Stanford is working to establish the Precourt Institute for Energy (PIE)
Energy is the lifeblood of modern societies. It provides essential services: electric power for myriad uses (lighting, computing, communications, pumping fresh water, and so on), transportation (air and on land and sea), heating and cooling of buildings and homes, and energy for manufacturing. Because energy is a part of all economic activity, it also has significant implications for national security, international trade and relations, and employment. Recent volatility in oil, natural gas, and coal prices has reminded us of the interplay of energy, geopolitics, and the stability of the world economy.
Energy systems are also one of the most important ways that human activities interact with planetary systems that we count on for many services. In addition to local environmental impacts of fossil fuel extraction and use, human use of energy, and agriculture have caused significant increases in greenhouse gas (CO2, methane, nitrous oxide) concentrations in the atmosphere, with attendant impacts on climate and the geochemistry of the ocean. Adding greenhouse gases increases the capture of energy from the sun by the atmosphere, warming the planet, and as CO2 from the atmosphere dissolves in the ocean, it reduces the pH, which makes it more difficult for some plankton species at the base of the food chain in the ocean to remove CO2 through chemical reactions that also make the materials in shells and reefs. While effects of these changes are already measurable, it is the additional impacts in this century from continued growth in emissions from the use of fossil fuels that is the real concern.
Thus, energy use and supplies of energy – along with availability of fresh water and food production, both of which are closely linked to energy – offer critical challenges for this century: how do we provide for the energy needs of the occupants of the planet at the same time that we protect the planet’s systems that support us? That is just the sort of challenge that a university like Stanford should attack with all the intellectual horsepower we can muster, from all parts of the university.
We humans use about 15 TW now, projected to grow to about 30 TW by midcentury. What are the energy resources that can be used to meet our current and future needs? While there are very large stored energy resources (fossil fuels and nuclear resources, for example), their use involves significant impacts of extraction of the resource and handling of waste products. Changing the extent to which we depend on those stored resources, as well as reducing or eliminating the impacts of any of those resources we do use are important tasks for this century.
There is a very large energy flux from the sun, with 43,000 TW reaching the surface. Today, we convert only about 0.016 TW to electricity by photovoltaic and solar thermal methods, a tiny fraction of the resource that is determined largely by the fact that those conversions, at present, at least, are more expensive than use of other resources like fossil fuels. Another portion of the solar flux is converted into wind, creating a significant energy flux of 870 TW, of which a small portion is converted to electricity, about 0.06 TW is converted. Geothermal and biomass resources are also renewable. In the case of biomass, however, care will be required to avoid creating problems due to competition with food production and carbon impacts of clearing forests, for example.
We will need to use these renewable resources much more if we are to transition in this century to energy supplies that emit much lower quantities of greenhouse gases like CO2. Perhaps the most important and the most difficult challenge will be to develop a set of renewable energy sources that are truly cost competitive. Closely related to this problem is the challenge of new grid designs and efficient energy storage technologies that make the use of intermittent renewables viable.
We also need to make our uses of energy much more efficient, which we can do on much shorter time scales. The United States uses slightly over 100 quadrillion Btus of Energy (Quads) per year, 87 of which are based on fossil fuels, fuels that currently lead to atmospheric emissions of carbon dioxide on combustion. Use continues to grow in the United States and around the world. Research at Stanford and elsewhere suggests that during the next twenty years, U.S. use of energy could in principle be reduced by perhaps 30% from that growth path, through changes that would be economically attractive, in that the benefits to the United States from reduced energy use would exceed the cost. Reductions are available in all of the important sectors of energy use – residential, commercial, industrial, transport, and electricity generation. However, many market and behavioral barriers inhibit such reductions. Carbon prices are not included in the costs facing consumers, and therefore there are incentives for fully rational consumers to over-use energy. But even if there were appropriate carbon prices, most consumers and small businesses would not have the technical and economic knowledge to implement many of the economically attractive changes. Institutional problems, involving disconnects between those people that would benefit from energy use reductions and those in the position to implement such reductions inhibit the effective functioning of energy markets. The inability of companies to capture many of the benefits that would be available from advanced technologies reduces the incentive for private sector actors to engage in sufficient research and development. Outdated building codes result in new residential and commercial buildings that use more energy that would minimize the life-cycle cost. Development of new technologies, changed incentives, improved regulations, better communication, and cultural changes all can be part of comprehensive strategies to implement all of the economically attractive opportunities for reduction in energy use.
The Precourt Institute for Energy
The Precourt Institute for Energy (PIE) will bring together existing energy assets and create new ones. The institute will be a single, visible focal point for energy research at Stanford. It will be an organizational home for two key existing programs, the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center (PEEC) (the original name, the Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency, has been changed to avoid confusion with the overarching Precourt Institute for Energy) and the Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP). It will provide a framework for interactions of strong faculty research groups in many departments in the Schools of Engineering, Earth Sciences, and Humanities and Sciences, along with the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD) in the Freeman-Spogli Institute and the DOE-sponsored collaboration between Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the Stanford Institute for Materials Energy Science (SIMES) (see Stanford Energy Assets for a list of departments, schools, and independent laboratories that engage in energy-related research and teaching).
A new center, the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy, will also be established. This center will build on a talented young faculty group working on advanced photovoltaics by adding depth to that effort and by focusing on the many research opportunities at the intersections of nanostructured materials, energy conversion devices, and energy storage. This new center will also allow us to work on societal, economic, and policy questions that are also critically important. While we need technology breakthroughs, we also need to foster sustainable energy use through markets and the regulatory environments in which they work. An essential early step is putting a price on carbon emissions, through a carbon tax or a cap and trade system, for example. But after that we need to have markets that price energy in a way that reflects its impacts and better ways to help people understand how their own choices in energy use can contribute to a sustainable energy future.
The institute will work with schools and departments across the university to make new faculty appointments to augment significantly the strong faculty group now at Stanford. The institute will seek approval as a Policy Center, so that it can make Senior Fellow appointments. Joint appointments as PIE Senior Fellows and as tenure-line faculty members in departments or schools across the university are anticipated to be the primary mode of operation for new appointments associated with PIE.
PIE will operate in parallel and will be complementary to the activities of the Woods Institute for the Environment, and PIE will work especially closely with Woods. PIE will focus on the science and technology of energy conversions and on the economic, social, and policy issues associated with transformations of the world’s energy systems. Woods will focus on environmental impacts of energy use, interactions with the Earth’s climate systems and oceans, and the regulatory and policy issues associated with the interactions of energy systems with the environment. There will obviously be some overlap in the policy area, and the two institutes will work together to make those efforts function smoothly together. An example of an area where there will be useful interactions is the new program on reducing vulnerability to climate change being developed within the Woods Institute. The two institutes will also work together to support common administrative functions, and a joint industrial affiliates program (with an opportunity for companies to link to energy programs, environmental programs or both) is anticipated.
PIE will work to put in place fellowships to attract and support the best graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the world to work on energy research. It will provide a convenient way for industry to identify faculty whose research is of interest and a mechanism for research support. The institute will also work with departments and teaching programs to coordinate an improved undergraduate and graduate energy curriculum across the university.
Research across a wide-ranging energy portfolio is needed. It will include research to improve the efficiency of energy use in the near to medium term, to investigate ways to improve existing energy conversion processes (efficient and sustainable biofuels, more efficient combustion processes, carbon capture and storage) in the medium term, and fundamentals of renewable energy conversions (materials science of solar conversions, grid architecture and management for deep market penetration of intermittent renewables like wind and solar, and advanced energy storage) for the long term. This effort will support and shape the energy transformations that must happen in this century.
Institute ActivitiesThe institute will engage in three primary activities – research, education, and outreach. A number of departments, programs, independent laboratories, and centers at the University (see Stanford Energy Assets for a list) are already engaged in such activities and will be linked to the Institute.
The Institute will play two primary roles in fostering energy research at Stanford. The first role will be to present a single point of entry for energy activities - to provide links to a coherent, broad, diverse energy program at Stanford with excellence in research, teaching, and outreach. The second will be make the institute more than a collection of individual researchers - the institute will promote interdisciplinary research, help identify missing critical disciplinary faculty needs, leverage resources, work to strengthen both disciplinary and interdisciplinary programs, develop graduate fellowships, core facilities, and field programs, and provide a forum for effective outreach. These are all tasks that the individual programs simply cannot do as effectively themselves.
The research associated with the Institute will include:
The Precourt Energy Efficiency Center (PEEC) – this center currently works in six research areas: energy efficient behavior, energy efficient buildings, energy modeling, energy policy, energy efficient systems, and transportation and vehicles. It includes energy use technology and systems, but focuses on the interplay of social, economic, and policy factors that influence how individuals, businesses, and governments make choices that determine, in part, end uses of energy. These are areas where impact on energy is possible in the relatively near term as well as in the longer term. More information can be found at http://peec.stanford.edu.
The Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) – this sponsored effort conducts fundamental, pre-commercial research to lay the foundations for energy conversions that can supply energy and at the same time reduce significantly greenhouse gas emissions associated with energy use. It conducts proposal competitions for step-out projects that include high quality science and engineering science, a pathway for impact at scale on greenhouse gas emissions in the medium term (10-50 years), and the potential to create new options for low GHG energy conversions. A wide-ranging portfolio of research projects includes photovoltaics, bioenergy, advanced combustion, electrochemistry for energy conversions, and carbon capture and storage. More information about GCEP's activities is available at http://gcep.stanford.edu.
The TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy – this new center will be created to focus on fundamental research on the science and engineering science of materials that can be used for energy conversions (photovoltaics, for example, or fuel cells), energy storage (advanced battery systems), combinations of electrochemistry, photovoltaics, and catalysis, wind energy, power electronics that deal with voltage and current fluctuations on various time scales, sensors, and the architecture and management of grids that function effectively with deep penetration of intermittent renewables. It will also work on the social, economic, and policy issues that will be required for a transition to use of renewables as a much larger fraction of the energy mix.
In addition, the Institute will have close working relationships with the following organizations:
The Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science (SIMES) – this DOE-funded institute focuses on the basic science of materials associated with energy conversions and storage. SIMES also receives support from Stanford as an independent laboratory with the Dean of Research as the cognizant dean. Through SIMES, faculty and students take advantage of the unparalleled capabilities at SLAC to characterize materials and surfaces at the atomic level. Areas of research include charge and spin dynamics for energy and information transfer, topological insulators, carbon and biomimetic materials, and catalysis and interfaces. See http://simes.slac.stanford.edu/ for more information.
The Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD) in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies – this research effort investigates how the production and consumption of energy affect sustainable development. Current research areas include energy and development for the portions of the world population currently without access to commercial energy use, climate change policy, national oil companies, and the emerging global coal markets. More information is available at http://pesd.stanford.edu/.
