In the introductory episode of the Lab Notes series, Laboratory Director Martin Keller sits down with NREL writer Ernie Tucker, author of Clean Energy Innovators: NREL People Working To Change the World. The pair discuss Keller’s childhood in Germany, foray into a science-focused career, vision for the laboratory, and dream job (hint: he’s doing it).
Lab Notes takes a deeper dive into NREL’s research, the people of NREL, and the people impacted by NREL’s work.
This episode was hosted by Kerrin Jeromin and Taylor Mankle, written and produced by Allison Montroy and Kaitlyn Stottler, and edited by Joe DelNero and Brittany Falch. Graphics are by Brittnee Gayet. Our title music is written and performed by Ted Vaca and episode music by Chuck Kurnik, Jim Riley, and Mark Sanseverino of Drift BC. Transforming Energy: The NREL Podcast is created by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. We express our gratitude and acknowledge that the land we are on is the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples. Email us at podcast@nrel.gov. Follow NREL on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook.
In the introductory episode of the Lab Notes series, Laboratory Director Martin Keller sits down with NREL writer Ernie Tucker, author of Clean Energy Innovators: NREL People Working To Change the World. The pair discuss Keller’s childhood in Germany, foray into a science-focused career, vision for the laboratory, and dream job (hint: he’s doing it).
Lab Notes takes a deeper dive into NREL’s research, the people of NREL, and the people impacted by NREL’s work.
This episode was hosted by Kerrin Jeromin and Taylor Mankle, written and produced by Allison Montroy and Kaitlyn Stottler, and edited by Joe DelNero and Brittany Falch. Graphics are by Brittnee Gayet. Our title music is written and performed by Ted Vaca and episode music by Chuck Kurnik, Jim Riley, and Mark Sanseverino of Drift BC. Transforming Energy: The NREL Podcast is created by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. We express our gratitude and acknowledge that the land we are on is the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples. Email us at podcast@nrel.gov. Follow NREL on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook.
[music, fades]
Taylor: Welcome to Transforming Energy: The NREL Podcast, presented by the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory. I'm Taylor Mankle.
Kerrin: And I'm Kerrin Jeromin.
Taylor: It's an exciting episode here on Transforming Energy. Today, we're kicking off the first episode of the new year with out new feature series, Lab Notes. These Lab Notes episodes will be longer and provide a deeper dive into the research, the people of NREL, and the people impacted by NREL's work. And to kick off this episode series, we're welcoming a couple of very special guests to the show, including the director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Dr. Martin Keller.
Kerrin: That’s right! For this conversation, we’re turning the mic over to Ernie Tucker, an NREL Communications writer who has worked closely with Martin since he first arrived at the lab. Ernie is a longtime NRELian, what we call NREL staff here. Ernie has been with the lab since 2009 and literally wrote the book on NREL’s history, called Clean Energy Innovators: NREL People Working to Change the World. Hi, Ernie!
Ernie: Thanks, Kerrin and Taylor. I’m happy to be here today and to share a bit of my conversation with Martin.Before jumping into it, I want to provide a brief introduction of his background, because I feel that to understand his passion it helps to have a sense of his family history.
Martin’s father grew up in Regensburg, Germany, a picturesque city in Bavaria with its medieval center intact. The city was spared from destruction in World War II, but Martin’s father was pressed into military service during the war when he was only 16—but later fled the German forces and was picked up by the U.S. Army and was able to learn English while tending bar at an American Officers’ Club.
Although not well off, Martin’s family spent all its time in the Alps while he was growing up. It was in that environment that Martin—riding bikes in the hills and playing in the forests— developed his lifelong attachment to nature. It is a dedication which he has carried throughout his career—and inspires him today.
Taylor: No kidding. So he had a deep connection to science and nature, but Martin also came to NREL with knowledge of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Laboratory system. Martin previously worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee.
Kerrin: Things have changed a lot since he arrived to NREL’s Golden, Colorado, campus in 2015. Not only has our campus grown and our capabilities expanded, but so has the urgency to combat climate change. This global challenge inspired our vision, a clean energy future for the world.
Taylor: Too true. Something I know Martin speaks about passionately. That and NREL’s mission which is to lead research innovation and strategic partnerships to deliver solutions for a clean energy economy.
Ernie: There’s probably too much to cover today, but I hope our listeners find this interview to be an informative snapshot of the person who along with members of NREL’s leadership team, is leading our more than 3,700 staff as they work to change the world for the better.
Kerrin: OK, Ernie, we’ll hand our mics off to you and Dr. Martin Keller, director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory!
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Ernie: Hey Martin. Good to see you again. You talk about NREL and the people, what makes part of the lab special is the community we have here. I think the whole concept of family and mentorship is important, and if you will, I'd like to just walk through a little bit about your own background, because I think people may not know that you came from Germany, but as a boy growing up in Regensburg outside of Munich, you were introduced to the sciences.
Martin: I had an uncle who introduced me very early into the concept of science where we always, when he visited us, we went on hikes, always hunting for insects. And he gave me this butterfly net to go out there, catch them. And then we looked at them and then released them. And that led me always through my whole life to be interested in...science and the environment and explore new type of activities out in the forest. And I've done this my whole life, yeah.
Ernie: But it wasn't until, what was it, like your 11th grade, one of your teachers gave you an idea that you hadn't thought about before.
Martin: This was one of my big, you know, teaching in biology where we always wanted to be an engineer. And then he said 'Oh, Martin, the future will be in biotechnology.' And so I got interested in this. I said, 'What does this mean?' I started to read up on this whole topic and even drove to some of our local universities and explored what this means to be in this field of biotechnology. And at the end it's, you know, how life sciences ended up to work in biotech. So, yeah, it was how we see this so many times in our life that people sometimes help us at an even early stage to direct our lives as mentors. And that's why I think mentorship is always important because, especially for our young scientists and engineers, it's always important to have somebody who gives you new inputs in life, because there's elements where we might have not thought about this.
Ernie: Yeah, I think you, you took the ball and ran with it though because it prompted you to think, you know, well let's look at some of the universities, and it just so happened you struck gold with Professor Reinke, or Jahnke, right?
Martin: Yenneke.
Ernie: Yenneke, yeah.
Martin: So yeah, so he, he was one of the people I got to know very early on. He was one very famous biochemist. He worked on protein folding. So I mean, how protein work at higher temperatures. And he guided me through my whole time at the university. All the way down to the end where he was part of my Ph.D. committee and I had him part of all the from my master's work into my Ph.D. work, he always was part of every committee and at the end I did microbiology, not directly biochemistry. This said it was always a very important element of my life.
Ernie: Yeah, this is pretty impressive. I mean, for people who don't understand how important he was. It'd be like walking into a gym when Michael Jordan is shooting free throws and saying, 'Hey, Michael, would you show me how to, you know, shoot a shot?'
Martin: Yeah, that was, I remember this one event I was even still in high school then. I was just walking into his office and he said 'Ah Martin, I have this important experiment going on, but come with me.' So we were sitting in this really dark room. He's doing this very high speed certification to separate proteins out. And we were sitting there and we had this probably two or three hour discussions. And every time during this is, 'Ah, let me do just this one more measurement.' And he got up and disappeared in the darkness and came back and with a little notepad and did his measurements. And then we continue to talk and it this is one of the kind of events probably where we all have in our lives who help to coin your own life wherever you go in the future.
Ernie: Yeah, and I've heard so many stories here at NREL, of people who have had teachers, or mentors, or parents sometimes, or just friends, but often that one moment that finds them and sets them on a path. I want to ask you about one other thing though, Kids today often, as they go through school, have to go through internships, and it becomes pretty standard here. But back when you were working through this phase of your life, you kind of took it on your own to go knocking on some doors for some companies. And it wasn't usual in Germany back then in the, you know, like the 1980s, late 1970s. But you found a way to get yourself, basically, an internship, because you're at Regensburg University and suddenly realize you're surrounded by all these hotshots, you have to set yourself apart.
Martin: Yeah, so I, I was lucky to, because, again, because of a mentor this was a really good friend of mine who was, I had in, in his program and he said, 'Martin, how do you differentiate yourself? And have you thought about doing an internship in industry?' Peter Hammann was his name. He ran this laboratory there on kind of very complex antibiotics. And so he said, 'Ooh let's get this biology student in there.' And I did hardcore organic chemistry where I started not to have a really clue what I was actually doing.
Ernie: That wasn't your field.
Martin: It was not my field. Yeah. Leading to the first publication I've ever done while I was doing this internship there. But later on in, in life, he became a really good friend and I asked, 'Peter, why did you even hire me as this early stage biologist in doing this organic catalyst work?' And he said, so, 'Martin, we had all this organists working on this and it all failed. So I said, ah, let's try a different path. And I thought bringing somebody in who doesn't actually know this field might be more open in the approach of doing this and said, and Martin, honestly, you've done things where I said, oh my God, the chemists would never do this,' but it led to a big impact publication there because probably because I was not biased in all the rules because I had no idea and and this followed me my whole life where sometimes is if you want to try new things, you know, you have to approach it to, yeah. Yeah. be perhaps a little bit risky and not be biased because, you know, we scientists, we always know a thousand reasons why things would not work. But what else can we do to make it work? And that was a very important lesson in my life.
Ernie: Yeah. I think, though, it was part of your nature, too, because I want to ask you briefly about your time in the Army, which at the time back in the early 1980s was part of everybody's experience in Germany. You have a bit of a contrarian streak. You like to question authority at times and things. And you made your way into an elite army unit doing things you loved in alpine training, which was great. But some of the regulations sometimes, you know, made you feel a little bit ill at ease, I think.
Martin: Yeah it's probably because, you know, it's, of course, rules are important. On the other hand, I think it's always important to explain why we have certain rules. And I got a little bit into trouble. This was one of those nice October days. It was the temperature was very nice and warm. And of course, the rule was during this time, it was required to have your winter uniform, which means you could not have you, your sleeves rolled up on your shirts. And so I had my sleeves rolled up and this one officer questioned me and asked me, 'So soldier, why do we have your sleeves rolled up?' and I said, 'Because it's pretty hot.' And that's against rules and I said, but why shouldn't I be able to roll it up? I can do it in summer because now it's still nice and warm. I can roll my sleeves up and he gave me a pretty hard time because I was not following the rules. So, and of course I used this, I rolled my sleeve down and I walked around the corner and rolled them up again.
Ernie: You found a solution.
Martin:Yeah, and I'm just you know, what's another big important thing in my life that yeah, of course we have to follow rules, understand special because of safety that this is important But you also always need to take the time and explain the rules to our people why we have this rules And I think for us who creating rules we also have to explore do they really make sense.
Ernie: Well, it didn't hold you back. You had two great years. I think you, you enjoyed everything about that.
Martin: I, yeah, I had a wonderful time. We did a lot of skiing and climbing, mountain climbing and heli skiing. If you have to do things, make the best out of it. No matter what you do in life, you'd say, put yourself into this and try to enjoy what you do because, you know, life is short. So I had a wonderful time, but I also realized during this time that I'm probably not the best military person for the long run.
Ernie: But you still are an active outdoorsman, and that's part of why you fit so well into the Colorado scene. One of the things that I found really interesting about your path and your journey is that you could have stayed in Regensburg. Beautiful town, you grew up there, family, friends, you know, you knew your way around, and you were on track. I have it in my notes that you graduated with a Ph. D. summa cum laude.
Martin: Yeah, I mean, I think it did pretty well in my Ph. D. program and after my Ph. D., normally, of course, the tradition was just to do a postdoc and you go somewhere else. And Carl Stetter, who was my Ph. D. advisor, he asked me to stay on and I had already nine people working in my lab towards this, what in Germany is called habilitation to become a professor. The system is a little bit different than here in, in the U. S. But also my plan always was to do a postdoc somewhere and it just was always—ah, wait another a couple of months and I built my team and then Carl was part of of starting a biotech company in San Diego, with two other very well known people. So Mel Simon, he was the director at Caltech and Jeffrey Miller, who was one of the very well known geneticists at UCLA. And so, they asked me if I want to be part of this, and I said, yeah, let's do this. And I felt that this is where the action was. And in my life, it's always where I feel you want to make an impact. And Sibylle, my wife, and I, we had this discussion. And Philippa, our oldest, he was only 15 months at this time and we said, hey, let's move to San Diego. So we sold everything we had in Germany, put everything we had into a container and shipped over the Atlantic and we moved to San Diego.
Ernie: And you landed, this is what, 19...
Martin: 1996.
Ernie: 1996. You landed at a company called Diversa. And there was an interesting moment when you landed there, you're a young guy, you've got a family, a wife is coming over, and you bumped into one of the company officers, right?
Martin: Yeah, so at this time it was a small company, of course we know everybody there, and Jay, who was at this time the CEO, he took me aside and said, 'Hey, Martin, we might have a problem.' I said, 'Okay, Jay, what's going on?' He said, 'Well, we don't know if we'll get the next round of financing you know, we have only money left for three days.' And I said, 'Well, that's interesting.' And I said, 'Well, what will happen?' And he said, 'Well, we don't know what will happen, but somehow it will work out, and we find a solution.' So, Sibylle was still back in Germany, but I was over there, we're looking for a place to stay and a house. So I, I called my wife and said, 'Sibylle, I have good and bad news. So what do you want to hear first?' She said, 'Well, the good news.' And I said, 'Well, I found this. It's a beautiful house. You will like it. It's great. It's a nice backyard.' And so she said, 'Okay, what's the bad news?' 'Well, I might not have a job in three days.' And they said, 'Well, what are we doing?' I said, 'Well, we have no choice. I mean, all our furniture, all that we own is right now floating on the ocean. So we cannot return.' And she said, 'Okay let's ... let's take the risk,' and we continued on the path and Jay was right. It worked out. We raised another funds. We went public, was the biggest IPO for biotech during this time. After 10 years, I asked myself, what is your impact you want to have in life? And I realized that what companies are doing is amazing but I wanted to do something different and bring perhaps more back to society instead of just increasing shareholder value and that's why I decided to join a national laboratory and I joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Ernie: But, tell me a little bit about that because I believe that you weren't even sure where that was initially.
Martin: So I, at this was the time I did a lot of single cell microbiology where we do all the work with one microbial cell. So we were, I would say the leading research group in this area. That's why Oak Ridge was interested. We had to look at a map where actually Oak Ridge is to realize that they're in Knoxville in Tennessee and we as a family decided to go there and bought a little farm and the idea was to do my research and we let our kids grow up on, on this farm. Meanwhile, we had three kids and this was the decision, to go to Oak Ridge.
Ernie: It worked out pretty well, except for the research part.
Martin: Except for the research part, yeah, because within... within a very short time period, they asked me to take over this division, or at NREL would say center. And then the bioenergy center came along, which was this complex, $25 million a year research consortium in bioenergy. And I said, sure, I can do that. And I was sucked back into management. And then they asked me to put my name in for the associate laboratory position, which I did and I got this position and then it was back in, in management again.
Ernie: You had things in order, all was rolling you had a big research area going, everything seemed to be going well, then at NREL our lab director, the eighth lab director, Dan Arvizu, announces he's leaving, and that creates an opening for a lab director, and as Bobby Garrett said, the former lab deputy director who was here at the time and headed the search committee, said your application for this job came before they even had the website up.
Martin: Well, it was a little bit different there, that I did not want to apply.
Ernie: I didn't know this story.
Martin: Yeah. So what happened was that at Oak Ridge, we had the, it was the biggest, I think one of the biggest directorates there. We did all the research in biology and climate and all the applied programs did really cool things like we printed the first car. I mean, you know, Obama, Biden came together and visited us there. So things are going very well. And Sibylle, she started she had her business going. She did German cooking classes and felting classes. We had all this running at our farm. Life was very good. And then Bobby asked me, she said, 'Martin, do you want to apply?' I said, 'No, I don't want to apply.' And she said, 'You should.' And I said, 'Bobby, why should I do this?' And so we had this deep discussion. So I went home to Sibylle and I got this request. I should apply to this job. And she said, 'The heck, why do you want to do that? I mean, is it just because you want to show that you're a lab director and your title? Is this your motivation?' So we had we had a very interesting, deep discussion. This was exactly the time where our kids were all in gymnastics. We were driving to a gymnastics meet and our RV broke down in the middle of nowhere. So we were stuck there for two days and had a lot of time to talk about this. And we always, as a family, we'd always do these family meetings where we all sat together and said, well, should we do that? And then I said, 'Sibylle, I think, thinking about this I could make an impact at NREL and I think I really would like to be part of this NREL community and and be part of this to advance the energy transition.' And, long story short, yeah I put my application in and yeah, we moved to be part of NREL.
Ernie: And that's November of 2015, you landed here, our ninth lab director. And back then, I think you've used the term, NREL was a big little lab, maybe, you know, I mean, there's some very big energy department labs out there. NREL was the youngest and not by any means the biggest.
Martin:No we first of all for me, I will also never forget this on my first day when I walked just up this hill here, I was pretty nervous because I felt in positions like this, you feel a lot of responsibility because, you know, it's— at this time we were perhaps 1,500 people. I mean, I felt that there's a lot of, responsibility at least I felt this on my shoulders to see how do we do this to really accelerate in advance. And so this idea of growing an organization and I think NREL, what my assessment was at this time, was a laboratory with an amazing great potential. So we needed to, as now NREL, bring in some of these steps to grow this laboratory on the processes on the vision side on the portfolio to be an important player in the energy transition and this was frankly also what attracted me here to NREL, I saw this while I was at Oak Ridge National Lab that the potential on the energy transition on moving towards clean energy this is this NREL is the place to be, and there was a lot of work we all have done as with a new team coming in and working with NRELians to further advance this laboratory and I told Sibylle at this time, I said, 'Sibylle, I think this is my dream job,' and I, I could not have a better job, yes.
Ernie: Yeah, I know you've said that in meetings with the staff that this is your dream job and things. Interestingly then, you know, talking about the vision, NREL had a reputation. I mean, you know, founded as the Solar Energy Research Institute in '77 and became a national lab in, in the 90s. But one of the things you really worked on, as you mentioned, was the long-term vision. And I think you and the leadership team have made a point of that. Really working on a long-term strategy. Why do you think that's important to have a long-term strategy?
Martin: So, I think... especially when you look into the next generation of scientists and engineers, and I see this in our own kids, and I'm picking this up everywhere, that I think it's important people want to have, they want to be part of a bigger thing. They want to show an impact. So, for every organization, I feel it's absolutely critical that everybody working in an organization knows where their organization goes. Especially here at NREL. And this goes from everybody who works in the support organization from our electricians to the people who do plumbing all the way to the leadership team. So we need to be part of the integrated journey and everybody plays this important role. Towards achieving our goals, but if you don't know what the goals are, how do you then can fully contribute on achieving your goals? That's why we as the new leadership team felt that it's very important to create this long-term strategic vision for NREL. This is how we can be part for NREL to create a clean energy future for everybody. And this is what we set out to set in motion.
Ernie: And I'm going to ask a few questions about that and the way the strategy has evolved into three critical objectives, but I want to flip ahead You've been talking lately about the triple planetary crisis that's facing us. We're not just talking in an academic sense here, there's real things happening in the world. I think anyone who looks out their window can see evidence of climate change, of things happening. Why is it so critical right now?
Martin: Yeah, so the UN put this called triple planetary crisis statements out a few years ago, which are three elements and they're all of course connected. So, so number one is pollution, number two is climate change, and number three is loss of biodiversity. And of course they're all connected and this is something which, we as a globe and also as a country have to approach, we use this as a big foundation to set up a long term strategy for this laboratory. We feel that NREL being an applied laboratory moving towards the decarbonization of the next generation of bringing these technologies together. That's why we said, what can we do to impact this? So, as you all know, I mean, it's a big issue on our planet when you look into pollution. This is not only just pollution created by emitting CO2. It's also different levels that, that most of our people on our planet breathe air which is not in the clean air regulation.
Ernie: You said like 99%.
Martin: Roughly. So, but even then when you see how many people die early because of pollution they have in their homes by heating with materials such as wood, which is too wet, to fungal contamination in the homes, which cause early death. Climate change, we all know what's, what we're seeing with this change in our environmental conditions here on our planet. And then you've seen biodiversity loss, and this is not just that we worry about, ooh, there might be a rhino disappearing. You probably saw the latest this year, what we had issue in Arizona and Phoenix. Temperature reached this high level where even beehives started to melt. Why is this important? You all know if you don't have bees anymore, then guess what? We wouldn't have any apples or apricots or peaches. So this is a problem. So the interconnection of all this is in the energy sector. And that's why we use this as guiding principles for a strategic plan. What we can do to create research outcomes addressing this and with this creating an environment for our citizens which is a better place and this is not just in, in impacting climate change, it also creates a better environment for people. If you're in rural America and you have a lot of outings because you're at the end of a line, new technology like solar and storage will help you that the electricity is not going out and the food in the refrigerator is not spoiling. So this is beyond just saving the planet. It's also creating for all Americans the next level of having cheaper, more reliable energy in a way which also helps the planet to make sure we can continue this part of living in our planet. And our goal in this energy transition is to make sure that we preserving this kind of, ability for everybody in the U. S. to get access to cheap and clean and reliable energy for the future.
Ernie: Yeah, and I just wanted to check in on the word you used, an applied lab. The goal of NREL is truly to have things swing through the early stages of research out and into the communities and have products, whatever it is, a better solar panel, cars that are pollution free. Things like that. It's an applied lab. So things are not just in someone's workshop and that's where they stay. Hopefully, they get out to the public.
Martin: Exactly right. I mean, for us if you want to really make an impact in creating a better energy future for the world and for the U.S. science is the first step and it's absolutely critical that we do this, what we call fundamental science, that we work in very fundamental early stage science. This said, the goal is here in this laboratory, then translate the science in big partnership we're doing with industry that this science is finding its way into the economy so that we're creating systems which will make the life of people here in the U. S. easier on the energy side. So, that's again why we're doing a lot of work with the industry with this goal to scale technology and help to get it deployed in our economy.
Ernie: So, let's touch on, where the rubber meets the road. And right now, the goal is the three main pillars that, that NREL has decided on. The first one would be what we call integrated energy pathways. And it's a key strength of NREL. And it really kind of means using clean energy sources to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, right? So what are the biggest challenges with that? I mean, it sounds great, let's reduce pollution, but real, in real terms, how do you do that?
Martin: So what this big initiative is, and that's the largest initiative here at NREL. So this goes all the way from creating materials for the next solar panels. We're working with new materials such as perovskites where you could make this solar panels like, like, in the same process like you make newspaper. It's a, it's an ink you bring on a very thin film which will potentially allow to have solar panels everywhere. Very cheap. But then it's also then beyond how to integrate between solar panels and battery storage in your garage, electric cars in your garage. How do you integrate all this together?
So, you've probably all seen this, I mean, the wind parks, which is another very good opportunity for some farming community because they can drive the tractor around it. So you're getting extra income for having this wind turbines on, on, on your land and you still can do agriculture. So there is a lot of this integration work. Where you're integrating this and also keep this in a safe way. That's, I would say the biggest initiative here at NREL to continue to drive the research that we in the U. S. still are staying on the forefront of this innovation, this technology. But also how do you bring this together and help communities to deploy this technology. And then you might ask, why do we need to do this? It's clearly that some of this new technology is providing electricity at a much reduced cost in comparison to, for example, coal. And that's why we're seeing this in the long run as a better solution for people in the U.S., but also on a global scale, so this will happen. So then, of course, this links straight over to the integration of transportation where we're seeing this increasing in electrification. Very soon, we will have this, that electric vehicles will become cheaper than combustion engines. It will come.
Ernie: So that leads me to another of the three pillars electrons to molecules, and it's also been described as kind of conversion of waste gases into useful chemicals and because CO2 is one of the drivers of climate change. So what's crucial about this, the electrons to molecules idea?
Martin: So when you look into into our use of energy, there is right, of course, right now, a lot of this is heavily based on hydrocarbons and we take hydrocarbons out of the ground in form of crude oil and then and do all this refining to create everything from our gasoline to plastic bottles to textiles we, we're wearing and so on. So on the long run we think that hydrocarbons or this materials will be extremely important. They will not go away. So, but the idea is, can you make them in a different way? And that's what electrons to molecules is. So can you take an electron created through a wind turbine or a solar panel or perhaps down the road, even a nuclear power plant? And how can you take this electron and make other molecules out of this. And this is new textiles we wear, a new way of producing plastic bottles, new ways of making hydrocarbons for flying to Germany or Europe or on vacation. So there will be processes which will be very hard to what we call electrify. So we will need kind of other molecules to continue to do this, such as combustion turbine in an airplane. They, this technology works very well. So the question is just can you change what fuel we're putting into our current airlines, airplanes.
Ernie: The third one, it probably is most familiar in some ways, the circular economy, just in a conceptual way, because people have been recycling or trying to for decades now , but this is more about different forms of it and upcycling. Talk a little bit about the circular economy and why that's important in all of this at this point.
Martin: So, so this the circular economy, what we call for energy material, so what we mean with this is that right now, When you talk about recycling, a lot of times recycling is an afterthought. So while we make an aluminum can and say, 'Ooh, can we recycle it?' And aluminum is a good example because recycling works very well on a global scale. I mean, I would say there's not too many aluminum cans floating in our oceans because people, we know how to do it. The contrast is on plastics. We, you all know that by 2050, by weight, there's more plastic in the ocean than fish. So we have a problem. Why is this problem? Because we really do not know how to recycle plastic in a good, efficient way. So the problem is that recycling a lot of time is an afterthought. So what we want to do is in this initiative to bring this concept of bringing the materials back into our economy while you design this new device. So for example lithium batteries. We spent a lot of time over the last years to optimize the energy density of batteries and make them as lightweight as possible because they go into our cars. So now we realize, well, if everybody drives electric cars, how do we get these materials back? How do you also avoid that suddenly your independence on another country, who might be the only source for these materials you need? So this is not just a way of getting materials back, but it also brings the whole supply chain into this, and also the discussion about national security. How can you do this as a country, on a global scale? So how can you make this re use of the materials, bring them in, also in respect of how do you make sure that you not, as a country, get in pure dependence of another country?
Ernie: I think that is a good point to launch into the idea of interdependence and bringing in other partners and no one is saying NREL is doing this by themselves, can do it alone. We have reached out, partnered and done many things. And I think obviously, the energy department is a key and our biggest partner, but long term, you have realized that the more people we can bring into this cause, the more impact we can have . It's not like NREL is just going to sit here and come up with the solution that's going to save the day. We have partners.
Martin: So that's why, yeah. And you're absolutely correct. That's why creating partnerships is a critical element of NREL. So in '22 give you, I mean, we have over a thousand active partnerships. And this goes all the way from different U. S. agencies, Like Department of Defense or even Department of State all the way to startup companies where we help to help them in the development of their technology all the way to very large companies. So why is this important? We always say that our job as a research organization is to help technology bring it on its way, de-risk technology. But then, if they're getting really deployed, we will not build a solar farm. We will not build a wind park. We will not create an electric vehicle. That's not our job. But our goal is to work with this industry leaders in this areas, help them de-risk technology, and then they will commercialize this technology. We feel that this is absolutely critical to make this energy transition and get it on its way. And we as a research laboratory can help, but we will never...create the energy transition. Our goal is to team, de-risk technology and let then industry commercialize the technology.
Ernie: I had a chance recently to talk to Brent Rice, who just retired after serving as one of the people who reaches out and works with partners on our behalf. And he said that one of the first things you said after you came here in 2015 is, you wanted to surpass a hundred million annually in, in types of partnerships beyond the energy department things.
Martin: It was an ambitious goals and we, s you all know, surpassed this. Now we are much, even much higher than a hundred million. Now we are about 130 million. So, but I tell you the key is not the money. The money is not what is the driver. The driver is what the mission impact is. So in this very strategic partnerships, and that's the way we selecting them, it's not driven by getting extra funds here to this laboratory. It is driven that will this partnership create an impact towards the energy transition, for the U. S. And also for our citizens and, but also for the world. What can we do to make the life of people here in the U. S. better? And we realize that the more strategic partnerships we have, the higher is the impact we have in the communities.
Ernie: So, If I come to you with a proposal for a massive solar hotdog cooking plant and things, do you think that I'm in?
Martin: Well, it depends. If you can show us that this is creating an increasing a be a benefit for the US. In the way of a secure resilience, cheap energy for the future, we will talk to you. Yeah.
Ernie: I'll keep that on pause for the time being. Again, I want to touch briefly on the basic energy sciences which is kind of the foundational piece of a lot of this. But that's part of getting to the root of why things are the way they are. The basic science. Talk a little bit about what NREL is doing and how that's going to impact the future.
Martin: We're still doing a lot of amazing foundational basic science in new materials. I think the key is that our goal, what we see, is that you're taking the basic science, but even there we ask the question, if you're successful in overcoming the current problem in X and Y, will this enable a breakthrough, a new process, a new material, a new technology down the road to help the kind of energy transition. So every foundation of basic science, when we start this has this already built in that overcoming this will have an impact. So, and I think that's very important. And then of course we also teaming up with very many universities and other national laboratories. We're doing a lot of basic science to then help to accelerate and scale this technology for the deployment. So we are integrated. So, but the goal is really how can we de-risk this, accelerate this towards down the road deployment of this new technology? And a lot of times this can take significant time. But the key always is, will this make an impact? Will this make a difference to people in the United States?
Ernie: Yeah, and I think there's a difference between that and what is sometimes typically thought of in universities perhaps or other places where you can work on interesting problems perhaps, but they're interesting maybe just to you or from a theoretical standpoint, but there's no future spin necessarily, it doesn't tie into it.
Martin: The fundamental of basic science is absolutely critical. We need to do this. I would still say here in the U. S., we are still the world leader in doing this, and it's absolutely critical. Because a lot of times. science might go into a direction which we cannot predict. So we don't know what some science will end up and how this would be making our lives better. So yes, we absolutely need this fundamental science. And that's again why we're having a lot of partnerships with other universities and other national labs who are in the very fundamental science. We as an applied laboratory, we're bridging this gap. We need to, I would say, we need to be excellent in the fundamental science that we speak the same language as people in fundamental science, but we also speak the language with our industry partners to then at the end get the technology deployed and everything between. So, our problem is, it's not enough to be excellent in fundamental science or excellent in the kind of way applied science. We need to be excellent in all of these different pillars because at the end, we want to impact our economy, means we need to get this technology out. That's why we need to speak all these languages across these different platforms.
Ernie: One language we do speak and we don't often maybe think of it in the general sense in the public is analysis, energy analysis. But NREL has a big and growing portion of its portfolios and impacts as an analytical lab, and I think one of the real hallmarks has been what is called the LA100 study that came out and NREL worked with the city of Los Angeles to work for a 100 percent renewable energy future.
Martin: So, yeah, this is another perfect example how the early stage research is getting shaped to then make this big impact. So this was the study for the first time which brought all this element together with a clear deployment and implementation plan. It helped LA to run through all these different scenarios to pick the best scenarios for their plan, nobody ever has done this at this detailed level, which then led to many other studies like same model what we're doing for Puerto Rico to really redesign their whole electricity grid, which is a very different problem as an island land is very limited. So big change in land use. Do you take your flat land and put solar farms on there? Or do you continue to grow vegetables there? How would you do this? How do you make sure that very remote homes or villages are not cut off in the mountains by bringing solar panels in combined storage. So the same concept, very sophisticated modeling leading to an implementation plan. But this is also then internationally where we're doing this now for different activities like Net Zero World, where we now doing this also in collaboration with 10 other laboratories where we also helping in Ukraine right now.
Ernie: And also there's an aspect to the LA100 wasn't a top down thing. There was a lot of input from all over and it touched on the energy justice portion of that and kind of making sure people are all brought along together in the community.
Martin: And this is another, what I say, the third pillar of all that is the work in the communities. So how do you help communities in advancing their goals where they want to go? So, the key is to pick communities up where they are and help them to advance their energy security resilience in the area of what is the best for their communities. So our goal is to provide the communities with the data and the input and the plans that then they can make the decision what they want to do. Why is this important? Because we are reaching the stage where a lot of this transition will happen and we cannot leave communities behind.
Ernie: One of the things that also ties into this is that NREL now has an Alaska-based campus which had a long record, a couple decades worth, of research into the most extreme climates and yet it's at the forefront of climate change.
Martin: Many of these communities on some of the very northern ocean there suffer from two big things happening there. Number one is some of the permafrost is changing. That the ground is changing in a way where some of these communities need ladders to get into their homes because of the change of permafrost. The second big thing is that some of the sea ice, normally very far out, is changing and now this waves come to, into their villages, which require that they have to move. And historically, we, what we have done is that people from other areas came and built some of these homes, but they were going to build to the specifications you need in this very harsh environment. So this is why they have a lot of mold issues, where they just, their homes are not designed for their communities. A lot of these communities have multi generation living under one roof, so they need to do this in a very different way. So we were helping these communities and coming back to working with these communities to understand what do the, does the community need to bring this multi kind of generations together, what is required in the homes? Because the problem what we're seeing in this communities are the same in very many other communities we have across the United States. Same example when we just had a big group from the Navajo Nation here, where in, in contrast to in Alaska where it's very cold where there is, it's very dry and very hot. But the problem, in bringing this change to the communities is the same. How do you help the local workforce there? How do you create the culture of this change to make their life better? So the, what we are learning in Alaska is what we then can apply for many other communities across the U.S., but also across the globe. This is what we will say that the changes we're seeing, Alaska is on the tip of the spear.
Ernie: Speaking of building, NREL's on a bit of a building spree at least lately. NREL's Table Mountain Campus has a new laboratory that is going to increase its wet laboratory space for special things. But there's also land that we've acquired as part of a deal with the state and the Department of Energy. Approximate to the Global Energy Park. How does that vision line up with what you see, of NREL's possibility in the future?
Martin This is an amazing and a very exciting project for us. And they have to, I mean, give the governor Polis in Colorado and his whole team, I mean amazing kind of credit. You know that this is one of this big vision he has to make Colorado even a more important element in the clean energy transition. And so the idea was created to create this Global Energy Park or Glo Park, how we call it, just adjacent here to NREL. Focusing on this facility to increase kind of companies coming here to partner and collaborate with NREL, with Colorado School of Mines, with CU Boulder, CSU, the universities network we have, which is so amazing here in Colorado, in partnership with NREL to further accelerate this clean energy transition. Again, what I told you earlier, the hallmark here at NREL is collaboration specifically with industry. And this Glow Park will be a big step towards increased industrial collaboration for us and universities here in our area which will hopefully develop over the next three or so years.
Ernie: So, one last question. what's the best part of being at NREL?
Martin: I think every part, because you know, look what I enjoy. I mean, look all my career now I've worked in, you know, saw many different places and one which makes NREL stand out in comparison to all of this is the dedicated workforce we have here at NREL. Everybody here at NREL is here because this person wants to be part of our mission. And when we have this huge influx of summer interns coming to this laboratory, when we talk to them, we get this clear message from everybody that they are so excited to be here. Because they want to be part of this mission, do the energy transition to create a better future for our world. And this goes across everybody. From the people who greet our scientists and visitors when they come here on the first day or 30,000 visitors we have every year visiting our place from people who make sure that they find where they go all the way to the people who are doing actually this amazing research, to even you all who are writing all these communication efforts. So it's all part of the NREL culture, the NREL communities to help us to make sure that we are all pulling in the same direction, make this a better planet. And this is really unique. And that's why, what I said, I have my dream job because when I'm even older, and hopefully looking back, with our two grandchildren. When they're growing up and they hopefully I'm still alive and they look at me and say, 'Hey, what did you do to help this energy transition?' Yeah, I put solar panels on my rooftop and I bought an electric car, but I am able, I can show them that I was working in a community where the whole community is all driven to make this a better planet. And that's why I have my dream job.
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Taylor: Wow, thanks Dr. Keller and Ernie! We appreciate both of you joining the episode and all of you listening to the first episode of Transforming Energy: The NREL Podcast Lab Notes series.
Kerrin: We’re so excited to continue to continue to dive into our Lab Notes series. But don’t worry, we’ll still have our usual short and sweet episodes, bringing you bi-weekly news updates from the lab every other Wednesday.
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Taylor: This episode was written by Ernie Tucker. Special thanks to Director Martin Keller. Our theme music is written and performed by Chuck Kurnik, Jim Riley and Mark Sanseverino of Drift B-C and episode music by Ted Vaca. This podcast is produced by NREL’s Communications Office and recorded at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. We express our gratitude and acknowledge that the land we are on is the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples. We recognize and pay respect to the Indigenous peoples from our past, present, and future, and are grateful to those who have been and continue to be stewards of this land.