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Research lab

Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability

Stanford University's school dedicated to sustainability science, uniting research on climate, energy, environment, health and policy across many disciplines.

Known aliases

  • Doerr School
  • Doerr School of Sustainability
  • Stanford Doerr School

Current stories

scienceOne report1 publisher

About 70% of gas restaurant kitchens in a US study topped the EPA's outdoor NO2 standard

Researchers from PSE Healthy Energy, Stanford and NYU found NO2 above the EPA's outdoor one-hour limit in about 70% of gas restaurant kitchens they measured. The three all-electric kitchens stayed within every pollution guideline during cooking hours, so the choice of appliance also determines how much pollution kitchen workers breathe.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives50
Confidence60
scienceOne report1 publisher

A front in the Chukchi Sea drives dying phytoplankton to the seafloor four times faster

Kevin Arrigo's Stanford lab sampled an Arctic bloom from rise to decline in the summer of 2023, and two new papers trace its remains to a place where cold under-ice water dives beneath warmer open water.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+12
Incentives38
Confidence62
scienceOne report1 publisher

Emissions released since 2015 warmed Europe's hottest week every year since 2021, a GRL study finds

Attribution science usually asks what two centuries of fossil fuel burning did to a heat wave. A Stanford group asked what the ten years since the Paris Agreement did, and found a measurable answer in Europe's worst recent heat.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence60
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+8
Incentives55
Confidence55
scienceOne report1 publisher

A briefcase of filters put smoke-metal estimates on a Colorado fire crew's phone

Stanford's SmokeCast prototype rode a fire truck 300 miles in July 2026 and fed soil-metal likelihoods to the crew's app, while the smoke samples that could test those estimates stayed in a cartridge for 14 days.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence36
Adoption11
Hype gap+34
Incentives64
Confidence44
scienceOne report1 publisher

Siderophore-engineered bacteria weather olivine 2.6 times faster in flowing seawater

Enhanced rock weathering's problem has always been rate rather than chemistry, and a Nature Biotechnology result attacks the rate directly. The 2.6-fold gain was measured on kilograms of mineral in a flow reactor.

Publishers:genengnews.com

Reality

Evidence52
Adoption12
Hype gap+44
Incentives58
Confidence50
productOne report1 publisher

Engineered ocean bacterium strips the rust that stalls carbon-capturing olivine

The 2.6-fold speedup came from deleting the microbe's own off switch. That leaves the hard part of this work to whoever writes the discharge permit for a basin full of it.

Reality

Evidence42
Adoption8
Hype gap+60
Incentives66
Confidence38
scienceOne report1 publisher

Stanford's lava-world model puts a second atmosphere boundary inside the cosmic shoreline

A new model says molten surfaces meter outgassing slowly enough to match escape losses for billions of years, which reshuffles the target list for follow-up spectroscopy of hot rocky planets.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+18
Incentives62
Confidence55
scienceOne report1 publisher

A couple dozen white roofs in Makassar, and a 5-degree ceiling on what paint can do

Stanford researchers are coating informal-settlement roofs in Indonesia to cut indoor heat by up to 5F. The defence offered is physiological rather than comfort, and the cost is still unpriced.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence30
Adoption12
Hype gap+25
Incentives62
Confidence42