Energy

Princeton establishes Energy Research Fund
Nov. 29, 2022

Princeton University has established the Energy Research Fund to support fundamental and applied energy solutions research and foster collaboration with corporate partners.

The best place to store energy for the electric grid? You might be standing on it
Sept. 6, 2022
Author
Written by Sharon Waters for the Office of Engineering Communications

For parts of the U.S., the best place to store massive amounts energy for the electric grid could be right beneath our feet.

Geothermal energy, which relies on hot rock far below the earth’s surface, has long been used as a source of heating and electricity generation. But recent advances in drilling technology have opened up new…

Once seen as fleeting, a new solar tech proves its lasting power
June 29, 2022
Author
Written by Scott Lyon, Office of Engineering Communications

Princeton Engineering researchers have developed the first perovskite solar cell with a commercially viable lifetime, marking a major milestone for an emerging class of renewable energy technology.

The device is the first of its kind to rival the performance of silicon-based cells, which have dominated the market…

VP David McComas receives the 2022 Distinguished Scientist Award
April 4, 2022
Author
Written by Liz Fuller-Wright, Office of Communications

The Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics (SCOSTEP), part of the International Science Council, announced today that they are honoring Princeton’s David McComas with the 2022 Distinguished Scientist Award “for original research, technical…

A timeline of innovation and impact at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
March 17, 2022
Author
Written by Princeton University

The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory is the U.S. national laboratory with the mission to develop the scientific foundation for the creation of fusion energy, the power source of the sun and the stars. 

Fusion energy research in the United States began at PPPL, and the lab's 71-year history offers a glimpse into some of the key…

Energy leaders are convening at the White House for a summit on the commercialization of clean fusion energy
March 17, 2022
Author
Written by Jeanne Jackson DeVoe, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

Steve Cowley, director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), was among a group of national leaders in fusion energy who met in Washington, D.C., on March 17 for a White House summit hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

PPPL researcher's work yields a breakthrough for a promising fusion-energy device
March 3, 2022
Author
Written by John Greenwald, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

How can scientists create fusion — the energy that powers the sun and stars — to produce clean energy?

For decades, fusion researchers have largely focused on tokamaks, which use a symmetrical, donut-shaped field to contain the fuel that creates the energy. But a twisty stellarator, an experimental magnetic facility invented by…

How the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab contributed to the new world record in clean fusion energy
Feb. 15, 2022
Author
Written by John Greenwald, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

Research by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has played a supporting role in the recent major advance in the production of fusion power at the Joint European Torus (JET) in the United Kingdom. In the recently disclosed breakthrough by the EUROfusion research consortium that…

Princeton startup aims to fast-track lithium battery recycling
Feb. 10, 2022

Billions of dead lithium-ion batteries, including many from electric vehicles, are accumulating because there is no cost-effective process to revive them. Now Princeton researchers have developed an inexpensive, sustainable way to make new batteries from used ones and have spun off a company to scale up the innovation.

“What we see is…

New platform speeds up effort to turn crops into fuel
Aug. 30, 2021
Author
Written by Scott Lyon, School of Engineering and Applied Science

Princeton researchers have developed a new way to make fuel from cellulose—Earth's most abundant organic compound, found in all plant cells—speeding up a notoriously slow chemical process and in some cases doubling energy yields over comparable methods.

Their platform uses a recently developed cellulose emulsion that makes it easier…