(2bl) Guiding the Development and Deployment of Sustainable Energy Systems with Data-Informed Modeling of Energy and Chemical Technologies

Research Interests

To mitigate the intensifying impacts of climate change, we need a substantial and rapid transition to low-carbon energy resources. I study sustainable energy and chemical technologies that can address environmental challenges, notably climate change. My research seeks to inform how society could invest time and resources in order to accelerate the improvement and deployment of these technologies. Technologies on which I focus include those that store energy in batteries and fuels, capture carbon dioxide, and use sustainable materials and feedstocks.

I investigate factors that influence the rates at which technologies improve, how well technologies will need to perform, and the limits imposed by underlying chemistry and physics and availability of material and mineral resources. My research approach emphasizes the rigorous collection, curation, and analysis of extensive empirical data and the development of models to quantitatively evaluate sustainable energy and chemical technologies. With these data and models, I examine how the impacts of technologies might change, over time and space. Then, I investigate strategies to improve and deploy sustainable technologies more rapidly and effectively. My work informs engineering priorities, public policies, and investment decisions.

Research Experience

Postdoctoral Research
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
Advisor: Prof. Jessika E. Trancik

At MIT, I study energy systems and technological change to learn how we can improve energy storage technologies more effectively.

To inform efforts to improve energy storage technologies, I have elucidated how lithium-ion batteries fell in cost substantially and rapidly, and have quantified the drivers of this improvement. I first demonstrated a 97% decline in the price of lithium-ion batteries between 1991 and 2018, using a dataset comprising 90 data series and 1,700 individual records from 600+ sources. Then, I disentangled and quantified the causes of this improvement. I built a dataset comprising 15,000 data points that describe how lithium-ion batteries have changed over decades, and I developed cost change models. I found that the increase in cell charge density provided the most cost reduction (38%), followed by decreases in cathode material prices (18%) and non-material costs (14%). I also demonstrated quantitatively that research and development (R&D) drove most of the cost decline (54%) while economies of scale contributed less (30%). My results suggest that to improve battery technologies, policies and investments should provide sustained R&D support and encourage exploration of diverse chemistries that can be combined in a flexible, modular design.

I have also identified key features of storage technologies that can enable the use of renewable resources as dependence on intermittent resources increases significantly. By combining multi-decade weather data with straightforward technology models, my work has demonstrated the importance of 1) managing severe, although infrequent, resource shortages and 2) lowering costs of storage energy capacity, rather than power capacity.

Currently, I investigate the meteorological and technological determinants of renewable energy shortages and surpluses, and how technologies, such as those for hydrogen production, could be adapted to accommodate these fluctuations. I use high-resolution, multi-decade weather data for entire countries and build models, optimized for high performance computing, to investigate renewable energy fluctuations and their potential impacts.

Graduate Research
University of California, Berkeley: Department of Chemistry
Advisor: Prof. T. Don Tilley

My initial graduate research was focused on artificial photosynthesis: storing energy from intermittent renewable resources while removing carbon dioxide from the air. I synthesized and explored the reactivity of dicopper complexes designed to catalyze the reduction of carbon dioxide in air. Despite extensive investigations, our project was unsuccessful; our complexes did not reduce carbon dioxide.

I pivoted and focused my research on extending our ability to use earth-abundant first-row transition metals to catalyze important transformations in an environmentally sustainable fashion. I discovered that electrophilicity typically observed only with rare metals was present at a dicopper core. I investigated this core’s ability to activate carbon–boron and carbon–hydrogen bonds, support bridging organic moieties, and enable the isolation of mixed-valence organocopper species. I then used these organocopper complexes to elucidate the mechanism of the widely utilized, atom-efficient copper-catalyzed azide−alkyne cycloaddition reaction. With colleagues, I also studied sustainable catalysts for water oxidation and developed more efficient organometallic catalysts.

Public Policy Research
World Resources Institute (WRI)
Advisors: Ruth Greenspan Bell, Sarah M. Forbes, Letha Tawney

Before graduate school, I researched international and domestic climate and energy policy. Working with environmental policy expert Ruth Greenspan Bell, I explored how to improve mutual trust among countries developing international climate policy. We worked with experts on arms control and international trade to identify which aspects of their negotiation processes enabled countries to commit to concrete, collective actions. Then, we translated these lessons for application in climate negotiations. We published our conclusions in a peer-reviewed book that was disseminated to relevant officials and experts. At WRI, I also studied energy technologies, including carbon dioxide capture and storage and electricity transmission, and policies designed to promote and regulate them.

Future Research

My research group will first evaluate sustainable energy and chemical technologies that prevent or reverse greenhouse gas emissions, and then identify data-informed strategies to accelerate the improvement and deployment of these technologies. Our work will contribute new insights through the development of extensive empirical datasets and rigorous analysis to understand the factors that influence rates of technological change. We will then use these insights to characterize specific strategies that can accelerate the broad adoption of sustainable technologies. My two overarching objectives are 1) enabling intermittent renewable energy to be stored and used effectively and 2) investigating potential negative greenhouse gas emissions technologies. Specific research topics include storing renewable energy in chemical fuels, assessing technologies that remove carbon dioxide from the air, reducing environmental impacts of chemicals production, facilitating adoption of renewables with industrial processes, and informing decisions about materials to meet climate targets.

Teaching Interests

I look forward to teaching students how to understand and address multidisciplinary problems, and preparing them for careers in academia, industry, government, and non-profits. Emphasizing real-world problems, experiential learning, and student-led projects, I will teach students how to examine large, intricate problems, like climate change, and identify and critically evaluate approaches to address them.

I am prepared to teach core courses on chemical technologies, as well as energy storage and renewable energy resources. I am also prepared to teach engineering courses that incorporate data and systems analysis, natural sciences, and public policy. For example, I would like to teach a course for students who are motivated to design chemical technologies for energy and environmental applications. This course will introduce principles of modeling energy and environmental systems in order to help students quantify material requirements, scaling potential, cost-reduction opportunities, and overall impacts.

I am also passionate about teaching and communicating science broadly. Thus, I would like to teach multidisciplinary survey courses, e.g., on energy and society. These courses might include one accessible to non-scientists with the objective of improving our society’s scientific literacy.

Selected Teaching Experience

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Mapping and Evaluating New Energy Technologies, Teaching Assistant, Guest Lecturer, 2022
• Understanding and Predicting Technological Innovation, Teaching Assistant, 2018, 2020
• Energy Systems and Climate Change Mitigation, Guest Lecturer, 2019

University of California, Berkeley

• Organometallic Chemistry I and II, Graduate Student Instructor, 2012, 2013, 2016
• Organic Chemistry and Laboratory, Graduate Student Instructor, 2011

Selected Publications
(Publications include 32 journal articles and 13 reports, books, and chapters.)

7. Ziegler MS, Song J, Trancik JE. Determinants of Lithium-Ion Battery Technology Cost Decline. Energy Environ. Sci. 2021, 14, 6074–6098.
6. Ziegler MS. Evaluating and Improving Technologies for Energy Storage and Backup Power. Joule 2021, 5, 1925–1927. (Invited “Preview” article, not peer-reviewed.)
5. Ziegler MS, Trancik JE. Re-Examining Rates of Lithium-Ion Battery Technology Improvement and Cost Decline. Energy Environ. Sci. 2021, 14, 1635–1651.
4. Ziegler MS, Mueller JM, Pereira GD, Song J, Ferrara M, Chiang Y-M, Trancik JE. Storage Requirements and Costs of Shaping Renewable Energy Toward Grid Decarbonization. Joule 2019, 3, 2134–2153.
3. Ziegler MS, Torquato NA, Levine DS, Nicolay A, Celik H, Tilley TD. Dicopper Alkyl Complexes: Synthesis, Structure, and Unexpected Persistence. Organometallics 2018, 37, 2807–2823.
2. Ziegler MS, Lakshmi KV, Tilley TD. Dicopper Cu(I)Cu(I) and Cu(I)Cu(II) Complexes in Copper-Catalyzed Azide–Alkyne Cycloaddition. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, 139, 5378–5386.
1. Ziegler MS, Levine DS, Lakshmi KV, Tilley TD. Aryl Group Transfer from Tetraarylborato Anions to an Electrophilic Dicopper(I) Center and Mixed-Valence μ-Aryl Dicopper(I,II) Complexes. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, 138, 6484–6491.

Selected Awards

• Technology Policy Program Research and Policy Engagement Initiative Fellowship, MIT, 2019–20
• Philomathia Graduate Fellowship in Environmental Sciences, UC Berkeley, 2015–17
• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, 2011–16
• Luce Scholars Program, 2008–9
• Arthur Fleischer Award for outstanding performance in chemistry, Yale, 2008
• Phi Beta Kappa, Yale, 2007

Selected Funding

Co-wrote grant applications and reports to funders

• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (2 awarded @ $125,000)
• MIT Portugal Program (4 awarded @ $90,000–$140,000)
• MIT Office of Sustainability (1 awarded @ $50,000)
• American Tower Corporation (3 awarded)

Contributed to multi-PI grant application

• MIT Climate Grand Challenges Flagship Project: Preparing for a New World of Weather and Climate Extremes (awarded)