NEWS OF THE WEEK
CLIMATE-CHANGE BILL INTRODUCED POLICY: Draft legislation launches
House debate on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions
H
OUSE ENERGY & COMMERCE Committee
Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and energy subcommittee Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) released their much-awaited draft climatechange bill last week. The 648-page draft will be the basis for hammering out conflicting congressional perspectives on greenhouse gas reductions in the months ahead. The draft bill provides incentives for a wide range of energy-related technologies—renewable energy, carbon capture and sequestration, clean fuels and vehicles, electricity transmission, energy efficiency, and green jobs. At the draft’s heart, however, are reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. The bill would cut CO2 emissions to 3% below 2005 levels by 2012, 20%
SCOTT FERRELL/CQ/NEWSCOM
Waxman (left) and Markey are leading the charge for climate-change legislation.
VIRUS POWER NANOTECHNOLOGY: Genetically
engineered virus fabricates lithium-ion battery’s cathode
T
GEORG FANTNER
An iron phosphatecoated virus latches onto a carbon nanotube to create a wired battery cathode.
HE NEXT GENERATION of batteries could
be made with the help of an unusual manufacturing partner—a virus that infects bacteria. Using an environmentally benign process, scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology coaxed a genetically engineered virus into building and wiring the cathode of a lithium-ion battery (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1171541). MIT materials science professor Angela M. Belcher, who spearheaded the work, previously used genetically engineered viruses to fabricate the anode portion of a battery. Working with cathode materials, she says, proved to be more difficult because the material needs to be good at conducting both electrons and ions and also has to work well at high voltages. By tweaking one gene in the M13 virus, Belcher’s team was able to get it to build itself a coat of amorphous iron phosphate, a WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
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by 2020, and 83% by 2050. It would cover electric utilities, chemical and oil companies, and other industrial sources that are responsible for 85% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. It dodges the thorny issue of whether some pollution allowances should be initially given away free to high-CO2-emitting industries, saying the issue will be addressed in upcoming House discussions. The draft blocks EPA from regulating CO2 under the Clean Air Act, which the agency is now considering. Generally, energy companies, environmental groups, and others have welcomed the draft as a “good first step” that each stakeholder will try to modify to its liking. Waxman and Markey say they intend to have a final bill ready by May. House committee leaders—representing industrial, rural, and urban areas—appear to support the need for climate-change legislation even if their opinions differ on the details. In a recent letter to President Barack Obama, Reps. Waxman, Markey, John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), and Rick C. Boucher (D-Va.) urged passage of climate-change legislation to provide the clarity needed to encourage private-sector industrial and energy investments. The congressmen compared today’s legislation with a similar large-scale environmental bill from 20 years ago: In the stinging debate over the Clean Air Act, industry estimated its costs at $100 billion per year. Still, they noted, the House passed strong clean-air legislation by a vote of 401-25, and compliance costs to cut sulfur dioxide emissions dropped from an estimated $1,500 per ton to an actual $250 per ton.—JEFF JOHNSON
promising material for lithium-ion batteries that’s been hampered by low electronic conductivity. To boost the system’s conductivity, the team manipulated another gene in the virus so that it would latch onto a single-walled carbon nanotube. The nanotube acts as viral wiring, connecting the cathode to the battery’s other components. The tighter the virus grabs the nanotube, the better the battery performs, the researchers found. “This is a creative approach to producing heterostructures at the nanoscale in order to address one of the most significant problems in lithium-ion batteries,” comments Paul S. Weiss, a chemistry and physics professor at Pennsylvania State University. The battery fabrication process is also quite mild, Belcher adds. It takes place below room temperature and requires neither harmful organic solvents nor toxic starting materials. “We can’t use anything that’s harmful to our organisms,” she explains. The team prepared a prototype battery using the viral components, but Belcher tells C&EN that she’d like to find better performing materials before scaling up the process to make these batteries commercially. What the work shows “is that we can use benchtop conditions to make batteries that are as good as what’s out there,” she says. “What we’re focused on now is doing better than that.”—BETHANY HALFORD
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