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      in Energy

      Accelerated climate action needed to sharply reduce current risks to life and life-support systems

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      Hottest day on record. Hottest month on record. Extreme marine heatwaves. Record-low Antarctic sea-ice.

      While El Niño is a short-term factor in this year’s record-breaking heat, human-caused climate change is the long-term driver. And as global warming edges closer to 1.5 degrees Celsius — the aspirational upper limit set in the Paris Agreement in 2015 — ushering in more intense and frequent heatwaves, floods, wildfires, and other climate extremes much sooner than many expected, current greenhouse gas emissions-reduction policies are far too weak to keep the planet from exceeding that threshold. In fact, on roughly one-third of days in 2023, the average global temperature was at least 1.5 C higher than pre-industrial levels. Faster and bolder action will be needed — from the in-progress United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) and beyond — to stabilize the climate and minimize risks to human (and nonhuman) lives and the life-support systems (e.g., food, water, shelter, and more) upon which they depend.

      Quantifying the risks posed by simply maintaining existing climate policies — and the benefits (i.e., avoided damages and costs) of accelerated climate action aligned with the 1.5 C goal — is the central task of the 2023 Global Change Outlook, recently released by the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

      Based on a rigorous, integrated analysis of population and economic growth, technological change, Paris Agreement emissions-reduction pledges (Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs), geopolitical tensions, and other factors, the report presents the MIT Joint Program’s latest projections for the future of the earth’s energy, food, water, and climate systems, as well as prospects for achieving the Paris Agreement’s short- and long-term climate goals.

      The 2023 Global Change Outlook performs its risk-benefit analysis by focusing on two scenarios. The first, Current Trends, assumes that Paris Agreement NDCs are implemented through the year 2030, and maintained thereafter. While this scenario represents an unprecedented global commitment to limit greenhouse gas emissions, it neither stabilizes climate nor limits climate change. The second scenario, Accelerated Actions, extends from the Paris Agreement’s initial NDCs and aligns with its long-term goals. This scenario aims to limit and stabilize human-induced global climate warming to 1.5 C by the end of this century with at least a 50 percent probability. Uncertainty is quantified using 400-member ensembles of projections for each scenario.

      This year’s report also includes a visualization tool that enables a higher-resolution exploration of both scenarios.

      Energy

      Between 2020 and 2050, population and economic growth are projected to drive continued increases in energy needs and electrification. Successful achievement of current Paris Agreement pledges will reinforce a shift away from fossil fuels, but additional actions will be required to accelerate the energy transition needed to cap global warming at 1.5 C by 2100.

      During this 30-year period under the Current Trends scenario, the share of fossil fuels in the global energy mix drops from 80 percent to 70 percent. Variable renewable energy (wind and solar) is the fastest growing energy source with more than an 8.6-fold increase. In the Accelerated Actions scenario, the share of low-carbon energy sources grows from 20 percent to slightly more than 60 percent, a much faster growth rate than in the Current Trends scenario; wind and solar energy undergo more than a 13.3-fold increase.

      While the electric power sector is expected to successfully scale up (with electricity production increasing by 73 percent under Current Trends, and 87 percent under Accelerated Actions) to accommodate increased demand (particularly for variable renewables), other sectors face stiffer challenges in their efforts to decarbonize.

      “Due to a sizeable need for hydrocarbons in the form of liquid and gaseous fuels for sectors such as heavy-duty long-distance transport, high-temperature industrial heat, agriculture, and chemical production, hydrogen-based fuels and renewable natural gas remain attractive options, but the challenges related to their scaling opportunities and costs must be resolved,” says MIT Joint Program Deputy Director Sergey Paltsev, a lead author of the 2023 Global Change Outlook.

      Water, food, and land

      With a global population projected to reach 9.9 billion by 2050, the Current Trends scenario indicates that more than half of the world’s population will experience pressures to its water supply, and that three of every 10 people will live in water basins where compounding societal and environmental pressures on water resources will be experienced. Population projections under combined water stress in all scenarios reveal that the Accelerated Actions scenario can reduce approximately 40 million of the additional 570 million people living in water-stressed basins at mid-century.

      Under the Current Trends scenario, agriculture and food production will keep growing. This will increase pressure for land-use change, water use, and use of energy-intensive inputs, which will also lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions. Under the Accelerated Actions scenario, less agricultural and food output is observed by 2050 compared to the Current Trends scenario, since this scenario affects economic growth and increases production costs. Livestock production is more greenhouse gas emissions-intensive than crop and food production, which, under carbon-pricing policies, drives demand downward and increases costs and prices. Such impacts are transmitted to the food sector and imply lower consumption of livestock-based products.

      Land-use changes in the Accelerated Actions scenario are similar to those in the Current Trends scenario by 2050, except for land dedicated to bioenergy production. At the world level, the Accelerated Actions scenario requires cropland area to increase by 1 percent and pastureland to decrease by 4.2 percent, but land use for bioenergy must increase by 44 percent.

      Climate trends

      Under the Current Trends scenario, the world is likely (more than 50 percent probability) to exceed 2 C global climate warming by 2060, 2.8 C by 2100, and 3.8 C by 2150. Our latest climate-model information indicates that maximum temperatures will likely outpace mean temperature trends over much of North and South America, Europe, northern and southeast Asia, and southern parts of Africa and Australasia. So as human-forced climate warming intensifies, these regions are expected to experience more pronounced record-breaking extreme heat events.

      Under the Accelerated Actions scenario, global temperature will continue to rise through the next two decades. But by 2050, global temperature will stabilize, and then slightly decline through the latter half of the century.

      “By 2100, the Accelerated Actions scenario indicates that the world can be virtually assured of remaining below 2 C of global warming,” says MIT Joint Program Deputy Director C. Adam Schlosser, a lead author of the report. “Nevertheless, additional policy mechanisms must be designed with more comprehensive targets that also support a cleaner environment, sustainable resources, as well as improved and equitable human health.”

      The Accelerated Actions scenario not only stabilizes global precipitation increase (by 2060), but substantially reduces the magnitude and potential range of increases to almost one-third of Current Trends global precipitation changes. Any global increase in precipitation heightens flood risk worldwide, so policies aligned with the Accelerated Actions scenario would considerably reduce that risk.

      Prospects for meeting Paris Agreement climate goals

      Numerous countries and regions are progressing in fulfilling their Paris Agreement pledges. Many have declared more ambitious greenhouse gas emissions-mitigation goals, while financing to assist the least-developed countries in sustainable development is not forthcoming at the levels needed. In this year’s Global Stocktake Synthesis Report, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change evaluated emissions reductions communicated by the parties of the Paris Agreement and concluded that global emissions are not on track to fulfill the most ambitious long-term global temperature goals of the Paris Agreement (to keep warming well below 2 C — and, ideally, 1.5 C — above pre-industrial levels), and there is a rapidly narrowing window to raise ambition and implement existing commitments in order to achieve those targets. The Current Trends scenario arrives at the same conclusion.

      The 2023 Global Change Outlook finds that both global temperature targets remain achievable, but require much deeper near-term emissions reductions than those embodied in current NDCs.

      Reducing climate risk

      This report explores two well-known sets of risks posed by climate change. Research highlighted indicates that elevated climate-related physical risks will continue to evolve by mid-century, along with heightened transition risks that arise from shifts in the political, technological, social, and economic landscapes that are likely to occur during the transition to a low-carbon economy.

      “Our Outlook shows that without aggressive actions the world will surpass critical greenhouse gas concentration thresholds and climate targets in the coming decades,” says MIT Joint Program Director Ronald Prinn. “While the costs of inaction are getting higher, the costs of action are more manageable.” More

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      in Environment

      Unlocking the secrets of natural materials

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      Growing up in Milan, Benedetto Marelli liked figuring out how things worked. He repaired broken devices simply to have the opportunity to take them apart and put them together again. Also, from a young age, he had a strong desire to make a positive impact on the world. Enrolling at the Polytechnic University of Milan, he chose to study engineering.

      “Engineering seemed like the right fit to fulfill my passions at the intersection of discovering how the world works, together with understanding the rules of nature and harnessing this knowledge to create something new that could positively impact our society,” says Marelli, MIT’s Paul M. Cook Career Development Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

      Marelli decided to focus on biomedical engineering, which at the time was the closest thing available to biological engineering. “I liked the idea of pursuing studies that provided me a background to engineer life,” in order to improve human health and agriculture, he says.

      Marelli went on to earn a PhD in materials science and engineering at McGill University and then worked in Tufts University’s biomaterials Silklab as a postdoc. After his postdoc, Marelli was drawn to MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental in large part because of the work of Markus Buehler, MIT’s McAfee Professor of Engineering, who studies how to design new materials by understanding the architecture of natural ones.

      “This resonated with my training and idea of using nature’s building blocks to build a more sustainable society,” Marelli says. “It was a big leap forward for me to go from biomedical engineering to civil and environmental engineering. It meant completely changing my community, understanding what I could teach and how to mentor students in a new engineering branch. As Markus is working with silk to study how to engineer better materials, this made me see a clear connection with what I was doing and what I could be doing. I consider him one of my mentors here at MIT and was fortunate to end up collaborating with him.”

      Marelli’s research is aimed at mitigating several pressing global problems, he says.

      “Boosting food production to provide food security to an ever-increasing population, soil restoration, decreasing the environmental impact of fertilizers, and addressing stressors coming from climate change are societal challenges that need the development of rapidly scalable and deployable technologies,” he says.

      Marelli and his fellow researchers have developed coatings derived from natural silk that extend the shelf life of food, deliver biofertilizers to seeds planted in salty, unproductive soils, and allow seeds to establish healthier plants and increase crop yield in drought-stricken lands. The technologies have performed well in field tests being conducted in Morocco in collaboration with the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Ben Guerir, according to Marelli, and offer much potential.

      “I believe that with this technology, together with the common efforts shared by the MIT PIs participating in the Climate Grand Challenge on Revolutionizing Agriculture, we have a  real opportunity to positively impact planetary health and find new solutions that work in both rural settings and highly modernized agricultural fields,” says Marelli, who recently earned tenure.

      As a researcher and entrepreneur with about 20 patents to his name and awards including a National Science Foundation CAREER award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers award, and the Ole Madsen Mentoring Award, Marelli says that in general his insights into structural proteins — and how to use that understanding to manufacture advanced materials at multiple scales — are among his proudest achievements.

      More specifically, Marelli cites one of his breakthroughs involving a strawberry. Having dipped the berry in an odorless, tasteless edible silk suspension as part of a cooking contest held in his postdoctoral lab, he accidentally left it on his bench, only to find a week or so later that it had been well-preserved.

      “The coating of the strawberry to increase its shelf life is difficult to beat when it comes to inspiring people that natural polymers can serve as technical materials that can positively impact our society” by lessening food waste and the need for energy-intensive refrigerated shipping, Marelli says.

      When Marelli won the BioInnovation Institute and Science Prize for Innovation in 2022, he told the journal Science that he thinks students should be encouraged to choose an entrepreneurial path. He acknowledged the steepness of the learning curve of being an entrepreneur but also pointed out how the impact of research can be exponentially increased.

      He expanded on this idea more recently.

      “I believe an increasing number of academics and graduate students should try to get their hands ‘dirty’ with entrepreneurial efforts. We live in a time where academics are called to have a tangible impact on our society, and translating what we study in our labs is clearly a good way to employ our students and enhance the global effort to develop new technology that can make our society more sustainable and equitable,” Marelli says.

      Referring to a spinoff company, Mori, that grew out of the coated strawberry discovery and that develops silk-based products to preserve a wide range of perishable foods, Marelli says he finds it very satisfying to know that Mori has a product on the market that came out of his research efforts — and that 80 people are working to translate the discovery from “lab to fork.”

      “Knowing that the technology can move the needle in crises such as food waste and food-related environmental impact is the highest reward of all,” he says.

      Marelli says he tells students who are seeking solutions to extremely complicated problems to come up with one solution, “however crazy it might be,” and then do an extensive literature review to see what other researchers have done and whether “there is any hint that points toward developing their solution.”

      “Once we understand the feasibility, I typically work with them to simplify it as much as we can, and then to break down the problem in small parts that are addressable in series and/or in parallel,” Marelli says.

      That process of discovery is ongoing. Asked which of his technologies will have the greatest impact on the world, Marelli says, “I’d like to think it’s the ones that still need to be discovered.” More

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      in Environment

      A mineral produced by plate tectonics has a global cooling effect, study finds

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      MIT geologists have found that a clay mineral on the seafloor, called smectite, has a surprisingly powerful ability to sequester carbon over millions of years.

      Under a microscope, a single grain of the clay resembles the folds of an accordion. These folds are known to be effective traps for organic carbon.

      Now, the MIT team has shown that the carbon-trapping clays are a product of plate tectonics: When oceanic crust crushes against a continental plate, it can bring rocks to the surface that, over time, can weather into minerals including smectite. Eventually, the clay sediment settles back in the ocean, where the minerals trap bits of dead organisms in their microscopic folds. This keeps the organic carbon from being consumed by microbes and expelled back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

      Over millions of years, smectite can have a global effect, helping to cool the entire planet. Through a series of analyses, the researchers showed that smectite was likely produced after several major tectonic events over the last 500 million years. During each tectonic event, the clays trapped enough carbon to cool the Earth and induce the subsequent ice age.

      The findings are the first to show that plate tectonics can trigger ice ages through the production of carbon-trapping smectite.

      These clays can be found in certain tectonically active regions today, and the scientists believe that smectite continues to sequester carbon, providing a natural, albeit slow-acting, buffer against humans’ climate-warming activities.

      “The influence of these unassuming clay minerals has wide-ranging implications for the habitability of planets,” says Joshua Murray, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences. “There may even be a modern application for these clays in offsetting some of the carbon that humanity has placed into the atmosphere.”

      Murray and Oliver Jagoutz, professor of geology at MIT, have published their findings today in Nature Geoscience.

      A clear and present clay

      The new study follows up on the team’s previous work, which showed that each of the Earth’s major ice ages was likely triggered by a tectonic event in the tropics. The researchers found that each of these tectonic events exposed ocean rocks called ophiolites to the atmosphere. They put forth the idea that, when a tectonic collision occurs in a tropical region, ophiolites can undergo certain weathering effects, such as exposure to wind, rain, and chemical interactions, that transform the rocks into various minerals, including clays.

      “Those clay minerals, depending on the kinds you create, influence the climate in different ways,” Murray explains.

      At the time, it was unclear which minerals could come out of this weathering effect, and whether and how these minerals could directly contribute to cooling the planet. So, while it appeared there was a link between plate tectonics and ice ages, the exact mechanism by which one could trigger the other was still in question.

      With the new study, the team looked to see whether their proposed tectonic tropical weathering process would produce carbon-trapping minerals, and in quantities that would be sufficient to trigger a global ice age.

      The team first looked through the geologic literature and compiled data on the ways in which major magmatic minerals weather over time, and on the types of clay minerals this weathering can produce. They then worked these measurements into a weathering simulation of different rock types that are known to be exposed in tectonic collisions.

      “Then we look at what happens to these rock types when they break down due to weathering and the influence of a tropical environment, and what minerals form as a result,” Jagoutz says.

      Next, they plugged each weathered, “end-product” mineral into a simulation of the Earth’s carbon cycle to see what effect a given mineral might have, either in interacting with organic carbon, such as bits of dead organisms, or with inorganic, in the form of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

      From these analyses, one mineral had a clear presence and effect: smectite. Not only was the clay a naturally weathered product of tropical tectonics, it was also highly effective at trapping organic carbon. In theory, smectite seemed like a solid connection between tectonics and ice ages.

      But were enough of the clays actually present to trigger the previous four ice ages? Ideally, researchers should confirm this by finding smectite in ancient rock layers dating back to each global cooling period.

      “Unfortunately, as clays are buried by other sediments, they get cooked a bit, so we can’t measure them directly,” Murray says. “But we can look for their fingerprints.”

      A slow build

      The team reasoned that, as smectites are a product of ophiolites, these ocean rocks also bear characteristic elements such as nickel and chromium, which would be preserved in ancient sediments. If smectites were present in the past, nickel and chromium should be as well.

      To test this idea, the team looked through a database containing thousands of oceanic sedimentary rocks that were deposited over the last 500 million years. Over this time period, the Earth experienced four separate ice ages. Looking at rocks around each of these periods, the researchers observed large spikes of nickel and chromium, and inferred from this that smectite must also have been present.

      By their estimates, the clay mineral could have increased the preservation of organic carbon by less than one-tenth of a percent. In absolute terms, this is a miniscule amount. But over millions of years, they calculated that the clay’s accumulated, sequestered carbon was enough to trigger each of the four major ice ages.

      “We found that you really don’t need much of this material to have a huge effect on the climate,” Jagoutz says.

      “These clays also have probably contributed some of the Earth’s cooling in the last 3 to 5 million years, before humans got involved,” Murray adds. “In the absence of humans, these clays are probably making a difference to the climate. It’s just such a slow process.”

      “Jagoutz and Murray’s work is a nice demonstration of how important it is to consider all biotic and physical components of the global carbon cycle,” says Lee Kump, a professor of geosciences at Penn State University, who was not involved with the study. “Feedbacks among all these components control atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations on all time scales, from the annual rise and fall of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to the swings from icehouse to greenhouse over millions of years.”

      Could smectites be harnessed intentionally to further bring down the world’s carbon emissions? Murray sees some potential, for instance to shore up carbon reservoirs such as regions of permafrost. Warming temperatures are predicted to melt permafrost and expose long-buried organic carbon. If smectites could be applied to these regions, the clays could prevent this exposed carbon from escaping into and further warming the atmosphere.

      “If you want to understand how nature works, you have to understand it on the mineral and grain scale,” Jagoutz says. “And this is also the way forward for us to find solutions for this climatic catastrophe. If you study these natural processes, there’s a good chance you will stumble on something that will be actually useful.”

      This research was funded, in part, by the National Science Foundation. More

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      in Energy

      A green hydrogen innovation for clean energy

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      Renewable energy today — mainly derived from the sun or wind — depends on batteries for storage. While costs have dropped in recent years, the pursuit of more efficient means of storing renewable power continues.

      “All of these technologies, unfortunately, have a long way to go,” said Sossina Haile SB ’86, PhD ’92, the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University, at recent talk at MIT. She was the speaker of the fall 2023 Wulff Lecture, an event hosted by the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) to ignite enthusiasm for the discipline.

      To add to the renewable energy mix — and help quicken the pace to a sustainable future — Haile is working on an approach based on hydrogen in fuel cells, particularly for eco-friendly fuel in cars. Fuel cells, like batteries, produce electricity from chemical reactions but don’t lose their charge so long as fuel is supplied.

      To generate power, the hydrogen must be pure — not attached to another molecule. Most methods of producing hydrogen today require burning fossil fuel, which generates planet-heating carbon emissions. Haile proposes a “green” process using renewable electricity to extract the hydrogen from steam.

      When hydrogen is used in a fuel cell, “you have water as the product, and that’s the beautiful zero emissions,” Haile said, referring to the renewable energy production cycle that is set in motion.

      Ammonia fuels hydrogen’s potential

      Hydrogen is not yet widely used as a fuel because it’s difficult to transport. For one, it has low energy density, meaning a large volume of hydrogen gas is needed to store a large amount of energy. And storing it is challenging because hydrogen’s tiny molecules can infiltrate metal tanks or pipes, causing cracks and gas leakage.

      Haile’s solution for transporting hydrogen is using ammonia to “carry” it. Ammonia is three parts hydrogen and one part nitrogen, so the hydrogen needs to be separated from the nitrogen before it can be used in the kind of fuel cells that can power cars.

      Ammonia has some advantages, including using existing pipelines and a high transmission capacity, Haile said — so more power can be transmitted at any given time.

      To extract the hydrogen from ammonia, Haile has built devices that look a lot like fuel cells, with cesium dihydrogen phosphate as an electrolyte. The “superprotonic” material displays high proton conductivity — it allows protons, or positively charged particles, to move through it. This is important for hydrogen, which has just a proton and an electron. By letting only protons through the electrolyte, the device strips hydrogen from the ammonia, leaving behind the nitrogen.

      The material has other benefits, too, Haile said: “It’s inexpensive, nontoxic, earth-abundant — all these good things that you want to have when you think about a sustainable energy technology.”

      Play video

      2023 Fall Wulff LectureVideo: Department of Materials Science and Engineering

      Sparking interest — and hope

      Haile’s talk piqued interest in the audience, which nearly filled the 6-120 auditorium at MIT, which seats about 150 people.

      Materials science and engineering major Nikhita Law heard hope in Haile’s talk for a more sustainable future.

      “A major problem in making our energy system sustainable is finding ways to store energy from renewables,” Law says. Even if hydrogen-powered cars are not as wide-scale as lithium-battery-powered electric cars, “a permanent energy storage station where we convert electricity into hydrogen and convert it back seems like it makes more sense than mining more lithium.”

      Another DMSE student, senior Daniel Tong, learned about the challenges involved in transporting hydrogen at another seminar and was curious to learn more. “This was something I hadn’t thought of: Can you carry hydrogen more effectively in a different form? That’s really cool.”

      He adds that talks like the Wulff Lecture are helpful in keeping people up to date in a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary field such as materials science and engineering, which spans chemistry, physics, engineering, and other disciplines. “This is a really good way to get exposed to different parts of materials science. There are so many more facets than you know of.”

      In her talk, Haile encouraged audience members to get involved in sustainability research.

      “There’s lots of room for further insight and materials discovery,” she said.

      Haile concluded by underscoring the challenges faced by developing countries in dealing with climate change impacts, particularly those near the equator where there isn’t adequate infrastructure to deal with big swings in precipitation and temperature. For the people who aren’t driven to solve problems that affect people on the other side of the world, Haile offered some extra motivation.

      “I’m sure many of you enjoy coffee. This is going to put the coffee crops in jeopardy as well,” she said. More

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      in Environment

      Merging science and systems thinking to make materials more sustainable

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      For Professor Elsa Olivetti, tackling a problem as large and complex as climate change requires not only lab research but also understanding the systems of production that power the global economy.

      Her career path reflects a quest to investigate materials at scales ranging from the microscopic to the mass-manufactured.

      “I’ve always known what questions I wanted to ask, and then set out to build the tools to help me ask those questions,” says Olivetti, the Jerry McAfee Professor in Engineering.

      Olivetti, who earned tenure in 2022 and was recently appointed associate dean of engineering, has sought to equip students with similar skills, whether in the classroom, in her lab group, or through the interdisciplinary programs she leads at MIT. Those efforts have earned her accolades including the Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching, a MacVicar Faculty Fellowship in 2021, and the McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising in 2023.

      “I think to make real progress in sustainability, materials scientists need to think in interdisciplinary, systems-level ways, but at a deep technical level,” Olivetti says. “Supporting my students so that’s something that a lot more people can do is very rewarding for me.”

      Her mission to make materials more sustainable also makes Olivetti grateful [EAO1] she’s at MIT, which has a long tradition of both interdisciplinary collaboration and technical know-how.

      “MIT’s core competencies are well-positioned for bold achievements in climate and sustainability — the deep expertise on the economics side, the frontier knowledge in science, the computational creativity,” Olivetti says. “It’s a really exciting time and place where the key ingredients for progress are simmering in transformative ways.”

      Answering the call

      The moment that set Olivetti on her life’s journey began when she was 8, with a knock at her door. Her parents were in the other room, so Olivetti opened the door and met an organizer for Greenpeace, a nonprofit that works to raise awareness of environmental issues.

      “I had a chat with that guy and got hooked on environmental concerns,” Olivetti says. “I still remember that conversation.”

      The interaction changed the way Olivetti thought about her place in the world, and her new perspective manifested itself in some unique ways. Her elementary school science fair projects became elaborate pursuits of environmental solutions involving burying various items in the backyard to test for biodegradability. There was also an awkward attempt at natural pesticide development, which lead to a worm hatching in her bedroom.

      As an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, Olivetti gravitated toward classes in environmentalism and materials science.

      “There was a link between materials science and a broader, systems way of framing design for environment, and that just clicked for me in terms of the way I wanted to think about environmental problems — from the atom to the system,” Olivetti recalls.

      That interest led Olivetti to MIT for a PhD in 2001, where she studied the feasibility of new materials for lithium-ion batteries.

      “I really wanted to be thinking of things at a systems level, but I wanted to ground that in lab-based research,” Olivetti says. “I wanted an experiential experience in grad school, and that’s why I chose MIT’s program.”

      Whether it was her undergraduate studies, her PhD, or her ensuing postdoc work at MIT, Olivetti sought to learn new skills to continue bridging the gap between materials science and environmental systems thinking.

      “I think of it as, ‘Here’s how I can build up the ways I ask questions,’” Olivetti explains. “How do we design these materials while thinking about their implications as early as possible?”

      Since joining MIT’s faculty in 2014, Olivetti has developed computational models to measure the cost and environmental impact of new materials, explored ways to adopt more sustainable and circular supply chains, and evaluated potential materials limitations as lithium-ion battery production is scaled. That work helps companies increase their use of greener, recyclable materials and more sustainably dispose of waste.

      Olivetti believes the wide scope of her research gives the students in her lab a more holistic understanding of the life cycle of materials.

      “When the group started, each student was working on a different aspect of the problem — like on the natural language processing pipeline, or on recycling technology assessment, or beneficial use of waste — and now each student can link each of those pieces in their research,” Olivetti explains.

      Beyond her research, Olivetti also co-directs the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium, which has established a set of eight areas of sustainability that it organizes coalitions around. Each coalition involves technical leaders at companies and researchers at MIT that work together to accelerate the impact of MIT’s research by helping companies adopt innovative and more sustainable technologies.

      “Climate change mitigation and resilience is such a complex problem, and at MIT we have practice in working together across disciplines on many challenges,” Olivetti says. “It’s been exciting to lean on that culture and unlock ways to move forward more effectively.”

      Bridging divides

      Today, Olivetti tries to maximize the impact of her and her students’ research in materials industrial ecology by maintaining close ties to applications. In her research, this means working directly with aluminum companies to design alloys that could incorporate more scrap material or with nongovernmental organizations to incorporate agricultural residues in building products. In the classroom, that means bringing in people from companies to explain how they think about concepts like heat exchange or fluid flow in their products.

      “I enjoy trying to ground what students are learning in the classroom with what’s happening in the world,” Olivetti explains.

      Exposing students to industry is also a great way to help them think about their own careers. In her research lab, she’s started using the last 30 minutes of meetings to host talks from people working in national labs, startups, and larger companies to show students what they can do after their PhDs. The talks are similar to the Industry Seminar series Olivetti started that pairs undergraduate students with people working in areas like 3D printing, environmental consulting, and manufacturing.

      “It’s about helping students learn what they’re excited about,” Olivetti says.

      Whether in the classroom, lab, or at events held by organizations like MCSC, Olivetti believes collaboration is humanity’s most potent tool to combat climate change.

      “I just really enjoy building links between people,” Olivetti says. “Learning about people and meeting them where they are is a way that one can create effective links. It’s about creating the right playgrounds for people to think and learn.” More

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      in Energy

      A civil discourse on climate change

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      A new MIT initiative designed to encourage open dialogue on campus kicked off with a conversation focused on how to address challenges related to climate change.

      “Climate Change: Existential Threat or Bump in the Road” featured Steve Koonin, theoretical physicist and former U.S. undersecretary for science during the Obama administration, and Kerry Emanuel, professor emeritus of atmospheric science at MIT. A crowd of roughly 130 students, staff, and faculty gathered in an MIT lecture hall for the discussion on Tuesday, Oct. 24. 

      “The bump is strongly favored,” Koonin said when the talk began, referring to his contention that climate change was a “bump in the road” rather than an existential threat. After proposing a future in which we could potentially expect continued growth in America’s gross domestic product despite transportation and infrastructure challenges related to climate change, he concluded that investments in nuclear energy and capacity increases related to storing wind- and solar-generated energy could help mitigate climate-related phenomena. 

      Emanuel, while mostly agreeing with Koonin’s assessment of climate challenges and potential solutions, cautioned against underselling the threat of human-aided climate change.

      “Humanity’s adaptation to climate stability hasn’t prepared us to effectively manage massive increases in temperature and associated effects,” he argued. “We’re poorly adapted to less-frequent events like those we’re observing now.”

      Decarbonization, Emanuel noted, can help mitigate global conflicts related to fossil fuel usage. “Carbonization kills between 8 and 9 million people annually,” he said.

      The conversation on climate change is one of several planned on campus this academic year. The speaker series is one part of “Civil Discourse in the Classroom and Beyond,” an initiative being led by MIT philosophers Alex Byrne and Brad Skow. The two-year project is meant to encourage the open exchange of ideas inside and outside college and university classrooms. 

      The speaker series pairs external thought leaders with MIT faculty to encourage the interrogation and debate of all kinds of ideas.

      Finding common ground

      At the talk on climate change, both Koonin and Emanuel recommended a slow and steady approach to mitigation efforts, reminding attendees that, for example, developing nations can’t afford to take a developed world approach to climate change. 

      “These people have immediate needs to meet,” Koonin reminded the audience, “which can include fossil fuel use.”

      Both Koonin and Emanuel recommended a series of steps to assist with both climate change mitigation and effective messaging:

      Sustain and improve climate science — continue to investigate and report findings.
      Improve climate communications for non-experts — tell an easy-to-understand and cohesive story.
      Focus on reliability and affordability before mitigation — don’t undertake massive efforts that may disrupt existing energy transmission infrastructure.
      Adopt a “graceful” approach to decarbonization — consider impacts as broadly as possible.
      Don’t constrain energy supply in the developing world.
      Increase focus on developing and delivering alternative responses  — consider the potential ability to scale power generation, and delivery methods like nuclear energy.
      Mitigating climate risk requires political will, careful consideration, and an improved technical approach to energy policy, both concluded.

      “We have to learn to deal rationally with climate risk in a polarized society,” Koonin offered.

      The audience asked both speakers questions about impacts on nonhuman species (“We don’t know but we should,” both shared); nuclear fusion (“There isn’t enough tritium to effectively scale the widespread development of fusion-based energy; perhaps in 30 to 40 years,” Koonin suggested); and the planetary boundaries framework (“There’s good science underway in this space and I’m curious to see where it’s headed,” said Emanuel.) 

      “The event was a great success,” said Byrne, afterward. “The audience was engaged, and there was a good mix of faculty and students.”

      “One surprising thing,” Skow added, “was both Koonin and Emanuel were down on wind and solar power, [especially since] the idea that we need to transition to both is certainly in the air.”

      More conversations

      A second speaker series event, held earlier this month, was “Has Feminism Made Progress?” with Mary Harrington, author of “Feminism Against Progress,” and Anne McCants, MIT professor of history. An additional discussion planned for spring 2024 will cover the public health response to Covid-19.

      Discussions from the speaker series will appear as special episodes on “The Good Fight,” a podcast hosted by Johns Hopkins University political scientist Yascha Mounk.

      The Civil Discourse project is made possible due, in part, to funding from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations and a collaboration between the MIT History Section and Concourse, a program featuring an integrated, cross-disciplinary approach to investigating some of humanity’s most interesting questions.

      The Civil Discourse initiative includes two components: the speaker series open to the MIT community, and seminars where students can discuss freedom of expression and develop skills for successfully engaging in civil discourse. More

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      Working to beat the clock on climate change

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      “There’s so much work ahead of us and so many obstacles in the way,” said Raisa Lee, director of project development with Clearway Energy Group, an independent clean power producer. But, added Lee, “It’s most important to focus on finding spaces and people so we can foster growth and support each other — the power of belonging!”

      These sentiments captured the spirit of the 12th annual Women in Clean Energy Education and Empowerment (C3E) Symposium and Awards, held recently at MIT. The conference is part of the C3E Initiative, which aims to connect women in clean energy, recognize the accomplishments of leaders across different fields, and engage more women in the enterprise of decarbonization.

      The conference topic, “Clearing hurdles to achieve net zero by 2050: Moving quickly, eliminating risks, and leaving no one behind,” spoke to the shared sense of urgency and commitment to community-building among the several hundred participants attending in person and online.

      As symposium speakers attested, the task of saving the world doesn’t seem as daunting when someone has your back.

      Melinda Baglio, chief investment officer and general counsel of the renewable energy finance firm  CleanCapital, said “I have several groups of women in my life … and whenever I am doing something really difficult, I like to close my eyes for a minute and imagine their hands right on my shoulders and just giving me that support and pushing me forward to do the thing that I need to do.”

      The C3E symposium was hosted by the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), which partners in the C3E Initiative with the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy, and the Texas A&M Energy Institute.

      Gender diversity and emissions

      “Time is not on our side in the race to achieve net zero by 2050,” said Martha Broad, executive director of MITEI, in her opening remarks.“However, by increasing the gender diversity of the energy sector, we’re putting our best team forward to tackle this challenge.”

      Closing a pronounced gender gap in corporate leadership and legislative bodies would also help, she said. Research has demonstrated that improving gender diversity in the energy sector leads to stronger climate governance and innovation. In addition, Broad noted, a recent study showed that increasing gender diversity in legislative bodies results in stronger climate policy and “hence lowers CO2 emissions.”

      There was wide agreement that beating the clock on climate change means recruiting, training, and retaining a vast and diverse workforce. In talks and panels, symposium participants described their wide-ranging roles as leaders in this enterprise.

      “This is a very exciting time to be working in clean energy, and an exciting time to be doubling down on the work that C3E does, because clean energy technologies are ready,” said Kathleen Hogan, principal undersecretary for infrastructure at DoE. In her keynote address, Hogan highlighted “the amazing, historic funding through the bipartisan infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act, where we are putting ultimately trillions of dollars into clean energy.” This presents a “tremendous opportunity to grow the clean energy workforce … to pull in the next generation of women to advance this field of work, and to figure out how to deliver the maximum impact.”

      Gina McCarthy, who received the C3E Lifetime Achievement Award, rallied symposium participants to remain hopeful and engaged. “It’s all about a world of new possibilities, new partnerships we can create together,” said the former White House national climate advisor and Environmental Protection Agency administrator. “Use each milestone as an opportunity to pat ourselves on the back and be more passionate than ever before — that is how change happens.”

      “You belong”

      Other speakers provided ample evidence of passion and persistence in their pursuit of clean energy goals.

      C3E advocacy award winner and climate justice policy leader Jameka Hodnett works to ensure that historically underfunded Black communities benefit from decarbonization programs. Not all of her community contacts share her concerns about climate change or recognize the necessity of an energy transition. “This is difficult work, where I must be willing to stick my neck out and build relationships with others across differences,” she said.

      Remote and often marginalized communities in the United States and around the world pose other kinds of challenges. Wahleah Johns, director of DoE’s Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs, described the loss of jobs on tribal lands as fossil fuel companies shut down, and the problem of developing trust with local groups. She believes energy justice in these communities must draw “on Indigenous, traditional knowledge of design, building, and planning” and demonstrate “value for future generations.”

      Evangelina Galvan Shreeve, daughter of immigrant farm workers, is tapping the talent of diverse communities to build the next generation’s clean energy workforce. The C3E education award winner, chief diversity officer, and director of STEM education at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory tells young people: “You are worthy of joining places you dream about, you are brilliant, and we need both to pursue the clean energy future. You belong.”

      Reducing the carbon budget

      In her keynote address, Sally M. Benson, the Precourt Family Professor of Energy Science Engineering at Stanford University’s School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences, warned of the hazards of not acting quickly to reduce the global carbon budget. “It’s starting to cost us lots of money: In some years we are getting half a trillion dollars in damage,” she said. “We need all hands on deck, and to do that we need to align people’s views to give us the speed and scale to beat incredibly short timelines.”

      Benson’s strategies include generating community- and city-scale, rather than individual-scale actions; streamlining the process for approving renewable energy projects; and advancing technological innovations based on “which would have the largest, transformational impact, the kind that could meet our 2050 [net-zero carbon emissions] goals.”

      The symposium offered examples of innovations that could play out at the scale and speed that Benson recommends. 

      Elise Strobach SM ’17, PhD ’20 developed a nanoporous nanogel coating for windows that can cut energy losses — estimated at $40 billion a year — in half. Her spinout company, AeroShield Materials, aims to make windows light, thin, and affordable.

      Claire Woo’s startup employer, Form Energy, has designed an iron-air battery that could bolster the electric grid as renewable sources such as sun and wind fuel more of the world’s energy needs. Stacked like so many blocks in giant arrays, the batteries provide 100-hour energy backup for multi-day power outages due to storms or other emergencies.

      Grids and energy equity

      Panelists discussed the requirements for resilient electric grids in the clean energy transition. Peggy Heeg, a corporate board member of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), celebrated her state’s top-ranked status in solar and wind production but cautioned that “the shift is creating some real problems with our operations of the grid.” She believes that, currently, the only viable backup when heat or storms cause demand peaks is natural gas generation.

      Caroline Choi, the senior vice president of corporate affairs at Edison International and Southern California Edison, described “unprecedented grid expansion” under way in California, as more solar and wind suppliers plug in. This will require “a significant acceleration in the pace of deployment of transmission systems,” said Julie Mulvaney Kemp, a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Such expansion is complicated by fragmented regional planning, high costs, and local siting issues.

      Not all power systems are super-sized. “I flew in small bush planes with my baby daughter in order to shadow Alaska microgrid operators,” said Piper Foster Wilder, founder and CEO of 60Hertz Energy and the C3E entrepreneurship award winner. Her software enables energy suppliers in even the most inaccessible places to monitor and protect utilities and infrastructure.

      “Given the fundamental aspects of energy for life, the widely entrenched nature of the energy system, and the intersecting challenges with other priorities, everyone has a vital role to play,” said Kathleen Araújo, a professor of sustainable energy systems, innovation, and policy at Boise State University. In a panel devoted to energy justice, speakers hammered home the centrality of historically marginalized groups in achieving a global energy transition.

      In the United States, communities must play a vital role in shaping their clean energy futures, whether former mining counties in Pennsylvania, Indian tribes whose lands have been exploited for fossil fuel production, or diesel-importing regions in Alaska, said Araújo. “Inclusive engagement, knowledge sharing, and other forms of collaboration can strengthen the legitimacy and [lead to] more enduring outcomes.”

      Worldwide, 675 million people lack access to electricity, and 590 million of them live in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Rhonda Jordan Antoine, a senior energy specialist at The World Bank. The bank is committed to providing the populace of this vast region with reliable, renewable energy sources, customizing solutions to specific countries and communities. “Africa’s not just about connecting households to power but also supporting activities, agricultural productivity, and provision of essential services such as health care and education,” she said.

      Whether confronting environmental injustice, supply chain gridlock, financing difficulties or communities resistant to addressing decarbonization, symposium participants candidly shared their challenges and frustrations. “I personally find this is really hard work,” Sally Benson acknowledged. “It took us 100 years or more to build the energy system that we have today and now we’re saying that we want to change it in the next 20 years.”

      But the words of Gina McCarthy were invoked repeatedly over the two-day conference, lifting spirits in the room: “I am hugely optimistic,” she said. “The clean energy future isn’t just around, it isn’t just possible, it is already under way. And it is the opportunity of a lifetime.” More

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      The power of knowledge

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      In his early career at MIT, Josh Kuffour’s academic interests spanned mathematics, engineering, and physics. He decided to major in chemical engineering, figuring it would draw on all three areas. Then, he found himself increasingly interested in the mathematical components of his studies and added a second major, applied mathematics.

      Now, with a double major and energy studies minor, Kuffour is still seeking to learn even more. He has made it a goal to take classes from as many different departments as he can before he graduates. So far, he has taken classes from 17 different departments, ranging from Civil and Environmental Engineering to Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences to Linguistics and Philosophy.

      “It’s taught me about valuing different ways of thinking,” he says about this wide-ranging approach to the course catalog. “It’s also taught me to value blending disciplines as a whole. Learning about how other people think about the same problems from different perspectives allows for better solutions to be developed.”

      After graduation, Kuffour plans to pursue a master’s degree at MIT, either in the Technology and Policy Program or in the Department of Chemical Engineering. He intends to make renewable energy, and its role in addressing societal inequalities, the focus of his career after graduating, and eventually plans to become a teacher.

      Serving the public

      Recognizing the power of knowledge, Kuffour says he enjoys helping to educate others “in any way I can.” He is involved with several extracurriculars in which he can be a mentor for both peers and high school students.

      Kuffour has volunteered with the Educational Studies Program since his first semester at MIT. This club runs Splash, “a weekend-long learning extravaganza,” as Kuffour puts it, in which MIT students teach over 400 free classes on a huge variety of topics for local high school students.

      For his peers, Kuffour also participates in the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program (GEL). Here, he teaches first-year GEL students leadership skills that engineers may require in their future careers. In doing this, Kuffour says he develops his own leadership skills as well. He is also working as a teaching assistant for multivariable calculus this semester.

      Kuffour has also served as an advisor for the Concourse learning community; as president of his fraternity, Beta Theta Pi; as a student representative on the HASS requirement subcommittee; and as a publicist for the Reason for God series, which invites the MIT community to discuss the intersections of religion with various facets of human life.

      Renewable energy

      Kuffour’s interest in energy issues has grown and evolved in recent years. He first learned about the ecological condition of the world in the eighth grade after watching the climate change documentary “Earth 2100” in school. Going into high school and college, Kuffour says he started reading books, taking classes, watching documentaries, participating in beach and city clean ups, to learn as much as possible about the environment and      global warming.

      During the summer of 2023, Kuffour worked as an energy and climate analysis intern for the consulting company Keylogic and has continued helping the company shift programming languages to Python for evaluating the economics of different methods of decarbonizing electricity sectors in the U.S. He has also assisted in analyzing trends in U.S. natural gas imports, exports, production, and consumption since the early 2000s.            

      In his time as an undergraduate, Kuffour’s interest in renewable energy has taken on a more justice-focused perspective. He’s learned over the course of his that due to historical inequalities in the U.S., pollution and other environmental problems have disproportionately impacted people of lower economic status and people of color. Since global warming will exacerbate these impacts, Kuffour seeks to address these growing inequalities through his work in energy data analysis.        

      Translating interests into activity

      Kuffour’s pursuit to expand his worldview never rests, even outside of the classroom. In his free time, he enjoys listening to podcasts or watching documentaries on any subject. When attempting to list all his favorite podcasts, he cuts himself off, saying, “This could go on for a while.”

      In 2022, Kuffour participated on a whim with a group of friends in an American Institute of Chemical Engineers competition, where he was tasked with creating a 1-by-1 foot cube that could filter water to specifications provided by the competition. He says it was fun to apply what he was learning at MIT to a project all the way in Arizona. 

      Kuffour enjoys discovering new things with friends as much as on his own. Three years ago, he started an intramural soccer team with friends from the Interphase EDGE program, which attracted many people he had never interacted with before. The team has been playing nearly every week since and Kuffour says the experience has been, “very enriching.”

      Kuffour hopes other students will also seek out knowledge and experiences from a wide range of sources during their undergraduate years. He offers: “Try as many things as possible even if you think you know what you want to do, and appreciate everything life has to offer.” More