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The Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) at Stanford University, "seeks new solutions to one of the grand challenges of this century: supplying energy to meet the changing needs of a growing world population in a way that protects the environment." Beginning in December 2002, GCEP is a 10-year, $225m research project aimed at developing new energy technologies. These new energy technologies include areas of interest such as renewable energy, CO2 capture and storage, hydrogen storage and electrocatalysis. It has the support of four major companies -
ExxonMobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November ...
,
General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...
,
Schlumberger Schlumberger Limited (), doing business as SLB, is an oilfield services company. Schlumberger has four principal executive offices located in Paris, Houston, London, and The Hague. Schlumberger is the world's largest offshore drilling comp ...
, and
Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...
. Under the heading "Grand Challenge", it identifies a
global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in a broader sense also includes ...
-related need to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and ...
through
future energy development Energy development is the field of activities focused on obtaining sources of energy from natural resources. These activities include production of renewable, nuclear, and fossil fuel derived sources of energy, and for the recovery and reus ...
.


Targeted goals

1. Identify promising research opportunities for low-emissions, high-efficiency energy technologies. 2. Identify barriers to the larger scale application of these new technologies within the project. 3. Conduct fundamental research into technologies that will help to overcome these barriers and provide the basis for large-scale applications. 4. Share research results with a wide audience, including the science and engineering community, media, business, governments, and potential end-users.


Research overview

More than 200 Stanford University faculty members are involved in the program. With students, technicians and others who are actively engaged at the tasks at hand, Stanford's Global Climate and Energy Project focuses on traditional issues like renewable energy, fossils and nuclear energy, energy storage, grid modernization and its environmental impact. There are several separate research projects being conducted but all share the same common goal, which is to develop new technologies to support the decline of greenhouse gases and carbon emissions.


Stanford awarded projects


Nighttime radiative cooling: Harvesting the darkness of the universe

A device was created that generated electricity for night time use to allow heat to radiate into outer space. This project was awarded by one of Stanford's top projects because it opened up and exposed large temperature differences between earth and space. This allowed light to be released at night without any electrical inputs or battery-powered technology.


Electrochemical tuning of electronic structures to create highly active electrocatalysts

The project was created to tackle metal catalysts for a cheaper cost and separate water into oxygen and clean burning hydrogen fuels. The research study was done using lithium to enrich hydrogen production. This was done with several catalytic materials and applied physics to reach the common goal for tuning electronic structures into active electrocatalysts.


Results of project 10-year anniversary

After 10 years, the Stanford Global Climate Energy Project has helped support up to 80 research programs within Stanford's internal research and have expanded it to 38 others across the world. One example of the program's success is a 2007 study of artificial photosynthesis by Caltech scientist Nathan Lewis, Harry Gray and Harry Atwater who developed Joint Center on Artificial photosynthesis. This was a development towards artificial solar fueled technology. Stanford University's president John Hennessy said "We sat back and realized that energy was going to be a really big research topic for the university...GCEP was the beginning of that process, Stanford is a place where the idea of taking on a big challenge is not only OK, but expected."


Awarding $9.3 million for innovative energy research

The GCEP was awarded a $9.3 million research project on energy funded technology to be developed over six new research based projects. Including Stanford University, four other universities are involved in the positive development of this energy project. Sally Benson, a professor for energy resources engineers at Stanford University said "These six projects are potential game changers that could help transform our global energy system in the future.”{{Cite web, url=https://news.stanford.edu/2015/08/12/gcep-energy-awards-081215/, title=Sally Benson Quote, last=Benson, first=Sally, date=August 12, 2015, website=, url-status=live, archive-url=, archive-date=, access-date=


References


External links


GCEP homepageStanford News on GCEP
* Energy development Sustainable energy