GCEP Symposium 2010

Creating a Sustainable Energy System for the 21st Century and Beyond 

Tuesday, September 28 – Wednesday, September 29, 2010 
Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center 
Stanford University

GCEP Symposium Webpage

Background of GCEP

The Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) at Stanford University seeks new solutions to one of the grand challenges of this century: supplying energy to meet the changing needs of a growing world population in a way that protects the environment.

Our mission is to conduct fundamental research on technologies that will permit the development of global energy systems with significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions.

With the support and participation of four international companies—ExxonMobil, General Electric, Schlumberger, and Toyota—GCEP is a unique collaboration of the world’s energy experts from research institutions and private industry. The Project’s sponsors will invest a total of $225 million over a decade or more as GCEP explores energy technologies that are efficient, environmentally benign, and cost-effective when deployed on a large scale.

Launched in December 2002, GCEP is well on its way to developing and managing a portfolio of innovative energy research programs. We currently have a number of exciting research projects taking place across disciplines throughout the Stanford campus and have started collaborating with leading institutions around the world.

Welcome: Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP): 2010

Sally Benson, Director, Global Climate and Energy Project Stanford University

• GCEP goal is to be a creativity engine for one of the worlds greatest challenges
• Seminar is about “Creating a Sustainable Energy System for the 21st Century and Beyond”

• While we are thinking about energy efficiency, don’t forget:
  • 2.5 billion people use biomass for cooking
  • 1.5 billion don’t have access to electricity
  • (Source: UNDP & WHO 2009)
  • By 2050 we will need twice as much energy as today
• GCEP Summary
  • GCEP started in 2003
  • Funded by ExxonMobil, GE, Schlumberger, Toyota
  • $131 M funding allocated,
  • 75 full-term research programs
  • 26 exploratory research projects,
  • 30 institutions,
  • 292 peer-reviewed publications
• Areas: Renewables, Hydrogen, Carbon-Based, Electrochemistry and Electric Grid
• Example projects:
  • PETE solar coupled with Stirling engine to capture waste heat
  • Electrofuels: Cathodic biofuel reactor. Capture CO2 from power plant, pump to bio organism to create hydrogen and biofuels
  • Wireless electric power: Shanhui Fan
  • Sequester CO2 underground in lava based rocks
• Upcoming projects
  • Starting projects in large scale energy storage
• Other energy related initiatives at Stanford
  • Precourt: Improving energy efficiency now. Led by Lynn Orr
  • GCEP: TEchnolo for reduced greenhouse gas emissions
  • TomKay Center: Renewables, energy storage, grid management: Director: Stacie Bent
  • Energy seminar

Plenary: The Recent Situation and Development of China’s Energy Sector

Dr. Xu Kuangdi, Honorary Chairman of the Governing Board, Chinese Academy of Engineering; former Mayor of Shanghai

• China's total GDP is huge, but GDP per capita is $3,700 which ranks about 100 in the world
• Rate of urbanization is accelerating, from just above 10% in 1949 to 45% in 2009, 48% in 2010, in 2020 will reach 55%
• From 2002 to 2020 the will be 300 million people go from rural to cities to reach a total of 840 million (and 630 million rural dwellers)
• Primary energy production increased about 100 times in the last 60 years
• Growth: Coal: 5x, oil 1.9x, electricity 10x
• 2008: Coal: 68%, rest oil, natural gas and hydro
• They use all the coal they produce, import 53% of oil (2008), import some nat gas
• Increased wind to 22.68 GW in 2009
• PV manufacturing: China 4GW, Europe 2.8GW, ..
• Urbanization requires building another China by 2050(year?)
• Goal: Increase nuclear from 1% to 10%, increase nat gas to 15%
• In 70s Shangahi had 10M bicycles. Now has 3M bicycles and 4M(?) cars.

Plenary: DOE Perspective: Addressing the Energy Challenges of the Nation

Kristina Johnson, Under Secretary of Energy, United States Department of Energy

• Time to migrate from one energy source to another in the US has historically been 80 to 100 years
• Goal is 380 GW solar power by 2050
• Pumped storage: 6.5Quads potential in CA
• Only 3% of dams produce electricity
• Goal: 30% renewable energy by 2050
• Increase nuclear by 100 plants by 2050 (roughly double). In the 70s building 11 or 12 per year
• 25% of distribution and 10% of generation assets deployed 5% of the time (peak)
• Goal: 500k EVS by 2014,
• US battery generation: go from 2% to 40%
• 40% of energy use in buildings: half in residential
• Over next couple decades there will be significant capital required to de-carbonize or energy infrastructure but there will be positive returns thereafter
• DOE is working on $50m efficient low-polluting cookstove program

 

Plenary: Evaluating Environmental Trade-offs, Co-benefits, and Unintended Consequences of Energy Options and Climate Responses

Pamela Matson,Woods Institute for Environment, Dean of the School of Earth Sciences, Stanford University

• She comes from the background of sustainability science and likes to talk in terms of sustainability
• Overall well-being has improved but there are a lot of needs around the world still to fill
• How do we balance filling our needs today with impacts for tomorrow?
• Biofuels LCA assessment
  • Complicated to calculate
  • Sensitive to crop yields, variations in feedstock, previous land use
  • For instance, palm oil looks good up-front, but not when land use change is considered
  • GTAP model used for indirect land use change (ILUC) calculations. This is a type of "Consequential LCA".
  • When including indirect effects, cellulosic biofuels do well because of co-gen (extra energy)
• Integrated Assessment Models
  • IGSM, MiniCAM, IMAGE, MESSAGE, MERGE
  • Useful for climate change research
      
• Need more integrated demand models to to look at other impacts like freshwater, food?
  • Need new accounting approaches
  • Higher food prices bad for urban poor, but good for rural poor
  • Models should take into account social factors
• Seeing a trend towards expanding the role of models for more integrated assessment
• Biodiversity impacts hard because not much is known and it is hard to value
• Biofuels GHG reductions do not necessarily translate to overall environmental benefits.
• Can do mapping for solar resources and overlay with conservation land maps, degraded sites transmission accesses to come up with best places to focus efforts on. This can make the rest of the project easier, especially permits.
• Ecosystem services assesments
  • Examples of computer models with spatial map products: InVEST, MIMES, ARIES, IBAT
  • InVEST example: Hawaii Kamehameha Schools to make good choices for land use
• In the future: need better integration of models, linking decisions with impacts and incorporation of uncertainty.

 

Novel Mutants Optimized for Lignin, Growth and Biofuel Production

Claire Halpin, University of Dundee

Summary: Plants can be bioengineered to make better biofuels but work needs to be done to ensure that growth is not suppressed.

• Bio-engineering lignin for 2nd generation biofuels
• Lignin is non-food plant material and used for waterproofing and evolved to be very sturdy and difficult to be removed
• Goal is to reduce lignin amount or alter structure
• Genes for lignin biosynthesis are known and have 15+ years of research
• Trees with modified lignin (by manipulating CAD gene) can grow normally with no adverse environmental/ecological effects but less chemicals are needed to make paper from them
• However, some lignin modifications impair plant growth, still many gaps in knowledge and need to test combinations empirically
• GCEP project is to identify novel genes that give benefits for saccharification when combined with lignin changes
• Developing semi-automated screen process for saccharification and finding it is inversely correlated with lignin content
• Conclusion: lignin can be modified to significantly increase sugar release, combining mutants may improve further, may be normal to restore normal growth.

 

BioHydrogen Generation

Jim Swartz, Chemical and Bio Engineering, Stanford University 

Summary: Converting sunlight directly in hydrogen shows promise but there are still big hurdles to overcome

• Goal is to have sustainable system converting sun into H2
• Current H2 market is 50 Mil metric tons, we use 9 in US, majority is from methane, releasing 60 M mt CO2 (US)
• Don't have storage, need to focus first on point customers like:
  • Current markets: NH3 Fertilizers, Refineries, Chemical synthesis
  • Future: Portland cement
• Direct bioconversion, $20-$30/ft2 which should be profitable
• Method: Sun splits water, electrons use ferredoxin to hydrogenase to produce H2
• Problem is  hydrogenase is killed by oxygen
• Working on bioengineering of  hydrogenase to make it more oxygen tolerant
• Challenges: high conversion efficiencies, high productivities, inexpensive source of enzymes

 

Non-carbon Effects of Bioenergy on Climate

David Lobell, Stanford University

Summary: Converting exiting cropland to biofuels appears to significantly cool local climate mainly through greater evaporation but has a minimal effect on overall climate change

• Pathways of climate change: GHG, albedo, evapotranspiration (ET)
• Two case studies: sugarcane in Brazil, cellulosic ethanol in US
• Measure by satellite: temperature, albedo, ET
• Do these changes matter?
  • If Miscanthus was grown on 84 million HA it could offset 120 M metric tons CO2 per year.
  • This is a very small amount overall and equivalent to about 0.06 ppmv or less than 0.001 degC/yr
• Conclusion: converting exiting cropland to biofuels appears to significantly cool local climate mainly through greater evaporation

 

Battery Storage Tutorial 101

Yi Cui, Material Science and Engineering Department, Stanford

• "Energy Density" is really energy per volume and "Specific Energy" is energy per weight. However people often use energy density for both
• Electrochemical cells
  • Reactants A and B combining to AB and releasing electrons
  • A and B have different affinity to attract electrons 
  • A and B need to be electronically conducting, and this is one of the main challenges of batteries
  • Need electrolyte between them that is electronically insulating but ionically conducting and don't react with A and B
  • For rechargeable batteries, reaction needs to be reversible
  • Example: Fruit battery: Cathode: Cu, Anode: Zn, Electrolyte: fruit juice
• Batteries are very efficient since it is related to potential total electric work. In heat engines, efficiency is limited by Carnot efficiency
• Batteries are about 3 times more efficient than heat engines (90% versus about 30%)
• Capacitor
  • Two parallel plates close together with insulating layer between. 
  • E = 1/2 CV^2 where C ~ 1/thickness and thickness > 1000nm
• Ultracapacitor 
  • Uses electrolyte solution as separator
  • Charge also resides on surface of electrolyte
  • Thickness < 1nm
  • Leakage is a problem so electrolyte needs to be extremely pure
• Batteries
  • Storage is different since electrons are spread throughout materials, not just on surface
  • Power is less than capacitors since ions need to move which are a lot slower than electrons
  • Specific energy is related to weight of reactants A and B
  • For LiCoO2 batteries, theoretical limit is 370 Wh/kg based on: Delta G / Reactant Weight
    • This includes just reactants, not metal electrode, etc
• Theoretical limits
  
  • Gasoline can provide about 3 times more energy by weight. However because of battery overhead, gas actually provides about 10x more energy
  • For high specific energy need: large free energy, light weight materials, high voltage, high charge storage
  • Lithium is best oxidizing agent
  • Use lower elements in periodic table since they are lighter
• Li-ion Batteries
  • Anode is LiCoO2 50 micron, collector is Cu 10nm
  • Cathode is LiC6, collector is Al
  • Electrolyte is 10 micron
  • Needs to be rolled precisely so collectors and reactants don't touch
  • There alos needs to be conducting particles and other additives
  • Separator geometry and chemistry very important. One company putting on ceramic coating that increases safety
• C rate
  • 1C is a one hour charge/discharge
  • C/2 is two hour charge/discharge
  • 2C is half hour charge/discharge
• Charging
  • If overcharged the lithium metal can start to be deposited (electroplating) which damages the battery and can cause fire
  • Overcharging can also oxidize electrolyte which can cause it to heat and it starts to release oxygen in a runaway fashion and explode
• Cycle life
  • For 3000 cycles needs to be 99.99% coulombic efficiency for 74% capacity retention.
  • This is very hard
• Safety
  • Shorting, Oxygen release, Thermal runaway
  • Needs to be assembled in clean room because dust will eventually cause shorting

 

Evaluation of Redox-active Organic Electrode Materials for Greener Li-ion Batteries

Philippe Poizot, Universite de Picardie

Summary: Organic Li-ion batteries still in embryonc stage but show potential and can be greener

• Most batteries based on inorganic compounds that are non-renewable
• Li battery recycling typically doesn't recover Li
• LCA of Li battery manufacturing
  • 80 kg of Co2e per kWh of electrochemical energy.
  • 444 kWh of energy needed to produce 1 kWh capacity
• Greener Li-ion battery (Organic based)
  • Still has same basic structure, but materials are organic
  • Drawbacks are lower energy storage
  • Li recycling is easier because surrounding organic materials can be easily driven off
• 1st Series: Li4C6O6
  • First all-organic Li cell
  • However, only 1 volt potential
  • Easily recycled by combustion in air
• Conclusion: Organic Li batteries still in embryonc stage but show potential and can be greener

 

Nanomaterials Engineering for Hydrogen Storage

Daniel Friebel, Stanford University / SLAC

• Focus on single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) for H2 storage
• Had to treat H2 to bind to nanotubes and was successful getting it to bind and then release when heated
• Goals: molecular hydrogenation of SWNTs with catalysts to split the hydrogen molecule, detection of C-H bonds, look for possible electrochemical pathway to create H2 batter.

 

Developing Solid-state Electrocatalysts Based on Design Principles from Nature:

The Oxidation of Water and the Reduction of CO2 to Fuels

Thomas Jaramillo, Stanford University

Summary: Chemical fuels a great way to store energy, looking for inspiration from nature to find catalysts that don't contain precious metals to do this efficiently.

• Goal: How to store electrons from renewable energy?
• Direction: Store as fuel
• Challenge: design effective catalysts
• Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER).
  • Volmer-Tafel and Volmer-Heyrovsky both depend on good metal catalyst that doesn't bind H to strongly or too weakly
  • Problem is most of these catalysts are precious metals
  • Bio-inspired approach: MoS2. Not as active as precious metals but more active than common metals
• CO2 reduction reaction
  • Possible to do 8 electron transfer to go from CO2 to C4 (methane) and H2O (water)
  • Metallic catalyst important
  • Bio-inspired: From anaerobic bacteria: CO-hydrogenase
  • Fe4S4 cubanes 

 

Plenary: Information Technology Opportunities in the Energy Sector

Moderated by Mark Horowitz, Chairman, Electrical Engineering Department, Stanford University; Chief Scientist, Rambus

Panelists:

• Paul De Martini, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Smart Grid, Cisco
• Pat House, Co-founder, Vice Chairman, and Senior Vice President of Strategy, C3
• Balaji Prabhakar, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Departments, Stanford University
• Bill Weihl, Green Energy Czar, Google

Notes:

• (Nothing very interesting said)