Reviews & Analysis

Understanding how subsidies affect fossil-fuel investment returns and production is crucial to commencing new reforms. New analysis on the impact of subsidies on US crude-oil producers finds that, at recent oil prices of around US$50 per barrel, tax preferences and other subsidies push nearly half of new oil investments into profitability.

Urban households in the global south face unique energy access challenges. This Perspective outlines a research agenda based on understanding the needs of urban energy users to promote inclusive urban energy transitions.

The shale gas revolution has led to a boom in construction of shale oil and gas wells in recent years. New research offers a more accurate accounting of its growing land-use footprint.

Confining sulfur in high-surface-area carbon is a widely adapted approach in Li–S batteries, but it often results in low sulfur utilization and low energy density. Now, controlled nucleation of discrete Li₂S particles on a network of low-surface-area carbon fibres provides a possible solution to the endemic problems of Li–S batteries.

Household income is a typical measure of inequality, but it is limited by under-reporting, especially for rural Chinese households. A new study shows that energy consumption measures service flows of household durable electronics, which can provide more precise measurement of rural wealth inequalities and distributions.

Light-weight and stretchable, organic photovoltaics offer unique integration prospects. Now, organic solar cells and modules can also be washed while maintaining good photoconversion efficiencies.

Environmental heat sinks beyond local air are available for use with normal air conditioners to increase their efficiency. A study has exploited outer space and the atmosphere as remote sinks to demonstrate daytime sub-ambient fluid cooling and its application in reducing the energy needed to cool an interior.

Despite being currently under-represented in IPCC reports, PV generation represents a growing share of power generation. This Perspective argues that underestimating PV potential led to suboptimal integration measures and that specific deployment strategies for emerging economies should be developed.

The utilization of porous carbon cathodes in lithium–air batteries is hindered by their severe decomposition during battery cycling. Now, dual redox mediators are shown to decouple the complex electrochemical reactions at the cathode, avoiding cathode passivation and decomposition.

Transition-metal dichalcogenides are appealing catalysts for H₂ generation from water. They tend to rely on scarce edge sites, rather than the more abundant basal-plane sites, to drive catalysis. Now, guided by computation, H-TaS₂ and H-NbS₂ are proposed as highly basal-plane-active catalysts that improve with electrochemical cycling.

Typically, the allocation of renewable power sources is determined by a desire to maximize output and reduce generation costs in order to satisfy the preferences of a small number of stakeholders. A new model broadens this perspective by considering societal equity and acceptability, with the aim of improving the siting process.

Thermal effects on batteries, both due to external variations and internal fluctuations, significantly impact their performance. Ajayan and colleagues survey recent advances in understanding the thermal effects on individual battery components.

Wind turbines have been a go-to technology for addressing climate change, but they are increasingly a source of frustration for all stakeholders. While community ownership is often lauded as a panacea for maximizing turbine acceptance, a new study suggests that decision-making involvement — procedural fairness — matters most.

Distributed energy resources will play a fundamental role in providing low-carbon electricity in a smart, flexible way. A new study develops a cross-disciplinary planning tool showing that ‘going distributed’ always pays.

Perovskite solar cells are developing fast but their lifetimes must be extended. Now, large-area printed perovskite solar modules have been shown to be stable for more than 10,000 hours under continuous illumination.

Renewable energy policies enjoy greater support compared to policies focused explicitly on climate change, and thus present a politically plausible path toward carbon emission reduction. However, new research shows that renewable energy policy support declines when people are informed about the policy costs for home energy bills.

Electrically controlled windows require power to switch between transparent and tinted states. Now, an ultraviolet light-harvesting solar cell can power smart windows without compromising their control over heat and light.

Concentrating solar power had a difficult market start compared to other renewable technologies, leading to a total global capacity of only 5 GW today after more than a decade of deployment. A comprehensive global empirical study identifies distinct deployment phases, with high learning rates exceeding 25% over the past 5 years.

Conventional Li–S batteries have a non-compact cathode structure containing low areal loading of active materials. Now, a strategy of burning Li foils in a CS₂ vapour is presented, which leads to the formation of highly compact Li₂S nanoparticles as a lithiated sulfur cathode, offering promising battery performance.

Heterostructures with alternating layers of different 2D materials are finding increasing attention in energy applications. Pomerantseva and Gogotsi survey the opportunities and challenges of both developing the heterostructures and their implementation in energy storage devices.