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Revolutionizing Energy Storage: Li-CO2 Batteries With Carbon Capture

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Tuesday, April 16, 2024

A groundbreaking advancement in battery technology offers a dual benefit of efficient energy storage and CO2 capture, made possible by a new catalyst development system.New technology could lead to batteries that store energy and capture CO2, offering a significant advancement in environmental technology.Efficient and cheap batteries that can also capture harmful emissions could be right around the corner, thanks to a new system that speeds up the development of catalysts for lithium-CO2 (Li-CO2) batteries.The technology has been developed by the University of Surrey, Imperial College London, and Peking University to address the slow and inefficient methods currently used to produce catalysts for Li-CO2 batteries. In the study, researchers used their tool to test and screen materials like platinum, gold, silver, copper, iron, and nickel to easily investigate whether they would be suitable candidates for developing high-performing Li-CO2 batteries.Dr. Kai Yang, corresponding author of this work, project co-leader and Lecturer from the Advanced Technology Institute at the University of Surrey, explained:“We have created a cutting-edge lab-on-a-chip electrochemical testing platform that can do multiple things at the same time. It helps evaluate electrocatalysts, optimize operation conditions, and study CO2 conversion in high-performance lithium-CO2 batteries. This new method is more cost-effective, efficient, and controllable than traditional ways of making these materials.”Li-CO2 batteries are a promising new type of battery that work by combining lithium and carbon dioxide; they not only store energy effectively but also offer a way to capture CO2, potentially making a dual contribution to the fight against climate change.Dr. Yunlong Zhao, the lead corresponding author of this study and a Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London, the National Physical Laboratory, and visiting academic from the University of Surrey, said:“It is crucial that we develop new negative emissions technologies. Our lab-on-a-chip platform will play a crucial role in advancing this goal. It will not only enhance our understanding of novel batteries, but it can also be applied to other systems like metal-air batteries, fuel cells, and photoelectrochemical cells.“This new tool will enable quick screening of catalysts, studying reaction mechanisms, and practical applications, from nanoscience to cutting-edge carbon removal technologies.”The study has been published by Energy and Environmental Science.Reference: “Developing highly reversible Li–CO2 batteries: from on-chip exploration to practical application” by Manman Wang, Kai Yang, Yuchen Ji, Xiaobin Liao, Guangpeng Zhang, Mateus G. Masteghin, Nianhua Peng, Filipe Richheimer, Huanxin Li, Jianan Wang, Xinhua Liu, Shichun Yang, Enrico Petrucco, Paul Shearing, Fernando A. Castro, S. Ravi P. Silva, Yan Zhao, Feng Pan and Yunlong Zhao, 21 July 2023, Energy & Environmental Science.DOI: 10.1039/D3EE00794D

New technology could lead to batteries that store energy and capture CO2, offering a significant advancement in environmental technology. Efficient and cheap batteries that can...

Advanced Battery Technology Breakthrough

A groundbreaking advancement in battery technology offers a dual benefit of efficient energy storage and CO2 capture, made possible by a new catalyst development system.

New technology could lead to batteries that store energy and capture CO2, offering a significant advancement in environmental technology.

Efficient and cheap batteries that can also capture harmful emissions could be right around the corner, thanks to a new system that speeds up the development of catalysts for lithium-CO2 (Li-CO2) batteries.

The technology has been developed by the University of Surrey, Imperial College London, and Peking University to address the slow and inefficient methods currently used to produce catalysts for Li-CO2 batteries.

In the study, researchers used their tool to test and screen materials like platinum, gold, silver, copper, iron, and nickel to easily investigate whether they would be suitable candidates for developing high-performing Li-CO2 batteries.

Dr. Kai Yang, corresponding author of this work, project co-leader and Lecturer from the Advanced Technology Institute at the University of Surrey, explained:

“We have created a cutting-edge lab-on-a-chip electrochemical testing platform that can do multiple things at the same time. It helps evaluate electrocatalysts, optimize operation conditions, and study CO2 conversion in high-performance lithium-CO2 batteries. This new method is more cost-effective, efficient, and controllable than traditional ways of making these materials.”

Li-CO2 batteries are a promising new type of battery that work by combining lithium and carbon dioxide; they not only store energy effectively but also offer a way to capture CO2, potentially making a dual contribution to the fight against climate change.

Dr. Yunlong Zhao, the lead corresponding author of this study and a Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London, the National Physical Laboratory, and visiting academic from the University of Surrey, said:

“It is crucial that we develop new negative emissions technologies. Our lab-on-a-chip platform will play a crucial role in advancing this goal. It will not only enhance our understanding of novel batteries, but it can also be applied to other systems like metal-air batteries, fuel cells, and photoelectrochemical cells.

“This new tool will enable quick screening of catalysts, studying reaction mechanisms, and practical applications, from nanoscience to cutting-edge carbon removal technologies.”

The study has been published by Energy and Environmental Science.

Reference: “Developing highly reversible Li–CO2 batteries: from on-chip exploration to practical application” by Manman Wang, Kai Yang, Yuchen Ji, Xiaobin Liao, Guangpeng Zhang, Mateus G. Masteghin, Nianhua Peng, Filipe Richheimer, Huanxin Li, Jianan Wang, Xinhua Liu, Shichun Yang, Enrico Petrucco, Paul Shearing, Fernando A. Castro, S. Ravi P. Silva, Yan Zhao, Feng Pan and Yunlong Zhao, 21 July 2023, Energy & Environmental Science.
DOI: 10.1039/D3EE00794D

Read the full story here.
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Former Sen. Alan Simpson, Known For Quick Wit That Bridged Partisan Divide, Dies

Simpson, 93, died early Friday after struggling to recover from a broken hip in December.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, a political legend whose quick wit bridged partisan gaps in the years before today’s political acrimony, has died. He was 93.Simpson died early Friday after struggling to recover from a broken hip in December, according to a statement from his family and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, a group of museums where he was a board member for 56 years.“He was an uncommonly generous man,” Pete Simpson, his older brother, said in the statement. “And I mean generous in an absolutely unconditional way. Giving of his time, giving of his energy — and he did it in politics and he did it in the family, forever.”Former President George W. Bush called Simpson “one of the finest public servants ever to have graced our nation’s capital.”“My family will remember him best not for his many accomplishments, but for his loyal friendship — and sharp sense of humor,” Bush said in a statement.President Joe Biden awards the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson at the White House in Washington, July 7, 2022. Simpson has died at age 93.AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, FileAlong with former Vice President Dick Cheney, Simpson was a towering Republican figure from Wyoming, the least-populated state. Unlike Cheney, Simpson was famous for his humor.“We have two political parties in this country, the Stupid Party and the Evil Party. I belong to the Stupid Party,” was among Simpson’s many well-known quips.A political moderate by current standards, Simpson’s three terms as senator from 1979 to 1997 covered the Republican Party’s rejuvenation under President Ronald Reagan. Simpson played a key role rallying GOP senators around the party’s legislative agenda as a top Senate leader during that time.Simpson was better known for holding his own views, though, with sometimes caustic certainty. A deficit hawk with sharp descriptions of people who relied on government assistance, Simpson supported abortion rights — an example of moderation that contributed to his fade in the GOP.His Democratic friends included Robert Reich, labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, and Norman Mineta, transportation secretary under President George W. Bush.Simpson and Mineta met as Boy Scouts when Mineta and his family were imprisoned as Japanese-Americans in the Heart Mountain War Relocation Center near Simpson’s hometown of Cody, Wyoming, during World War II.Sens. Al Gore, D-Tenn., left, and Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., prepare to appear on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press” in Washington, Sunday, Oct. 9, 1988.After leaving politics, both promoted awareness of the incarceration of some 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry in camps during the war. Mineta, who died in 2022, recalled that Simpson once was asked what was the biggest difference between them as a Republican and a Democrat.“Alan thought about it and he said, ‘Well, I wear size 15 shoes and he wears a size 8 and a half,’” Mineta replied, according to the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation.Simpson was “gifted in crossing party lines and building bipartisan consensus,” Colin Simpson, one of his three children and a former Wyoming House speaker, said in the statement.“Dad and Pete have anchored the extended Simpson family for decades with the same love, humor, compassion and dedication their parents did before them,” he said. “Dad was a mighty force and with Mom’s steady hand by his side we are so blessed and proud to have been along for the ride of a lifetime.”In 2010, President Barack Obama tasked Simpson with co-leading a debt-reduction commission that developed a plan to save $4 trillion through tax hikes and spending cuts. The plan lacked support for serious consideration by Congress.At 6-foot-7, Simpson was literally a towering figure — tallest on record in the Senate until Alabama Sen. Luther Strange, who is 6-foot-9, took office in 2017.Big as Simpson’s shoes were, he had huge ones to fill politically.His father, Milward Simpson, was a governor, U.S. senator and state legislator. His mother, Lorna Kooi Simpson, was president of the Red Cross in Cody and on the local planning commission.“I saw Dad loved politics and the law, and I wanted to do that,” Simpson once said.House Senate conferees meet at the start of their first session on the immigration reform bill on Capitol Hill, Washington, Sept. 13, 1984. From left are, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.; Alan Simpson, R-Wyoming, Rep. Romano Mazzoli, D-Ky; Rep. Hamilton Fish, R-N.Y.; Rep. Peter Rodino, D-N.J. Simpson has died at age 93. AP Photo/Ira Schwarz, FileSimpson was born in Denver in 1931. After a childhood of reckless gun-shooting and vandalism in Cody that put him in danger and in trouble with the law, he graduated from Cody High School in 1949 and the University of Wyoming in 1954.Also that year he married Ann Schroll, of Greybull, Wyoming, and joined the U.S. Army, where he served in the Fifth Infantry Division and the Second Armored “Hell on Wheels” Division in Germany.Alan and Ann Simpson celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary with a community ice cream social attended by relatives and hundreds of others in a Cody park last summer.After leaving the Army, Simpson got a law degree from the University of Wyoming in 1958 and joined his father’s law practice, where he worked for the next 19 years. He was elected to the Wyoming House in 1964 and served there until his election to the U.S. Senate in 1976.A football and basketball athlete at the University of Wyoming, Simpson fondly described politics as a “contact sport.”“I’ve been called everything,” he said in 2003. “What the hell. If you don’t like the combat, get out.”Simpson’s candor made him popular with voters. He also was known as a well-read, hardworking and sometimes hard-nosed politician involved in immigration, veterans’ affairs and environmental issues.He served on the Immigration Subcommittee and the Veterans Affairs Committee, among others.Simpson opposed sentences of life without parole for juveniles and said he supported review of criminal sentences after a period of time.“When they get to be 30 or 40 and they been in the clink for 20 years, or 30 or 40, and they have learned how to read and how to do things, why not?” he told The Associated Press in 2009.By 1995, he’d had enough of the Senate and decided not to run again.“Part of me said I could do this for another three or four years but not six,” he said at the time. “The old fire in the belly is out. The edge is off.”In this March 8, 2011 file photo, National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, Co-Chairmen Alan Simpson, right, and Erskine Bowles, testify on Capitol Hill in Washington.AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, FileOthers of his family in politics and government included his older brother, Pete, a University of Wyoming historian who served in the Wyoming House and was the unsuccessful Republican nominee for governor in 1986. Alan Simpson’s son Colin was speaker of the Wyoming House, and his nephew Milward Simpson directed the state parks department.After leaving the Senate, Simpson taught about politics and the media at Harvard University and the University of Wyoming. In speeches he often urged college students to be politically involved.Go Ad-Free — And Protect The Free PressThe next four years will change America forever. But HuffPost won't back down when it comes to providing free and impartial journalism.For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless newsroom. We hope you'll join us.You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again. We won't back down from our mission of providing free, fair news during this critical moment. But we can't do it without you.For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless journalism. We hope you'll join us.You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again. We won't back down from our mission of providing free, fair news during this critical moment. But we can't do it without you.For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless journalism. We hope you'll join us.Support HuffPostAlready contributed? Log in to hide these messages.Simpson is survived by his wife, Ann; his brother Pete Simpson; sons Colin Simpson and William Simpson; and daughter Susan Simpson Gallagher.

EPA to steer environmental cops away from energy companies

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) indicated this week that it will steer its environmental cops away from energy companies.  The EPA can pursue civil or criminal cases against polluters. In 2023, the Biden administration said it would focus its environmental cops on companies who violate laws related to climate change, toxic “forever chemicals” and carcinogenic...

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) indicated this week that it will steer its environmental cops away from energy companies.  The EPA can pursue civil or criminal cases against polluters. In 2023, the Biden administration said it would focus its environmental cops on companies who violate laws related to climate change, toxic “forever chemicals” and carcinogenic coal waste. In a press release on Wednesday, the Trump EPA said it will revise environmental law enforcement guidelines in a way that does not “shut down energy production.” The Trump administration also said it would reject a Biden-era focus on environmental justice – which seeks to prioritize communities with disproportionately high pollution levels and few resources, including communities of color.  “The Biden-Harris Administration paired burdensome, legally questionable regulations with unpredictable but punitive enforcement aimed at shutting down American energy and manufacturing and promoting so-called ‘environmental justice,’” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement.  “By re-aligning enforcement with the law instead of activist goals, we can help deliver economic prosperity and energy security while ensuring compliance with sound regulations,” he added.  The EPA said in its press release that it would refocus efforts on “the most pressing health and safety issues.” It did not say what those were.  The announcement came in conjunction with additional announcements from the EPA that it wanted to reverse a broad suite of regulations that seek to limit climate change and pollution from power plants and cars. 

Balance of power: why Loch Ness hydro storage schemes are stirring up trouble

As Scottish energy firms race to meet challenges of storing power, critics fear proposals will affect delicate hydrology of lochBrian Shaw stood at the water’s edge of Loch Ness and pointed to a band of glistening pebbles and damp sand skirting the shore. It seemed as if the tide had gone out.Overnight, Foyers, a small pumped storage power station, had recharged itself drawing up millions of litres of water into a reservoir high up on a hill behind it, ready for release through its turbines to boost the UK’s electricity supply. That led to the surface of Loch Ness, the largest body of freshwater in the UK, falling by 14cm in a matter of hours. Continue reading...

Brian Shaw stood at the water’s edge of Loch Ness and pointed to a band of glistening pebbles and damp sand skirting the shore. It seemed as if the tide had gone out.Overnight, Foyers, a small pumped storage power station, had recharged itself drawing up millions of litres of water into a reservoir high up on a hill behind it, ready for release through its turbines to boost the UK’s electricity supply. That led to the surface of Loch Ness, the largest body of freshwater in the UK, falling by 14cm in a matter of hours.Shaw, an expert in freshwater salmon who runs the Ness District Salmon Fishery Board, believes this is a warning of things to come. “I had a complaint about the level of Loch Ness dropping by a foot overnight,” he said, gesturing at the shore. “It’s actually dropped six inches over the course of the day. That wouldn’t happen naturally.”Foyers power station was built in 1974, and after a 40-year absence, pumped hydro storage is back on the agenda and with it fresh questions about who the water belongs to.Power companies are racing to meet one of the biggest challenges of the green energy revolution: how to store excess power from the large windfarms being built around the UK to provide an energy reserve to cope with peak demand and wind-free days.Developers hope to build 11 pumped hydro storage projects with the combined capacity of 10GW, equivalent to 10 large nuclear power stations, to help meet a government target to install up to 8GW of long-duration energy storage by 2030. Most of the projects are in the Scottish Highlands, with two in north Wales. Not all will go ahead.Loch Ness has been earmarked for three of these projects – the most of any waterbody in the UK. Two are of a similar size to Foyers. However, the third, at Glen Earrach on the north side of the loch, will be one of the most powerful envisaged, offering up to 30GWh of electricity.Building the power station will cost about £3bn, but its backers argue that the 2GW plant has a great advantage over local competitors: it makes the best use of gravity.Glen Earrach’s storage reservoir is Loch nam Breac Dearga, tucked under a rocky mountain nearly 500 metres above sea level, flanked by banks of snow and iced-over peat bog. Because it is close to Loch Ness and high up, they say its “head height” – the distance its water has to travel to reach the turbines – makes it one of the most efficient on offer.Roderick MacLeod, whose family owns the estate where the project would be built, said: “For the same amount of water, for the same size of tunnels, for the same size of machines, you are getting three times more power, three times more energy stored and so you’re getting three times the consumer benefit. That’s the key selling point.”Glen Earrach Energy is proposing to construct a pumped storage hydro site on the north-west side of Loch Ness. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The GuardianGlen Earrach’s proposals have fuelled significant amounts of anxiety locally. It is the third such plan proposed for Loch Ness but also the largest by far.More than a dozen agencies, conservation bodies and local businesses have lodged objections or raised questions about Glen Earrach with the Scottish government’s energy consents unit, which oversees power station applications.Its critics fear that if all four plants are approved, that could significantly affect the loch’s delicate ecology, its migrating salmon and trout, the loch’s leisure cruising firms and its archaeological sites, including a prehistoric crannog, or human-made island.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionShaw estimates that if all the plants simultaneously refilled their reservoirs, the surface of Loch Ness could fall by up to 1.2 metres, or by 27m cubic metres. If all that water was suddenly discharged, it would upset the loch’s delicate hydrology and water temperatures, affecting juvenile salmon.The invertebrate charity Buglife said Glen Earrach alone could lower the loch’s surface by nearly half a metre when it recharges its upper loch. It raises concerns about the risks to insects such as northern damselfly, the brilliant emerald dragonfly and a species of cranefly.Glen Earrach Energy is in a fiercely fought contest to persuade Ofgem, the energy regulator, to award it the electricity supply agreement it needs to raise the billions of pounds to build the plant. Ofgem’s evaluation process starts this spring. Meanwhile, Glen Earrach has been lobbying Labour ministers, MPs and policymakers, urging them to study its numbers.MacLeod said the firm would soon publish a detailed environmental impact assessment to answer ecological concerns and has funded a joint survey with Shaw’s fisheries board to investigate environmental threats to Loch Ness’s juvenile salmon.MacLeod said the loch was naturally recharged by its surrounding rivers, making any reductions in its surface level short-lived. Shaw, meanwhile, acknowledged that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency set legal limits on pumped storage schemes that prevented firms drawing water when levels were too low.In an attempt to prove how seriously it takes its social obligations, Glen Earrach Energy is offering to make community benefit payments of up to £25m a year – the largest ever proposed by a power company.“The landscape is kind of everybody’s,” MacLeod said. “I think it’s only right that it should provide a return to the community, because it has an impact on the community and in this particular context, that’s got to do with water. We’re essentially paying for water use, as a rent on the water we use.”

Ban on new drilling confirmed as ministers consult on North Sea’s ‘clean energy future’

Gas and oil industry cautiously welcomes government proposals that could ease tax burden on sectorThe UK government has pledged to “unleash the North Sea’s clean energy future”, as it confirmed plans to ban new drilling licences but also unveiled proposals that could ease the tax burden on the oil and gas sector.The “windfall” tax on North Sea drillers, introduced in 2022 to help support households facing rising energy bills after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, would be scrapped from 2030, the Treasury confirmed on Wednesday. Continue reading...

The UK government has pledged to “unleash the North Sea’s clean energy future”, as it confirmed plans to ban new drilling licences but also unveiled proposals that could ease the tax burden on the oil and gas sector.The “windfall” tax on North Sea drillers, introduced in 2022 to help support households facing rising energy bills after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, would be scrapped from 2030, the Treasury confirmed on Wednesday.In its place, ministers will consult on a new regime, under which duties move in tandem with global wholesale energy prices, something the industry said would provide its investors with “certainty”.Alongside the tax plans, the government announced an eight-week consultation on how to manage the North Sea’s transition from oil and gas to cleaner forms of energy, without triggering mass job losses.The proposals follow through on Labour’s manifesto commitment not to permit any new drilling licences.The GMB and Unite trade unions have opposed the measure, warning of a repeat of the devastation visited on coalmining communities if no plan is put in place to protect workers.Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said the consultation would avert job losses in the North Sea oil industry during the transition to hydrogen, renewable energy and technologies such as carbon capture and storage.“The North Sea will be at the heart of Britain’s energy future,” Miliband said. “For decades, its workers, businesses and communities have helped power our country and our world.“Oil and gas production will continue to play an important role and, as the world embraces the drive to clean energy, the North Sea can power our plan for change and clean energy future in the decades ahead.”Extensions on the life of existing drilling licences would not be affected, ensuring that oil fields could “operate for the entirety of their lifetime”, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said.The government also said that developers would be able to resume applying for consents for already licensed projects, as a result of “revised” environmental guidance on offshore projects.This follows a supreme court ruling last year that requires regulators to consider the impact of burning oil and gas in environmental assessments of new projects.The oil industry issued a cautious welcome to the government’s blueprint for reforming taxation.North Sea drillers currently pay a 40% tax on their profits, as well as the 38% energy profits levy brought in by the previous government in response to energy companies recording bumper profits as oil and gas prices surged in response to war in Ukraine.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionUnder proposals that would come in from 2030, tax rates would be more closely linked to changing wholesale prices. That mechanism would mean the tax rate would rise if wholesale prices also jumped sharply due to an oil and gas price shock.The trade body Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) welcomed plans it said would protect jobs and allay investors’ concerns about a volatile tax regime.David Whitehouse, the chief executive of OEUK, said a sliding-scale tax regime would “help to begin to give certainty to investors and create a stable investment environment for years to come”.Greenpeace welcomed the “reaffirmation of the government’s world-leading commitment to end our reliance on North Sea oil and gas”.Mel Evans, climate team leader at Greenpeace UK, said: “Our over-reliance on volatile and expensive fossil fuels is the reason our energy bills have remained so high in recent years.“The government clearly recognises that creating a renewable energy system can provide this country and its energy workers with economic opportunities and stable, future-proofed jobs.”

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