Compartmentalization is a key feature of living systems. Cells are separated from their environment by a membrane, and intracellular compartments are widely used to carry out the biochemistry upon which life relies. Biomolecular condensates are transient intracellular compartments formed when molecules within the cytoplasm undergo a condensing phase transition. The transition produces a region within the cytoplasm that’s typically denser and/or more viscous than the surrounding fluid and the transition is often referred to as liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS). Molecules co-located within a condensate can more readily react with one another and biologists have learned that the formation and eventual dissolution of biomolecular condensates is ubiquitous across life. While much has been learned about the functions facilitated by these transient organelles, there are many open questions about how the basic physics of LLPS is impacted by the complex, heterogeneous cellular environment within which LLPS occurs. This grant funds work by Jennifer Ross and Jennifer Schwarz, professors of experimental and theoretical physics, respectively, at Syracuse University to study how two specific features of the intracellular microenvironment—the presence of an enzyme-driven ‘active bath’ that modifies the local energy landscape, and the presence of viscoelastic polymers that modify the local entropy landscape—influence the formation and dissolution of protein condensates. The phrase ‘active bath’ refers to a fluid that has been perturbed from its equilibrium thermal state by some type of activity that leads to fluid regions with local fluctuations (e.g. position fluctuations of water molecules) that exceed those associated with the fluid’s overall (equilibrium) thermal state. In this project, the relevant activity is ‘background’ enzyme reactions; chemical reactions that do not directly involve the proteins that condense during LLPS, but which may nonetheless influence LLPS. The cellular entropy feature to be explored by Ross and Schwarz is the presence of a cytoskeleton, a network of viscoelastic (i.e. both viscous and elastic) protein filaments that act to constrain the motion of molecules within a cell via crowding. The team will create cytoskeletal-like networks of varying density and stiffness by using the cytoskeletal biopolymers actin and tubulin. Experiments will vary both the overall polymer density and the actin-to-tubulin ratio. Temperature and condensing-polymer concentration are two key parameters that will be used to experimentally characterize the LLPS phase transition, and Ross and Schwarz plan to study two types of condensing proteins and—for each type of condensing protein—two types of phase transition.

This grant supports efforts by  Thomas Preston, a Professor of Chemistry and of Atmospheric & Ocean Sciences at McGill University, to study whether and how aerosol droplets accelerate chemical reactions important to the rise of life on early Earth. Professor Preston and colleagues plan to bring a new level of experimental control and chemical analysis to Origin-of-Life (OoL) droplet-chemistry studies by containing droplets in a ‘trap’ that allows individual droplets to be studied for long periods of time, and by applying two powerful spectroscopic techniques (Raman spectroscopy and mass spectrometry) to study in-droplet chemistry. In-droplet chemistry may have contributed to the rise of life on Earth by accelerating various chemical reactions. This ‘acceleration of chemistry’ is important to origins-of-life theories because as chemical reaction times increase, yields become vanishingly small, and thus not useful for understanding abiogenesis. It has been reported that confinement inside droplets can accelerate chemical reactions by a factor of up to one million, but well controlled experiments supporting such claims are rare and there is considerable uncertainty about the mechanisms responsible for any enhanced chemical reactivity. Preston and his team will use use two levitation techniques – one based on light (optical trap) and another based on an electric field (electrodynamic trap) – to study individual droplets for long periods of time (hours to days) and under  a variety of well controlled conditions, to shed light on whether and how droplet environments accelerate chemical reactivity. Factors to be controlled and studied include droplet size (and thus surface-to-volume ratio) and the impact on droplet chemistry of photoelectric and electrical field excitation. Studying droplets for relatively long periods of time will allow the team to deploy highly informative measurement techniques such as Raman spectroscopy (probes molecular bonding) and mass spectrometry (information on molecular species) and to do so in a time-resolved manner.  Two different areas of droplet chemistry will be investigated: hydrogen cyanide chemistry and phosphorylation reactions, each of which include reactions essential to origin of life studies, including amide bond formation, nucleoside formation, polysaccharide synthesis, and ion-phosphate attachment. 

Biomolecular condensates are transient organelles that are ubiquitous across life, and which are widely used -for instance- to host intracellular chemistry.  The ubiquity of transient compartmentalization hints at an evolutionarily earlier time when complex chemistry and compartmentalization coupled to evolve in tandem. This grant funds Rebecca Schulman, a Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, Elisa Franco, a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California Los Angeles, and Deborah Fygenson, a Professor of Physics at the University of California Santa Barbara, to conduct a series of in vitro studies to improve our understanding of systems where chemical reactions are coupled to condensation dynamics. What are the elementary components of, and the fundamental principles governing, a plausibly-origin-of-life-relevant ‘dynamic soup’ whereby chemistry and compartmentalization couple to achieve biological function? Schulman, et. al. plan to explore this question by studying how chemical reactions affect condensate (or droplet) volume and the dynamics of droplet size change.  They’ll then leverage that knowledge to achieve sustained cycles of condensate creation, growth, and dissolution over a range of spatial and temporal scales. Under project phase 1, the team will measure the phase behavior of various condensing nucleic acid (NA) polymers as a function of the concentration of several ‘effector’ molecules that are designed to modify the condensate state. The team seeks to determine the steady state properties of a condensing-molecule / effector system defined by a fixed concentration of effector molecules. Doing so will help them interpret the effects of rapid changes in, and non-uniform distributions of, effectors produced or consumed by various chemical reactions. Under phase 2, the team will explore whether it’s possible to achieve stabilized micron-scale condensates by coupling chemical reactions and condensation. The strategy relies on two key ideas. First, that the chemistry of interest should interfere with the tendency of droplet molecules to aggregate since this will inhibit the growth of an existing droplet. The PIs will exploit chemistry that produces growth inhibiting effectors (RNA polymers). Second, the growth inhibiting chemistry should become more effective with increased droplet size since this amounts to size-stabilizing negative feedback. The team will leverage in-droplet chemistry to synthesize the growth inhibiting RNA polymers and they expect that these polymers will be more effective in large droplets because it takes longer on average to diffuse out of large droplets than small droplets. Under phase 3, the researchers aim to build reaction-condensate systems that exhibit sustained cycles of droplet emergence, growth, and dissolution. The team will pursue two strategies. First, they’ll use a so-called ‘transcriptional oscillator’ positioned in the condensate environment (the surrounding dilute phase) to chemically synthesize a droplet-growth-inhibiting (RNA-based) effector. Second, they’ll implement a chemical feedback system featuring a growth inhibiting effector that does not inhibit growth until it diffuses out of a droplet and chemically reacts with certain molecules in the environmental. If successful, the project will provide insight into how cells exploit couplings between chemical and condensation dynamics to implement biological function, while also establishing a toolset that allows researchers to build information-bearing entities that exhibit sustained cycles of formation, growth, and dissolution.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) are among the largest investments ever made by the federal government to accelerate the decarbonization of the U.S. economy. These Acts provide multiple incentives to spur clean energy innovation—including tax credits, subsidies, and new grant funding—to a host of different actors within the economy, from companies and universities to states and local communities. There is considerable interest and value in understanding the impact of these interventions and incentives on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, on the creation of new clean energy technologies, on the generation of jobs within the clean energy economy, and on whether and to what extent funding benefits are flowing to disadvantaged. This grant provides funding for an ongoing project by Resources for the Future (RFF) to partner with federal agencies to evaluate the impact of energy policies and programs. Grant funds will support two prongs of work by RFF. The first is establishing a hub for energy policy evaluation research by holding an open Request for Proposals to broadly source and support research projects across the academic landscape. Resources will be provided to fund between 4-8 research projects at up to $100,000,000 each to begin evaluating different elements of the IRA's impact on the energy system. Grant support will cover expenses such as faculty research time, student stipends, data access, and travel to interact with federal agencies. RFF will convene funded research teams to share progress mid-way through the project and then at the end to share results with decision makers. The second prong will be developing an evaluation system to assess the impact of specific DOE funding programs. RFF will first conduct interviews to identify what can be learned about how program evaluation operates at other relevant agencies and inventory what evaluation efforts are currently taking place at DOE. Two candidate partners include the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management.  This project is expected to result in a series of research papers, reports, policy briefs, and other publicly available outputs that will substantially advance the state of knowledge about contemporary clean energy policy and program evaluation.

Graphite is a key element used in clean energy technologies, such as lithium-ion batteries and solar panels, but as of now it is completely imported into the United States, predominantly from China. Though the United States has insufficient deposits of natural graphite to meet the growing demand for its use, synthetic graphite could serve as a more sustainable source of production. One challenge is that synthetic graphite production currently relies on fossil fuel-based feedstocks, but recent advancements in production using waste biomass or plastics waste have made "green" synthetic graphite a more appealing and plausible option for building domestic supply capacity. Leveraging a combination of multiple modeling strategies, this proposal aims to evaluate the environmental, economic, and equity implications of a developing green graphite supply chain in the US. The proposed work will compare two main potential feedstocks for synthetic graphite: biochar, a carbon-rich material typically derived from partially combusted biomass, like agricultural residues or industrial paper sludge, and plastics waste. The team will use information gleaned from literature review, geospatial analysis, and material flow analysis (MFA) to characterize the current domestic availability and flows of these source materials. They will then use life cycle assessment (LCA) and technoeconomic assessment (TEA) to evaluate the environmental and economic impacts of green graphite production processes that use these feedstocks. Finally, they will undertake regulatory analysis that will help provide policy recommendations for facilitating sustainable and equitable development of these supply chains. Sloan funds will primarily go towards faculty and student support, including support for one postdoctoral fellow and one graduate student researcher to contribute to the effort. The team will use additional funds from Yale University to hire additional graduate student researchers. Outputs are expected to include academic journal articles, conference presentations, and a project website to share key findings and resources. To broadly disseminate their findings, the team will also host a series of public webinars and a research symposium to help share results with a diverse range of stakeholders.

As electric vehicle (EV) demand and manufacturing increase, companies must secure additional critical minerals and metals (CMM) for use in their batteries, creating new connections between EV automakers, mining companies, and local communities where CMMs are produced. Yet few studies examine the interaction between EV manufacturers, mineral production, and community impacts. This grant funds research that will take a dual-pronged approach to better understanding these emerging dynamics. First, the team will undertake 5-7 case studies of EV automakers to understand how these companies are responding to the reshoring of critical mineral development. The focus of these case studies will center on whether and how EV manufacturers plan to secure their own sources of mineral production. The team will then use these case studies to inform different modeling scenarios, called Mine Expansion Pathways, which visualize where and how the domestic mining industry might develop over the next 50 years to meet critical mineral demand for EV batteries. These Mine Expansion Pathways will identify when and where new mines might arise, which projects might be prioritized over others based on industry needs, and which surrounding communities could be affected. To model these alternatives, the team will combine a fleet turnover model, which forecasts future EV purchases and demand, with geospatial modeling to study the physical distribution of current and future CMM mines. The idea is that the qualitative interviews and quantitative scenario modeling efforts will build on one another: initial interviews will help provide realistic considerations for the modeling effort, which will in turn illuminate potential economic, equity, and sustainability trade-offs that can be used to inform future interviews about long-term strategic decision-making approaches within these firms. Together, this interdisciplinary approach will provide new insights into the dynamics between EV manufacturer demand for critical minerals, mining expansion, and community perspectives, and the results are expected to inform evolving economic and policy discussions.  Outputs for the work will include academic journal articles geared towards both energy engineering and business management fields, as well as shorter briefs summarizing case study findings for industry partners and managers. The team will publish their Mine Expansion Pathway scenarios in an online, interactive tool and disseminate their findings to decision-makers, through public interest articles, and via presentations at the Erb Institute’s Michigan Business Sustainability Roundtable.

Much of the research on the impacts of critical minerals and metals (CMM) tends to focus on the upstream portion of the supply chain—the mines themselves—and explores how impacts at this stage can cascade down through the energy system. Less frequently does research take the reverse view, examining how changes in end-user behavior might percolate upstream to impact CMM production and demand. This project aims to do just that by investigating how a shift towards electrified public transit might impact critical mineral development. The proposed project will assess the environmental, equity, and policy impacts of public transit electrification by conducting social life cycle assessments (SLCAs) for two high-traffic case study cities: Los Angeles, CA and Atlanta, GA. For each city, the team will model alternative scenarios that feature different levels of personal and public electric vehicle adoption to evaluate the energy, environmental, and social impacts inherent in the SLCA framework. In addition to the expected SLCA results, the team plans to produce two particular metrics. The first is what is called an avoided critical mineral extraction index – a measure of how much critical mineral demand is reduced in each scenario associated with increased utilization of electrified public transit. The second is a combined lifecycle emissions metric, which will combine and compare measurements of upstream emissions from mining and battery production with downstream, on-road emissions. SLCA results will be paired with policy analysis to identify legal barriers and opportunities for adoption of electrified and multimodal transportation systems in the two regions to be studied. This proposed scholarship will be rooted in substantial community engagement and partnership activities. The team will work closely with multiple community-based organizations in Atlanta and Los Angeles: EVNOIRE, a non-profit organization focused on electric mobility with offices in both Los Angeles and Atlanta; Clean Cities Georgia, an Atlanta-based non-profit working to advance clean and sustainable transportation solutions; and Integrated Solutions, an Atlanta-based consultancy focused on diversity and inclusion that has expertise in conducting and organizing community engagement processes. In addition to academic journal articles and policy briefs, the team will present their findings to transportation agencies in Los Angeles and Atlanta.

A number of mining companies have proposed establishing vertically integrated operations that combine mining and refining phases. Researchers hope that such integrated supply chains will be more environmentally friendly, and acceptable to residents living near proposed mine sites. While much attention is often placed on examining the expansion of such mining in the United States, the subsequent refining component—the steps where the raw materials are transformed into usable intermediate and final products—is an often-overlooked dimension of the supply chain. This project will investigate the social and technical factors that impact the development of vertically integrated mine-refinery projects and examine how they might impact local communities and Indigenous populations. It will focus on studying vertically integrated projects for nickel (Ni) and cobalt (Co) refining, which are commonly mined together and are used in clean energy technologies like lithium-ion batteries. There are several planned projects to build out this refining capacity in the years ahead, many of which are expected to be located near Indigenous lands. This proposed effort will provide critical insights to understand the potential role of these refineries in supporting the equitable buildout of domestic Ni and Co production capacity. This is an interdisciplinary collaboration between faculty at the Colorado School of Mines and Fort Lewis College, a Native-American Serving Non-Tribal Institution, located in Durango, CO. In addition to academic research outputs, the team will broadly disseminate research findings through presentations at the Colorado School of Mines Payne Institute for Public Policy's annual Critical Minerals Symposium and through a Symposium on Indigenous Communities and Energy Transitions to be held at Fort Lewis College.

The mining industry is especially water intensive, creating well-documented impacts on water quality and availability. Nevertheless, many of the newly proposed critical minerals and metals (CMM) mines around the country are located in water-scarce regions, each with complex and overlapping water policy frameworks that intersect with both federal and state regulations. This grant funds a project that aims to investigate underexplored questions related to critical mineral mining and water scarcity in the Great Basin region, a hydrologic basin centered in Nevada and covering much of the western United States, which is both water-scarce and mineral-rich, particularly in lithium. The region faces substantial CMM development interest, but there is also a long history of water conflict, resource extraction, and marginalization with the region's many Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities. The research team will study how different mineral extraction methods might impact local water resources, ecosystems, and communities; how overlapping water governance structures might affect the siting and permitting for CMM mines; and how affected communities might respond in different ways. Grant funds will support seven mixed-methods case studies of mining communities across the Great Basin. Case study communities will span three Nevada counties and will address different mineral types, mine status (planned, permitted, and operating, including both low- and high-conflict cases), and extraction method. Case studies will combine document analysis with semi-structured interviews with a broad range of community leaders and members, regulators, and industry representatives. In addition to producing academic papers and policy briefs, the research team will also develop an interactive, online mapping platform that depicts the location of mining projects, Indigenous territories, land management jurisdictions, and stressed groundwater aquifers to help visualize the impacts of mining development at the individual mine and regional levels. Finally, the team will host three participatory community workshops to disseminate findings back to community members and to solicit input on alternative future approaches for equitable mine siting and benefit sharing.

ARCH is a collaboration platform for small communities of intellectual inquiry. It integrates open source chat and videoconferencing tools with a sophisticated commenting and annotation engine for videos and transcripts, collaborative notetaking and document editing, and document sharing capabilities. In the wake of Covid-19 disruptions, the Santa Fe Institute realized that ubiquitous industry technologies like Zoom were ill-suited to extend into a hybrid space the rich collaborations and sub-communities that drive their research. In an effort led by SFI Vice President for Applied Complexity, Will Tracy, ARCH has been piloted successfully in a small number of events, including a 16-institution research network as well as a global SFI summer school. Funds from this grant support these activities, as well as the further development, documentation, research, and packaging of the ARCH platform so it can be used at wider scale both inside SFI and beyond.