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UChicago powers the fight against climate change

Battery expert Shirley Meng to lead the Energy Technologies Initiative, one of three pillars in the newly launched Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth

The University of Chicago recently launched a climate and energy institute Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker described as “a place for leading academics, students, and policymakers to wrestle with the fundamental questions that will determine our future.”

“This is a place where the brightest minds in the field will come together from around the world and from right here in Chicago to drive world-altering progress, a place where no stone will be left unturned, I'm sure, in the fight against climate change, a place where our future will be built as we build it together,” Pritzker said in his remarks to the packed Rubenstein Forum during the unveiling of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth.

The launch event, which included policymakers such as Pritzker, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy John Podesta, former Foreign Minister of Pakistan Hina Rabbani Khar, former Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar, and former U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, now the director of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, outlined the Climate Institute’s plans, goals, and structure, unveiled a slate of grants for climate research across the University, and broke down the historic challenge that faces humanity.

This is a challenge for which the University of Chicago is uniquely suited, said University President Paul Alivisatos, who also holds faculty appointments at the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) and Chemistry Department.

“Between the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and our deep partnerships with Argonne National Laboratory, we are home to one of the nation’s largest concentrations of energy innovators,” Alivisatos said.

UChicago PME’s energy expertise is an integral part of this university-wide endeavor, with Prof. Shirley Meng at the helm of one of the Institute’s three foundational pillars, called the Energy Technologies Initiative.

Meng also serves as the chief scientist of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science (ACCESS) and director of the Energy Storage Research Alliance (ESRA), both at Argonne National Laboratory. With PME Prof. Laura Gagliardi, Meng is co-director of the recently launched Energy Transition Network, which connects fundamental research to early-stage startups and major corporations, bringing the private sector into the climate fight.

“Academia, national labs, and industry need to find common ground and brainstorm about how we can do better together,” Meng said.

Energy Technologies Initiative

The ETI is one of the Institute’s three foundational pillars. These initiatives are designed to explore novel approaches for answering the same question: How can we transition the planet off fossil fuels without sacrificing jobs, prosperity, and growth?

No one area of study has the answer to that vital, complicated question, said the Institute’s founding Faculty Director Michael Greenstone, the Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics. The question touches on areas of engineering, economics, law, chemistry, political science, social science, physics, and AI. The answer requires policy, clean and inexpensive energy storage, a pipeline to industry, and novel experimentation.

“The Institute's mission must be to fundamentally alter climate research and education on a global scale,” Greenstone said. “And make sure that it interacts with the outside world.”

In addition to creating the Chicago Curriculum on Climate and Sustainable Growth to bring this innovative mode of climate thought to the UChicago classroom, the Institute will bring it to research and industry through its three foundational pillars.

The existing Energy Policy Initiative at the University of Chicago (EPIC), which Greenstone heads to explore the global energy policy and market design, will move to the Institute. The new Climate Systems Engineering initiative (CSEi) headed by Geophysical Sciences Prof. David Keith will study the potential benefits and risks of climate systems engineering should more drastic climate remedies be required and also will move to the Institute.

The ETI will leverage the university’s global expertise in battery research to help bring better, less expensive, more powerful batteries to market at an unprecedented rate and will originate at the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.  

Batteries are key to the energy transition, storing energy from solar panels, wind turbines, and other renewable sources for times the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. Meng told the packed audience that for a full, global transition off fossil fuels will require between 200-300 terawatt-hours of battery storage.

Current global production of lithium-ion batteries is 1 terawatt-hour per year.

“We will need to discover more terawatt-hour energy storage systems and innovation is the only possible way forward,” Meng said.

Filling this gap will require a variety of new forms of batteries, such as the anode-free sodium solid-state battery Meng’s lab recently pioneered. But it also will require collaborations with national labs to build those powerful batteries and with industry to get them into renewable power facilities around the globe.

Meng told the audience at Wednesday’s launch that she’s grateful to work for the University of Chicago, a global powerhouse in economic thought and leadership.

"There is a lot of expertise here in terms of how we incentivize scaling in North America and in Europe,” she said. “That is a question that scientists alone will not be able to solve.”

Seed and Venture Funds

Meng is not the only UChicago PME researcher involved in this far-reaching climate and energy effort.

Starting the work the day of its launch, the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth on Wednesday also announced 11 seed- or venture-funded grants for UChicago researchers tackling pivotal climate and energy issues. Three of those came from the UChicago PME community.

A venture fund project to establish a Center for Advanced Materials for Climate Mitigation will help develop novel materials for reducing the impact of climate change, initially focusing on trapping and releasing CO2 and other substances. The team includes UChicago PME faculty Prof. Laura Gagliardi, Prof. Guilia Galli, Prof. Nancy Kawalek, and Max Delferro, who holds a joint appointment with UChicago PME and Argonne.

PME Asst. Prof. Chibueze Amanchukwu and Joseph Heremans, who holds a joint appointment with UChicago PME and Argonne, received a seed fund grant to develop quantum sensors to probe interfaces in electrochemical systems, uniting UChicago PME’s expertise in both energy and quantum work.

“The University of Chicago is a world leader in the area of quantum science; hence, we want to use our quantum expertise to accelerate the development of next-generation energy technologies,” Amanchukwu said.

Amanchukwu and UChicago PME graduate student Ke-Hsin Wang also received a seed fund grant for designing descriptors and experimental methods for high-throughput electrolyte discovery. By tapping expertise across the University of Chicago, UChicago PME, and beyond, the Institute is building creative solutions to an issue that affects the entire world.