Guadalupe Maravilla draws on his home country of El Salvador as he sculpts backpacks and hands from volcanic rock.
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What if succulents sprouted in squiggles? Or cacti turned orange and floated to the sky like balloons?
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Highlighting the incredible diversity and beauty of nature, Vital Impacts launches its annual print sale featuring more than 80 photographers.
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Vital Impacts’ ‘Saving the Monarchs’ Campaign with Jaime Rojo Raises Funds for Conservation appeared first on Colossal.
At the Energy LIVE 2024 conference in Houston, Texas, the path to a net-zero emissions future was a hot topic.
In a session titled ‘The Great Electrification Debate’, energy experts Dr Tej Gidda and Dr Peter Benyon, both from GHD, discussed whether full electrification is possible on a global or regional scale.
Speaking to an audience of industry insiders, policymakers and innovators, Gidda and Benyon presented equally ambitious but contrasting viewpoints. One championed the promise of green electricity while the other advocated for alternative renewable energy sources.
The case for electrification
Dr Peter Benyon.
Benyon, GHD’s Australian Market Leader – Power, opened with a vision of electrification across residential, commercial, industrial and transportation sectors, citing the rapid adoption of renewable energy and advancements in energy efficiency as cornerstones of a clean, sustainable future.
“We are already making significant progress toward electrifying everything. Over the past decade, electricity demand has grown at nearly twice the rate of overall energy demand, and this trend is accelerating rapidly,” he said.
“With net zero objectives in focus, green electricity — produced from abundant resources like wind and solar — stands out as the cleanest and most cost-effective energy source.
“Harnessing these natural resources, coupled with energy storage, makes transitioning to an all-electric system an obvious choice.
“The benefits are clear — cleaner air, lower noise pollution and significant cost savings. Green electricity is not simply better for the environment; it is also healthier and more affordable for communities,” he explained.
To bolster his argument, Benyon pointed to community-led projects like Electrify 2515, where 500 homes in the city of Wollongong are transitioning from gas to electric appliances.
He also highlighted progress in Australian states and territories including South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, which are well on their way to, or have already achieved, net 100% renewable electricity and have advanced electrification initiatives.
Electrification would also be economically beneficial, he said. “Every heat pump and EV we deploy brings tangible savings for households. It is not just about the planet — it is about people’s wallets.
“We’re also seeing breakthroughs in energy storage, including lithium, sodium and vanadium technologies, which will support and stabilise grids and enable deeper electrification.”
Challenges and alternatives
Dr Tej Gidda.
Gidda, GHD’s Global Leader for Future Energy, presented a different perspective, questioning whether electrifying everything is realistic in the short term.
“The power generation required for full electrification is enormous, and in many regions, it is simply not feasible today,” he argued.
Gidda said that affordability was another critical barrier, using North America as an example of a region where consumers and businesses face high costs of transitioning to electric systems even with subsidies.
“We don’t currently have enough power generation to electrify everything. The anticipated increases in demand are already outpacing our ability to generate new power, and we are struggling to meet existing needs,” he said.
“How can we possibly address the additional requirements for full electrification when we’re already behind on capacity for today’s demands?”
However, existing infrastructure in North America still offers untapped potential for decarbonisation, Gidda said.
“We have millions of miles of pipelines that can be repurposed for renewable natural gas and hydrogen. Why abandon these assets when we can use them to reduce emissions today and do so to maintain affordability?”
Gidda cited North American projects converting agricultural waste and landfill gas into biomethane, as well as Toronto’s efforts to displace natural gas with renewable sources created from food waste.
He also underscored the limitations of battery electric vehicles, particularly in heavy-duty transport.
“There are not enough lithium reserves globally to electrify all vehicles, and this is a real problem. We need complementary solutions, such as hydrogen and low-carbon fuels.”
Technological pathways
Both Gidda and Benyon agreed on the need to advance energy technologies to support the energy transition.
Benyon advocated for diverse energy storage methods, from mechanical processes like compressed air to thermal storage.
“Storage innovation is key to grid reliability and scalability. It is how we will meet growing demand without compromising stability in a renewable electricity grid,” he said.
Gidda made the case for blending hydrogen into existing natural gas systems to decarbonise without costly infrastructure overhauls.
“This approach reduces emissions immediately, with minimal disruption to consumers,” he explained.
What needs to happen now?
When asked what near-term actions are critical for achieving net zero by 2050, Benyon called for aggressive grid decarbonisation and expanded infrastructure, with targeted support for low-income communities to ensure equitable transitions.
Gidda stressed the need for comprehensive national energy policies and public–private partnerships. “This is too big for any one sector to tackle alone. Collaboration is our best shot at success,” he said.
Gidda said that solutions must be tailored to the realities of each region. “There is no single path to net zero,” he said. “For me, I do not believe ‘electrification’ is the answer on its own. It needs to be a combination of electrification and decarbonisation.”
Benyon agreed on the need for diverse approaches, adding, “What matters most is that we act decisively and collaboratively. Every step forward is a step toward a cleaner, greener world.”
Top image credit: iStock.com/kynny
A team of scientists at UNSW Chemistry has developed an organic material that is able to store protons, which is being used to create a rechargeable proton battery in the lab.
By using hydrogen ions (protons) instead of traditional lithium, the batteries hold promise for addressing some of the critical challenges in modern energy storage, including resource scarcity, environmental impact, safety and cost. The team’s latest findings, published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, highlight the battery’s ability to store energy quickly, last longer and perform well tunder sub-zero conditions.
The material — tetraamino-benzoquinone — was developed by PhD candidate Sicheng Wu and Professor Chuan Zhao, in collaboration with UNSW Engineering and ANSTO, and has been shown to support rapid proton movement using hydrogen-bond networks.
“We have developed a novel, high-capacity, small-molecule material for proton storage,” Zhao said. “Using this material, we successfully built an all-organic proton battery that is effective at both room temperature and sub-zero freezing temperatures.”
Back to battery basics
Batteries store chemical energy and convert it to electrical energy through reactions between two electrodes — the anode and cathode. Charge-carrying particles, known as ions, are transferred via the middle component of the battery, known as an electrolyte.
The most common batteries used in household products are lithium-ion batteries. These batteries, which create an electric charge by transferring lithium ions between the anode and cathode, are the most widespread portable energy storage solutions.
Lithium-ion batteries power everyday products such as mobile phones, laptops and smart wearables, as well as newer e-mobility products such as electric cars, e-bikes and e-scooters. However, they are very difficult to recycle and require huge amounts of water and energy to produce.
“Lithium-ion batteries are already becoming a dominant product in energy storage applications, but they have a lot of limitations,” Wu said.
“Lithium is a finite resource that is not evenly distributed on Earth, so some countries may not have access to low-cost lithium sources. Lithium batteries also have [a] very big challenge regarding fast-charging applications, safety and … low efficiency in cold temperature.”
Alternatives to lithium-ion batteries
Although we currently rely very heavily on lithium-ion batteries, a growing number of alternatives are emerging. In particular, proton batteries are gaining attention as a sustainable alternative in the energy field for energy storage devices.
Protons have the smallest ionic radius and mass of all elements, which allows them to diffuse quickly. Using protons results in batteries with high energy and power density, and protons are relatively inexpensive, produce zero carbon emissions and are fast charging.
“There are many benefits to proton batteries,” Wu said. “But the current electrode materials used for proton batteries, some of which are made from organic materials and others from metals, are heavy and still very high cost.”
While a few organic electrode materials already exist, they also suffer from limited voltage range, and further research is required to make them viable batteries.
Creating an anode material
Redox potential is a fundamental parameter in electrochemistry. It is related to the flow of electricity, which is important for designing batteries. The range of redox potentials in a battery is important because it affects the battery’s performance. Usually, the redox potentials of cathode materials need to locate in a high range and that of anodes need to locate in a low range to ensure a desirable battery voltage output.
To create their electrode material, the research team started with a small molecule, called tetrachloro-benzoquinone (TCBQ), which includes four chlorine groups. Although TCBQ has been used previously to design electrode materials, the redox potential range of this compound is mediocre — neither low enough to be used as an anode nor high enough to be used as a cathode.
So, to start, the team set out to modify TCBQ to increase its performance as an anode material.
After multiple rounds of modifications of the compound, the researchers settled on replacing the four chloro groups with four amino groups, making it a tetraamino-benzaquinone (TABQ) molecule. By adding amino groups, the researchers significantly improved the material’s ability to store protons and lower its redox potential range.
“If you just look at the TABQ material that we have designed, it’s not necessarily cheap to produce at the moment,” Zhao said. “But because it’s made of abundant light elements, it will be easy and affordable to eventually scale up.”
Putting the prototype to the test
When the researchers tested the proton battery, the results were promising.
Combined with a TCBQ cathode, the all-organic battery offers a long cycle life (3500 cycles of fully charging and then fully draining the battery), high capacity and good performance in cold conditions.
“The electrolyte in a lithium-ion battery is made of lithium salt, a solvent which is flammable and therefore is a big concern,” Zhao said. “In our case, we have both electrodes made of organic molecules, and in between we have the water solution, making our prototype battery lightweight, safe and affordable.”
Given the low cost, high safety and the fast charging performance of the proton battery designed through this collaboration, it has the potential to be used in a variety of situations, including grid-scale energy storage. As noted by Wu, “At the moment, we don’t have any suitable solutions to grid-scale energy storage, because we can’t use tons of lithium batteries to do that job due to the price and lack of safety.
“To enhance the usage of renewable energies, we have to develop some more efficient energy integration technologies and our proton battery design is a promising trial.”
While the potential applications are vast, the researchers are determined to refine and perfect their proton battery.
“We have designed a very good anode material, and future work will move to the cathode side. We will continue designing new organic materials that have higher redox potential range to increase the battery output voltage,” Wu said.
Image caption: Professor Chuan Zhao holds up a prototype of the proton battery in the lab, made in collaboration with UNSW Engineering and ANSTO. Image: Supplied.
