MacArthur 'Genius Grants' Awarded - C&EN Global Enterprise (ACS

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NEWS OF THE WEEK

ACTION ON CO2 EMISSIONS REGULATION: Environment agency

proposes standards for new coal, natural gas power plants

TEPS THAT MAY LEAD to a future with much-

S

An advanced coalfired power plant is being constructed in Kemper County, Miss., by Southern Co.

MISSISSIPPI POWER

reduced carbon dioxide emissions from coal and natural gas power plants were put forth in a series of announcements at the end of September by the Environmental Protection Agency. On Sept. 20, the agency proposed a limit on CO2 emissions from new coal and natural gas power plants. Unlike a previous EPA proposal, issued in April 2012 and later withdrawn, this one sets different standards for coal and gas plants: New large gas-fired plants must meet a limit of 1,000 lb of CO2 per MW-hour, and coal-fired and smaller gas-fired power plants are limited to 1,100 lb per MW-hour. But coal-fired plants can receive an additional seven years to comply if they install technologies resulting in greater emissions reductions.

Baran

Fennie

JOHN D. & CATHERINE T. MACARTHUR FOUNDATION (BOTH)

MACARTHUR ‘GENIUS GRANTS’ AWARDED HONORS: Organic chemist Phil Baran

and materials scientist Craig Fennie are in the new class of fellows

O

RGANIC CHEMIST Phil S. Baran and materi-

als scientist Craig J. Fennie are among the 24 new MacArthur Fellows named by the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The award, often called a genius grant, goes to researchers, writers, and artists who show extraordinary promise for advancing science and society. This year’s fellows are getting a funding boost: The five-year unrestricted award has been increased to $625,000 from the previous $500,000. Baran, 36, is a chemistry professor at Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, Calif. He is best known for his work to make pharmacologically active natural products using total synthesis. Baran’s group has developed methods that minimize the use of protecting groups to streamline syntheses. Just last month, his group reported the synthesis of ingenol, a compound used CEN.ACS.ORG

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State-of-the-art gas power plants can already meet the proposed new CO2 emissions standard, EPA officials say. But conventional coal-fired power plants average some 1,800 lb of CO2 per MW-hour. New coalfired plants could not meet the requirement without using carbon capture and sequestration technologies. Edison Electric Institute and other electric utility associations say those technologies are “neither adequately demonstrated nor economically feasible.” But EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy says the standards are “flexible and achievable” and “pave a path forward for the next generation of power plants.” She pointed to several coal-fired power plants under construction that will comply. All but one, however, use coal gasification technologies—also too expensive, the utilities say—to concentrate and capture CO2. Limits for existing coal- and gas-fired plants—which are responsible for one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions—will be proposed in June 2014, McCarthy says. States will lead the way in working with EPA to develop a regulatory approach, and states will implement the regulation, according to EPA. McCarthy says carbon capture technologies are unlikely to be required for existing power plants. Although environmental groups applaud EPA’s proposal for new power plants, coal-state members of Congress are promising legislation to block the regulation, and attorneys for electric utilities are threatening litigation. The proposal has been posted online for a 60-day comment period.—JEFF JOHNSON

to treat precancerous skin conditions, in only 14 steps (C&EN, Aug. 5, page 7). Baran had “no clue” the award was coming, he says. His response was one of “utter shock and disbelief followed by a deep sense of responsibility,” he adds. “The lab is quite humbled and any and all credit should go to the talented and passionate students and postdoctoral scholars.” Baran already has plans for how to spend the money. “We’ll be pursuing directions and ideas that would have been difficult or impossible to fund outright without extensive preliminary data,” he says. Fennie, 40, is an assistant professor in the School of Applied & Engineering Physics at Cornell University. His group combines theoretical physics with solid-state chemistry to design new materials. They computationally build those materials atom by atom using quantum mechanical first principles. The new materials could be used for fabricating optical and electronic devices. “I’m interested in the rational design of materials that have the properties you want them to have,” Fennie says. “I’d like to take this approach and uncover new materials with qualitatively different types of properties than those we have been thinking about over the years. A lot of new physics and a lot of new solid-state chemistry will need to be done to gain the intuition I need to accomplish this task.”—CELIA ARNAUD

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013