Reviews & Analysis

In recent years, Middle Eastern and North African oil-exporting states have begun reforming their energy subsidies. This Perspective argues that a number of trends — both local and global — have offered political cover for the changes, and that the reforms challenge existing governance theory.

Quantitative scenarios from energy–economic models inform decision-making about uncertain futures. Now, research shows the different ways these scenarios are subsequently used by users not involved in their initial development. In the absence of clear guidance from modellers, users may place too much or too little confidence in scenario assumptions and results.

Battery charging and discharging regimes mostly attempt to maximize potential profit by following price signals. Combining a technical understanding of batteries with financial theory, researchers now present a framework that allows optimization of economic benefits considering both potential revenues and battery degradation.

Thermoelectric devices convert heat flows into electricity. Researchers recently demonstrated that thermoelectric materials can be produced in good quality by 3D printing, enabling a low-cost production process in the near future.

Battery safety is a key focus in the design of electrified vehicles. Here, the authors survey literature approaches for modelling and testing battery safety under abuse conditions, and propose a multi-physics modelling and testing framework for real applications.

Recent years have seen significant growth of electric vehicles and extensive development of energy storage technologies. This Review evaluates the potential of a series of promising batteries and hydrogen fuel cells in their deployment in automotive electrification.

The battery manufacturing process significantly affects battery performance. This Review provides an introductory overview of production technologies for automotive batteries and discusses the importance of understanding relationships between the production process and battery performance.

Electrification is seen as the future of automotive industry, and deployment of electric vehicles largely depends on the development of rechargeable batteries. Here, the authors survey the state-of-the-art advances in active materials, electrolytes and cell chemistries for automotive batteries.

The discovery of anionic redox chemistry in Li-rich cathode materials provides much hope for enhancing battery performance. Tarascon and Assat analyse the underlying science behind anionic redox and discuss its practical limitations as well as the routes to overcome the application barriers.

Analysts and markets have struggled to predict a number of phenomena, such as the rise of natural gas, in US energy markets over the past decade or so. Research shows the challenge may grow because the industry — and consequently the market — is becoming increasingly volatile.

Coal-generated electricity forms a significant contribution to global carbon emissions. This Perspective explores the factors behind Great Britain's recent rapid switch from coal power to natural gas, which brought a large decrease in emissions, and discusses savings potential for other coal-using nations.

New and emerging energy consumption patterns driven by the rise of prosumers may lead to under-recovery of network costs under current network charges, so new tariffs are being sought. A study using detailed household consumption data now illustrates the potentially disproportionate impact of different tariffs on household budgets.

In current solar cells, any photon energy exceeding the semiconductor bandgap is lost before being collected, limiting the cell performance. Hot carrier solar cells could avoid these losses. Now, a detailed experimental study and analysis shows that this strategy could lead to an improvement of the photoconversion efficiency in practice.

Energy planning models enable assessments of how energy systems may evolve in the future under different scenarios. Historically, they originate from developed nations. This Review analyses 34 models and explores the gaps that need to be addressed for their application in developing contexts.

Realization of rechargeable batteries with alkali metal anodes is challenged by their high reactivity and dendritic growth. Now, an alloy-based, artificial solid electrolyte interphase is shown to allow smooth metal deposition, enhance interfacial charge transfer, protect against parasitic reactions and offer extra energy storage.

Documenting the emissions and net energy of a crude supply could be essential to meeting national emission and energy security targets. Using data from hundreds of fields worldwide, a well-to-refinery study presents a high-granularity profile of China’s crude oil supply in terms of emissions and energy return on input.

Protonic ceramic fuel cells (PCFCs) are a potential alternative to solid oxide fuel cells at temperatures below 600 °C, but they suffer from low power output and poor chemical stability. Now, PCFCs with a power density of over 500 mW per cm² at 500 °C and long-term stability are demonstrated using optimized perovskite-based electrolyte and electrodes.

The sustainability of biomass production for energy depends on site-specific biophysical and socio-economic conditions. New research using high-resolution ecosystem process modelling shows the trade-offs between economic and environmental performance of biomass production for an ethanol biorefinery.

Electrochemical conversion of CO₂ to fuels is an attractive pathway to store electrical energy in chemical form. Isolated, low-valent Ni species in nitrogen-doped graphene are now demonstrated to selectively convert CO₂ to CO electrochemically with high intrinsic activity and stability.

Electrochemical storage is typically accompanied by simultaneous accommodation of ions and electrons. Here the authors discuss a concept of decoupling electron and ion storage and present their perspectives of constructing artificial mixed conductor electrodes to enhance storage ability.