There is no question that solutions for the energy transition and the climate crisis are Herculean tasks that require one attitude above all: Think big!

In other words: take a holistic stance and involve all stakeholders who can contribute to finding practicable solutions. This is exactly what we have set out to do at Empa, for instance in battery research, the focus of the current issue. Whether with our sister institutions within the ETH Domain, with industrial partners or in pan-European research consortia – interdisciplinary collaboration is always at the heart of our research activities.

Being able to store energy – in whatever form – is a central pillar of a sustainable energy system, since solar and wind energy are not always available in sufficient quantities when they are needed. That's why battery storage plays a crucial role on the road to net zero.

That is only half the story, though. Over the last 200 years, we have literally littered the Earth's atmosphere with CO₂ from fossil sources. And if you make a mess, you should clean it up afterwards – and maybe do something clever with it.

That – in a nutshell – is the idea behind our large-scale new research initiative Mining the Atmosphere. You can get a foretaste in this issue - in the next issue, we will present this ambitious project in more detail. Now that's one hell of a cliffhanger, don't you think?