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    Study sheds light on graphite’s lifespan in nuclear reactors

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    Graphite is a key structural component in some of the world’s oldest nuclear reactors and many of the next-generation designs being built today. But it also condenses and swells in response to radiation — and the mechanism behind those changes has proven difficult to study.Now, MIT researchers and collaborators have uncovered a link between properties of graphite and how the material behaves in response to radiation. The findings could lead to more accurate, less destructive ways of predicting the lifespan of graphite materials used in reactors around the world.“We did some basic science to understand what leads to swelling and, eventually, failure in graphite structures,” says MIT Research Scientist Boris Khaykovich, senior author of the new study. “More research will be needed to put this into practice, but the paper proposes an attractive idea for industry: that you might not need to break hundreds of irradiated samples to understand their failure point.”Specifically, the study shows a connection between the size of the pores within graphite and the way the material swells and shrinks in volume, leading to degradation.“The lifetime of nuclear graphite is limited by irradiation-induced swelling,” says co-author and MIT Research Scientist Lance Snead. “Porosity is a controlling factor in this swelling, and while graphite has been extensively studied for nuclear applications since the Manhattan Project, we still do not have a clear understanding of the porosity in both mechanical properties and swelling. This work addresses that.”The open-access paper appears this week in Interdisciplinary Materials. It is co-authored by Khaykovich, Snead, MIT Research Scientist Sean Fayfar, former MIT research fellow Durgesh Rai, Stony Brook University Assistant Professor David Sprouster, Oak Ridge National Laboratory Staff Scientist Anne Campbell, and Argonne National Laboratory Physicist Jan Ilavsky.A long-studied, complex materialEver since 1942, when physicists and engineers built the world’s first nuclear reactor on a converted squash court at the University of Chicago, graphite has played a central role in the generation of nuclear energy. That first reactor, dubbed the Chicago Pile, was constructed from about 40,000 graphite blocks, many of which contained nuggets of uranium.Today graphite is a vital component of many operating nuclear reactors and is expected to play a central role in next-generation reactor designs like molten-salt and high-temperature gas reactors. That’s because graphite is a good neutron moderator, slowing down the neutrons released by nuclear fission so they are more likely to create fissions themselves and sustain a chain reaction.“The simplicity of graphite makes it valuable,” Khaykovich explains. “It’s made of carbon, and it’s relatively well-known how to make it cleanly. Graphite is a very mature technology. It’s simple, stable, and we know it works.”But graphite also has its complexities.“We call graphite a composite even though it’s made up of only carbon atoms,” Khaykovich says. “It includes ‘filler particles’ that are more crystalline, then there is a matrix called a ‘binder’ that is less crystalline, then there are pores that span in length from nanometers to many microns.”Each graphite grade has its own composite structure, but they all contain fractals, or shapes that look the same at different scales.Those complexities have made it hard to predict how graphite will respond to radiation in microscopic detail, although it’s been known for decades that when graphite is irradiated, it first densifies, reducing its volume by up to 10 percent, before swelling and cracking. The volume fluctuation is caused by changes to graphite’s porosity and lattice stress.“Graphite deteriorates under radiation, as any material does,” Khaykovich says. “So, on the one hand we have a material that’s extremely well-known, and on the other hand, we have a material that is immensely complicated, with a behavior that’s impossible to predict through computer simulations.”For the study, the researchers received irradiated graphite samples from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Co-authors Campbell and Snead were involved in irradiating the samples some 20 years ago. The samples are a grade of graphite known as G347A.The research team used an analysis technique known as X-ray scattering, which uses the scattered intensity of an X-ray beam to analyze the properties of material. Specifically, they looked at the distribution of sizes and surface areas of the sample’s pores, or what are known as the material’s fractal dimensions.“When you look at the scattering intensity, you see a large range of porosity,” Fayfar says. “Graphite has porosity over such large scales, and you have this fractal self-similarity: The pores in very small sizes look similar to pores spanning microns, so we used fractal models to relate different morphologies across length scales.”Fractal models had been used on graphite samples before, but not on irradiated samples to see how the material’s pore structures changed. The researchers found that when graphite is first exposed to radiation, its pores get filled as the material degrades.“But what was quite surprising to us is the [size distribution of the pores] turned back around,” Fayfar says. “We had this recovery process that matched our overall volume plots, which was quite odd. It seems like after graphite is irradiated for so long, it starts recovering. It’s sort of an annealing process where you create some new pores, then the pores smooth out and get slightly bigger. That was a big surprise.”The researchers found that the size distribution of the pores closely follows the volume change caused by radiation damage.“Finding a strong correlation between the [size distribution of pores] and the graphite’s volume changes is a new finding, and it helps connect to the failure of the material under irradiation,” Khaykovich says. “It’s important for people to know how graphite parts will fail when they are under stress and how failure probability changes under irradiation.”From research to reactorsThe researchers plan to study other graphite grades and explore further how pore sizes in irradiated graphite correlate with the probability of failure. They speculate that a statistical technique known as the Weibull Distribution could be used to predict graphite’s time until failure. The Weibull Distribution is already used to describe the probability of failure in ceramics and other porous materials like metal alloys.Khaykovich also speculated that the findings could contribute to our understanding of why materials densify and swell under irradiation.“There’s no quantitative model of densification that takes into account what’s happening at these tiny scales in graphite,” Khaykovich says. “Graphite irradiation densification reminds me of sand or sugar, where when you crush big pieces into smaller grains, they densify. For nuclear graphite, the crushing force is the energy that neutrons bring in, causing large pores to get filled with smaller, crushed pieces. But more energy and agitation create still more pores, and so graphite swells again. It’s not a perfect analogy, but I believe analogies bring progress for understanding these materials.”The researchers describe the paper as an important step toward informing graphite production and use in nuclear reactors of the future.“Graphite has been studied for a very long time, and we’ve developed a lot of strong intuitions about how it will respond in different environments, but when you’re building a nuclear reactor, details matter,” Khaykovich says. “People want numbers. They need to know how much thermal conductivity will change, how much cracking and volume change will happen. If components are changing volume, at some point you need to take that into account.”This work was supported, in part, by the U.S. Department of Energy. More

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      Surprisingly diverse innovations led to dramatically cheaper solar panels

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      The cost of solar panels has dropped by more than 99 percent since the 1970s, enabling widespread adoption of photovoltaic systems that convert sunlight into electricity.A new MIT study drills down on specific innovations that enabled such dramatic cost reductions, revealing that technical advances across a web of diverse research efforts and industries played a pivotal role.The findings could help renewable energy companies make more effective R&D investment decisions and aid policymakers in identifying areas to prioritize to spur growth in manufacturing and deployment.The researchers’ modeling approach shows that key innovations often originated outside the solar sector, including advances in semiconductor fabrication, metallurgy, glass manufacturing, oil and gas drilling, construction processes, and even legal domains.“Our results show just how intricate the process of cost improvement is, and how much scientific and engineering advances, often at a very basic level, are at the heart of these cost reductions. A lot of knowledge was drawn from different domains and industries, and this network of knowledge is what makes these technologies improve,” says study senior author Jessika Trancik, a professor in MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems, and Society.Trancik is joined on the paper by co-lead authors Goksin Kavlak, a former IDSS graduate student and postdoc who is now a senior energy associate at the Brattle Group; Magdalena Klemun, a former IDSS graduate student and postdoc who is now an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University; former MIT postdoc Ajinkya Kamat; as well as Brittany Smith and Robert Margolis of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The research appears today in PLOS ONE.Identifying innovationsThis work builds on mathematical models that the researchers previously developed that tease out the effects of engineering technologies on the cost of photovoltaic (PV) modules and systems.In this study, the researchers aimed to dig even deeper into the scientific advances that drove those cost declines.They combined their quantitative cost model with a detailed, qualitative analysis of innovations that affected the costs of PV system materials, manufacturing steps, and deployment processes.“Our quantitative cost model guided the qualitative analysis, allowing us to look closely at innovations in areas that are hard to measure due to a lack of quantitative data,” Kavlak says.Building on earlier work identifying key cost drivers — such as the number of solar cells per module, wiring efficiency, and silicon wafer area — the researchers conducted a structured scan of the literature for innovations likely to affect these drivers. Next, they grouped these innovations to identify patterns, revealing clusters that reduced costs by improving materials or prefabricating components to streamline manufacturing and installation. Finally, the team tracked industry origins and timing for each innovation, and consulted domain experts to zero in on the most significant innovations.All told, they identified 81 unique innovations that affected PV system costs since 1970, from improvements in antireflective coated glass to the implementation of fully online permitting interfaces.“With innovations, you can always go to a deeper level, down to things like raw materials processing techniques, so it was challenging to know when to stop. Having that quantitative model to ground our qualitative analysis really helped,” Trancik says.They chose to separate PV module costs from so-called balance-of-system (BOS) costs, which cover things like mounting systems, inverters, and wiring.PV modules, which are wired together to form solar panels, are mass-produced and can be exported, while many BOS components are designed, built, and sold at the local level.“By examining innovations both at the BOS level and within the modules, we identify the different types of innovations that have emerged in these two parts of PV technology,” Kavlak says.BOS costs depend more on soft technologies, nonphysical elements such as permitting procedures, which have contributed significantly less to PV’s past cost improvement compared to hardware innovations.“Often, it comes down to delays. Time is money, and if you have delays on construction sites and unpredictable processes, that affects these balance-of-system costs,” Trancik says.Innovations such as automated permitting software, which flags code-compliant systems for fast-track approval, show promise. Though not yet quantified in this study, the team’s framework could support future analysis of their economic impact and similar innovations that streamline deployment processes.Interconnected industriesThe researchers found that innovations from the semiconductor, electronics, metallurgy, and petroleum industries played a major role in reducing both PV and BOS costs, but BOS costs were also impacted by innovations in software engineering and electric utilities.Noninnovation factors, like efficiency gains from bulk purchasing and the accumulation of knowledge in the solar power industry, also reduced some cost variables.In addition, while most PV panel innovations originated in research organizations or industry, many BOS innovations were developed by city governments, U.S. states, or professional associations.“I knew there was a lot going on with this technology, but the diversity of all these fields and how closely linked they are, and the fact that we can clearly see that network through this analysis, was interesting,” Trancik says.“PV was very well-positioned to absorb innovations from other industries — thanks to the right timing, physical compatibility, and supportive policies to adapt innovations for PV applications,” Klemun adds.The analysis also reveals the role greater computing power could play in reducing BOS costs through advances like automated engineering review systems and remote site assessment software.“In terms of knowledge spillovers, what we’ve seen so far in PV may really just be the beginning,” Klemun says, pointing to the expanding role of robotics and AI-driven digital tools in driving future cost reductions and quality improvements.In addition to their qualitative analysis, the researchers demonstrated how this methodology could be used to estimate the quantitative impact of a particular innovation if one has the numerical data to plug into the cost equation.For instance, using information about material prices and manufacturing procedures, they estimate that wire sawing, a technique which was introduced in the 1980s, led to an overall PV system cost decrease of $5 per watt by reducing silicon losses and increasing throughput during fabrication.“Through this retrospective analysis, you learn something valuable for future strategy because you can see what worked and what didn’t work, and the models can also be applied prospectively. It is also useful to know what adjacent sectors may help support improvement in a particular technology,” Trancik says.Moving forward, the researchers plan to apply this methodology to a wide range of technologies, including other renewable energy systems. They also want to further study soft technology to identify innovations or processes that could accelerate cost reductions.“Although the process of technological innovation may seem like a black box, we’ve shown that you can study it just like any other phenomena,” Trancik says.This research is funded, in part, by the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energies Technology Office. More

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      Theory-guided strategy expands the scope of measurable quantum interactions

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      A new theory-guided framework could help scientists probe the properties of new semiconductors for next-generation microelectronic devices, or discover materials that boost the performance of quantum computers.Research to develop new or better materials typically involves investigating properties that can be reliably measured with existing lab equipment, but this represents just a fraction of the properties that scientists could potentially probe in principle. Some properties remain effectively “invisible” because they are too difficult to capture directly with existing methods.Take electron-phonon interaction — this property plays a critical role in a material’s electrical, thermal, optical, and superconducting properties, but directly capturing it using existing techniques is notoriously challenging.Now, MIT researchers have proposed a theoretically justified approach that could turn this challenge into an opportunity. Their method reinterprets neutron scattering, an often-overlooked interference effect as a potential direct probe of electron-phonon coupling strength.The procedure creates two interaction effects in the material. The researchers show that, by deliberately designing their experiment to leverage the interference between the two interactions, they can capture the strength of a material’s electron-phonon interaction.The researchers’ theory-informed methodology could be used to shape the design of future experiments, opening the door to measuring new quantities that were previously out of reach.“Rather than discovering new spectroscopy techniques by pure accident, we can use theory to justify and inform the design of our experiments and our physical equipment,” says Mingda Li, the Class of 1947 Career Development Professor and an associate professor of nuclear science and engineering, and senior author of a paper on this experimental method.Li is joined on the paper by co-lead authors Chuliang Fu, an MIT postdoc; Phum Siriviboon and Artittaya Boonkird, both MIT graduate students; as well as others at MIT, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the University of California at Riverside, Michigan State University, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The research appears this week in Materials Today Physics.Investigating interferenceNeutron scattering is a powerful measurement technique that involves aiming a beam of neutrons at a material and studying how the neutrons are scattered after they strike it. The method is ideal for measuring a material’s atomic structure and magnetic properties.When neutrons collide with the material sample, they interact with it through two different mechanisms, creating a nuclear interaction and a magnetic interaction. These interactions can interfere with each other.“The scientific community has known about this interference effect for a long time, but researchers tend to view it as a complication that can obscure measurement signals. So it hasn’t received much focused attention,” Fu says.The team and their collaborators took a conceptual “leap of faith” and decided to explore this oft-overlooked interference effect more deeply.They flipped the traditional materials research approach on its head by starting with a multifaceted theoretical analysis. They explored what happens inside a material when the nuclear interaction and magnetic interaction interfere with each other.Their analysis revealed that this interference pattern is directly proportional to the strength of the material’s electron-phonon interaction.“This makes the interference effect a probe we can use to detect this interaction,” explains Siriviboon.Electron-phonon interactions play a role in a wide range of material properties. They affect how heat flows through a material, impact a material’s ability to absorb and emit light, and can even lead to superconductivity.But the complexity of these interactions makes them hard to directly measure using existing experimental techniques. Instead, researchers often rely on less precise, indirect methods to capture electron-phonon interactions.However, leveraging this interference effect enables direct measurement of the electron-phonon interaction, a major advantage over other approaches.“Being able to directly measure the electron-phonon interaction opens the door to many new possibilities,” says Boonkird.Rethinking materials researchBased on their theoretical insights, the researchers designed an experimental setup to demonstrate their approach.Since the available equipment wasn’t powerful enough for this type of neutron scattering experiment, they were only able to capture a weak electron-phonon interaction signal — but the results were clear enough to support their theory.“These results justify the need for a new facility where the equipment might be 100 to 1,000 times more powerful, enabling scientists to clearly resolve the signal and measure the interaction,” adds Landry.With improved neutron scattering facilities, like those proposed for the upcoming Second Target Station at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, this experimental method could be an effective technique for measuring many crucial material properties.For instance, by helping scientists identify and harness better semiconductors, this approach could enable more energy-efficient appliances, faster wireless communication devices, and more reliable medical equipment like pacemakers and MRI scanners.   Ultimately, the team sees this work as a broader message about the need to rethink the materials research process.“Using theoretical insights to design experimental setups in advance can help us redefine the properties we can measure,” Fu says.To that end, the team and their collaborators are currently exploring other types of interactions they could leverage to investigate additional material properties.“This is a very interesting paper,” says Jon Taylor, director of the neutron scattering division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, who was not involved with this research. “It would be interesting to have a neutron scattering method that is directly sensitive to charge lattice interactions or more generally electronic effects that were not just magnetic moments. It seems that such an effect is expectedly rather small, so facilities like STS could really help develop that fundamental understanding of the interaction and also leverage such effects routinely for research.”This work is funded, in part, by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. More

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      “Each of us holds a piece of the solution”

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      MIT has an unparalleled history of bringing together interdisciplinary teams to solve pressing problems — think of the development of radar during World War II, or leading the international coalition that cracked the code of the human genome — but the challenge of climate change could demand a scale of collaboration unlike any that’s come before at MIT.“Solving climate change is not just about new technologies or better models. It’s about forging new partnerships across campus and beyond — between scientists and economists, between architects and data scientists, between policymakers and physicists, between anthropologists and engineers, and more,” MIT Vice President for Energy and Climate Evelyn Wang told an energetic crowd of faculty, students, and staff on May 6. “Each of us holds a piece of the solution — but only together can we see the whole.”Undeterred by heavy rain, approximately 300 campus community members filled the atrium in the Tina and Hamid Moghadam Building (Building 55) for a spring gathering hosted by Wang and the Climate Project at MIT. The initiative seeks to direct the full strength of MIT to address climate change, which Wang described as one of the defining challenges of this moment in history — and one of its greatest opportunities.“It calls on us to rethink how we power our world, how we build, how we live — and how we work together,” Wang said. “And there is no better place than MIT to lead this kind of bold, integrated effort. Our culture of curiosity, rigor, and relentless experimentation makes us uniquely suited to cross boundaries — to break down silos and build something new.”The Climate Project is organized around six missions, thematic areas in which MIT aims to make significant impact, ranging from decarbonizing industry to new policy approaches to designing resilient cities. The faculty leaders of these missions posed challenges to the crowd before circulating among the crowd to share their perspectives and to discuss community questions and ideas.Wang and the Climate Project team were joined by a number of research groups, startups, and MIT offices conducting relevant work today on issues related to energy and climate. For example, the MIT Office of Sustainability showcased efforts to use the MIT campus as a living laboratory; MIT spinouts such as Forma Systems, which is developing high-performance, low-carbon building systems, and Addis Energy, which envisions using the earth as a reactor to produce clean ammonia, presented their technologies; and visitors learned about current projects in MIT labs, including DebunkBot, an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot that can persuade people to shift their attitudes about conspiracies, developed by David Rand, the Erwin H. Schell Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management.Benedetto Marelli, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering who leads the Wild Cards Mission, said the energy and enthusiasm that filled the room was inspiring — but that the individual conversations were equally valuable.“I was especially pleased to see so many students come out. I also spoke with other faculty, talked to staff from across the Institute, and met representatives of external companies interested in collaborating with MIT,” Marelli said. “You could see connections being made all around the room, which is exactly what we need as we build momentum for the Climate Project.” More

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      How to make small modular reactors more cost-effective

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      When Youyeon Choi was in high school, she discovered she really liked “thinking in geometry.” The shapes, the dimensions … she was into all of it. Today, geometry plays a prominent role in her doctoral work under the guidance of Professor Koroush Shirvan, as she explores ways to increase the competitiveness of small modular reactors (SMRs).Central to the thesis is metallic nuclear fuel in a helical cruciform shape, which improves surface area and lowers heat flux as compared to the traditional cylindrical equivalent.A childhood in a prominent nuclear energy countryHer passion for geometry notwithstanding, Choi admits she was not “really into studying” in middle school. But that changed when she started excelling in technical subjects in her high school years. And because it was the natural sciences that first caught Choi’s eye, she assumed she would major in the subject when she went to university.This focus, too, would change. Growing up in Seoul, Choi was becoming increasingly aware of the critical role nuclear energy played in meeting her native country’s energy needs. Twenty-six reactors provide nearly a third of South Korea’s electricity, according to the World Nuclear Association. The country is also one of the world’s most prominent nuclear energy entities.In such an ecosystem, Choi understood the stakes at play, especially with electricity-guzzling technologies such as AI and electric vehicles on the rise. Her father also discussed energy-related topics with Choi when she was in high school. Being soaked in that atmosphere eventually led Choi to nuclear engineering.

      Youyeon Choi: Making small modular reactors more cost-effective

      Early work in South KoreaExcelling in high school math and science, Choi was a shoo-in for college at Seoul National University. Initially intent on studying nuclear fusion, Choi switched to fission because she saw that the path to fusion was more convoluted and was still in the early stages of exploration.Choi went on to complete her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nuclear engineering from the university. As part of her master’s thesis, she worked on a multi-physics modeling project involving high-fidelity simulations of reactor physics and thermal hydraulics to analyze reactor cores.South Korea exports its nuclear know-how widely, so work in the field can be immensely rewarding. Indeed, after graduate school, Choi moved to Daejeon, which has the moniker “Science City.” As an intern at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), she conducted experimental studies on the passive safety systems of nuclear reactors. Choi then moved to the Korea Institute of Nuclear Nonproliferation and Control, where she worked as a researcher developing nuclear security programs for countries. Given South Korea’s dominance in the field, other countries would tap its knowledge resource to tap their own nuclear energy programs. The focus was on international training programs, an arm of which involved cybersecurity and physical protection.While the work was impactful, Choi found she missed the modeling work she did as part of her master’s thesis. Looking to return to technical research, she applied to the MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE). “MIT has the best nuclear engineering program in the States, and maybe even the world,” Choi says, explaining her decision to enroll as a doctoral student.Innovative research at MITAt NSE, Choi is working to make SMRs more price competitive as compared to traditional nuclear energy power plants.Due to their smaller size, SMRs are able to serve areas where larger reactors might not work, but they’re more expensive. One way to address costs is to squeeze more electricity out of a unit of fuel — to increase the power density. Choi is doing so by replacing the traditional uranium dioxide ceramic fuel in a cylindrical shape with a metal one in a helical cruciform. Such a replacement potentially offers twin advantages: the metal fuel has high conductivity, which means the fuel will operate even more safely at lower temperatures. And the twisted shape gives more surface area and lower heat flux. The net result is more electricity for the same volume.The project receives funding from a collaboration between Lightbridge Corp., which is exploring how advanced fuel technologies can improve the performance of water-cooled SMRs, and the U.S. Department of Energy Nuclear Energy University Program.With SMR efficiencies in mind, Choi is indulging her love of multi-physics modeling, and focusing on reactor physics, thermal hydraulics, and fuel performance simulation. “The goal of this modeling and simulation is to see if we can really use this fuel in the SMR,” Choi says. “I’m really enjoying doing the simulations because the geometry is really hard to model. Because the shape is twisted, there’s no symmetry at all,” she says. Always up for a challenge, Choi learned the various aspects of physics and a variety of computational tools, including the Monte Carlo code for reactor physics.Being at MIT has a whole roster of advantages, Choi says, and she especially appreciates the respect researchers have for each other. She appreciates being able to discuss projects with Shirvan and his focus on practical applications of research. At the same time, Choi appreciates the “exotic” nature of her project. “Even assessing if this SMR fuel is at all feasible is really hard, but I think it’s all possible because it’s MIT and my PI [principal investigator] is really invested in innovation,” she says.It’s an exciting time to be in nuclear engineering, Choi says. She serves as one of the board members of the student section of the American Nuclear Society and is an NSE representative of the Graduate Student Council for the 2024-25 academic year.Choi is excited about the global momentum toward nuclear as more countries are exploring the energy source and trying to build more nuclear power plants on the path to decarbonization. “I really do believe nuclear energy is going to be a leading carbon-free energy. It’s very important for our collective futures,” Choi says. More

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      The role of modeling in the energy transition

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      Joseph F. DeCarolis, administrator for the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), has one overarching piece of advice for anyone poring over long-term energy projections.“Whatever you do, don’t start believing the numbers,” DeCarolis said at the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) Fall Colloquium. “There’s a tendency when you sit in front of the computer and you’re watching the model spit out numbers at you … that you’ll really start to believe those numbers with high precision. Don’t fall for it. Always remain skeptical.”This event was part of MITEI’s new speaker series, MITEI Presents: Advancing the Energy Transition, which connects the MIT community with the energy experts and leaders who are working on scientific, technological, and policy solutions that are urgently needed to accelerate the energy transition.The point of DeCarolis’s talk, titled “Stay humble and prepare for surprises: Lessons for the energy transition,” was not that energy models are unimportant. On the contrary, DeCarolis said, energy models give stakeholders a framework that allows them to consider present-day decisions in the context of potential future scenarios. However, he repeatedly stressed the importance of accounting for uncertainty, and not treating these projections as “crystal balls.”“We can use models to help inform decision strategies,” DeCarolis said. “We know there’s a bunch of future uncertainty. We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we can incorporate that uncertainty into our model and help come up with a path forward.”Dialogue, not forecastsEIA is the statistical and analytic agency within the U.S. Department of Energy, with a mission to collect, analyze, and disseminate independent and impartial energy information to help stakeholders make better-informed decisions. Although EIA analyzes the impacts of energy policies, the agency does not make or advise on policy itself. DeCarolis, who was previously professor and University Faculty Scholar in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University, noted that EIA does not need to seek approval from anyone else in the federal government before publishing its data and reports. “That independence is very important to us, because it means that we can focus on doing our work and providing the best information we possibly can,” he said.Among the many reports produced by EIA is the agency’s Annual Energy Outlook (AEO), which projects U.S. energy production, consumption, and prices. Every other year, the agency also produces the AEO Retrospective, which shows the relationship between past projections and actual energy indicators.“The first question you might ask is, ‘Should we use these models to produce a forecast?’” DeCarolis said. “The answer for me to that question is: No, we should not do that. When models are used to produce forecasts, the results are generally pretty dismal.”DeCarolis pointed to wildly inaccurate past projections about the proliferation of nuclear energy in the United States as an example of the problems inherent in forecasting. However, he noted, there are “still lots of really valuable uses” for energy models. Rather than using them to predict future energy consumption and prices, DeCarolis said, stakeholders should use models to inform their own thinking.“[Models] can simply be an aid in helping us think and hypothesize about the future of energy,” DeCarolis said. “They can help us create a dialogue among different stakeholders on complex issues. If we’re thinking about something like the energy transition, and we want to start a dialogue, there has to be some basis for that dialogue. If you have a systematic representation of the energy system that you can advance into the future, we can start to have a debate about the model and what it means. We can also identify key sources of uncertainty and knowledge gaps.”Modeling uncertaintyThe key to working with energy models is not to try to eliminate uncertainty, DeCarolis said, but rather to account for it. One way to better understand uncertainty, he noted, is to look at past projections, and consider how they ended up differing from real-world results. DeCarolis pointed to two “surprises” over the past several decades: the exponential growth of shale oil and natural gas production (which had the impact of limiting coal’s share of the energy market and therefore reducing carbon emissions), as well as the rapid rise in wind and solar energy. In both cases, market conditions changed far more quickly than energy modelers anticipated, leading to inaccurate projections.“For all those reasons, we ended up with [projected] CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions that were quite high compared to actual,” DeCarolis said. “We’re a statistical agency, so we’re really looking carefully at the data, but it can take some time to identify the signal through the noise.”Although EIA does not produce forecasts in the AEO, people have sometimes interpreted the reference case in the agency’s reports as predictions. In an effort to illustrate the unpredictability of future outcomes in the 2023 edition of the AEO, the agency added “cones of uncertainty” to its projection of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, with ranges of outcomes based on the difference between past projections and actual results. One cone captures 50 percent of historical projection errors, while another represents 95 percent of historical errors.“They capture whatever bias there is in our projections,” DeCarolis said of the uncertainty cones. “It’s being captured because we’re comparing actual [emissions] to projections. The weakness of this, though, is: who’s to say that those historical projection errors apply to the future? We don’t know that, but I still think that there’s something useful to be learned from this exercise.”The future of energy modelingLooking ahead, DeCarolis said, there is a “laundry list of things that keep me up at night as a modeler.” These include the impacts of climate change; how those impacts will affect demand for renewable energy; how quickly industry and government will overcome obstacles to building out clean energy infrastructure and supply chains; technological innovation; and increased energy demand from data centers running compute-intensive workloads.“What about enhanced geothermal? Fusion? Space-based solar power?” DeCarolis asked. “Should those be in the model? What sorts of technology breakthroughs are we missing? And then, of course, there are the unknown unknowns — the things that I can’t conceive of to put on this list, but are probably going to happen.”In addition to capturing the fullest range of outcomes, DeCarolis said, EIA wants to be flexible, nimble, transparent, and accessible — creating reports that can easily incorporate new model features and produce timely analyses. To that end, the agency has undertaken two new initiatives. First, the 2025 AEO will use a revamped version of the National Energy Modeling System that includes modules for hydrogen production and pricing, carbon management, and hydrocarbon supply. Second, an effort called Project BlueSky is aiming to develop the agency’s next-generation energy system model, which DeCarolis said will be modular and open source.DeCarolis noted that the energy system is both highly complex and rapidly evolving, and he warned that “mental shortcuts” and the fear of being wrong can lead modelers to ignore possible future developments. “We have to remain humble and intellectually honest about what we know,” DeCarolis said. “That way, we can provide decision-makers with an honest assessment of what we think could happen in the future.”  More

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      in Environment

      A new catalyst can turn methane into something useful

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      Although it is less abundant than carbon dioxide, methane gas contributes disproportionately to global warming because it traps more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, due to its molecular structure.MIT chemical engineers have now designed a new catalyst that can convert methane into useful polymers, which could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.“What to do with methane has been a longstanding problem,” says Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and the senior author of the study. “It’s a source of carbon, and we want to keep it out of the atmosphere but also turn it into something useful.”The new catalyst works at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, which could make it easier and more economical to deploy at sites of methane production, such as power plants and cattle barns.Daniel Lundberg PhD ’24 and MIT postdoc Jimin Kim are the lead authors of the study, which appears today in Nature Catalysis. Former postdoc Yu-Ming Tu and postdoc Cody Ritt also authors of the paper.Capturing methaneMethane is produced by bacteria known as methanogens, which are often highly concentrated in landfills, swamps, and other sites of decaying biomass. Agriculture is a major source of methane, and methane gas is also generated as a byproduct of transporting, storing, and burning natural gas. Overall, it is believed to account for about 15 percent of global temperature increases.At the molecular level, methane is made of a single carbon atom bound to four hydrogen atoms. In theory, this molecule should be a good building block for making useful products such as polymers. However, converting methane to other compounds has proven difficult because getting it to react with other molecules usually requires high temperature and high pressures.To achieve methane conversion without that input of energy, the MIT team designed a hybrid catalyst with two components: a zeolite and a naturally occurring enzyme. Zeolites are abundant, inexpensive clay-like minerals, and previous work has found that they can be used to catalyze the conversion of methane to carbon dioxide.In this study, the researchers used a zeolite called iron-modified aluminum silicate, paired with an enzyme called alcohol oxidase. Bacteria, fungi, and plants use this enzyme to oxidize alcohols.This hybrid catalyst performs a two-step reaction in which zeolite converts methane to methanol, and then the enzyme converts methanol to formaldehyde. That reaction also generates hydrogen peroxide, which is fed back into the zeolite to provide a source of oxygen for the conversion of methane to methanol.This series of reactions can occur at room temperature and doesn’t require high pressure. The catalyst particles are suspended in water, which can absorb methane from the surrounding air. For future applications, the researchers envision that it could be painted onto surfaces.“Other systems operate at high temperature and high pressure, and they use hydrogen peroxide, which is an expensive chemical, to drive the methane oxidation. But our enzyme produces hydrogen peroxide from oxygen, so I think our system could be very cost-effective and scalable,” Kim says.Creating a system that incorporates both enzymes and artificial catalysts is a “smart strategy,” says Damien Debecker, a professor at the Institute of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences at the University of Louvain, Belgium.“Combining these two families of catalysts is challenging, as they tend to operate in rather distinct operation conditions. By unlocking this constraint and mastering the art of chemo-enzymatic cooperation, hybrid catalysis becomes key-enabling: It opens new perspectives to run complex reaction systems in an intensified way,” says Debecker, who was not involved in the research.Building polymersOnce formaldehyde is produced, the researchers showed they could use that molecule to generate polymers by adding urea, a nitrogen-containing molecule found in urine. This resin-like polymer, known as urea-formaldehyde, is now used in particle board, textiles and other products.The researchers envision that this catalyst could be incorporated into pipes used to transport natural gas. Within those pipes, the catalyst could generate a polymer that could act as a sealant to heal cracks in the pipes, which are a common source of methane leakage. The catalyst could also be applied as a film to coat surfaces that are exposed to methane gas, producing polymers that could be collected for use in manufacturing, the researchers say.Strano’s lab is now working on catalysts that could be used to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and combine it with nitrate to produce urea. That urea could then be mixed with the formaldehyde produced by the zeolite-enzyme catalyst to produce urea-formaldehyde.The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. More

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      Turning automotive engines into modular chemical plants to make green fuels

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      Reducing methane emissions is a top priority in the fight against climate change because of its propensity to trap heat in the atmosphere: Methane’s warming effects are 84 times more potent than CO2 over a 20-year timescale.And yet, as the main component of natural gas, methane is also a valuable fuel and a precursor to several important chemicals. The main barrier to using methane emissions to create carbon-negative materials is that human sources of methane gas — landfills, farms, and oil and gas wells — are relatively small and spread out across large areas, while traditional chemical processing facilities are huge and centralized. That makes it prohibitively expensive to capture, transport, and convert methane gas into anything useful. As a result, most companies burn or “flare” their methane at the site where it’s emitted, seeing it as a sunk cost and an environmental liability.The MIT spinout Emvolon is taking a new approach to processing methane by repurposing automotive engines to serve as modular, cost-effective chemical plants. The company’s systems can take methane gas and produce liquid fuels like methanol and ammonia on-site; these fuels can then be used or transported in standard truck containers.”We see this as a new way of chemical manufacturing,” Emvolon co-founder and CEO Emmanuel Kasseris SM ’07, PhD ’11 says. “We’re starting with methane because methane is an abundant emission that we can use as a resource. With methane, we can solve two problems at the same time: About 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from hard-to-abate sectors that need green fuel, like shipping, aviation, heavy heavy-duty trucks, and rail. Then another 15 percent of emissions come from distributed methane emissions like landfills and oil wells.”By using mass-produced engines and eliminating the need to invest in infrastructure like pipelines, the company says it’s making methane conversion economically attractive enough to be adopted at scale. The system can also take green hydrogen produced by intermittent renewables and turn it into ammonia, another fuel that can also be used to decarbonize fertilizers.“In the future, we’re going to need green fuels because you can’t electrify a large ship or plane — you have to use a high-energy-density, low-carbon-footprint, low-cost liquid fuel,” Kasseris says. “The energy resources to produce those green fuels are either distributed, as is the case with methane, or variable, like wind. So, you cannot have a massive plant [producing green fuels] that has its own zip code. You either have to be distributed or variable, and both of those approaches lend themselves to this modular design.”From a “crazy idea” to a companyKasseris first came to MIT to study mechanical engineering as a graduate student in 2004, when he worked in the Sloan Automotive Lab on a report on the future of transportation. For his PhD, he developed a novel technology for improving internal combustion engine fuel efficiency for a consortium of automotive and energy companies, which he then went to work for after graduation.Around 2014, he was approached by Leslie Bromberg ’73, PhD ’77, a serial inventor with more than 100 patents, who has been a principal research engineer in MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center for nearly 50 years.“Leslie had this crazy idea of repurposing an internal combustion engine as a reactor,” Kasseris recalls. “I had looked at that while working in industry, and I liked it, but my company at the time thought the work needed more validation.”Bromberg had done that validation through a U.S. Department of Energy-funded project in which he used a diesel engine to “reform” methane — a high-pressure chemical reaction in which methane is combined with steam and oxygen to produce hydrogen. The work impressed Kasseris enough to bring him back to MIT as a research scientist in 2016.“We worked on that idea in addition to some other projects, and eventually it had reached the point where we decided to license the work from MIT and go full throttle,” Kasseris recalls. “It’s very easy to work with MIT’s Technology Licensing Office when you are an MIT inventor. You can get a low-cost licensing option, and you can do a lot with that, which is important for a new company. Then, once you are ready, you can finalize the license, so MIT was instrumental.”Emvolon continued working with MIT’s research community, sponsoring projects with Professor Emeritus John Heywood and participating in the MIT Venture Mentoring Service and the MIT Industrial Liaison Program.An engine-powered chemical plantAt the core of Emvolon’s system is an off-the-shelf automotive engine that runs “fuel rich” — with a higher ratio of fuel to air than what is needed for complete combustion.“That’s easy to say, but it takes a lot of [intellectual property], and that’s what was developed at MIT,” Kasseris says. “Instead of burning the methane in the gas to carbon dioxide and water, you partially burn it, or partially oxidize it, to carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which are the building blocks to synthesize a variety of chemicals.”The hydrogen and carbon monoxide are intermediate products used to synthesize different chemicals through further reactions. Those processing steps take place right next to the engine, which makes its own power. Each of Emvolon’s standalone systems fits within a 40-foot shipping container and can produce about 8 tons of methanol per day from 300,000 standard cubic feet of methane gas.The company is starting with green methanol because it’s an ideal fuel for hard-to-abate sectors such as shipping and heavy-duty transport, as well as an excellent feedstock for other high-value chemicals, such as sustainable aviation fuel. Many shipping vessels have already converted to run on green methanol in an effort to meet decarbonization goals.This summer, the company also received a grant from the Department of Energy to adapt its process to produce clean liquid fuels from power sources like solar and wind.“We’d like to expand to other chemicals like ammonia, but also other feedstocks, such as biomass and hydrogen from renewable electricity, and we already have promising results in that direction” Kasseris says. “We think we have a good solution for the energy transition and, in the later stages of the transition, for e-manufacturing.”A scalable approachEmvolon has already built a system capable of producing up to six barrels of green methanol a day in its 5,000 square-foot headquarters in Woburn, Massachusetts.“For chemical technologies, people talk about scale up risk, but with an engine, if it works in a single cylinder, we know it will work in a multicylinder engine,” Kasseris says. “It’s just engineering.”Last month, Emvolon announced an agreement with Montauk Renewables to build a commercial-scale demonstration unit next to a Texas landfill that will initially produce up to 15,000 gallons of green methanol a year and later scale up to 2.5 million gallons. That project could be expanded tenfold by scaling across Montauk’s other sites.“Our whole process was designed to be a very realistic approach to the energy transition,” Kasseris says. “Our solution is designed to produce green fuels and chemicals at prices that the markets are willing to pay today, without the need for subsidies. Using the engines as chemical plants, we can get the capital expenditure per unit output close to that of a large plant, but at a modular scale that enables us to be next to low-cost feedstock. Furthermore, our modular systems require small investments — of $1 to 10 million — that are quickly deployed, one at a time, within weeks, as opposed to massive chemical plants that require multiyear capital construction projects and cost hundreds of millions.” More

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      Ensuring a durable transition

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      To fend off the worst impacts of climate change, “we have to decarbonize, and do it even faster,” said William H. Green, director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and Hoyt C. Hottel Professor, MIT Department of Chemical Engineering, at MITEI’s Annual Research Conference.“But how the heck do we actually achieve this goal when the United States is in the middle of a divisive election campaign, and globally, we’re facing all kinds of geopolitical conflicts, trade protectionism, weather disasters, increasing demand from developing countries building a middle class, and data centers in countries like the U.S.?”Researchers, government officials, and business leaders convened in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Sept. 25-26 to wrestle with this vexing question at the conference that was themed, “A durable energy transition: How to stay on track in the face of increasing demand and unpredictable obstacles.”“In this room we have a lot of power,” said Green, “if we work together, convey to all of society what we see as real pathways and policies to solve problems, and take collective action.”The critical role of consensus-building in driving the energy transition arose repeatedly in conference sessions, whether the topic involved developing and adopting new technologies, constructing and siting infrastructure, drafting and passing vital energy policies, or attracting and retaining a skilled workforce.Resolving conflictsThere is “blowback and a social cost” in transitioning away from fossil fuels, said Stephen Ansolabehere, the Frank G. Thompson Professor of Government at Harvard University, in a panel on the social barriers to decarbonization. “Companies need to engage differently and recognize the rights of communities,” he said.Nora DeDontney, director of development at Vineyard Offshore, described her company’s two years of outreach and negotiations to bring large cables from ocean-based wind turbines onshore.“Our motto is, ‘community first,’” she said. Her company works to mitigate any impacts towns might feel because of offshore wind infrastructure construction with projects, such as sewer upgrades; provides workforce training to Tribal Nations; and lays out wind turbines in a manner that provides safe and reliable areas for local fisheries.Elsa A. Olivetti, professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT and the lead of the Decarbonization Mission of MIT’s new Climate Project, discussed the urgent need for rapid scale-up of mineral extraction. “Estimates indicate that to electrify the vehicle fleet by 2050, about six new large copper mines need to come on line each year,” she said. To meet the demand for metals in the United States means pushing into Indigenous lands and environmentally sensitive habitats. “The timeline of permitting is not aligned with the temporal acceleration needed,” she said.Larry Susskind, the Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning in the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning, is trying to resolve such tensions with universities playing the role of mediators. He is creating renewable energy clinics where students train to participate in emerging disputes over siting. “Talk to people before decisions are made, conduct joint fact finding, so that facilities reduce harms and share the benefits,” he said.Clean energy boom and pressureA relatively recent and unforeseen increase in demand for energy comes from data centers, which are being built by large technology companies for new offerings, such as artificial intelligence.“General energy demand was flat for 20 years — and now, boom,” said Sean James, Microsoft’s senior director of data center research. “It caught utilities flatfooted.” With the expansion of AI, the rush to provision data centers with upwards of 35 gigawatts of new (and mainly renewable) power in the near future, intensifies pressure on big companies to balance the concerns of stakeholders across multiple domains. Google is pursuing 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030, said Devon Swezey, the company’s senior manager for global energy and climate.“We’re pursuing this by purchasing more and different types of clean energy locally, and accelerating technological innovation such as next-generation geothermal projects,” he said. Pedro Gómez Lopez, strategy and development director, Ferrovial Digital, which designs and constructs data centers, incorporates renewable energy into their projects, which contributes to decarbonization goals and benefits to locales where they are sited. “We can create a new supply of power, taking the heat generated by a data center to residences or industries in neighborhoods through District Heating initiatives,” he said.The Inflation Reduction Act and other legislation has ramped up employment opportunities in clean energy nationwide, touching every region, including those most tied to fossil fuels. “At the start of 2024 there were about 3.5 million clean energy jobs, with ‘red’ states showing the fastest growth in clean energy jobs,” said David S. Miller, managing partner at Clean Energy Ventures. “The majority (58 percent) of new jobs in energy are now in clean energy — that transition has happened. And one-in-16 new jobs nationwide were in clean energy, with clean energy jobs growing more than three times faster than job growth economy-wide”In this rapid expansion, the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) is prioritizing economically marginalized places, according to Zoe Lipman, lead for good jobs and labor standards in the Office of Energy Jobs at the DoE. “The community benefit process is integrated into our funding,” she said. “We are creating the foundation of a virtuous circle,” encouraging benefits to flow to disadvantaged and energy communities, spurring workforce training partnerships, and promoting well-paid union jobs. “These policies incentivize proactive community and labor engagement, and deliver community benefits, both of which are key to building support for technological change.”Hydrogen opportunity and challengeWhile engagement with stakeholders helps clear the path for implementation of technology and the spread of infrastructure, there remain enormous policy, scientific, and engineering challenges to solve, said multiple conference participants. In a “fireside chat,” Prasanna V. Joshi, vice president of low-carbon-solutions technology at ExxonMobil, and Ernest J. Moniz, professor of physics and special advisor to the president at MIT, discussed efforts to replace natural gas and coal with zero-carbon hydrogen in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in such major industries as steel and fertilizer manufacturing.“We have gone into an era of industrial policy,” said Moniz, citing a new DoE program offering incentives to generate demand for hydrogen — more costly than conventional fossil fuels — in end-use applications. “We are going to have to transition from our current approach, which I would call carrots-and-twigs, to ultimately, carrots-and-sticks,” Moniz warned, in order to create “a self-sustaining, major, scalable, affordable hydrogen economy.”To achieve net zero emissions by 2050, ExxonMobil intends to use carbon capture and sequestration in natural gas-based hydrogen and ammonia production. Ammonia can also serve as a zero-carbon fuel. Industry is exploring burning ammonia directly in coal-fired power plants to extend the hydrogen value chain. But there are challenges. “How do you burn 100 percent ammonia?”, asked Joshi. “That’s one of the key technology breakthroughs that’s needed.” Joshi believes that collaboration with MIT’s “ecosystem of breakthrough innovation” will be essential to breaking logjams around the hydrogen and ammonia-based industries.MIT ingenuity essentialThe energy transition is placing very different demands on different regions around the world. Take India, where today per capita power consumption is one of the lowest. But Indians “are an aspirational people … and with increasing urbanization and industrial activity, the growth in power demand is expected to triple by 2050,” said Praveer Sinha, CEO and managing director of the Tata Power Co. Ltd., in his keynote speech. For that nation, which currently relies on coal, the move to clean energy means bringing another 300 gigawatts of zero-carbon capacity online in the next five years. Sinha sees this power coming from wind, solar, and hydro, supplemented by nuclear energy.“India plans to triple nuclear power generation capacity by 2032, and is focusing on advancing small modular reactors,” said Sinha. “The country also needs the rapid deployment of storage solutions to firm up the intermittent power.” The goal is to provide reliable electricity 24/7 to a population living both in large cities and in geographically remote villages, with the help of long-range transmission lines and local microgrids. “India’s energy transition will require innovative and affordable technology solutions, and there is no better place to go than MIT, where you have the best brains, startups, and technology,” he said.These assets were on full display at the conference. Among them a cluster of young businesses, including:the MIT spinout Form Energy, which has developed a 100-hour iron battery as a backstop to renewable energy sources in case of multi-day interruptions;startup Noya that aims for direct air capture of atmospheric CO2 using carbon-based materials;the firm Active Surfaces, with a lightweight material for putting solar photovoltaics in previously inaccessible places;Copernic Catalysts, with new chemistry for making ammonia and sustainable aviation fuel far more inexpensively than current processes; andSesame Sustainability, a software platform spun out of MITEI that gives industries a full financial analysis of the costs and benefits of decarbonization.The pipeline of research talent extended into the undergraduate ranks, with a conference “slam” competition showcasing students’ summer research projects in areas from carbon capture using enzymes to 3D design for the coils used in fusion energy confinement.“MIT students like me are looking to be the next generation of energy leaders, looking for careers where we can apply our engineering skills to tackle exciting climate problems and make a tangible impact,” said Trent Lee, a junior in mechanical engineering researching improvements in lithium-ion energy storage. “We are stoked by the energy transition, because it’s not just the future, but our chance to build it.” More