Elevator Parts in Marine Energy Tech, Transportation Data Sharing, and a Biomanufacturing Collab Helping To Scale Up Tech—Fast

In this episode of The NREL Podcast, hosts Taylor Mankle and Kerrin Jeromin spotlight three stories where innovation meets real-world impact, including: 

• Marine energy tech getting a surprising upgrade. NREL researchers test an elevator pulley belt to improve their wave-powered desalination device, called the HERO WEC. 
• A major milestone for secure transportation data sharing. The Transportation Secure Data Center celebrates 15 years of enabling smarter transportation planning while protecting user privacy. 
• How a new collaboration with Crysalis Biosciences is transforming shuttered chemical plants into cutting-edge biofuel and biochemical production hubs. 

This episode was hosted by Kerrin Jeromin and Taylor Mankle, written and produced by Allison Montroy, Hannah Halusker, and Kaitlyn Stottler, and edited by James Wilcox, 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. Email us at podcast@nrel.gov. Follow NREL on X, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads, and Facebook.

Transcript

[intro music, fades]  

Taylor: Welcome to The NREL Podcast, brought to you by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. We’re highlighting the latest in advanced energy research and innovations happening at the lab. It’s Wednesday, June 11. I’m Taylor Mankle. 

Kerrin: And I’m Kerrin Jeromin.  

Taylor: Kerrin, it’s feeling like summer! School is ending, the sun is shining, and as always, the science is science-ing.  

Kerrin: That’s the best. The last one’s definitely the best. It’s the most wonderful time of the year—at least in my opinion! Let’s kick things off with three amazing stories from NREL. 

Taylor: On today’s episode, we’re talking about how an elevator part could elevate marine energy technologies, a unique solution for transportation data sharing, and a collaboration to scale up domestic biomanufacturing technologies. 

 [music]  

Kerrin: OK, in today’s first story, we’d like to lift up . . . elevator mechanics. 

Taylor: And before you think you’ve accidentally tuned in to the wrong podcast, stick with us here. We’re looking at how a polyurethane belt used in elevators could improve marine energy technologies. 

Kerrin: Specifically, wave energy converters. 

Taylor: So, polyurethane flat belts are typically used for elevator pulleys. They’re sturdy belts made of tiny strands of wire rope that are encased in polyurethane, which is a plastic material. 

Kerrin: The material is durable, affordable, and waterproof—which, you know, is kind of an important consideration when looking at marine energy technologies that operate in harsh ocean environments.  

Taylor: A team of NREL’s water power researchers have been focused on improving the reliability of the hydraulic and electric reverse osmosis wave energy converter—or, HERO WEC for short, and they wanted to see what would happen if they replaced the device’s original winch line’s wire rope with this elevator pulley belt.  

Kerrin: The HERO WEC is a wave-powered desalination system, and it uses either a hydraulic or an electrical configuration to pump seawater through an onshore reverse osmosis system to produce fresh drinking water. 

Taylor: They’ve been working on this for five years, and are now retiring version one and moving on to version two—with a little more wisdom and some fresh ideas, like the polyurethane belt.  

Kerrin: Right. They wanted to start with the winch line because it was HERO WEC 1.0’s weakest link. 

Taylor: So far, tests at NREL’s Flatirons Campus near Boulder, Colorado showed no visible signs of wear even after thousands of test cycles. The team predicted that this type of belt should last one to two years in the ocean before it would need to be replaced. 

Kerrin: Researchers also tested the belt under a range of stressful, simulated ocean conditions, pushing the belt to see if it would slip, fold, or wind and unwind faster than it should. They found that the belt showed no sign of slippage or tangling. 

Taylor: This confirmed that the belt is a promising upgrade for the HERO WEC's design.  

Kerrin: This could significantly enhance the WEC’s reliability, allow for longer deployments, reduce maintenance, and ultimately increase freshwater production. 

Taylor: We’ll keep you posted as HERO WEC version two continues to unfold!  

[music] 

Taylor: Fifteen years ago, the Transportation Secure Data Center was born at NREL.  

Kerrin: Oh, they grow up so fast, don’t they? 

Taylor: Aw, it’s so true.  

Kerrin: Yeah, OK. So, taking a step back here—the Transportation Secure Data Center, or TSDC, is a resource developed and managed by NREL that solves challenges related to transportation data sharing.  

Taylor: See, organizations conducting surveys or studies on travel and transit may typically be reluctant to share that data because of privacy concerns or limited staffing. 

Kerrin: The TSDC provides a secure platform for data owners to contribute their data and for interested researchers and others to study them from new angles. 

Taylor: Right. All while prioritizing security to keep survey participants' private information safe. 

Kerrin: The TSDC solves that problem—so that data from travel and transit surveys and studies from municipalities, transit agencies, and other entities are more available and able to be used.  

Taylor: And while the TSDC may not be getting its learner’s permit this year, over the past 15 years this center has grown tremendously.  

Kerrin: Yes! In the past decade and a half, the TSDC has grown from hosting a few datasets to providing access to—get this—more than 19 million miles of in-vehicle and wearable GPS data and more than 26 million miles of data from surveys on household travel habits.  

Taylor: So, all this data—you might be thinking, so what? Well, there’s two ways this platform can be accessed. The first is through a public facing portal that anyone can access.  

Kerrin: This travel survey data is processed so that any private location information from survey participants is removed. 

Taylor: The other way is through a secure portal that allows researchers to conduct analyses but not export raw data. 

Kerrin: And if you want to access the secure portal, you’ll need to submit a request to NREL explaining how the spatial data will be used. And once in, you’ll also receive support from TSDC staff—y’know, kind of like a digital research library.  

Taylor: To date, data sourced from the TSDC have informed a myriad of research projects, resulting in more than 260 publications. 

Kerrin: And the TSDC continues to grow, adding new datasets and making connections with more entities.  

Taylor: In 2023, for instance, the TSDC also branched out to include a different kind of travel—transit surveys. It now contains data from more than 515,000 transit trips—so not using single-occupancy vehicles to travel. 

Kerrin: Because transit agencies conduct surveys to collect data to plan operations and infrastructure and assess performance, transit surveys are usually structured differently and provide different kinds of information from household travel surveys. 

Taylor: The same transit survey data can help us understand things like ridership patterns, trip purpose, barriers to transit, and rider preferences, helping researchers connect the dots between different demographics and geographies. 

Kerrin: Ultimately, the TSDC helps answer new research questions and inform transportation decision-making around the country.  

[music]  

Taylor: As you’ve likely heard many times before on this podcast, NREL’s partnerships are key to getting innovations beyond the lab and into the real world. 

Kerrin: Right! One example of this is NREL’s collaboration with Crysalis Biosciences, an American manufacturer of next-generation biofuels and biochemicals.  

Taylor: NREL granted Crysalis commercial licenses to three novel biological technologies to produce bio-based chemicals and fuels. 

Kerrin: One produces 2,3 butanediol instead of ethanol, which can be used to produce a key ingredient in bio-derived rubber for tires.  

Taylor: Another technology is a process that converts America’s plentiful sources of waste and biomass into carboxylic acids, which can be used for jet fuel blendstock in the aviation industry.  

Kerrin: And finally, a process that allows for the production of a high-demand solvent called acetonitrile used in pharmaceutical manufacturing and other high-performance, high-volume materials like advanced batteries.  

Taylor: Crysalis recently produced the world’s first 100% bio-based acetonitrile with the highest purity available on the market. Eventually, they’ll scale that up to a full-scale manufacturing facility. 

Kerrin: Which basically means that this product could be commercially available within—get this—a year! Which is super fast. 

Taylor: Very fast. All three of these technologies from NREL will ultimately lead to more resilient supply chains of critical materials and chemicals needed by the US economy.  

Kerrin: Right, things like rubber—NREL’s process to create bio-derived rubber can bring manufacturing stateside. And NREL’s tech for carboxylic acids to create fuels can reduce dependence on imported crude oil from petroleum refineries. 

Taylor: There’s another big part of this story we haven’t touched on yet, and that’s how Crysalis was able to scale up NREL’s tech so quickly.  

Kerrin: Yes. The company purchased a shuttered manufacturing space in Louisville, Colorado—which is not far from Boulder—and in a year and a half gutted, cleaned, and built out a new facility with refurbished equipment that their team customized.  

Taylor: The resulting plant is pretty unique in the industry, but they don’t plan to stop there. The next stage is a demonstration-scale manufacturing plant in the St. Louis, Missouri area.  

Kerrin: For Crysalis, these technologies from NREL also represent an opportunity to transform shuttered chemical plants into profitable next-generation biomanufacturing hubs. 

Taylor: Acquiring and retrofitting shuttered industrial assets has kind of become their specialty. These projects have become important to the local communities, helping create jobs that people may have lost when the plants shuttered in their previous lives.  

Kerrin: And it’s really cool that NREL technology has helped enable this. 

Taylor: As NREL continues to partner with companies like Crysalis, the lab’s research is not just advancing science—it is actively shaping the future of an abundant, resilient, and affordable energy industry. 

[interstitial music] 

Kerrin: Well, that’s going to do it for another episode of the NREL Podcast. Thanks for joining us, everyone! Taylor, should we end with some listener feedback?  

Taylor: Let’s do it! This one’s from Hannah, who wrote in and said - Hi folks! I just wanted to say how much I enjoy the show! It is so nice, in a world where I am barraged by bad news, to hear some good news too. I appreciate y’all’s work and hope you keep it up. 

Kerrin: Aw, Hannah, we appreciate you for writing in! Truly, we love sharing good news—especially when it’s tied to cool science! Join us again in two weeks for more good news and science research happening at the lab. 

Taylor: And if you like what you hear, or if there’s anything specific you’d like to learn about in a future episode, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or send us an email at podcast@nrel.gov.  

[music]  

Kerrin: This episode was adapted from NREL news articles from May 2025 written by Brittany Enos, Aishwarya Krishnamoorthy, and Kathy Cisar. Our theme music is written and performed by Ted Vaca and episode music by Chuck Kurnik, Jim Riley, and Mark Sanseverino, of Drift B-C. The podcast is produced by NREL’s Communications Office at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado.