Dr. Kenneth Reifsnider The largest research grant in USC's history, $12.5 million, was won by a team of mechanical and chemical engineers led by Dr. Kenneth Reifsnider, chair of USC's Center for Solid- Oxide Fuel Cells and director of the school's Future Fuels Initiative.

The money will help to create a research center dedicated to developing materials for combustion devices and coatings, electrodes, and fuel cells. The Department of Energy and its Office of Science are setting up and funding 31 such centers in the country, called Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs). Another 16 additional centers are being established at DOE national laboratories, non- profit organizations, and private firms across the country.

Working with Reifsnider on his team are Dr. Frank Chen and Dr. Xingjian "Chris" Xue, both with the department of mechanical engineering. From the department of chemical engineering comes help from Dr. Andreas Heyden. And from the department of chemistry and biochemistry Dr. Hans- Conrad zur Loye is the David W. Robinson Palmetto Professor (Robinson's surviving wife Susan lives at Still Hopes).

Reifsnider came to USC from his post as the director of the Connecticut Global Fuel Cell Center. Chen was senior staff engineer for the United Technologies Research Center, also in Connecticut. Xue researches applications in mechanical and energy systems while utilizing multi- scale multi- physics modeling and numerical computation. Heyden's research interests are in nanomaterial science and heterogeneous catalysis. And zur Loye's research interests include inorganic materials chemistry and the synthesis of novel solid- state materials and characterization of their physical properties.

In the end, and it may be another 20 years, everyone in the field is working on energy independence, energy freedom. The possibility of getting off the grid and getting adequate inexpensive energy from the basement or the closet is real, but no one wants to say when.

And that includes riding on adequate inexpensive energy from the trunk without carbon emissions.

New energy brings new business opportunities, extraordinary ventures, and this team must know when to go to the Patent Office and when to bring in the venture capitalists. But Reifsnider says it won't happen anytime soon.

Work on the future is here, but the future is not near - not just yet.