Water-Energy-Food Nexus Part 5: Eric Kazyak

Description

The Energy and Environmental Programs Speaker Series is pleased to host Part 5 of the "Water-Energy-Energy Nexus" series, featuring Eric Kazyak, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan.

The ability to store electricity from intermittent sources such as wind and solar for on-demand use is critical to the widespread implementation of these technologies and the transition away from fossil fuels. Vehicle electrification is seen as the most viable route to the decarbonization of the transportation sector, which represents the largest energy use sector with the highest CO2 intensity in the U.S. Currently, lithium-ion battery (LIB) performance and cost are major hurdles to electric vehicle (EV) and grid-storage adoption, making batteries a critical aspect of reducing global emissions.

This talk will introduce LIB's working principles, key challenges, and recent progress in the context of EV applications. Particular emphasis will be given to the connections between battery performance (fast-charging, cycle-life, energy density) and the impacts for users. The land-use embodied energy and life-cycle implications of energy storage technologies will be discussed. Subsequently, several next-generation battery chemistries will be introduced that have the potential to be disruptive for EV markets. The promise and challenges of these up-and-coming technologies will be summarized from both a scientific and commercial perspective.

The Energy and Environmental Programs Speaker Series is a lecture series presented by the Johns Hopkins MS in Energy Policy & Climate and MS in Environmental Science and Policy programs.