The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to scientists who created molecular constructions with the potential to combat climate change by capturing carbon dioxide and making water out of air. 

Today’s newsletter looks at how this exciting discovery was made and the applications it could have in the energy and electronics industries. Read our deep dive into a startup founded by one of the winning scientists that’s harvesting water from Arizon’s desert air.

Plus, Nestlé quietly left a major alliance to cut methane emissions from dairy suppliers. And the Boston Housing Authority kicks off a pilot project to retrofit a 50-year-old building to lower heating and cooling costs — and cut emissions.

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A Nobel for climate-fighting molecules

By Charles Daly and Laura Millan

Scientists from Japan, the UK and Jordan were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for a discovery with the potential to help combat climate change.

Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi will share 11 million kronor ($1.2 million) for creating molecular constructions with large spaces through which gases and other chemicals can flow, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm said in a statement on Wednesday.

Researchers have already used these structures to capture carbon dioxide, store hydrogen, harvest water from desert air and extract pollutants from water. There’s potential for use in industrial-scale processes including in the energy, electronics and pharmaceutical sectors.

The metal-organic frameworks that won the Nobel Prize can be thought of as a very spacious studio apartment, with rooms able to host all sorts of substances. Kitagawa, Robson and Yaghi were the first to create them and demonstrate their potential. Since then, other chemists have been able to design tens of thousands of frameworks, making new chemical wonders possible.

Omar Yaghi is the founder of Atoco and a chemistry professor at the University of California at Berkeley who pioneered materials that can harvest water from air. Photographer: Atoco

Robson first got inspiration for the discovery while preparing for a chemistry lesson where students had to build molecules using wooden balls and rods. It was 1974 and Robson, then a teacher at the University of Melbourne, asked the university’s workshop to drill holes into the wooden balls for the activity.

But those holes couldn’t be randomly placed. While marking where they should be drilled, Robson realized there was a vast amount of information baked into the positioning. He eventually discovered new molecular constructions that formed a regular crystalline structure, just like carbon atoms in a diamond. Unlike diamonds, however, the new structure contained a vast number of large cavities. 

A metal organic framework trapping carbon dioxide. Source: Bloomberg

Kitagawa, a professor at Kyoto University, had another breakthrough in 1997 where, using Robson’s principles, he created a material that could absorb and release methane, nitrogen and oxygen without changing its shape. Later, he developed a flexible material that behaves somewhat like a lung — changing shape when filled with water or methane, and returning to its original form when emptied.

Yaghi, a professor at UC Berkeley who grew up in Jordan without electricity or running water, contributed another leap in the research. He discovered it is possible to modify and change the frameworks in a rational manner.

Now, the electronics industry can use the porous materials to contain some of the toxic gases required to produce semiconductors. Materials that can capture carbon dioxide from factories and power stations are being tested with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Some may be used for breaking down traces of pharmaceuticals in the environment.

Read the full story here and subscribe to Green Daily for the latest climate science news.

State of origin

Time will tell 

Nestlé leaves methane alliance

By Ben Elgin, Olivia Raimonde and Ilena Peng

Less than two years ago, a group of the world’s biggest food companies, including Nestlé, Danone and Kraft Heinz, announced a major alliance to cut methane emissions from their hundreds of thousands of dairy suppliers.

Last month, however, Nestlé’s logo vanished from the initiative’s website. Officials at the Swiss food giant confirmed that they’ve withdrawn from the effort, known as the Dairy Methane Action Alliance.

Cows in Ireland Photographer: Paulo Nunes dos Santos/Bloomberg

The company declined to elaborate on its decision to pull out. “Nestlé regularly reviews its memberships of external organizations,” said a company spokesperson in a written statement. “As part of this process, we have decided to discontinue our membership of the Dairy Methane Action Alliance.”

Nevertheless, Nestlé officials praised the alliance’s efforts and said the company remains committed to slashing its dairy emissions as part of its overall effort to halve its climate pollution by 2030.

It’s unclear whether Nestlé’s exit will shake the resolve of the alliance’s other members. Several participants — Danone, Starbucks, General Mills, Bel Group and Lactalis USA — told Bloomberg this week that they are sticking with the effort.

Read the full story on Bloomberg.com.

By Todd Woody

A heat pump that can be installed in minutes is allowing the city of Boston to quickly decarbonize a public housing complex for the elderly and provide air conditioning as climate change-driven heat waves intensify.

The Boston Housing Authority on Wednesday will announce a pilot project putting small heat pumps made by San Francisco-based startup Gradient in a 50-year-old, 100-apartment building.

The units fit in a window and can provide heating and cooling for a space of about 500 square feet. That replaces the complex’s inefficient electric-resistance heating and doesn’t require the expensive and disruptive renovations that accompany the installation of a centralized heat pump system.

Resident Wenda Dottin stands next to a Gradient heat pump installed in her apartment.  Photo courtesy of Eversource

The housing agency manages about 10,000 units for more than 17,000 residents, and window heat pumps’ fast installation time will produce immediate emissions reductions, according to Kenzie Bok, the agency’s administrator. “Most importantly, it allows us to deliver in-unit cooling to our residents for the first time as soon as possible,” she said. “We can’t treat heat as this one-off emergency.”

Boston is the latest city to turn to window heat pumps to replace aging and polluting gas boilers and other fossil fuel systems in public housing. The New York City Housing Authority has installed 36 Gradient units and 36 window heat pumps made by Midea America, the US subsidiary of China’s Midea Group, as part of a pilot project. The agency plans to put in place 10,000 Gradient heat pumps and 20,000 Midea units in the coming years.

Read the full story. 

US President Donald Trump may have dubbed climate change the “greatest con job,” but there’s growing evidence that energy transition investments are enjoying a revival.

Clean energy stocks are even outperforming gold as investors respond to soaring demand for renewables needed to power the boom in artificial intelligence.

Nano Nuclear Energy has no revenue, no license from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and no operating power plant. Yet investors have driven its valuation past $2.3 billion, a figure that may be built more on optimism than fundamentals.

Rising power demand from data centers for artificial intelligence has led to a shortage of the gas turbines needed to generate electricity. This shortage might not seem the most obvious climate story, but it's having impacts across the entire energy sector. This week on Zero, Bloomberg’s Stephen Stapczynski joins Akshat Rathi to look at what’s causing the bottleneck in gas turbines, if the shortage will make companies look to renewables or coal, and whether natural gas is really a “bridge” fuel.

Listen now, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify or YouTube to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday.

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