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Energy & Environment — Only 5 percent of US plastic recycled last year 

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Monday, October 24, 2022

A Greenpeace report finds only 5 percent of U.S. plastic waste was recycled last year. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia is stepping up its attacks on Ukrainian energy, and there's an unexpected energy problem in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. This is Overnight Energy & Environment, your source for the latest news focused on energy, the environment and beyond. For The Hill, we’re Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk. Report finds minimal plastic waste recycling in 2021 Only about 5 percent of 51 million tons of U.S. plastic waste was recycled in 2021, according to a study from environmental advocacy group Greenpeace.  The report, issued Monday, determined that only a little over 2 million tons of plastic waste was recycled last year. Moreover, after reaching a high of 9.5 percent in 2014 and an only slightly lower 8.7 percent in 2018, the number has been steadily declining in the last few years. The level had reached the 5 to 6 percent range by last year.  And that’s not all: The research also found no American type of plastic packaging met the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy Initiative’s definition of “recyclable”—that is, having a 30 percent recycling rate.  Two of the most common forms of plastic in America, polyethylene terephthalate and high-density polyethylene, are frequently referred to as recyclable, but the report determined that despite their frequent delivery to recycling plants, they are not actually recycled enough to meet the standard. Their recycling rate stands at about 20.9 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively. The reprocessing rate for all other forms of plastic is lower still, at under 5 percent, according to the report.  The writers speak: “Single-use plastics are like trillions of pieces of confetti spewed from retail and fast food stores to over 330 million U.S. residents across more than 3 million square miles each year. It’s simply not possible to collect the vast quantity of these small pieces of plastic sold to U.S. consumers annually,” Greenpeace USA Senior Plastics Campaigner Lisa Ramsden said in a statement.  “More plastic is being produced, and an even smaller percentage of it is being recycled. The crisis just gets worse and worse, and, without drastic change, will continue to worsen as the industry plans to triple plastic production by 2050.” The report comes the same week environmental advocates have raised objections to Coca-Cola’s sponsorship of November’s COP27 climate summit, saying the company’s mass production of single-use plastic contributes to the same environmental degradation the summit is meant to address. “If Coca-Cola really wants to solve the plastic and climate crisis, it needs to turn off its plastics tap,” Greenpeace USA Oceans Campaign Director John Hocevar said in a statement in September. “Ending Coca-Cola’s addiction to single-use plastic is an important part of moving away from fossil fuels, protecting communities, and combating climate change.”  Read more about the report here.  Zelensky: Russia targeted Ukraine energy grid  Russia launched a new onslaught of missiles against Ukrainian energy facilities on Saturday, knocking out power for many people in western Ukraine, Kyiv said.  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address that the strikes spanned Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk, Khmelnytsky, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Rivne, Volyn and  Zaporizhia regions, while other officials noted impacts in the Cherkasy and Lutsk regions. “We continue eliminating the aftermath of today’s terrorist attacks on our infrastructure,” Zelensky said. “The geography of this new massive strike is very wide.”   The latest in a pattern: Kyiv has indicated that Russia is increasingly targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in its latest waves of strikes and as of last week had knocked out more than 30 percent of the country’s power facilities.  The strikes have led officials to implement electricity-saving measures, including halting electricity exports and asking residents to avoid using major appliances.  “The main target of terrorists is energy,” Zelensky said. “Therefore, please be even more careful than before about the need to consciously consume electricity. The stability of the power industry of our entire state depends on each city and district of Ukraine.”  Ukraine’s state emergency service noted on its Telegram channel that missiles on Saturday landed at energy facilities in the cities of Khmelnytskyi and Shepetivka, which are located southwest of Kyiv.   No Ukrainians were injured or died in the strikes, but the agency said the strikes caused “large-scale fires and significant destruction.” Ukrenergo, the country’s electricity service, similarly described the Khmelnytskyi attack as “massive” on Telegram, adding that 70 crews were out still completing work to restore energy supplies to customers in the Rivne, Cherkasy and Volyn regions.  Read more from The Hill’s Zack Schonfeld.  COKE DRAWS BACKLASH OVER COP27 SPONSORSHIP Coca-Cola's sponsorship of this year's U.N. climate summit known as COP27 is drawing pushback from activists, who have criticized the company for contributing to plastic pollution. More than 200,000 people have signed an online petition called for Coke to be removed as a sponsor of the flagship U.N. climate summit, The Associated Press reports. Coca-Cola defended its sponsorship of the event, emphasizing the company's efforts to reduce plastic trash in oceans and curb emissions. The company said in a statement it shares “the goal of eliminating waste from the ocean” and acknowledges “efforts to raise awareness about this challenge.” EPA SEEKS INPUT ON NEW CLIMATE FUND  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is looking for input on how to set up a fund that aims to spur climate solutions that was part of the Democrats' climate, tax and healthcare bill.   On Friday, the agency put out a formal request for information as it starts to set up its "Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund" which aims to fund the deployment of climate-friendly technologies.   Specifically, the $27 billion fund includes $7 billion for states, localities and tribes to help them deploy clean energy technologies in low income or disadvantaged communities.   The rest of the funding assists nonprofits that help to deploy projects that would reduce or avoid emissions, including in disadvantaged communities.   In its new request, the EPA asks questions including what types of projects should be prioritized and how to define disadvantaged communities.   In a statement, EPA Administrator Michael Regan described the fund as an "unprecedented opportunity to accelerate the adoption of greenhouse gas reducing technologies.   “In designing such an ambitious program, EPA is eager to hear from stakeholders across the country, especially in low-income and disadvantaged communities, whose voices are critical to shaping the Fund and ensuring these historic resources reach people who need them most," he added.  WHAT WE'RE READING Freed From Venezuelan Jail, Houston Oil Executive Describes Being Used as a Bargaining Chip (The Wall Street Journal) Heartache, anger in Central Washington over drinking-water wells tainted by 'forever chemicals' (The Seattle Times) How the indoor air quality in our buildings is making us sick (Vox) Inside EPA’s climate strategy for power plants (E&E News) Sheriff arrests Forest Service burn boss after prescribed burn escapes lines (The Blue Mountain Eagle)  🛸 Lighter click: The truth is out there.  That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Energy & Environment page for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.  

A Greenpeace report finds only 5 percent of U.S. plastic waste was recycled last year. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia is stepping up its attacks on Ukrainian energy, and there's an unexpected energy problem in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. This is Overnight Energy & Environment, your source for the latest news focused...

A Greenpeace report finds only 5 percent of U.S. plastic waste was recycled last year. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia is stepping up its attacks on Ukrainian energy, and there's an unexpected energy problem in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.

This is Overnight Energy & Environment, your source for the latest news focused on energy, the environment and beyond. For The Hill, we’re Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk.


Report finds minimal plastic waste recycling in 2021

Only about 5 percent of 51 million tons of U.S. plastic waste was recycled in 2021, according to a study from environmental advocacy group Greenpeace. 

The report, issued Monday, determined that only a little over 2 million tons of plastic waste was recycled last year. Moreover, after reaching a high of 9.5 percent in 2014 and an only slightly lower 8.7 percent in 2018, the number has been steadily declining in the last few years. The level had reached the 5 to 6 percent range by last year. 

And that’s not all: The research also found no American type of plastic packaging met the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy Initiative’s definition of “recyclable”—that is, having a 30 percent recycling rate. 

Two of the most common forms of plastic in America, polyethylene terephthalate and high-density polyethylene, are frequently referred to as recyclable, but the report determined that despite their frequent delivery to recycling plants, they are not actually recycled enough to meet the standard. Their recycling rate stands at about 20.9 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively. The reprocessing rate for all other forms of plastic is lower still, at under 5 percent, according to the report. 

The writers speak: “Single-use plastics are like trillions of pieces of confetti spewed from retail and fast food stores to over 330 million U.S. residents across more than

3 million square miles each year. It’s simply not possible to collect the vast quantity of these small pieces of plastic sold to U.S. consumers annually,” Greenpeace USA Senior Plastics Campaigner Lisa Ramsden said in a statement. 

  • “More plastic is being produced, and an even smaller percentage of it is being recycled. The crisis just gets worse and worse, and, without drastic change, will continue to worsen as the industry plans to triple plastic production by 2050.” 
  • The report comes the same week environmental advocates have raised objections to Coca-Cola’s sponsorship of November’s COP27 climate summit, saying the company’s mass production of single-use plastic contributes to the same environmental degradation the summit is meant to address. 
  • “If Coca-Cola really wants to solve the plastic and climate crisis, it needs to turn off its plastics tap,” Greenpeace USA Oceans Campaign Director John Hocevar said in a statement in September. “Ending Coca-Cola’s addiction to single-use plastic is an important part of moving away from fossil fuels, protecting communities, and combating climate change.” 

Read more about the report here. 

Zelensky: Russia targeted Ukraine energy grid 

Russia launched a new onslaught of missiles against Ukrainian energy facilities on Saturday, knocking out power for many people in western Ukraine, Kyiv said. 

  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address that the strikes spanned Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk, Khmelnytsky, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Rivne, Volyn and  Zaporizhia regions, while other officials noted impacts in the Cherkasy and Lutsk regions. 
  • “We continue eliminating the aftermath of today’s terrorist attacks on our infrastructure,” Zelensky said. “The geography of this new massive strike is very wide.”  

The latest in a pattern: Kyiv has indicated that Russia is increasingly targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in its latest waves of strikes and as of last week had knocked out more than 30 percent of the country’s power facilities. 

The strikes have led officials to implement electricity-saving measures, including halting electricity exports and asking residents to avoid using major appliances. 

“The main target of terrorists is energy,” Zelensky said. “Therefore, please be even more careful than before about the need to consciously consume electricity. The stability of the power industry of our entire state depends on each city and district of Ukraine.” 

Ukraine’s state emergency service noted on its Telegram channel that missiles on Saturday landed at energy facilities in the cities of Khmelnytskyi and Shepetivka, which are located southwest of Kyiv.  

  • No Ukrainians were injured or died in the strikes, but the agency said the strikes caused “large-scale fires and significant destruction.” 
  • Ukrenergo, the country’s electricity service, similarly described the Khmelnytskyi attack as “massive” on Telegram, adding that 70 crews were out still completing work to restore energy supplies to customers in the Rivne, Cherkasy and Volyn regions. 

Read more from The Hill’s Zack Schonfeld. 

COKE DRAWS BACKLASH OVER COP27 SPONSORSHIP

Coca-Cola's sponsorship of this year's U.N. climate summit known as COP27 is drawing pushback from activists, who have criticized the company for contributing to plastic pollution.

More than 200,000 people have signed an online petition called for Coke to be removed as a sponsor of the flagship U.N. climate summit, The Associated Press reports.

Coca-Cola defended its sponsorship of the event, emphasizing the company's efforts to reduce plastic trash in oceans and curb emissions.

The company said in a statement it shares “the goal of eliminating waste from the ocean” and acknowledges “efforts to raise awareness about this challenge.”

EPA SEEKS INPUT ON NEW CLIMATE FUND 

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is looking for input on how to set up a fund that aims to spur climate solutions that was part of the Democrats' climate, tax and healthcare bill.  

On Friday, the agency put out a formal request for information as it starts to set up its "Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund" which aims to fund the deployment of climate-friendly technologies.  

Specifically, the $27 billion fund includes $7 billion for states, localities and tribes to help them deploy clean energy technologies in low income or disadvantaged communities.  

The rest of the funding assists nonprofits that help to deploy projects that would reduce or avoid emissions, including in disadvantaged communities.  

In its new request, the EPA asks questions including what types of projects should be prioritized and how to define disadvantaged communities.  

In a statement, EPA Administrator Michael Regan described the fund as an "unprecedented opportunity to accelerate the adoption of greenhouse gas reducing technologies. 

 “In designing such an ambitious program, EPA is eager to hear from stakeholders across the country, especially in low-income and disadvantaged communities, whose voices are critical to shaping the Fund and ensuring these historic resources reach people who need them most," he added. 

WHAT WE'RE READING

  • Freed From Venezuelan Jail, Houston Oil Executive Describes Being Used as a Bargaining Chip (The Wall Street Journal
  • Heartache, anger in Central Washington over drinking-water wells tainted by 'forever chemicals' (The Seattle Times
  • How the indoor air quality in our buildings is making us sick (Vox
  • Inside EPA’s climate strategy for power plants (E&E News
  • Sheriff arrests Forest Service burn boss after prescribed burn escapes lines (The Blue Mountain Eagle

🛸 Lighter click: The truth is out there. 

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Energy & Environment page for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.  

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

In Texas, ex-oil and gas workers champion geothermal energy as a replacement for fossil-fueled power plants

Texas has become an early hot spot for geothermal energy exploration as scores of former oil industry workers and executives are taking their knowledge to a new energy source.

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. This is the second of a three-part series on emerging energy sources and Texas' role in developing them. Part one, on hydrogen fuel, published on Monday; part three, on small nuclear reactors, will publish on Wednesday. STARR COUNTY — In 2009, on a plot of shrub-covered cattle land about 45 miles northwest of McAllen, Shell buried and abandoned a well it drilled to look for gas. The well turned out to be a dry hole. Vegetation grew back over the site. In 2021, a Houston-based energy company run by former Shell employees came looking for it. This company wasn’t drilling for oil or gas, though. Its engineers were looking for a place to experiment with their technology for producing geothermal energy, created by Earth’s underground heat. A startup called Sage Geosystems leased the site. The company installed a wellhead and brought in a diesel-powered pump. They used fluid to create cracks in the rock deep below the surface, a technique similar to fracking for oil and gas. One day last March, the crew pumped 20,000 barrels of water into the 2-mile-deep well. Hours later, an operator opened the well from a control room. Pipes above ground shook as the pressurized water gushed back up. The water spun small turbines, generating electricity. The pressurized water, which was pumped underground and later released to the surface through the well on the right, at the Starr County demonstration on March 22, 2023. Credit: Verónica Gabriela Cárdenas for The Texas Tribune Left: Water spins a turbine at the Starr County demonstration site. Right: An operator controls the flow in and out of the well. Credit: Verónica Gabriela Cárdenas for The Texas Tribune Sage and other companies believe geothermal power is key to replacing polluting coal- and gas-fired power plants. Even though solar and wind are proven clean energy sources, they only produce electricity when the sun shines or the wind blows. Geothermal power could provide continuous, emissions-free energy. “Geothermal heat doesn’t have those variable conditions,” University of Texas at Austin clean energy expert Michael Webber said. “If you hit a hot spot below ground — might be thousands of feet down — the heat won’t matter based on whether it’s cloudy or whether it’s summer.” Texas has become an early hot spot for geothermal energy exploration. At least three companies are based in Houston, and scores of former oil industry workers and executives are taking their knowledge of geology, drilling and extraction to a new energy source. “We’ve punched over a million holes in the ground in Texas since Spindletop,” said former Texas oil and gas regulator Barry Smitherman, who has become a geothermal advocate. “So we have a lot of knowledge, and we have a lot of history and skill set.” Hveragerði, a city in Iceland, where 85% of the country's energy is sustainable, either hydroelectric or geothermal. Credit: Raul Moreno/SOPA Images/via REUTERS Heat constantly radiates out from the center of Earth as radioactive elements break down. That energy warms water that bubbles up to or escapes as steam at the surface. Humans have taken advantage of that phenomenon — an early form of geothermal power — for heating, bathing and cooking since ancient times. For more than 100 years, engineers have used that underground hot water or steam to generate electricity. Geothermal power in 2015 fueled 27% of the electricity in Iceland, which sits on one of the world’s most active volcanic zones. In 2022, it generated about 5% of the electricity in California. The United States is the top geothermal electricity producer in the world. Still, the total amount of geothermal electricity produced in America is tiny compared with other sources. It accounted for about 4 gigawatts last year, according to a federal analysis, or enough to power about 800,000 Texas homes. Businesses such as Sage and government researchers say there’s a lot more geothermal power to be had by pumping fluid through hot rock where there is no natural water. With technological advances, a government analysis predicts geothermal power in the U.S. could grow to 90 gigawatts by 2050. That would have been enough to power the entire Texas grid during last summer’s highest-demand day. Companies are racing to develop their technology and techniques to harness this energy source. They vary in how deep they want to drill (from around 7,000 feet, which oil and gas equipment can handle, to 66,000 feet, which it cannot), how they heat the water (in the well or in the rock) and how they bring the heated water back up (in the same well that sent it down or with a second one). Like oil wildcatters, the geothermal industry must figure out the best places to drill. They’ll face the same concerns about triggering earthquakes that have dogged oil and gas fracking operations and previous geothermal efforts. In 2006, a pilot geothermal plant in Switzerland caused a magnitude 3.4 earthquake that damaged buildings and led to the plant’s closure. In 2017, a magnitude 5.5 earthquake linked to a pilot geothermal project in South Korea injured dozens. Companies should follow existing best practices informed by research to monitor seismicity and adjust or pause operations as needed, said William Ellsworth, an emeritus professor at Stanford University. States could also mandate these protocols. “You have to pay attention to what you’re doing,” Ellsworth said. And perhaps most importantly, the geothermal businesses will have to show they can compete with the cost of other power sources, with help from the federal government in the form of Inflation Reduction Act tax credits. The more the technology is deployed, the more the costs might come down, Rice University Associate Professor Daniel Cohan said. Getting the price where the federal government hopes for it to be cost-competitive is “feasible,” Cohan said, “but there’s no guarantee that the industry will get there.” The federal Department of Energy said this month that $20 billion to $25 billion needed to be invested by 2030 to move toward widespread use. “We’re all doing something a little bit different,” Sage CEO Cindy Taff said. “One of us is going to have a breakthrough that really commercializes this stuff.” The daughter of a geophysicist who worked for Mobil, Taff studied mechanical engineering and built a 36-year career at Shell. She worked her way up from production engineer to vice president, managing a team with an annual budget of around $1 billion. Taff explains how Sage Geosystems uses its Starr County well to store energy. Credit: Verónica Gabriela Cárdenas for The Texas Tribune With freckles and curly hair that falls past her shoulders, Taff said she knew the world wanted to pivot to new energy sources. Her daughter, concerned about climate change, urged her mother to get away from the “dark side” of oil and gas. When former colleagues from Shell told Taff they were co-founding Sage and invited her to join them, she got excited. Taff saw that Sage was a nimble company with people she considered some of the smartest in the industry. The geothermal business had a lot of growing to do, like the early days of wind or solar. Her work could have a large impact. “It was exciting to be working with people that I knew had a sense of urgency and made a difference,” Taff said. “And then, it was exciting to be working for yourself in a way that you can push the agenda.” So, in 2020, Taff took the leap. Her daughter joined the company too. Building interest in geothermal  In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spilled 11 million gallons of oil off the coast of Alaska, killing some 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters and 300 harbor seals. In Augusta, Georgia, 10-year-old Jamie Beard was riveted by the news coverage. “I understood things enough to know that that was not something we wanted,” Beard said. That experience pushed Beard into environmental activism, starting the next day, when she took a Kleenex box decorated like the ocean to raise money for coral reefs. She painted murals about environmental rights. In college, at Appalachian State University, she organized an Earth Day festival and tied herself to trees on a West Virginia mountaintop to protest workers scraping them away to mine for coal. Years before Jamie Beard helped launch Sage Geosystems, she was a student at Appalachian State University teaching others how to use solar ovens. Credit: Courtesy of Jamie Beard Beard went on to study environmental law at Boston University. She represented corporations, telling herself she could make change best from the inside. That proved incorrect. She joined a startup working on technology that could be applied to geothermal drilling. That’s when her life changed. Beard read an interview about the huge potential for geothermal power to provide electricity around the world. The interview was with Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Jefferson Tester, who led a team that published a 372-page assessment of the resource for the federal government in 2006. “The technology needed to advance … but it wasn’t like it had to invent a whole new area because it’s so compatible with what we do with hydrocarbon extraction,” Tester said in an interview with the Texas Tribune. “They drill holes in the ground and they pull fluids out of the ground, whether they’re gas or liquids, and they sell it. Well, that’s what you do for geothermal too.” Beard read the report over and over. This is my career, Beard thought. The history of modern geothermal power went back a century: The world’s first full-scale geothermal power plant started operating in 1913 in Italy. In 1960, Pacific Gas and Electric built the first commercial geothermal power plant in the United States at a spot in Northern California known as “The Geysers.” In the 1970s, the federal Department of Energy started researching pulling power from what was referred to as hot, dry rock. The country that decade suffered through Arab countries’ embargo on exporting oil to America, causing oil prices to skyrocket. Still, the technology didn’t get far enough for the concept to take off. The Larderello geothermal power plant, which is the world's oldest, was built in Tuscany, Italy. Credit: Enel Green Power Engineers built geothermal power plants where they could find existing water resources relatively easily, maybe marked by hot springs or fumaroles, which are holes where hot gases and vapors escape from underground, said Lauren Boyd, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s geothermal technologies office. But building new plants got riskier as prime locations got harder to find. Beard saw opportunity. She knew the oil and gas industry could develop technology quickly. The U.S. ushered in the “shale revolution” as companies drilled horizontally and cracked open rock with hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, to extract giant amounts of oil and gas. That technology could be used for geothermal. Beard, 45, is the type of person who speaks with an energy that rubs off on you. Her hair is cut into an angular bob; she wears artsy glasses. She made giving a TED talk look easy. Armed with a $1 million Department of Energy grant, Beard moved to the University of Texas at Austin around 2019 to convince people that now was the time to start a geothermal company. She argued that oil and gas experts did not have to be only the villains in the climate change story; they could also be the people who help alleviate it. Jamie Beard speaks at a SXSW panel titled "Geothermal and the Promise of Clean Energy Abundance" on March 9 in Austin. Credit: Courtesy of Jamie Beard “Oil and gas people are a gigantic brain trust,” Beard said. “They are a huge asset.” Beard had a young son. She learned he inherited a rare genetic condition that gave him a life expectancy of 10 or so years. A journalist from Wired who profiled Beard described a woman facing an existential choice: She could let the doom of his fate swallow her, or focus on changing the world. Beard started by reaching out to industry veterans whom she suspected were retired, golfing and bored. Maybe their grandchildren were after them for being part of the fossil fuel industry that contributes to climate change. Beard said she spent months talking with people like Lance Cook, who retired from Shell as a vice president. Beard said the reaction she usually got was “it’ll never work,” followed by a phone call a few weeks later that the person was still thinking about it. But Cook decided to jump in, and he became the chief technology officer for a new company named for Beard’s son, Sage. Chris Anderson, the leader of TED, known for its conferences with TED talks by experts on various topics, invested $16 million through his climate investment fund. Drilling firm Nabors invested $9 million more. Early successes  Beard wasn’t the only person who saw the potential of leveraging expertise from the oil and gas industry to develop geothermal in Texas. Tim Latimer grew up in a city of about 1,000 residents in Central Texas, where he remembers being fascinated by the Discovery Channel show “Build It Bigger” about constructing large projects that impact many lives, such as bridges, tunnels and dams. Latimer studied mechanical engineering at the University of Tulsa. He wanted a job back in Texas to be near family and friends, so when he graduated in 2012 he went to work on drilling sites while the shale revolution was taking off. Latimer considered whether he should be working in fossil fuels in a world confronting climate change. But working on rapidly developing technology alongside smart people excited him. Moving into wind or solar didn’t feel right after years studying drilling. Fervo CEO Tim Latimer at the Fervo Energy office in Houston on March 22. Credit: Mark Felix for the The Texas Tribune Then came the lightbulb moment. He found the same 2006 geothermal report that inspired Beard. He realized that what he was doing, which included drilling into high-temperature rock in South Texas, presented what he called a “huge opportunity for tech transfer” into geothermal. Latimer thought the idea was so obvious he could join a geothermal company already doing it. He found none. What if this could change how the world gets energy and no one tried it? he wondered. Like other startup founders, he’s articulate and dreams big. At a conference where some wore suits, he wore sneakers, a button-down and jeans. Latimer went to Stanford University Graduate School of Business and met a classmate getting a PhD in geothermal research. Together they started Fervo Energy. They headquartered the business in Houston. Their first Houston-based hire had 15 years of experience working for oil and gas companies Hess and BP. Fervo now employs 80 people, about 60% of whom came from oil and gas work. Fervo’s approach is basically to drill vertically, then use fracking technology to create horizontal cracks in the earth. That way, operators can send water down the well, where it can flow through the small cracks in the rock to heat before coming back up another nearby well. Two California energy providers have signed contracts to buy power from Fervo. Google also has a financial agreement with them. Oil and gas company Devon Energy Corporation invested $10 million. Last summer, Fervo ran a 30-day test in 375-degree rock in Nevada. They deemed it a success, and now the company is building a project nearby in Utah, next to where the Department of Energy has sponsored a geothermal field lab. They expect the project will put power mostly onto the California grid in 2026. Drilling deeper Back in Houston, in a beige set of warehouses on the south side of town, another company led by former oil and gas experts is taking a third approach. Henry Phan left a 19-year career in product development at Schlumberger, where his work included designing drilling equipment that could steer sideways, to join a former colleague who launched Quaise Energy. The company focuses on using millimeter waves — which are higher frequency microwaves like the ones used to heat food — to create wells by vaporizing rock. Henry Phan, vice president of engineering for Quaise Energy, stands with a wave guide that the company uses to direct waves from the surface into the hole they are creating, in Houston on Feb. 15, 2024. Credit: Joseph Bui for The Texas Tribune First: Employees of Quaise Energy stand next to a repurposed drilling rig that will hold a wave guide. Last: Vaporized basalt rock from testing at Quaise Energy in Houston. Credit: Joseph Bui for The Texas Tribune Oil and gas equipment begins to fail when temperatures below ground reach around 400 degrees. Drill bits wear down quickly against harder rock and electronics are pushed past their limits. Using millimeter waves would allow operators to “drill” deeper than oil and gas equipment can go — which means reaching hotter rock that could produce more power. The idea interested Phan, and he thought the physics made sense. Plus, he would work on cutting-edge technology that he thought could be a “big step change for humanity.” Quaise had a lot less bureaucracy than at the giant Schlumberger, where money going into product development seemed to be diminishing. In 2020, he signed on as Quaise’s vice president of engineering. He brought more former colleagues with him. Quaise aims to be able to drill into 300 to 500 degree rock by 2026, produce steam that can generate electricity by 2028 and go commercial after that. Their investors include Nabors, climate investors Prelude Ventures and billionaire Vinod Khosla. In early experiments with the technology, they used millimeter waves to “drill” through an eight-foot cylinder of basalt rock, plus samples of 1- to 2-inch-thick basalt. The examples sit on display in their office. “It’s cool to work on a new product,” Phan said, “but the fact that it can make an impact to … our life and our children’s life and their generation and their kids is monumental. So it’s rewarding from the point of view that we’re working on something that is so impactful if we can make this thing work.” Disclosure: Google, Rice University and the University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. We can’t wait to welcome you to downtown Austin Sept. 5-7 for the 2024 Texas Tribune Festival! Join us at Texas’ breakout politics and policy event as we dig into the 2024 elections, state and national politics, the state of democracy, and so much more. When tickets go on sale this spring, Tribune members will save big. Donate to join or renew today.

Quasar Conundrum: Brilliant Supermassive Black Hole Defies Expectations

The quasar produces high levels of radiation and powerful jets, but it has less influence on its surroundings than expected. Astronomers have revealed that a...

Astronomers studying the quasar H1821+643 found it less impactful on its environment than expected, challenging typical black hole behavior. Credit: SciTechDaily.comThe quasar produces high levels of radiation and powerful jets, but it has less influence on its surroundings than expected.Astronomers have revealed that a brilliant supermassive black hole is not living up to expectations. Although it is responsible for high levels of radiation and powerful jets, this giant black hole is not as influential on its surroundings as many of its counterparts in other galaxies.A paper describing these results, by a team including W. Niel Brandt, the Eberly Family Chair Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and professor of physics at Penn State, was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Close-Up on the Closest QuasarThe study, using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, looked at the closest quasar to Earth. Known as H1821+643, this quasar is about 3.4 billion light-years from Earth and sits in a cluster of galaxies. Quasars are a rare and extreme class of supermassive black holes that are furiously pulling material inwards, producing intense radiation and sometimes powerful jets.“I have long desired to investigate this remarkable quasar better with Chandra’s keen eyesight,” Brandt said. “I suspected this quasar’s `bark’ would be worse than its `bite’ — that is, its impressive pyrotechnics do not imply similarly impressive environmental impact. I’m delighted that our dogged determination eventually paid off and confirmed my suspicions!”In the center of this image is the quasar H1821+643, a rapidly growing supermassive black hole that astronomers have found is underachieving, despite producing intense radiation and a jet of particles seen in radio data from the Very Large Array, in red. Located in the middle of a cluster of galaxies, H1821+643 is surrounded by huge quantities of hot gas detected in X-rays by Chandra, in blue. The high temperatures and densities of the hot gas around the quasar shows that the black hole is having a weaker impact on its host galaxy than many of its other counterparts in other galaxy clusters. H1821+643 is the closest quasar to Earth in a cluster of galaxies. It is located 3.4 billion light-years from Earth and the image is about a million light-years across at the distance of the quasar. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Nottingham/H. Russell et al.; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. WolkQuasar Impact: A Detailed ExaminationMost growing supermassive black holes pull material in less quickly than quasars. Astronomers have studied the impact of these more common black holes by observing ones in the centers of galaxy clusters. Regular outbursts from such black holes prevent the huge amounts of superheated gas they are embedded in from cooling down, which limits how many stars form in their host galaxies and how much fuel gets funneled toward the black hole. Much less is known about how much influence quasars in galaxy clusters have on their surroundings.“We have found that the quasar in our study appears to have relinquished much of the control imposed by more slowly growing black holes,” said Helen Russell of the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, who led the new study. “The black hole’s appetite is not matched by its influence.”Uncovering the Cosmic ParadoxTo reach this conclusion, the team used Chandra to study the hot gas that H1821+643 and its host galaxy are shrouded in. The bright X-rays from the quasar, however, made it difficult to study the weaker X-rays from the hot gas.“We had to carefully remove the X-ray glare to reveal what the black hole’s influence is,” said co-author Paul Nulsen of the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard and the Smithsonian. “We could then see that it’s actually having little effect on its surroundings.”Gas Dynamics and Future ImplicationsThe team found that the density of gas near the black hole in the center of the galaxy is much higher, and the gas temperatures much lower, than in regions farther away. Scientists expect the hot gas to behave like this when there are little or no sources of energy — typically outbursts from a black hole — to prevent the hot gas from cooling down and flowing toward the center of the cluster.“The giant black hole is generating a lot less heat than most of the others in the centers of galaxy clusters,” said co-author Lucy Clews of the Open University in the U.K. “This allows the hot gas to rapidly cool down and form new stars, and also act as a fuel source for the black hole.”The researchers determined that hot gas equivalent to about 3,000 times the mass of the sun per year is cooling to the point that it is no longer visible in X-rays. This rapid cooling can easily supply enough material for the 120 solar masses of new stars observed to form in the host galaxy every year, and the 40 solar masses consumed by the black hole each year.The team also examined the possibility that the radiation from the quasar is directly causing the cluster’s hot gas to cool down. This involves photons of light from the quasar colliding with electrons in the hot gas, causing the photons to become more energetic and the electrons to lose energy and cool down. The team’s study showed that this type of cooling is probably occurring in the cluster containing H1821+643 but is much too weak to explain the large amount of gas cooling seen.“While this black hole may be underachieving by not pumping heat into its environment, the current state of affairs will likely not last forever,” said co-author Thomas Braben of the University of Nottingham. “Eventually the rapid fuel intake by the black hole should increase the power of its jets and strongly heat the gas. The growth of the black hole and its galaxy should then drastically slow down.”Reference: “A cooling flow around the low-redshift quasar H1821+643” by H R Russell, P E J Nulsen, A C Fabian, T E Braben, W N Brandt, L Clews, M McDonald, C S Reynolds, J S Sanders and S Veilleux, 27 January 2024, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stae026Brandt’s work on the project was supported by the Penn State Eberly Family Chair in Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Chandra X-ray Center.

Science Simplified: What Is Hydropower?

What Is Hydropower? The power of water has been used to perform work for thousands of years. Since flowing water has energy that can be...

Hydropower, a cornerstone of renewable energy, has evolved since the late 19th century, supporting solar and wind power through its storage and generation capabilities. Different types of hydropower plants, like run-of-river, reservoir, and pumped storage, cater to varying energy demands.What Is Hydropower?The power of water has been used to perform work for thousands of years. Since flowing water has energy that can be captured and turned into electricity, hydroelectric power, also known as hydropower, became an electricity source in the late 19th century.VIDEOIn this Science 101: What is hydropower, engineer Quentin Ploussard and director for Argonne National Laboratory’s Center for Energy, Environmental, and Economic Systems Analysis Vladimir Koritarov describe how water is used to generate and store electricity. Hydropower plays an important role in supporting renewable energy sources such as wind and solar that can’t always produce electricity. Hydropower acts like a battery by being able to store energy and use when needed. For over 35 years, Argonne has been helping countries around the world meet the growing demand of hydropower by developing computer models and tools that help make decisions about power grids, water use and hydropower plants.Hydropower is one of the largest producers of renewable energy today. It also plays an important role in supporting other renewable energy sources such as fast-growing solar and wind power. When the sun isn’t shining and the wind dies down, those energy sources can’t produce electricity. Hydropower can help by releasing more water from its reservoirs to increase electricity generation. On the other hand, when there is too much wind and solar generation available, hydropower can store surplus energy as water in reservoirs for later use. There are several types of hydropower plants:Run-of-river plants store little or no energy. Their ability to generate electricity varies by the water flow of the river.Reservoir plants have storage capabilities, and they can adjust their electricity generation based on demand.Pumped storage hydropower (PSH) plants operate as large water batteries. PSH plants circulate water between two bodies of water that are at different elevations — one higher and one lower. Water is pumped into the upper body of water to store energy, and then released into the lower body of water when there is a need to generate electricity. PSH plants currently provide about 93% of all utility-scale energy storage in the U.S.Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have been helping meet the world’s growing demand for hydropower for over 35 years. Since building new hydropower plants or updating existing once can be challenging, Argonne has developed computer models that are now used in over 20 countries to help governments and grid operators plan their power grids, improve water use, determine capabilities and provide cost-benefit estimates of hydropower services.Argonne scientists have also teamed up with other U.S. national laboratories and PSH developers to create a valuation guidebook to help decision-makers expand existing plants or build new facilities.Argonne’s capabilities help the hydropower industry by:Credit: Argonne National LaboratoryWhat Is Hydropower?Hydropower is one of the oldest and largest sources of renewable energy.Hydropower uses the natural flow of moving water to generate electricity. Hydroelectric plants provide about 60% of renewable electricity worldwide.The main types of hydropower plants include run-of-river, storage, and pumped storage hydropower. Run-of-river hydropower plants have little or no storage capabilities. Storage hydropower plants typically have large reservoirs with significant storage capacity, while pumped storage hydropower plants operate as giant water batteries.Pumped storage hydropower plants generate electricity when needed by having water in an (1) upper reservoir flow downward to spin (2) turbines and (3) generators, thus generating electricity that can be supplied to the (4) energy grid in seconds. The water is later (5) pumped back to the upper reservoir when electricity is plentiful and less valuable.Pumped storage hydropower is currently the only commercialized technology for long-duration storage, which will become increasingly valuable as the power system evolves to include wind and solar generation.

Geothermal is the hottest thing in clean energy. Here’s why

Earth’s interior contains an inexhaustible supply of heat, its many layers continuously warmed by the furnace-like core of our planet. For millennia, humans have tapped into this abundance for cooking food and keeping warm. More recently, over the last century, countries have harnessed geothermal energy to produce…

Earth’s interior contains an inexhaustible supply of heat, its many layers continuously warmed by the furnace-like core of our planet. For millennia, humans have tapped into this abundance for cooking food and keeping warm. More recently, over the last century, countries have harnessed geothermal energy to produce electricity from volcanoes in Iceland and Indonesia, underground heat pockets in Kenya, and bubbling hot springs in Italy and the United States. But these efforts have only scratched the surface of geothermal’s potential. As the urgency of addressing the climate crisis makes it necessary to find sources of always-on, emissions-free energy, the energy source is experiencing a surge of investment and policy support for new technologies that aim to access more heat in many more places. Solar, wind power and battery-storage projects are already cleaning up the U.S. electrical grid. But energy analysts warn that these technologies might not be enough on their own to fully buck America’s reliance on fossil-fuel-burning power plants, which are the second-largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions after transportation. The grid also needs carbon-free electricity available on demand to guarantee it can provide the sort of 24/7 power needed by cities, data centers and industrial facilities like aluminum smelters or steel mills. At the moment, however, these so-called ​“clean, firm” sources remain elusive. Recent advances in geothermal technologies, demonstrated by a handful of real-world projects, suggest that harnessing the earth’s heat could be among the most promising ways to solve this clean-energy conundrum. But that can only happen if it can overcome the sizable challenges that stand in its way. “If we can crack the nut on this new-generation geothermal, it means we can put geothermal just about anywhere,” Cindy Taff, CEO of the Houston-based startup Sage Geosystems, said during a March 9 panel at SXSW in Austin, Texas. “We can complement the great things that solar and wind have already done — but with baseload energy,” she added. Where geothermal stands today Geothermal resources are available virtually everywhere. Getting to them is a different story. Today’s geothermal plants primarily pull hot water or steam from relatively easy-to-reach places like hot springs or geysers to drive turbines and generate electricity. That significantly limits the places where geothermal power plants can go. In the United States, just 3,700 megawatts (3.7 gigawatts) of geothermal power plants are operating across seven states, amounting to only about 0.4 percent of total U.S. electricity generation in 2023. In recent years, both the U.S. government and private investors have started spending hundreds of millions of dollars to develop ​“next-generation” technologies that make it easier and cheaper to access the earth’s heat nationwide. If these systems reach commercial scale, they could expand the nation’s geothermal capacity by more than twentyfold, adding at least 90 GW of firm and flexible power to America’s grid by 2050, the U.S. Department of Energy said in a report released on March 18. That’s equal to nearly 10 percent of current U.S. electricity capacity. Next-generation technologies include several different approaches, all of which rely to some extent on the expertise and deep pockets of another subterranean energy industry: oil and gas. One category in particular, ​“enhanced geothermal systems,” uses the same horizontal drilling and fracking techniques as the shale gas industry. Dozens of startups are now crowding into the space. So far, only a few — including Eavor, Fervo Energy and Sage Geosystems — have successfully deployed full-scale, real-world projects in North America. Many steps still need to happen before the sector can grow beyond its buzzy beginnings, including reforming federal permitting, finding corporate buyers for clean energy and mitigating the potential for environmental impacts. Still, the industry’s most pressing priority right now can be described simply as this: raising gobsmacking amounts of early-stage investment capital. Geothermal developers need the money so they can iterate — that is, drill lots of holes — to both refine their technologies and drive down construction costs. Signs of this improving-by-doing approach are already emerging. Utah Forge, a $220 million initiative led by the DOE, improved drilling speeds by over 500 percent in three years on its enhanced geothermal project in Beaver County, Utah. Just next door, Fervo Energy reduced its drilling times by 70 percent, which helped cut costs nearly in half, from $9.4 million to $4.8 million per well, at its Cape Station project, the startup recently announced. Utah Forge is a dedicated underground field laboratory led by DOE and the University of Utah. (Eric Larson, Flash Point SLC) If this trend continues, next-generation geothermal could follow a trajectory similar to that of solar power or batteries — two clean-energy technologies that have risen to the top of the energy system as they’ve tumbled down the cost curve, said Jonah Wagner, a principal assistant director at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “If you look at why their costs have come down so fast, a huge part of it is driven by the nature of, as you expand your manufacturing base, as you make more repeat deployments of the same exact thing…you hit a point where you achieve cost-competitiveness,” Wagner said during the SXSW panel. “And then you can totally ramp up,” he added. Getting geothermal to stand on its own To make the leap from intriguing new technology to a commercially viable energy player, next-generation geothermal will have to lean much less on public funding and become self-sufficient. To reach that point — which the DOE calls ​“commercial liftoff” — the industry will need to deploy about 2 to 5 GW of projects across four to six states and in five to 10 different geologic settings to demonstrate to investors and utilities that the cutting-edge systems can deliver as promised. That scale of deployment would require about $20 billion to $25 billion of investment from government agencies, equity investors, corporate ventures and other capital providers. Of that total, about $5 billion is needed to finance first-of-a-kind developments in particular. Many of those projects will likely take advantage of federal tax credits provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, which offers incentives for both clean-energy producers and their investors. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also includes sizable funding for large-scale pilot projects. In February, the Biden administration awarded a total of $60 million to three geothermal developers — Fervo, Chevron New Energies and Mazama Energy — to support their first-of-a-kind developments. If everything goes to plan, commercial liftoff is ​“attainable as early as 2030,” according to the federal agency. But ​“liftoff” is just the start. To achieve commercial scale — and become a cornerstone of a clean and reliable U.S. power grid — next-generation geothermal will need an additional $225 billion to $250 billion in investment to deploy another 88 to 125 GW of projects, the DOE estimates. That’s a gargantuan leap from only a handful of megawatts in place today. Last year, Houston-based Fervo began operating a first-of-a-kind plant in Nevada. The 3.5 MW project is now supplying electricity directly to the Las Vegas–based utility NV Energy. The enhanced geothermal system uses horizontal drilling techniques and fiber-optic sensing tools to create fractures in hard, impermeable rocks found beneath the surface. Technicians then pump the fractures full of water and working fluids. The hot rocks heat those liquids, eventually producing steam that drives electric turbines.

Ultra-Energy Efficient and Exceptionally Accurate – Stanford Researchers Develop New Type of Frequency Comb

Stanford researchers have unveiled a new type of frequency comb, a high-precision measurement device, that is innovatively small, ultra-energy efficient, and exceptionally accurate. With continued...

Stanford researchers have developed a new, miniature frequency comb that is highly energy-efficient and precise, potentially enabling its integration into everyday electronics for applications like medical diagnostics and environmental monitoring. This “microcomb” leverages thin film lithium niobate technology to overcome traditional limitations, offering a scalable solution for compact, low-power devices.Stanford researchers have unveiled a new type of frequency comb, a high-precision measurement device, that is innovatively small, ultra-energy efficient, and exceptionally accurate. With continued development, this breakthrough “microcomb” – which is detailed in a study published in Nature – could be the basis for mass-market adoption of the devices in everyday electronics.Frequency combs are specialized lasers that generate evenly spaced-out lines of light akin to the teeth of a comb or, more aptly, the tick marks on a ruler. In the roughly quarter-century of their development, these “rulers for light” have revolutionized many kinds of high-precision measurement, from timekeeping to molecular detection via spectroscopy. Yet because frequency combs require bulky, costly, and power-hungry equipment, their deployment has been largely limited to laboratory settings.The researchers discovered a workaround for these issues by integrating two different approaches for miniaturizing frequency combs into one straightforward, easily producible, microchip-style platform. Among the many applications the researchers envision for their versatile technology are powerful handheld medical diagnostic devices and widespread greenhouse gas monitoring sensors. “The structure for our frequency comb brings the best elements of emerging microcomb technology together into one device,” said Hubert Stokowski, a postdoctoral scholar in the lab of Amir Safavi-Naeini, and lead author of the study. “We can potentially scale our new frequency microcomb for compact, low-power, and inexpensive devices that can be deployed almost anywhere.”“We’re very excited about this new microcomb technology that we’ve demonstrated for novel types of precision sensors that are both small and efficient enough to be in someone’s phone someday,” said Safavi-Naeini, associate professor in the Department of Applied Physics at Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences and senior author of the study.Wrangling lightThis new device is called an Integrated Frequency-Modulated Optical Parametric Oscillator, or FM-OPO.The tool’s complex name indicates that it combines two strategies for creating the range of distinct frequencies, or colors of light, that constitute a frequency comb. One strategy, called optical parametric oscillation, involves bouncing beams of laser light within a crystal medium, wherein the generated light organizes itself into pulses of coherent, stable waves. The second strategy centers on sending laser light into a cavity and then modulating the phase of the light – achieved by applying radio-frequency signals to the device – to ultimately produce frequency repetitions that similarly act as light pulses.These two strategies for microcombs have not been used widely because both come with drawbacks. These issues include energy inefficiency, limited ability to adjust optical parameters, and suboptimal comb “optical bandwidth” where the comb-like lines fade as the distance from the center of the comb increases.The researchers approached the challenge anew through their work on highly promising optical circuit platform based on a material called thin film lithium niobate. The material has advantageous properties compared to silicon, the industry standard material. Two of these helpful properties are “nonlinearity” (it allows light beams of different colors to interact with each other to generate new colors or wavelengths) and a broad range of light wavelengths can pass through it.The researchers fashioned the components at the heart of the new frequency comb using integrated lithium niobate photonics. These light-manipulating technologies build upon advances in the related, more established field of silicon photonics, which involves fabricating optical and electronic integrated circuits on silicon microchips. In this way, lithium niobate and silicon photonics have both expanded upon the semiconductors in conventional computer chips, the roots of which reach back to the 1950s.“Lithium niobate has certain properties that silicon doesn’t, and we couldn’t have made our microcomb device without it,” said Safavi-Naeini.Surprisingly excellent performanceNext, the researchers brought together elements of both optical parametric amplification and phase modulation strategies. The team expected certain performance characteristics from the new frequency comb system on lithium niobate chips – but what they saw proved far better than they anticipated.Overall, the comb produced a continuous output rather than light pulses, which enabled the researchers to reduce the required input power by approximately an order of magnitude. The device also yielded a conveniently “flat” comb, meaning the comb lines farther in wavelength from the center of the spectrum did not fade in intensity, thus offering greater accuracy and broader utility in measurement applications.“We were really surprised by this comb,” said Safavi-Naeini. “Although we had some intuition that we would get comb-like behaviors, we weren’t really trying to make exactly this type of comb, and it took us a few months to develop the simulations and theory that explained its main properties.”For further insight into their overperforming device, the researchers turned to Martin Fejer, the J. G. Jackson and C. J. Wood Professor of Physics and a professor of applied physics at Stanford. Along with other peers at Stanford, Fejer has helped advance modern thin film lithium niobate photonics technologies and the understanding of the material’s crystal properties.Fejer, who is also a study co-author, made the key connection between the physical principles underlying the microcomb and ideas discussed in scientific literature from the 1970s, particularly concepts pioneered by Stephen Harris, emeritus professor of applied physics and electrical engineering at Stanford.The new microcombs, with further honing, should be readily manufacturable at conventional microchip foundries with many practical applications such as sensing, spectroscopy, medical diagnostics, fiber-optic communications, and wearable health-monitoring devices.“Our microcomb chip could be put into anything, with the size of the overall device depending on the size of the battery,” said Stokowski. “The technology we’ve demonstrated could go inside a low-powered personal device, the size of a phone or even smaller, and serve all kinds of useful purposes.”Reference: “Integrated frequency-modulated optical parametric oscillator” by Hubert S. Stokowski, Devin J. Dean, Alexander Y. Hwang, Taewon Park, Oguz Tolga Celik, Timothy P. McKenna, Marc Jankowski, Carsten Langrock, Vahid Ansari, Martin M. Fejer and Amir H. Safavi-Naeini, 6 March 2024, Nature.DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07071-2NTT Research provided financial and technical support. Funding was provided by the United States Department of Defense, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; the U.S. Department of Energy; United States Department of Defense, United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research; and the National Science Foundation.

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