Research at the Earth Institute is organized into nine themes. Energy is one of them.
Carbon dioxide is altering Earth's climate. Since fossil fuels are abundant and relatively cheap but emit large amounts of carbon dioxide, we must find ways to make the burning of fossil fuels less polluting. In order to reduce the effects of global climate change while still allowing for continued economic development, we need to develop alternative energy sources and increase energy efficiency.
The Earth Institute is developing technologies and policy solutions to help ensure a sustainable energy future for all. We are developing the next generation of carbon capture and storage technologies, as well as working on questions related to renewable energy, nuclear power and the conversion of solid waste into usable energy.
Featured Projects
Modi Research Group
The Modi Research Group recently launched SharedSolar, an affordable and sustainable way to provide energy to poor rural communities. Researchers combined and modified existing technologies to provide small-scale micro-grids with prepaid metering to rural villages.
Two million people live without access to an electric grid. Using unsustainable and low-yielding energy inputs like kerosene lamps and batteries, people are spending $3 per kilowatt hour while grid energy is available at approximately $.30 per kilowatt hour. Detailed analysis of grid connection costs has shown that extending the grid to reach off-the-grid villages would cost more than $1,000 per household in some cases, and be impossible in others.
In response to these challenges, the Modi Research Group created SharedSolar, a solution that combines locally generated energy with a pre-pay system modeled after the success of pre-pay cell phones in rural communities. In each village, the Modi Research Group installs a central energy source composed of solar panels, batteries, a charge controller and a smartmeter. The smartmeter communicates with a server that allows residents with cell phones to pre-pay for energy in their homes via text message. When the energy runs out, the resident can send another text to request a refill. To learn more about how the technology works, see a TEDx talk about SharedSolar here.
Modi Research Group
To meet the demand for efficient cooking products across the Millennium Villages in Africa, the Modi Research Group created and introduced a biomass cookstove -- a high-efficiency combustion solution that doesn’t deviate from traditional cooking preferences. The cook stoves increase the efficiency of the wood used for fuel, sometimes making the wood last twice as long as it would have.
In 2011, the site team at the Ikaram, Nigeria, Millennium Village introduced the cook stoves to the local cluster of villages and sold approximately 300. Developed in 2009, the cookstoves had already seen success in the Millennium Villages clusters in Mali. Read more about the cookstove project.
Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy (LCSE)
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO))
Carbon sequestration methods capture and store emissions from carbon-producing processes (such as burning coal) in order to prevent the release of carbon dioxide, a climate-altering greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Scientists from the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy (LCSE) and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) are exploring a process known as mineral sequestration, the permanent binding of carbon dioxide into rocks, which is considered safer than other methods of carbon capture because it permanently changes the carbon dioxide into a harmless solid.
Scientists are also exploring a form of geologic sequestration, known as sub-seabed storage, which takes advantage of the gravitational trapping of carbon dioxide that occurs in the deep ocean. It involves the injection of carbon dioxide into deep marine sediments.
The LCSE has also begun a new project, funded by a $1.7 million grant from the United States Department of Energy, on the monitoring and accounting of carbon dioxide in geologic storage. The goal is to develop an inventory technology that makes it possible for the public to gain trust in the reality, safety and permanence of geologic carbon dioxide storage.
Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy (LCSE)
The Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy (LCSE) is producing conceptual plant designs and engineering assessments for the component modules of a zero emission power plant. This research will provide a roadmap for next generation power plants that will allow for the continued use of fossil fuels, while respecting the need to eliminate almost all carbon emissions by mid-century.
Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy (LCSE)
With the advent of carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) as a means of managing climate change, technologies for separating dilute carbon dioxide (CO2) from various gas streams are rapidly gaining importance. Most separation technologies are grossly energy inefficient, but at the LCSE we propose to revolutionize CO2 capture technology by extending the range of applications for a recently developed synthetic tree air-capture unit that stands in the open and captures CO2 on its collector surfaces (“leaves”) comprised of anionic resin.
Earth Engineering Center (EEC)
Billions of tons of solid “wastes” are generated annually. They can be a resource of materials and energy, but when they are not managed properly, can also constitute a major environmental problem, both in developed and developing nations. The Waste to Energy Research and Technology Council (WTERT) of the Earth Engineering Center (EEC) brings together universities, companies and government agencies to identify the best available technologies for the treatment of various waste materials, to carry out additional research as required, and to disseminate information. By now WTERT-US has sister organizations in Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Greece and Japan.
In 2008, with the help of Waste Management, Inc., the largest company of its kind in the world, EEC formed the council for Sustainable Use of Resources (SUR), whose mission is to quantify greenhouse gas emissions from recycling, composting, thermal treatment and landfilling of solid wastes. In 2009-2010, SUR conducted a major study of the carbon footprint of Single Stream vs Dual Strean collection and processing of recyclables.
Earth Engineering Center (EEC)
The Combustion and Catalysis Lab (CCL), part of the Earth Engineering Center, focuses on the thermal and catalytic conversion of carbonaceous materials like municipal solid waste, biomass and carbon dioxide to desired products like synthetic fuels. CCL’s research is divided into combustion and catalysis. Combustion projects include biomass gasification, tire combustion and gasification, and waste-to-energy corrosion. Catalysis projects include preferential oxidation as well as autothermal, ethanol and landfill gas reforming.
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