Stanford ENERGY

Stanford chemist's 3D-printed materials could improve nuclear fusion reactor efficiency

Nuclear fusion could provide zero-emission power without the long-lasting radioactive waste of traditional fission reactors. But it’s not commercially viable yet. A materials innovation from Stanford chemist Joseph DeSimone’s lab could help improve how fusion fuel is handled in experimental reactors.

In inertial confinement fusion – the approach responsible for recent fusion advances – lasers strike capsules filled with fuel (deuterium and tritium, isotopes of hydrogen) to trigger fusion reactions. Because the lasers are aimed with extreme precision, even small structural flaws in a capsule can affect how uniformly the fuel compresses and how much energy is released, according to DeSimone. Current experimental approaches use foam capsules with pores that vary from capsule to capsule.

DeSimone and his team developed a system that 3D-prints capsules to hold fusion fuel. The capsules have pores about one-tenth the width of a human hair, and are designed to be identical every time they're printed.

"We don't make snowflakes. We make precision particles," said DeSimone. The uniformity, the team hypothesizes, could improve fusion reactor efficiency.

In February 2026, Stanford filed a patent for using these capsules in nuclear fusion and advanced fission fuel containment. The Stanford Sustainability Accelerator connected DeSimone's team with researchers at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to identify nuclear applications. The team is also exploring uses in batteries for energy storage.

“The Accelerator gave us an opportunity to take our platform and talk to different potential users who have the mindset of sustainability," DeSimone said.

Read the article: …stainability-accelerator.stanford.edu/news/printing-…

Ten emerging energy leaders join Stanford to tackle the clean energy transition

The Stanford Energy Postdoctoral Fellowship has welcomed its fourth cohort: 10 emerging energy leaders drawn from eight universities across three countries. Half are women. Hosted by the Precourt Institute for Energy at the Doerr School of Sustainability, the fellowship supports interdisciplinary research across the full spectrum of the energy transition.

The very deserving fellows are (see photo below):
• Top row from left: Jack Collison, Zhe Fu, He Shan, Jane Park, Cindy Gee.
• Bottom row: Yigao Yuan, Bo Liu, Cole Fincher, Xintong Yuan, Shiyuan Zhou.

“Tough challenges, like the energy transition, cannot be solved in isolation,” said Yi Cui, professor of materials science and engineering, who founded the fellowship in 2022. Each fellow works with at least two faculty mentors from different disciplines, and two fellows will work with scientists at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. This structure creates space for cross-pollination that no single academic department could generate on its own.

The fellowship provides mentorship opportunities and up to three years of funding, allowing researchers to pursue systems-level questions across technology, policy, and society. “These fellows tackle different problems, but they share a common commitment to significantly improving our world,” said William Chueh, director of the Precourt Institute.

Applications for the fifth cohort open Jul. 1 with an Oct. 1 deadline.

Read the article: energy.stanford.edu/news/stanford-…

Oil provides more than 90% of global transportation energy, but how much do you know about oil before it reaches your gasoline tank?

The February edition of the “Energy Spotlight,” published monthly, dives deep into crude oil – the unrefined oil we get out of the ground. It’s a depletable, non-renewable mixture of hydrocarbons found mostly in liquid form in porous rocks beneath the Earth’s surface.

Not all crude oil is the same. Crude oils are classified by:

• Density (API gravity): light vs. heavy
• Sulfur content: sweet (low sulfur) vs. sour (high sulfur)
• Geographic origin

Light, sweet crudes are easier to refine and usually priced higher than heavier, sour crudes. Heavy, sour crudes require more complex, energy-intensive refining. Venezuela and Canada hold large proved reserves of extra-heavy crudes, which cost more to produce than lighter crudes and can become uneconomic when crude oil prices drop.

These differences don’t affect price alone. They shape global trade, refinery choices, and even environmental impacts (like the massive ponds that store waste from oil sands production, and the extra emissions from upgrading heavy crude).

Want to explore more from our reservoir of oil info? Read this month’s Energy Spotlight at Stanford University’s Understand Energy Learning Hub and subscribe if you like it: understand-energy.stanford.edu/news/understan…

A new technique measures energy losses in nanoscale devices to optimize future computing efficiency

Memory storage and information processing involve a constant flow of energy. Some energy is lost as heat inside the materials that make up computing hardware. Researchers refer to this loss as entropy production, and it’s a key limit on how fast and how efficiently computers operate.

“No one has ever been able to measure things like entropy production in one of these real material systems,” says senior author Aaron Lindenberg, professor of materials science and engineering. “That’s the fundamental thing that our paper achieves.”

Even co-author Grant Rotskoff, assistant professor of chemistry, was skeptical at first.

The initial researchers “really had to convince me that they were measuring the thing that they said they were measuring, because it’s an incredibly hard thing to do,” Rotskoff said.

Using quantum dots, tiny light-emitting nanocrystals, the team measured how much energy a system loses when external inputs drive it. Directly measuring entropy production using this technique may allow engineers to improve computers and similar devices in terms of energy use, efficiency, and speed.

Read more at Stanford Report: news.stanford.edu/stories/2026/0…

Read the study: nature.com/articles/s4156…

Heat from deep underground could help power the global clean energy transition

Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) could provide reliable, baseload electricity nearly anywhere on Earth. Adding EGS to the renewable energy mix reduces the amount of wind, solar, and battery infrastructure needed while maintaining comparable costs, according to new research led by Mark Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and Stanford School of Engineering.

EGS works by drilling three to eight kilometers deep, injecting fluid to crack rocks, then pumping heated fluid back up to generate electricity. When EGS supplied 10% of a region’s electricity in the study’s energy transition scenarios, the required capacity for onshore wind, solar, and battery storage dropped by 15%, 12%, and 28%, respectively. Total land requirements declined from 0.57% to 0.48% of combined land area; a difference particularly valuable for small or densely populated nations like Singapore, Gibraltar, Taiwan, and South Korea.

“EGS is a promising clean, renewable technology that works together with wind, solar, hydro, and batteries to help power the world for all purposes, thereby providing energy security while eliminating energy-related air pollution and global warming at low cost,” said Jacobson.
Drilling speed improvements are helping reduce EGS costs and shorten project timelines. The first major United States EGS plant, a 2-gigawatt facility in Utah, was approved in October 2024.

Read the brief from Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment: woods.stanford.edu/news/heat-deep…

Read the study here: cell.com/cell-reports-s…