The Energy Transition Network connects fundamental research to early-stage startups and major corporations that can translate knowledge and innovations into climate solutions and well-paid jobs. It is led by UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Professors Shirley Meng, director of the Energy Technologies Initiative, and Laura Gagliardi, and begins with three industry partner groups — Thermo Fisher Scientific, SES AI, and MTI Corporation. UChicago and ETN member companies work together to scope and facilitate research projects, host thematic workshops and events, foster workforce development through internships and career opportunities as well as engage in other collaborative ideation around enabling the clean energy transition.
Entity Type: Labs & Programs
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Energy Storage Research Alliance
The Energy Storage Research Alliance (ESRA) is one of two Energy Innovation Hubs created by the U.S. Department of Energy. Led by Energy Technologies Initiative Director Shirley Meng and spearheaded by the Argonne National Laboratory, ESRA unites top researchers from two other national labs and 12 universities to address pressing battery challenges such as safety, high-energy density and long-duration batteries made from inexpensive, abundant materials. The achievement of ESRA’s goals will lead to high-energy batteries that never catch fire, offer days of long-duration storage, have multiple decades of life and are made from inexpensive, abundant materials.
“The demand for high-performance, low-cost and sustainable energy storage devices is on the rise, especially those with potential to deeply decarbonize heavy-duty transportation and the electric grid. To achieve this, energy storage technology must reach levels of unprecedented performance, surpassing the capabilities of current lithium-ion technology. The key to making these transformative leaps lies in a robust research and development initiative firmly grounded in basic science.”
Shirley Meng, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
Leveraging decades of national investment in basic sciences, ESRA seeks to enable transformative discoveries in materials chemistry, gain a fundamental understanding of electrochemical phenomena at the atomic scale and lay the scientific foundations for breakthroughs in energy storage technologies. The Argonne-led hub will also place a central focus on training a diverse, next-generation battery workforce for future manufacturing needs through innovative training programs with industry, academia and government.
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India Clean Air Markets
The Clean Air Markets is a pioneering effort to reduce pollution while maintaining economic growth. In 2019, EPIC-India and the Indian state of Gujarat launched the world’s first emissions trading system for particulate pollution in the city of Surat. Since that time, the team has been working to expand clean air markets in India, and launched another particulate pollution market in Ahmedabad. The team is also expanding this work to include other pollutants, such as a sulfur dioxide market in Maharashtra. The pilot scheme in Surat has shown to be successful, with pollution decreasing by about 20 percent with no significant increase in industry operating costs.
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Energy & Environment Lab
The Energy & Environment Lab works hand-in-hand with regulatory agencies to identify, design, test and scale innovative policies. The programs typically leverage new machine learning techniques, adopt real-time monitoring for improved enforcement, and/or focus on increasing program uptake such as through financial incentives. Lab research fellows are embedded at partner agencies to help carry out the programs and strengthen the technical capacity of the agency over the long term. For example, the Lab worked with the U.S. EPA to uncover an improved method of identifying hazardous waste violations that is now helping inspectors nationwide better target their limited resources to catch polluters. The Lab also worked with officials in Colorado to uncover an improved method of identifying methane leaks from oil and gas facilities that is now being used in the state.
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Air Quality Fund
Whileresearch shows that installing air quality monitors and sharing real-time data with the public in places with very little or no data leads to cleaner air, nearly 40 percent of countries—many of which satellite data shows are highly polluted—aren’t producing open air quality data for their citizens. That is largely because they are caught in a vicious cycle of inequality where most of the funding to combat pollution goes to some of the cleanest areas of the world. The EPIC Air Quality Fund breaks this cycle by supporting local groups and organizations in installing monitors and providing open data to communities that could benefit the most. Providing this data allows citizens to understand the depth of the pollution problem where they live and call for change. The data also provides a necessary guidepost for setting air quality policies and evaluating their progress.
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Clean Air Program
The EPIC Clean Air Program is working to bring actionable information about the quality of the air we breathe and its impact on our health to every corner of the globe in order to motivate action and lay guideposts for efficient air pollution policies. This work includes the EPIC Air Quality Fund to bring high quality and high frequency air pollution monitoring and data access to the places of the world where it is needed most; the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI), which uses air pollution data to translate the impact of pollution on a person’s life expectancy; and the Clean Air Markets program that runs in partnership with Indian state governments to bring air pollution trading markets to Indian cities and beyond.
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Air Quality Life Index
The Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) converts air pollution concentrations into their impact on life expectancy. Through the AQLI’s hyper-local data, users anywhere on Earth can zoom into their district and see how much longer they would live if policies were to reduce pollution to meet the World Health Organization’s guideline, a national standard, or a user-defined target. Based on research by EPIC’s Director Michael Greenstone that for the first time showed the causal link between air pollution and life expectancy, the AQLI shows not just the damage air pollution inflicts but also the benefits of air quality regulations.
The AQLI has been recognized in The New York Times as the “gold standard on global air quality research” and by Fast Company as a “World Changing Idea.” Having reached more than 1.1 billion people in at least 20 languages through its extensive media coverage, the AQLI is having an impact around the world. Indian Members of Parliament have repeatedly used the AQLI to justify changes to the Indian Air Act; AQLI data was used in a landmark Indonesian court ruling that found Jakarta’s government needed to do more to protect its people; and, Pakistan’s former environment minister used the AQLI to advocate for carrying out the country’s National Clean Air Policy. International organizations and their leaders have also used the Index to support calls for improvements in air quality, including the World Health Organization, World Bank, UN Environment Program and World Economic Forum.
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Climate Impact Lab
The Climate Impact Lab brings together some of the world’s top climate scientists, economists, data engineers, and risk analysts to advance society’s understanding of the social and economic impacts of climate change. Across 25,000 geographic units globally—areas roughly the size of a U.S. county—the Lab’s team has produced localized projections of the impacts of climate change that matter for human lives: heat-induced mortality, agricultural productivity, the costs to workers of extreme temperatures, energy demand, coastal flooding risk, and more. When this data is combined, it provides an overall estimate of the costs of climate change (i.e. social cost of carbon)—a metric that can be used to demonstrate the exact benefits of strong mitigation and adaptation policies.
The Climate Impact Lab’s data is already being used to guide decision making around the world. Based on the Lab’s research, the U.S. Government recently quadrupled its estimate of the social cost of carbon that is now being used to set the stringency of new regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the Lab has forged extensive partnerships, including with: the United Nations Development Programme to bring actionable information to those planning policies and adaptation measures in the poorest economies expected to experience the worst impacts; Nike to study the connection between climate change and athletic performance; the International Monetary Fund, Federal Reserve System and Commodity Futures Trading Commission to provide an evidence-based snapshot of how climate change will impact investment decisions; Realtor.com and Redfin.com to help investors, developers, homebuyers and homeowners gauge flood risk for any property in America; and Microsoft’s AI for Earth to advance the state of climate knowledge by making its data and freely open to the global research community.