Category: Research

Colorado School of Mines awarded $10.5M in fuel cell funding 4/26/2024

Colorado School of Mines awarded $10.5M in fuel cell funding

Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Robert Braun is featured in this article about how his research team received three federal awards boost funding for fuel cell and hydrogen technologies research.  The team is approaching this challenge from a multidisciplinary lens, with researchers bringing experience across cutting-edge fuel-cell research capabilities including new materials development, high-temperature electrochemistry, device design and characterization, ammonia chemistry, and systems integration.  April 24, 2024.

Greenhouse Gases Life Cycle Assessment for Natural Gas and Liquefied Natural Gas 4/23/2024

Greenhouse Gases Life Cycle Assessment for Natural Gas and Liquefied Natural Gas

Payne Institute Director Morgan Bazilian contributed to this report from the National Petroleum Institute on titled Reducing GHG Emissions from the U.S. Natural Gas Supply Chain.  His contributions were made to Chapter 4 – Greenhouse Gases Life Cycle Assessment for Natural Gas and Liquefied Natural Gas.  The chapter introduces the fundamental concepts of LCA, discusses modeling GHG emissions from U.S. natural gas and LNG supply chains, quantifies life cycle GHG emissions, and explores application of LCAs in public and corporate policies.   April 23, 2024.

Potential for small and micro modular reactors to electrify developing regions 4/19/2024

Potential for small and micro modular reactors to electrify developing regions

Mines Faculty Guillaume L’Her, R. Scott Kemp, Payne Institute Director Morgan Bazilian, and Faculty Fellow Mark Deinert write about how small-scale nuclear power is typically thought of for niche markets, however recent work has suggested that it could help address the massive gaps in energy access in developing countries.  They present a global analysis of regions suitable for nuclear reactor deployment based on physical siting criteria, security, governance and economic competitiveness.  April 19, 2024.

Exploring the Hidden World of Lighting Flicker with a High-Speed Camera 4/2/2024

Exploring the Hidden World of Lighting Flicker with a High-Speed Camera

Payne Institute Earth Observation Group Senior Research Associate Christopher D. Elvidge, Research Associate Mikhail Zhizhin, Director Morgan Bazilian, Ashley Pipkin, Sharolyn Anderson, and William S. Kowalik write about how alternating current can result in flickering—or pulsing—in the brightness of light emitted by luminaires.  However, evidence indicates that many organisms perceive flicker with non-visual photoreceptors present on the retinas. April 2, 2024.

Energy, material, and resource efficiency for industrial decarbonization: A systematic review of sociotechnical systems, technological innovations, and policy options 3/25/2024

Energy, material, and resource efficiency for industrial decarbonization: A systematic review of sociotechnical systems, technological innovations, and policy options

Jinsoo Kim, Benjamin K. Sovacool, Payne Institute Director Morgan Bazilian, Fellow Steve Griffiths, and Minyoung Yang write about how efficiency stands out as one of the most important options for achieving industrial decarbonization. In addition to carbon emissions reductions, improving energy, material and resource efficiency can bring many desirable benefits, such as cost savings, increased energy and resource security, and higher productivity. We conducted a comprehensive and systematic review through a socio-technical lens of more than 2.8 million references and 380 selected studies on industrial decarbonization.  March 25, 2024.

Exploring policy choices for addressing forever chemicals 3/25/2024

Exploring policy choices for addressing forever chemicals

Payne Institute Communications Associate Kristin Ziv, Student Researcher Isabel Guajardo Retamales and Director Morgan Bazilian write about how on March 20, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) convened a pivotal hearing titled “Examining PFAS as Hazardous Substances.”  The session focused on the risks associated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a group of synthetic chemicals found in various industrial and consumer products. March 25, 2024.

Review of Policy Research Special Issue March 2024 3/21/2024

Review of Policy Research Special Issue March 2024

Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Dr. Kathleen J. Hancock is the editor of this March 2024 edition of the RDR Special Issue on Energy Regionalism. The Special Issue’s focus on energy regionalism stems from increasing academic interest in how geographic regions compare with each other and across issues areas as well as growing interest in a wide range of energy issues, often seen through lenses other than the traditional security one and including non-state actors. Understanding how regionalisms—players, processes, institutions, and organizations—intersect with energy is directly linked to domestic and international energy policies and outcomes. The contributions cover sub-Saharan Africa, the East Mediterranean, Central America, Russia, Europe, and North America.  March 21,2024.

Detection, localization, and quantification of single-source methane emissions on oil and gas production sites using point-in-space continuous monitoring systems 3/20/2024

Detection, localization, and quantification of single-source methane emissions on oil and gas production sites using point-in-space continuous monitoring systems

Payne Institute Student Researchers William S. Daniels and Meng Jia, and Faculty Fellow Dorit M. Hammerling write about how they propose a modular framework for methane emission detection, localization, and quantification on oil and gas production sites that uses concentration and wind data from point-in-space continuous monitoring systems. The framework leverages a gradient-based spike detection algorithm to estimate emission start and end times (event detection) and pattern matches simulated and observed concentrations to estimate emission source location (localization) and rate (quantification). March 20, 2024.

Projecting demand for mineral-based critical materials in the energy transition for electricity 3/18/2024

Projecting demand for mineral-based critical materials in the energy transition for electricity

Payne Institute Student Researcher Gabriel Collins, Faculty Fellow Carol A. Dahl, Student Researcher Maxwell Fleming, Student Researcher Michael Tanner, Student Researcher Wilson C. Martin, Kabir Nadkarni, Fellow Sara Hastings-Simon and Director Morgan Bazilian write about how mapping the changing energy landscape toward net zero and understanding the critical material needs to support the transition are essential for demanders and suppliers as well as policy makers seeking to orchestrate the transition. They provide such decision makers for electricity markets with a transparent tool that can be easily understood and modified as our transitional knowledge improves.  March 18, 2024.

Michael McGuirk Wins Negative Emissions Scialog Award 3/7/2024

Michael McGuirk Wins Negative Emissions Scialog Award

Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Mike McGuirk has won a $50,000 award from the Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement’s (RSCA) Negative Emissions Science Scialog program to conduct research exploring opportunities to replace petroleum in this process with polyolefin waste, the largest type of post-consumer plastic.  March 7, 2024.