Water splitter runs on an inexpensive battery.

Thomas Friedman captivates symposium audience.

Chad Holliday talks about industry and sustainability.

Arun Majumdar, Pete Trelenberg and John Woolard discuss the global energy challenge.

From the Director

We are excited to share with you the latest GCEP news, including:

• $10.5 million in new GCEP awards to advance solar cells, batteries, renewable fuels and bioenergy has been announced.
• Hongjie Dai and colleagues have developed a water splitter that runs on an ordinary AAA battery. The video of this story has more than 49K views on YouTube.
• GCEP investigator Hemamala Karunadasa has been honored as a "rising star" in chemistry.

We would also like to highlight our 2014 annual research symposium, "Moving the Clean Energy Agenda Forward," that featured an outstanding group of thought leaders, including the following keynote speakers:

• Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, who explained how cleantech innovation can help address climate change.
• Chad Holliday from Bank of America's Board of Directors, who pointed to the company's $50 billiion commitment to sustainable growth as an example of how industry can advance the transition to clean technologies.
• Chris Field, co-chair of IPCC Working Group II, who explained how clean-energy technologies can reduce the risks of negative impacts from climate change.
• Arun Majumdar (Stanford), who moderated a discussion with Pete Trelenberg (ExxonMobil) and John Woolard (Google) on industry's approaches to the global energy challenge.

If you missed the symposium, videos of these talks, the technical presentations, Energy 101 tutorials and distinguished student lectures, plus research posters are available on the 2014 GCEP symposium site. Please view and share with your colleagues.

Plus, please join me in congratulating Franklin "Lynn" Orr Jr., GCEP founding director, on being confirmed by the U.S. Senate as under secretary for science and energy in the U.S. Department of Energy.

Many thanks for your continued support of GCEP. Wishing you a wonderful holiday season!

Sally M. Benson, Director Global Climate and Energy Project

• Key conditions needed to make CCS a viable option for climate-change mitigation
• Harold Hwang wins prestigious European physics prize
• Net energy analysis should become a standard policy tool
• TEDx Stanford: Will Chueh talks about storing solar energy in the strangest places
• Negative-emissions insurance editorial by Sally Benson in Science
• Yi Cui leads the quest to build more energetic batteries
• Thomas Jaramillo named deputy director of SUNCAT