Nature Energy最新文献

Could renewable energy development on American Indian Reservations alleviate poverty? This Article combines data on wind and solar endowments, reservation characteristics and utility-scale renewable energy projects to offer three insights. First, the colonial process of reservation creation that intentionally deprived tribes of other natural resources unintentionally left them with favourable wind and solar, especially on reservations with the lowest-income populations. Second, despite favourable endowments, renewable projects are rare: reservation lands are 46% less likely to host wind farms and 110% less likely to host solar than comparable adjacent lands. Third, if this disparity persists, tribes may forgo over US$19 billion in lease and tax earnings that could be accrued under forecasts of renewable energy demand through 2050. We highlight barriers—such as regulatory complexity and uncertainty—that help explain this disparity and emphasize this is not a call to impose federal energy priorities on unwilling tribes.

Co- and Ni-free disordered rocksalt cathodes utilize oxygen redox to increase the energy density of lithium-ion batteries, but it is challenging to achieve good cycle life at high voltages >4.5 V (versus Li/Li⁺). Here we report a family of Li-excess Mn-rich cathodes that integrates rocksalt- and polyanion-type structures. Following design rules for cation filling and ordering, we demonstrate the bulk incorporation of polyanion groups into the rocksalt lattice. This integration bridges the two primary families of lithium-ion battery cathodes—layered/spinel and phosphate oxides—dramatically enhancing the cycling stability of disordered rocksalt cathodes with 4.8 V upper cut-off voltage. The cathode exhibits high gravimetric energy densities above 1,100 Wh kg⁻¹ and >70% retention over 100 cycles. This study opens up a broad compositional space for developing battery cathodes using earth-abundant elements such as Mn and Fe.

Micro-sized alloying anodes offer lower cost and higher capacity than graphite in Li-ion batteries. However, they suffer from fast capacity decay and low Coulombic efficiency in carbonate electrolytes because the organic solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) strongly bonds to the alloys, leading to cracks of both SEI and alloying particles, which allows electrolyte penetration and forms new SEI during lithiation–delithiation cycles. Using nano-sized alloying anodes can enhance the cell cycle life but also reduces the battery calendar life and increases the manufacturing costs. Here we significantly improved the cycle performance of micro-sized Si, Al, Sn and Bi anodes by developing asymmetric electrolytes (solvent-free ionic liquids and molecular solvent) to form LiF-rich inorganic SEI, enabling 90 mAh μSi||LiNi_0.8Mn_0.1Co_0.1O₂ and 70 mAh Li_3.75Si||SPAN pouch cells (areal capacity of 4.5 mAh cm⁻²; N/P of 1.4) to achieve >400 cycles with a high capacity retention of >85%. The asymmetric electrolyte design forms LiF-rich interphases that enable high-capacity anodes and high-energy cathodes to achieve a long cycle life and provide a general solution for high-energy Li-ion batteries.

To extract natural gas through hydraulic fracturing, energy companies often need to obtain consent from many different private landowners, whose properties lie atop the gas reservoir. Negotiations with these landowners have important economic, environmental and social implications. In this paper we present a dataset on negotiations in Ohio and use these data to investigate how landowners may be advantaged or disadvantaged in these lease negotiations. We find that they are disadvantaged in two ways. First, because energy companies can use persistent and personal strategies to overcome landowner reluctance. Second, because of the institutional context: specifically the widespread use of compulsory unitization. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for equity in energy policy and by drawing out the other potential uses of these data.

Electrochemically mediated carbon capture utilizing redox-tunable organic sorbents has emerged as a promising strategy to mitigate anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. However, most reported systems are sensitive to molecular oxygen, severely limiting their application under ambient air conditions. Here we demonstrate an electrochemical carbon capture concept via non-aqueous proton-coupled electron transfer, where alkoxides are employed as the active sorbent while carbon dioxide absorption and desorption are modulated reversibly by the redox-tunable Brønsted basicity of certain organic molecules. Since all species involved in the process have outstanding oxygen stability and relatively low vapour pressure, our electrochemically mediated carbon capture mechanism intrinsically minimizes parasitic reactions and evaporative losses under aerobic conditions. Flow-based prototypes are demonstrated to operate efficiently in the presence of 20% oxygen under various practically relevant carbon dioxide feed concentrations, paving a way towards effective carbon capture driven by electrochemical stimuli.

Perovskite tandem solar cells show promising performance, but non-radiative recombination and its progressive worsening with time, especially in the mixed Sn–Pb low-bandgap layer, limit performance and stability. Here we find that mixed Sn–Pb perovskite thin films exhibit a compositional gradient, with an excess of Sn on the surface—and we show this gradient exacerbates oxidation and increases the recombination rate. We find that diamines preferentially chelate Sn atoms, removing them from the film surface and achieving a more balanced Sn:Pb stoichiometry, making the surface of the film resistive to the oxidation of Sn. The process forms an electrically resistive low-dimensional barrier layer, passivating defects and reducing interface recombination. Further improving the homogeneity of the barrier layer using 1,2-diaminopropane results in more uniform distribution and passivation. Tandems achieve a power conversion efficiency of 28.8%. Encapsulated tandems retain 90% of initial efficiency following 1,000 h of operating at the maximum power point under simulated one-sun illumination in air without cooling.