Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com

ScienceDirect
Green Energy & Environment 2 (2017) 65
www.keaipublishing.com/gee

Editorial
Green energy for green future
Glories in the history of civilization are built on the burning of productions, including engineering earth abundant materials for
non-renewable fossil fuels. In the last fifty years, the global pop- hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen evolution reaction elec-
ulation increased over twice, from 3.0 billion in 1960 to 7.3 billion in trocatalysis, designing new photocatalysts for water splitting and
2015, and the global GDP increased over 50 times, from 1.4 trillion the degradation of dyes, and catalysts characterization by advanced
US $ in 1960 to 74.2 trillion US $ in 2015. Along with the evolution electron microscopy and in-situ spectroscopic and scanning-probe
of humanity is the skyrocketing fossil fuel consumptions, from techniques, theoretical studies on electrochemical conversion, as
3514.2 millions of tonnes of oil equivalent/year (mtoe/y) in 1965 to well as advanced carbon-based composite materials for high-
11,306.4 mtoe/y in 2015, as well as the irreversible climate changes performance lithium ion batteries, etc. We believe this issue of
damaged by the fossil fuel combustion: the atmosphere CO2 con- GEE presents topics interesting and valuable to a very wide range of
centration increased over 100 ppm and the global mean surface groups around the world, conducting researches in renewable
temperature increased by ~1  C over the past century, no need to energies, green chemicals, and environmental sciences. We antici-
mention the release of more poisonous NOx, SOx, heavy metals, and pate great breakthroughs and significant improvements will be
volatile organic compounds. Sustainability is now showing up as made under the inspiration of GEE and hope to see an increasing
one of the top challenges for the survival of human being that calls number of articles in these areas in future issues of GEE.
for the attention of governments, industry, and academy. We would like to express our sincere thanks to all the authors,
Renewable energy and green chemical productions from annu- referees, and Editorial Board. We always welcome any comment,
ally available feedstocks are, ideally, clean, affordable, of minimum suggestion, and feedback, at gee@ipe.ac.cn.
environment impacts, and are considered to be the only answer to
the sustainably of humanity in the foreseeable future. Past years
have seen tremendous achievements in the wind and solar energy. In
the United States, the total consumption of wind and solar energy
increased around seven times in the past ten years. In 2015, the wind
and solar energy contributed to 6.2% of total electricity generated in
the US (2.35 Quads). Similar achievements have also seen in China,
Europe, and many regions in the world. Coupled with these are the
success in the advanced electrocatalysts and electrochemical pro-
cesses, aiming at efficient conversion and storage of wind and solar
electricity. According to a rough statistic by Web of Science, more
than 200,000 publications were reported in the past five years in
Sen Zhang, Assistant Professor of Chemistry,
scopes related with wind and solar energy, and electrochemical
University of Virginia, United States
processes. These new and exciting areas are not only vital to the
built-up of sustainable energy society, but also provide alternative
approaches for chemical manufacturing and research, while alle-
viating the current environmental burden.
After the success launch in 2016, the journal of Green Energy &
Environment (GEE) is continuously seeking high impact papers in
fields of energy and environment. There are many challenges in
green energy and environmental sciences that require us to work
together towards their solutions. The GEE offers an open-minded,
non-profit, and worldwide forum to promote the collaborations
between experts in chemistry, physics, materials sciences, chemical
engineering and environmental sciences, to advance research topics
that are impossible to be achieved separately or locally. The present Professor Shaojun Guo,
issue of GEE offers 13 peer-reviewed manuscripts, focusing on the Department of Materials Science and Engineering &
newest commentary, viewpoint, reviews, and research progress in Department of Energy and Resources Engineering,
renewable energy technologies and efficient catalytic chemical College of Engineering, Peking University, China

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gee.2017.03.003
2468-0257/© 2017, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co.,
Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).