A letter from the directors
Dear Friends of the Scott Institute:
As we pause to reflect on another remarkable year, we are grateful for your contributions and support towards the many achievements of the Scott Institute. This year, Scott Institute Fellow Costa Samaras returned to CMU after serving in the White House to become the Scott Institute’s Director. The team has enabled growth in research, resources, and impact in 2024, and we’d like to take this opportunity to share some of our proudest moments and offer a glimpse of our vision for the year ahead.
It’s been an exciting year for energy and climate research at CMU, and we’d like to share just a few examples here of how Scott Institute researchers have continued to drive the conversation in several critical areas to the energy transition. Our researchers continued to lead groundbreaking work in electric vehicle (EV) technology and policy by assessing battery critical minerals supply chain issues (read in Nature Communications), evaluating the implications of the Inflation Reduction Act for reshoring battery manufacturing (read in Nature Energy), and modeling the costs and benefits of bus electrification (read in Environmental Science and Technology). Scott Institute researchers also examined timelines for carbon capture and sequestration development and opportunities to safely advance the process (read in PNAS) and ways to mitigate risks in the development of hydrogen hubs (read in Risk Analysis and IS&T). Our faculty have taken a closer look at how to consider employment impacts (read the Nature Sustainability commentary) and community equity (read in Applied Energy) as we reduce carbon emissions. And they’ve continued to grow our engineering research portfolio in clean hydrogen technology to reinforce American leadership in the growing hydrogen industry.
We’ve also continued to convene important discussions over the past year, attended by over 2,000 students, staff, faculty, and members of our community. In March, our flagship event, CMU Energy Week, brought together leaders focused on decarbonizing the transportation industry. We hosted a number of Distinguished Lectures to educate, inspire, and build new connections, including with regional leaders such as Department of Energy National Energy Technology Lab Director Marianne Walck and Allegheny County Airport Authority CEO Christina Cassotis. We brought together leaders from organizations representing roughly one-quarter of global iron and steel production and a diverse range of decarbonization pathways at our 2nd Annual Accelerating Green Steel Workshop, where we discussed priorities for research, development, and deployment of green steel as well as greenhouse gas emissions accounting principles. We also helped organize two national meetings of the University Energy Institute Leadership Collaborative, a network of university-based energy institutes we helped found and lead to foster new collaborations to drive the energy transition forward.
In 2024 we celebrated the growth of our Grand Challenge Partnership program, with Trane Technologies joining the Scott Institute as its first corporate Grand Challenge Partner. The multi-year collaboration will convene CMU and Trane researchers to collaborate on a study focused on decarbonized heating solutions for the electrified home in the U.S. Trane is the second Grand Challenge Partner of the Scott Institute, after two CMU alumni, Aaron and Yeming Rankin, became partners in late 2023.
The Scott Institute has made a number of investments in groundbreaking CMU research in 2024. We awarded nearly $400,000 in Scott Institute Seed Awards across seven collaborative teams and four different colleges at CMU, supporting research focused on decarbonization, energy equity, and resilience. Our Seed Award program continues to be a critical annual priority of the Institute as the new sponsored research awards that have followed our seed investments have totaled nearly six times our original seed investment since 2014. As part of our goal of growing cleantech commercialization, we launched a cleantech entrepreneurship funding opportunity for CMU founders, and also invested in startup funding for SeaLion Energy, a new startup founded by Scott Institute Fellow Reeja Jayan. With technology accelerated by a prior Scott Institute Seed grant, SeaLion focuses on developing a low-cost and low-greenhouse gas coating technology that considerably extends the life cycle of EV batteries. Our investment helped secure a $1.6M ARPA-E award for the company.
Our work over the past year has led to substantial impact – both on technology research, development, and deployment but also policymaking to accelerate the energy transition. For example, faculty leading the Open Energy Outlook – a Scott Institute key initiative focused on energy modeling to inform policy making – provided comments to the Treasury department after performing an independent evaluation of a series of proposed rules for hydrogen tax credits included in the Inflation Reduction Act. Thirteen U.S. Senators cited those comments in a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Additionally, Scott Institute Fellow Paulina Jaramillo began a yearlong fellowship working in the U.S. Congress, Scott Institute Fellow Destenie Nock presented recommendations to the Massachusetts government on energy affordability, and Director Costa Samaras presented recommendations on the impact of AI on energy use to the National Academies.
We are excited to have you with us on our continued journey into 2025. We are very grateful for your ongoing support for the Scott Institute’s community and impact, and year-end gifts to the Institute can further accelerate our impact in 2025. We wish you and your families a peaceful holiday season and a fulfilling year ahead, and hope to see you in March for CMU Energy Week.
Warmly,
Costa Samaras, Director
Valerie Karplus, Associate Director
Daniel Tkacik, Executive Director