Click to reveal the search form
Close the search form
Menu
Research to Secure Our Energy Future

Research to Secure Our Energy Future

The world runs on energy. AAU universities are helping ensure our nation's, and the world's, energy security with scientific discoveries, technological breakthroughs, and the education of the next generation of energy problem solvers.

Faculty and students are addressing such research challenges as finding new and sustainable energy sources, improving energy storage and distribution, achieving greater energy conservation and efficiency, and understanding social and behavioral factors affecting the way we manage and consume energy.

This is the fourth in a series on AAU university research that addresses major societal issues. The first three topics are Helping Solve the Fresh Water Puzzle, Helping Safeguard the Connected World, and Researching the Brain, Seeking Cures.

Image of a dam.

Hydropower, Innovations and Avoiding International Dam Shame

Five scientists from Michigan State University say that hydropower from dams has a legacy of underestimated costs and overestimated value.
An array of radiative cooling modules.

Engineers Scale Up A Low-Cost, Energy-Saving Cooling System

CU Boulder and University of Wyoming engineers have successfully scaled up an innovative water-cooling system capable of providing continuous day-and-night radiative cooling for structures.
Rice University graduate student Gladys López-Silva holds a lithium metal anode with a film of carbon nanotubes.

Nanotubes May Give the World Better Batteries

Rice University scientists are counting on films of carbon nanotubes to make high-powered, fast-charging lithium metal batteries a logical replacement for common lithium-ion batteries.
Zhiyao (Yao) Lu

Turning Cooking Oils into Renewable Fuels

Greenhouse gases and plastic waste are the targets of a USC chemistry startup. that is turning vegetable oil into renewable fuels and biodegradable plastic.

Explore More: Research to Secure Our Energy Future

You can filter stories by specialty area and/or by university.

Unprecedented energy use since 1950 has transformed our planetary environment and humanity’s geologic footprint

A new study coordinated by CU Boulder makes clear the extraordinary speed and scale of increases in energy use, economic productivity and global population that have pushed the Earth towards a new geological epoch, known as the Anthropocene. Distinct physical, chemical and biological changes to Earth’s rock layers began around the year 1950, the research found.
University of Colorado Boulder | Research to Secure Our Energy Future | University Research

Artificial intelligence accelerates efforts to develop clean, virtually limitless fusion energy

Princeton University scientists, working with a Harvard graduate student, is for the first time applying deep learning — a powerful new version of the machine learning form of AI — to forecast sudden disruptions that can halt fusion reactions and damage the doughnut-shaped tokamaks that house the reactions.
Harvard University | Princeton University | Research to Secure Our Energy Future | University Research

Green Certification Improves Public Opinion of Oil And Gas Development, Study Finds

Researchers at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs found that public opinion of oil and gas development could be improved if firms were "green certified," meaning that they pledged to adhere to stricter environmental standards th

Indiana University Bloomington | Research to Secure Our Energy Future

Making Green Cars Greener

Researchers are examining ways to recycle electric vehicle batteries to help ensure that the influx of lithium-ion batteries doesn't undo the good work of electric vehicles.
Carnegie Mellon University | Energy Storage/Distribution | Research to Secure Our Energy Future

Novel Battery Undergoing Tests at AERTC

Stony Brook University energy researchers will be testing a prototype storage battery called a vanadium flow battery that is designed to be more energy efficient than existing flow batteries.
Stony Brook University - The State University of New York | Energy Storage/Distribution | Research to Secure Our Energy Future