Themed collection Highlights in energy policy, technoeconomics and life-cycle assessment

Electrification is a complex process with numerous stakeholders affecting circularity.

Air-to-ammonia via plasma-generated NO and NORR: engineered microenvironments, gas-fed interfaces, and techno-economic-constrained design rules link catalyst choice to stack architecture for scalable, distributed NH₃.

Improving overall resource efficiency enhances energy security.

Analysis and calculation of Germany's climate politics and hydrogen strategy, with a focus on the technical demand for hydrogen implementation through a case study of the chemical industry that engages multiple stakeholders.

Hydrogen fuel cells (HFCs) present a viable clean energy solution but face significant economic and technical challenges.

We review the near-complete literature on direct air capture and storage until August 2024 inclusive, discussing technology, costs, environmental impacts, socioeconomic impacts, monitoring, reporting, and verification, and uptake and scaling.

Vehicle-to-grid technology accelerates the transition to renewable, low-carbon power systems by integrating electric vehicles.

Metal halide perovskites (MHPs) have gained attention as a viable alternative to crystalline silicon solar cells, offering comparable power conversion efficiencies exceeding 26%.

Core–shell Pt_xCu@Pt_yCu/C (y ≫ x) catalysts have proven to be effective for producing green H₂ from a high-temperature PEM ethanol electroreformer with higher CO₂ selectivity and lower energy demand, potentially competing with PEM water electrolysis.

A harmonized global ammonia supply chain database across 63 countries was developed, quantifying the levelized cost of ammonia and life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions for diverse production (gray, blue, yellow, pink, and green) and logistics.

Global analysis reveals that offshore floating PV could meet the global electricity demand several times over, with extensive areas already suitable for cost-competitive deployment.

While biofuel production capacity in the U.S. is expanding, the capacities remain limited compared to fuel demand.

In a new holistic framework to assess marine e-fuels across technological, economic, environmental and safety dimensions, e-methanol consistently outperforms marine diesel oil, and ammonia holds long-term promise if safety challenges can be overcome.

The developed framework provides a generalizable methodology to develop life cycle inventories for novel material production from thermodynamic first principles and essential process parameters.

Techno-economic analysis of a plasma-based methanol production process integrated with different renewable electricity sources.

Future iron and steel production is likely to consume large shares of the carbon budget, even under optimistic decarbonization scenarios. Electrifying steel production has co-benefits but may cause trade-offs in other environmental impact categories.

Environmental needs and international regulations urgently ask for a robust practice for the recycling and reusing of critical components of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) to reduce the primary material demand and energy consumption.

This study highlights global innovation imbalances in future electric vehicle battery technologies, with regional policies and differing innovation capabilities driving disparities in leadership and competitiveness.

This study assesses the techno-economic and environmental viability of plasma-assisted methane reforming for syngas production, finding oxy-CO₂ reforming the most effective and bi-reforming promising for clean, cost-efficient syngas production.

OFB and HFB showed promising environmental performance, particularly when considering use-phase impacts, compared to VFBs. Electrolyte active materials are the main contributors, with the electrolyte capacity fade playing a critical role in results.

The social acceptance of domestic hydrogen and prospects for deploying hydrogen homes will be shaped by public trust in key actors and stakeholders.

A comprehensive assessment of process design, cost efficiency, critical mineral recovery, and CO₂ storage in mine tailings.

Synthetic methanol can be produced from carbon dioxide captured from ambient air with great improvements in many environmental impact categories compared to traditional production methods.

Aluminum, a safe and energy-dense circular fuel, can be cost-competitive with ammonia and cheaper than liquefied hydrogen.