Nature Energy is an online-only journal interested in all aspects of energy, from its generation and storage, to its distribution and management, the needs and demands of the different actors involved, and the impacts that energy technologies and policies have on different societies. The journal has a particular interest in studies that advance our knowledge and inform the development of next-generation technologies and solutions. Nature Energy publishes research from the natural, behavioural and social sciences.
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Nature Energy, Published online: 05 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01735-7
Photocatalytic conversion of CO2 typically requires a concentrated gas stream, making direct conversion of atmospheric CO2 to value-added products a challenge. Now, researchers report a photocatalytic reactor to produce useful molecules directly from air-captured CO2 using solar energy.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Environmentally friendly solvents
Nature Energy, Published online: 05 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01740-w
The fabrication of perovskite photovoltaics often relies on hazardous solvents that limit their implementation in manufacturing. Now, researchers develop a green solvent system for fabrication of large-area perovskite solar modules using industrially viable and scalable deposition methods, which achieve high power conversion efficiencies.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
The effect of residential solar on energy insecurity among low- to moderate-income households
Nature Energy, Published online: 05 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01730-y
Energy insecurity is a major concern in the USA, but rooftop solar may be an effective tool for reducing this insecurity of vulnerable households. New research finds that rooftop solar leads to a large reduction in energy insecurity, particularly among low- to moderate-income households in the country.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
How central banks address climate and transition risks
Nature Energy, Published online: 28 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01725-9
Central bank management of climate risks is associated with climate politics, as opposed to a country’s economic exposure to transition risk, including stranded asset and clean energy investment risk. Central banks are not entirely autonomous actors that correct for the lack of national decarbonization policy—they rather complement existing national policies that aim to shift the economy from fossil fuels to clean energy.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
How central banks manage climate and energy transition risks
Nature Energy, Published online: 28 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01724-w
Central banks vary substantially in the extent to which they re-risk stranded asset and physical climate risks and de-risk clean energy investments. Their actions are associated with climate politics and policy, and less so with underlying economic risks.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Mobilizing power quality and reliability measurements for electricity equity and justice in Africa
Nature Energy, Published online: 28 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01717-9
Poor power quality and reliability are prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. Osunmuyiwa et al. find that areas with this issue in Accra overlap with those experiencing multidimensional poverty and have more unusable power during peak periods than others.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Renewable energy cooperatives
Nature Energy, Published online: 26 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01728-6
Renewable energy cooperatives
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Upscaling high-areal-capacity battery electrodes
Nature Energy, Published online: 26 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01720-0
Achieving industrial-scale production of high-energy-density batteries will require cost and efficiency challenges to be addressed. The authors explore the upscaling of high-areal-capacity electrodes, evaluating manufacturing techniques, electrode design and materials chemistry.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Cooling vertical surfaces
Nature Energy, Published online: 25 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01727-7
Cooling vertical surfaces
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Faster deployment of renewables stabilizes electricity prices in Europe
Nature Energy, Published online: 21 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01715-x
Increasing solar photovoltaic and wind generation capacity beyond European 2030 targets could make electricity prices more stable, with reductions in sensitivity to fluctuations in the price of natural gas possibly outweighing the increasing influence of weather effects. Energy policies should account for the macroeconomic benefits of more stable energy prices as an important motivation for the deployment of renewables, in addition to their contribution to the mitigation of climate change.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Multi-country evidence on societal factors to include in energy transition modelling
Nature Energy, Published online: 21 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01719-7
Mitigation scenarios are required to account for societal factors. Fisch-Romito et al. integrate factors related to infrastructure, actors’ decision-making and socio-institutional context into a national energy model, and, using hindcasting, show how this can improve the modelled pathways.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Demand-side policies can significantly reduce emissions from energy use in buildings and transport
Nature Energy, Published online: 20 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01721-z
Large emission reductions in buildings and transport are possible by integrating demand-side strategies to electrify energy use, improve technological efficiency, and reduce or shift patterns of activity. With enabling policies and infrastructures, final energy users can make significant contributions to climate goals, particularly through widespread deployment of heat pumps and electric vehicles.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
High-energy, long-life Ni-rich cathode materials with columnar structures for all-solid-state batteries
Nature Energy, Published online: 20 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01726-8
Ni-rich cathodes in all-solid-state batteries experience capacity fading due to surface degradation, particle isolation and detachment at the cathode–electrolyte interface. This study quantifies these degradation factors, showing that detachment increases with Ni content and emphasizing the need for strategies to address these challenges.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
On par with lithium-ion
Nature Energy, Published online: 14 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01718-8
Cheaper and more sustainable batteries are key to decarbonize the global energy system, and sodium-ion batteries that use far fewer critical materials are an important option. Research now shows that rapidly improving techno-economics of sodium-ion batteries could soon make them competitive with lithium-ion phosphate batteries under a range of scenarios.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Asymmetric ether solvents for high-rate lithium metal batteries
Nature Energy, Published online: 14 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01716-w
There is growing interest in designing electrolytes to enable Li-metal batteries. Here the authors show that asymmetric solvents improve lithium redox kinetics and achieve long cycle life in anode-free cells under electric vertical take-off and landing conditions, demonstrating potential for future high-power applications.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Direct air capture of CO<sub>2</sub> for solar fuel production in flow
Nature Energy, Published online: 13 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01714-y
Photocatalytic conversion of CO2 typically uses concentrated feeds, hindering the direct conversion of ambient CO2 to value-added products. Kar et al. report a flow reactor that produces syngas (a mixture of CO and H2) through on-site utilization of air-captured CO2 using light.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Charge extraction with hydrogen
Nature Energy, Published online: 10 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01705-z
The performance of kesterite solar cells is limited by poor extraction of electrons and holes and their recombination. Researchers have now discovered that annealing the device in a hydrogen-containing atmosphere can promote efficient charge extraction by redistributing certain elements like sodium and oxygen.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
The gas infrastructure shift in the United States
Nature Energy, Published online: 10 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01713-z
Jennifer Danis, expert in environmental and energy law and Federal Energy Policy Director at the Institute for Policy Integrity (New York University School of Law), talks to Nature Energy about shifts in the gas infrastructure landscape of the United States, highlighting gaps and opportunities for research and policy to be better aligned for positive change.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
Author Correction: Scalable fabrication of wide-bandgap perovskites using green solvents for tandem solar cells
Nature Energy, Published online: 10 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01723-x
Author Correction: Scalable fabrication of wide-bandgap perovskites using green solvents for tandem solar cells
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)
A dash of salt
Nature Energy, Published online: 05 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s41560-025-01706-y
Improving the solid–electrolyte interface at the lithium-metal interface is key to stabilizing rechargeable metal batteries. Now, stabilizing the cathode electrolyte interface through molecular optimization of the salt anion is shown to support the formation of a robust inorganic polymer and conductive interface, enabling high energy and power densities at various current densities and temperatures.
Categories: Nanoscience News (<front>)