Volume 8 Issue 11, November 2023

A differentiated natural gas market is emerging as a key mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across global natural gas supply chains. Trust in such voluntary markets across civil society, industry and governments depends on a transparent framework for reporting independently verifiable and accurate emissions data.

Lithium-ion battery manufacturing is energy-intensive, raising concerns about energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions amid surging global demand. New research reveals that battery manufacturing will be more energy-efficient in future because technological advances and economies of scale will counteract the projected rise in future energy demand.

Solid electrolytes may enable a step-change in battery performance, but their brittleness often complicates their use. Now, a new inorganic electrolyte has been developed: it is a glassy material that offers viscoelasticity as well as good ionic conductivity.

Electrochemical methods are emerging as potential ways to electrify the production of ammonia (NH₃). Now, researchers have discovered a copper–tin electrocatalyst that can efficiently and selectively achieve high production rates of ammonia from nitric oxide (NO) feedstocks, marking a key step forward in decarbonizing ammonia synthesis.

The long-term operational stability of perovskite photovoltaics is critical to their successful real-world deployment. New research shows that ammonium cations with a high acid-dissociation constant can inhibit degradation reactions and impart excellent long-term stability in solar cells operating at high temperatures.

Offshore wind energy could have an important role in decarbonizing regional power systems in the USA. By modelling a range of scenarios, power system uncertainties related to policy, technology costs, transmission, and siting are assessed to understand how they influence the deployment of offshore wind.

A high-quality tunnelling-recombination layer composed of a boron- and phosphorus-doped polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) stack is obtained by suppressing dopant interdiffusion. Strong adsorption of the hole-transport layer on the poly-Si substrate enables efficient charge-carrier transport and extraction, enabling the realization of a perovskite/tunnel oxide passivating contact tandem solar cell with 29.2% efficiency.

Justice is increasingly recognized as a core proposition for energy transitions, but questions remain about how it manifests in energy transition innovations. This Perspective introduces a framework for centring justice consideration in these innovations across levels, illustrating its use through two case studies.

Capacity expansion modelling (CEM) approaches need to account for the value of energy storage in energy-system decarbonization. A new Review considers the representation of energy storage in the CEM literature and identifies approaches to overcome the challenges such approaches face when it comes to better informing policy and investment decisions.

Market-based measures are being discussed at the International Maritime Organization as a means to decarbonize shipping. This study estimates the required level of carbon pricing to close the conventional and alternative marine bunker fuels price gap.

Solid-state electrolytes lie at the heart of the development of solid-state batteries that offer a promising storage technology. Yong-Sheng Hu and colleagues report a class of viscoelastic inorganic glass featuring merits of both inorganic crystalline electrolytes and organic polymer electrolytes and demonstrate pressure-less Li- and Na-based solid-state batteries.

Ammonium cations can improve the power conversion efficiency of perovskite solar cells yet might pose an issue to the device stability. Wang et al. show that cations with a high acid dissociation afford improved operational stability at high temperatures owing to their resistance to deprotonation.

Offshore wind will play a key role in decarbonized power systems, but pathway modelling sometimes overlooks critical aspects of its deployment. Beiter et al. use a detailed capacity expansion model to explore different scenarios with high spatial resolution to understand the regional role for offshore wind in the USA.

Silicon solar cells based on tunnel oxide passivating contact have industrial potential yet they are less investigated for tandem applications. Now Zheng et al. show a 28.67% certified efficiency for a perovskite/silicon tandem cell using a boron- and phosphorus-doped polycrystalline silicon connecting layer.

Highly performing fuel cell catalysts tested at the fundamental level rarely translate well to full devices, in part due complicated ionomer-catalyst interfaces at the heart of devices, where the electrochemical reactions occur. Here the authors demonstrate ionomerless-thin-film-deposited cathodes that have comparable activity trends across fundamental tests and fuel cells.

Ammonia can be synthesized electrochemically from nitric oxide, but the catalytic performance has generally not been satisfactory. Here the authors report a highly active copper–tin alloy for nitric oxide reduction to ammonia, which they test in a flow cell and a membrane electrode assembly.

Battery manufacturing requires enormous amounts of energy and has important environmental implications. New research by Florian Degen and colleagues evaluates the energy consumption of current and future production of lithium-ion and post-lithium-ion batteries.