Rice University research was well represented at CERAWeek, the annual energy conference in Houston presented by S&P Global. The conference provides a global and high-level framework for understanding what’s ahead for energy markets and forums to exchange insights and solutions among academic and industry peers.
Rice hosted several dedicated sessions to academic expertise and had a variety of university leaders on panels discussing the current and future landscape of energy innovation and the energy transition.
Ramamoorthy Ramesh, executive vice president for research, spoke with other industry leaders about the economic viabilities technologies that are closest to achieving “gigaton scale” and making a significant difference in sustainable energy solutions. He also discussed misconceptions surrounding the energy transition, such as the belief that all primary energy from fossil fuels must be replaced completely by renewable sources.
Prior to joining Rice, Ramesh held a number of energy leadership positions, including founding director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative — a $300 million-a-year initiative aimed at bringing the cost of solar electricity down to grid parity without the assistance of federal or state subsidies. He set the program’s science and technology agenda, established the funding priorities and oversaw the solar research and development activities at the U.S. national laboratories. The program has been lauded for bringing solar electricity into large-scale deployment around the world.
Matteo Pasquali, the A.J. Hartsook Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, professor of chemistry and materials science and nanoengineering and director of Rice’s Carbon Hub, participated in a roundtable discussion with energy executives on the materials transition that is integral to the energy transition.
“Carbon-based materials are critical for this material transition,” Pasquali said. “Plastics are known for their utility and low-energy intensity and are expected to play as critical a role as other products from the chemical industry. They serve multiple sectors that are part of the energy transition and day-to-day consumers’ life like construction, automotive, renewable energy, defense and multiple other sectors.”
The Carbon Hub envisions a zero-emissions future where clean hydrogen energy and advanced carbon materials are co-produced efficiently and sustainably from natural gas and oil.
The sector is constantly growing, but where do barriers remain in clean energy innovation? Paul Cherukuri, vice president for innovation, explained how Rice is working to remove those barriers through partnerships with industry and government.
“'It’s unique being in a university because there’s this great effort about creating new technology at scale,” Cherukuri said. “And because we’re in Houston, we have the capability of really getting to scale very quickly here. And Rice in particular, we have an innovation district right down the street, just five minutes from here. It’s 16 acres in the middle of the largest city in Texas. We have the capability of creating scalable tech, but what we have to do from the university side when we have these new emerging ideas is we de-risk them, develop them and then deploy them. That’s the pathway that we do.”
University innovation also includes the next wave of artificial intelligence (AI), a topic that might seem out of place at an energy conference, but the technology uses a significant amount of energy to operate. Anshumali Shrivastava, associate professor of computer science, joined peers from Dartmouth College and Massachusetts Institute of Technology to explain the latest trends in AI research and the importance of fostering talent in the rapidly evolving field.
“What is the university ecosystem doing, right? I can tell you at Rice we are already working on a new major for AI, because we know that it’s a completely different field,” Shrivastava said. “The other thing is every university ecosystem understands they will lack data and they will lack the infrastructure.
“We need youngsters to start rethinking everything, and if they come up with some idea, then we need to connect it to the right ecosystem with the resources to take it to the next round. But it’s going to be a very iterative thing. And one thing to be concerned of: If we are not careful about how much energy our AI is taking, then we will be in trouble.”
Learn more about Rice’s work in energy, technology and sustainability here.