, Yana Jin, Johannes Urpelainen

Abstract:

Coal-fired energy generation is the backbone of India’s power sector and considered a driver of its economic development. However, it is associated with detrimental environmental and health impacts in India and its fleet is currently struggling with overcapacity and inefficiency problems. One solution to address these challenges is the early retirement of some of India’s coal-fired power plants. In this paper, we introduce multidimensional indices that identify plants for retirement based on comprehensive criteria that include technical and economic characteristics of plants as well as their environmental impacts. We implement an ensemble approach, where we formulate 8008 indices based on all possible combination of seven relevant parameters and rank plants accordingly. This approach facilitates a comprehensive analysis of the plants’ performance on different parameters and provides a new outlook on plant retirements that differs from the common approach of retiring plants based solely on technical characteristics such as age, capacity, and heat rate. Our results show that top plants recommended for early retirement are typically 7 years older, 13% more expensive and have around 40% higher population exposure to emissions compared to an average plant in India. We estimate the potential costs saved from the retirement of the worst-performing 50 GW of generating capacity to be $21 billion resulting from shifting ownership towards a cheaper cost of capital and replacing coal by more competitive sources such as solar power.

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Should lower-income countries build open cycle or combined cycle gas turbines?

By Mark Thurber, Olu Verheijen

Over the last two decades, the combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) has become the dominant technology for gas-fired power due to its high efficiency, low operating costs, and low emissions. In lower-income countries, however, project development and operating environments can make the open cycle gas turbine (OCGT) a more affordable option – and more compatible with a high-renewables future.

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NGI News

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will convene an ad hoc committee to assess infrastructure and research and development needs for carbon utilization, focused on a future where carbon wastes are fundamental participants in a circular carbon economy. In particular, the study will focus on regional and national market opportunities, infrastructure needs, and the research and development needs for technologies that can transform carbon dioxide and coal waste streams into products that will contribute to a future with zero net carbon emissions to the atmosphere. The committee will analyze challenges in expanding infrastructure, mitigating environmental impacts, accessing capital, overcoming technical hurdles, and addressing geographic, community and equity issues for carbon utilization.

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Photo Credit: CERAWeek

About CERAWeek

For forty years, CERAWeek has been providing an integrated framework for understanding what’s ahead for global energy markets, geopolitics, and technology. Participants include senior executives, government officials, thought leaders, academics, technology innovators and financial leaders.​

Mission

CERAWeek brings together global leaders to advance new ideas, insight and solutions to the biggest challenges facing the future of energy, the environment, and climate. Now in its 40th year, CERAWeek is widely considered to be the most prestigious annual gathering of CEOs and Ministers from global energy and utilities, as well as automotive, manufacturing, policy and financial communities, along with a growing presence of tech. It has been described by the Financial Times as the ‘the Davos of energy,’ and by Politico as the “industry’s Super Bowl.” CNBC called it “the world’s preeminent energy conference.” CERAWeek was rated one of the top five overall “corporate leader” conferences in the world.

Photo Credit: AESP

About AESP

Founded in 1989 as a not-for-profit association, AESP is a member-based association dedicated to improving the delivery and implementation of energy efficiency, demand-side management, distributed energy resources and demand response programs. AESP provides professional development programs, access to a network of energy practitioners, and promotes the transfer of knowledge and experience.

Mission

AESP is a dynamic community of energy professionals dedicated to advancing the industry through professional development, networking, and supporting for a resilient, sustainable energy future. We are a dynamic community of energy professionals dedicated to advancing the industry through professional development, networking, and supporting for a resilient, sustainable energy future.

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