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Why is the cost of electricity going up in U.S. western states? Stanford experts explain how wildfires, AI data centers, extreme weather, and deferred grid maintenance are affecting utility bills, along with strategies that could help lower costs.

With support from the TomKat Center and the Stanford Sustainability Accelerator, scholars are working to scale a fast-acting fertilizer that captures carbon.

An Accelerator-supported team working to decarbonize industry took first place in the world's longest-running competition for student-led, climate tech startups.

With energy costs up and electricity demand climbing, Stanford researchers are leading efforts to make clean power affordable and reliable for all while cutting the emissions that drive climate change. Their work ranges from deep underground heat to solar on farms, renewable fuels, and upgrades for the power grid and batteries.

"Carbon removal is not a science experiment," says Jeff Brown, a managing director at the Accelerator. "We have the technology, and it's achievable and central to meeting our climate goals."

"When you're working with mining companies, you really need to understand where they're coming from, and how your solutions can fit into how they think about the problem," says Albert Chan, a managing director at the Accelerator. 

A new study finds old-growth forests in Sweden store far more carbon than the industrial tree plantations that are rapidly replacing them, with soil accounting for most of the difference. Protecting undisturbed areas could do more to mitigate climate change than previously thought.

Stanford researchers partnered with neighborhoods hit hard by flooding to understand their experiences and explore potential solutions. When given resources to plan infrastructure, residents consistently chose configurations that would benefit neighbors and shared spaces over maximizing protection for their own properties.

New research traces a direct line from warmer, wetter weather to a mosquito-bornedisease epidemic. The findings could help inform policy and interventions to blunt such outbreaks.

"This research comes at an important time when there is agreement that we need increased cooperation between practitioner and academic communities to unlock the potential for reforestation as a climate solution," said Jeff Brown, a managing director at the Stanford Sustainability Accelerator.

From July to September 2025, fourth-year Civil and Environmental Engineering PhD student Mateus Gheorghe de Castro Ribeiro participated in a hybrid internship at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey through the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), a workforce development program run by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Learn about opportunities related to alternative proteins, reducing food waste, wildfire mitigation, vehicle electrification, and more in a video series from Stanford Ecopreneurship and the Climate Tech Map.

"We now have the technology to produce something that tastes better, looks better, and is more sustainable than anything on the market today," says Timothy Bouley, a managing director at the Accelerator. 

"Fire is not just a natural disaster," says Gemma Guilera, a managing director at the Accelerator. "It's a system failure that we can prevent, and you can be part of the solution."

Budgets are tight, political winds have shifted, and competition is fierce. But environment and sustainability sector employment experts say there's reason for optimism—if you know where to look, and how to prepare.

With support from the Accelerator, researchers are mapping climate-resilient kelp forests across the Americas to protect biodiversity, strengthen food security, and inform new conservation policies.

Managing Director Jeffrey Brown co-authored an opinion piece on why it's time to recognize that water is now central to business strategy, regulatory action, and the structure of the water technology market.

Yi Cui discusses how experiences in entrepreneurship can inform academia in this episode of the Stanford Ecopreneurship podcast. Cui is a professor of energy science and engineering and faculty director of the Stanford Sustainability Accelerator.

Stanford researchers are studying how changing weather patterns, rising temperatures, and ecological shifts affect the global food system, while developing ways to improve food security for all.