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Five thermal energy grand challenges for decarbonization

Nature Energy volume 5, pages 635–637 (2020)Cite this article

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Roughly 90% of the world’s energy use today involves generation or manipulation of heat over a wide range of temperatures. Here, we note five key applications of research in thermal energy that could help make significant progress towards mitigating climate change at the necessary scale and urgency.

Here, we highlight five thermal science and engineering grand challenges that we believe could have a meaningful impact on global emissions. These were identified based on estimations of the size of their potential impact (that is, by assessing the fraction of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that could be abated if the technology was maximally successful), as well as our own opinions and qualitative assessments of the magnitude of the opportunities for scientific advancement and technological breakthroughs. For example, improving the efficiency of heat engines in the stationary power sector is not highlighted here, despite the fact that it could be impactful, because current heat engines already operate very close to their thermodynamic limits.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Asegun Henry

  2. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Ravi Prasher

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Ravi Prasher

  4. Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy, Stanford, CA, USA

    Arun Majumdar

  5. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Arun Majumdar

  6. Department of Photon Science, SLAC, Menlo Park, CA, USA

    Arun Majumdar

Authors
  1. Asegun Henry
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  2. Ravi Prasher
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  3. Arun Majumdar
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Correspondence to Asegun Henry.

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Henry, A., Prasher, R. & Majumdar, A. Five thermal energy grand challenges for decarbonization. Nat Energy 5, 635–637 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-0675-9

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