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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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      Dennis Whyte steps down as director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center

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      Dennis Whyte, who spearheaded the development of the world’s most powerful fusion electromagnet and grew the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center’s research volume by more than 50 percent, has announced he will be stepping down as the center’s director at the end of the year in order to devote his full attention to teaching, engaging in cutting-edge fusion research, and pursuing entrepreneurial activities at the PSFC.

      “The reason I came to MIT as a faculty member in ’06 was because of the PSFC and the very special place it held and still holds in fusion,” says Whyte, the Hitachi America Professor of Engineering in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering. When he was appointed director of the PSFC in 2015, Whyte saw it as an opportunity to realize even more of the PSFC’s potential: “After 10 years I think we’ve seen that dream come to life. Research and entrepreneurship are stronger than ever.”

      Whyte’s passion has always been for fusion — the process by which light elements combine to form heavier ones, releasing massive amounts of energy. One hundred years ago fusion was solely the provenance of astronomers’ speculation; through the efforts of generations of scientists and engineers, fusion now holds the potential to offer humanity an entirely new source of clean, abundant energy — and Whyte has been at the forefront of that effort.

      “Fusion’s challenges require interdisciplinary work, so it’s always fresh, and you get these unexpected intersections that can have wild outcomes. As an inherently curious person, fusion is perfect for me.”

      Whyte’s enthusiasm is legendary, especially when it comes to teaching. The effects of that enthusiasm are easy to see: At the start of his tenure, only a handful of students chose to pursue plasma physics and fusion science. Since then, the number of students has ballooned, and this year nearly 100 students from six departments are working with 15 faculty members.

      Of the growth, Whyte says, “It’s not just that we have more students; it’s that they’re working on more diverse topics, and their passion to make fusion a reality is the best part of the PSFC. Seeing full seminars and classes is fundamentally why I’m here.”

      Even as he managed the directorship and pursued his own scholarly work, Whyte remained active in the classroom and continued advising students. Zach Hartwig, a former student who is now a PSFC researcher and MIT faculty member himself, recalled his first meeting with Whyte as an incoming PhD student: “I had to choose between several projects and advisors and meeting Dennis made my decision easy. He catapulted out of his chair and started sketching his vision for a new fusion diagnostic that many people thought was crazy. His passion and eagerness to tackle only the most difficult problems in the field was immediately tangible.”

      For the past 13 years Whyte has offered a fusion technology design class that has generated several key breakthroughs, including liquid immersion blankets essential for converting fusion energy to heat, inside launch radio frequency systems used to stabilize fusing plasmas, and high-temperature superconducting electromagnets that have opened the door to the possibility of fusion devices that are not only smaller, but also more powerful and efficient.

      In fact, the potential of these electromagnets was significant enough that Whyte, an MIT postdoc, and three of Whyte’s former students (Hartwig among them) spun out a private fusion company to fully realize the magnets’ capabilities. Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) both launched and signed a cooperative research agreement with the PSFC in 2018, and the founders’ vision parlayed into significant external investment, allowing a coalition of CFS and PSFC researchers to refine and develop the electromagnets first conceived in Whyte’s class.

      Three years later, after a historic day of testing, the magnet produced a field strength of 20 tesla, making it the most powerful fusion superconducting electromagnet in the world. According to Whyte, “The success of the TFMC magnet is an encapsulation of everything PSFC. It would’ve been impossible for a single investigator, or a lone spin-out, but we brought together all these disciplines in a team that could execute innovatively and incredibly quickly. We shortened the timescale not just for this project, but for fusion as a whole.”

      CFS remains an important collaborator, accounting for approximately 20 percent of the PSFC’s current research portfolio. While Whyte has no financial stake in the company, he remains a principal investigator on CFS’s SPARC project, a proof-of-concept fusion device predicted to produce more energy than it consumes, ready in 2025. SPARC is the lead-up to ARC, CFS’s commercially scalable fusion power plant planned to arrive in the early 2030s.

      The collaboration between CFS and MIT followed a blueprint that had been piloted more than a decade prior, when the Italian energy company Eni S.p.A signed on as a founding member of the MIT Energy Initiative to develop low-carbon technologies. After many years of successfully working in tandem with MITEI to advance renewable energy research, in 2018 Eni made a significant investment in a young CFS to assist in realizing commercial fusion power, which in turn indirectly funded PSFC research; Eni also collaborated directly with the PSFC to create the Laboratory for Innovative Fusion Technologies, which remains active.

      Whyte believes that “thoughtful and meaningful collaboration with the energy industry can make a difference with research and climate change. Industry engagement is very relevant — it changed both of us. Now Eni has fusion in their portfolio.” The arrangement is a demonstration of how public-private collaborations can accelerate the progress of fusion science, and ultimately the arrival of fusion power.

      Whyte’s move to diversify collaborators, leverage the PSFC’s strength as a multidisciplinary hub, and expand research volume was essential to the center’s survival and growth. Early in his tenure, a shift in funding priorities necessitated the shutdown of Alcator C-Mod, the fusion research device in operation at the PSFC for 23 years — though not before C-Mod set the world record for plasma pressure on its last day of operation. Through this transition, Whyte and the members of his leadership team were able to keep the PSFC whole.

      One alumnus was a particular source of inspiration to Whyte during that time: “Reinier [Beeuwkes] said to me, ‘what you’re doing doesn’t just matter to students and MIT, it matters to the world.’ That was so meaningful, and his words really sustained me when I was feeling major doubt.” In 2022 Beeuwkes won the MIT Alumni Better World Service Award for his support of fusion and the PSFC. Since 2018, sponsored research at the PSFC has more than doubled, as have the number of personnel.

      Whyte’s determination to build and maintain a strong community is a prevailing feature of his leadership. Matt Fulton, who started at the PSFC in 1987 and is now director of operations, says of Whyte, “You want a leader like Dennis on your worst days. We were staring down disaster and he had a plan to hold the PSFC together, and somehow it worked. The research was important, but the people have always been more important to him. We’re so lucky to have him.”

      The Office of the Vice President for Research is launching a search for the PSFC’s next leader. Should the search extend beyond the end of the year, an interim director will be appointed.  

      “As MIT works to magnify its impact in the areas of climate and sustainability, Dennis has built the PSFC into an extraordinary resource for the Institute to draw upon,” says Maria T. Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research. “His leadership has positioned MIT on the leading edge of fusion research and the emerging commercial fusion industry, and while the nature of his contributions will change, … the value he brings to the MIT community will remain clear. As Dennis steps down as director, the PSFC is ascendant.”  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

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      Ayomikun Ayodeji ’22 named a 2024 Rhodes Scholar

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      Ayomikun “Ayo” Ayodeji ’22 from Lagos, Nigeria, has been selected as a Rhodes Scholar for West Africa. He will begin fully funded postgraduate studies at Oxford University in the U.K. next fall.

      Ayodeji was supported by Associate Dean Kim Benard and the Distinguished Fellowships team in Career Advising and Professional Development, and received additional mentorship from the Presidential Committee on Distinguished Fellowships.

      “Ayo has worked hard to develop his vision and to express it in ways that will capture the imagination of the broader world. It is a thrill to see him recognized this year as a Rhodes Scholar,” says Professor Nancy Kanwisher, who co-chairs the committee along with Professor Will Broadhead.

      Ayodeji graduated from MIT in 2022 with BS degrees in chemical engineering and management. He is currently an associate at Boston Consulting Group.

      He is passionate about championing reliable energy access across the African landscape and fostering culturally inclusive communities. As a Rhodes Scholar, he will pursue an MSc in energy systems and an MSc in global governance and diplomacy.

      During his time at MIT, Ayodeji’s curiosity for energy innovations was fueled by his research on perovskite solar cells under the MIT Energy Initiative. He then went on to intern at Pioneer Natural Resources where he explored the boundless applications of machine learning tools in completions. At BCG, Ayodeji supports both public and private sector clients on a variety of renewable energy topics including clean energy transition, decarbonization roadmaps, and workforce development.

      Ayodeji’s community-oriented mindset led him to team up with a group of friends and partner with the Northeast Children’s Trust (NECT), an organization that helps children affected by the Boko Haram insurgency in northeastern Nigeria. The project, sponsored by Davis Projects for Peace and MIT’s PKG Center, expanded NECT’s programs via an offline, portable classroom server.

      Ayodeji served as an undergraduate representative on the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. He was also vice president of the MIT African Students’ Association and a coordinator for the annual MIT International Students Orientation. More

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      How to decarbonize the world, at scale

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      The world in recent years has largely been moving on from debates about the need to curb carbon emissions and focusing more on action — the development, implementation, and deployment of the technological, economic, and policy measures to spur the scale of reductions needed by mid-century. That was the message Robert Stoner, the interim director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), gave in his opening remarks at the 2023 MITEI Annual Research Conference.

      Attendees at the two-day conference included faculty members, researchers, industry and financial leaders, government officials, and students, as well as more than 50 online participants from around the world.

      “We are at an extraordinary inflection point. We have this narrow window in time to mitigate the worst effects of climate change by transforming our entire energy system and economy,” said Jonah Wagner, the chief strategist of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office, in one of the conference’s keynote speeches.

      Yet the solutions exist, he said. “Most of the technologies that we need to deploy to stay close to the international target of 1.5 degrees Celsius warming are proven and ready to go,” he said. “We have over 80 percent of the technologies we will need through 2030, and at least half of the technologies we will need through 2050.”

      For example, Wagner pointed to the newly commissioned advanced nuclear power plant near Augusta, Georgia — the first new nuclear reactor built in the United States in a generation, partly funded through DOE loans. “It will be the largest source of clean power in America,” he said. Though implementing all the needed technologies in the United States through mid-century will cost an estimated $10 trillion, or about $300 billion a year, most of that money will come from the private sector, he said.

      As the United States faces what he describes as “a tsunami of distributed energy production,” one key example of the strategy that’s needed going forward, he said, is encouraging the development of virtual power plants (VPPs). The U.S. power grid is growing, he said, and will add 200 gigawatts of peak demand by 2030. But rather than building new, large power plants to satisfy that need, much of the increase can be accommodated by VPPs, he said — which are “aggregations of distributed energy resources like rooftop solar with batteries, like electric vehicles (EVs) and chargers, like smart appliances, commercial and industrial loads on the grid that can be used together to help balance supply and demand just like a traditional power plant.” For example, by shifting the time of demand for some applications where the timing is not critical, such as recharging EVs late at night instead of right after getting home from work when demand may be peaking, the need for extra peak power can be alleviated.

      Such programs “offer a broad range of benefits,” including affordability, reliability and resilience, decarbonization, and emissions reductions. But implementing such systems on a wide scale requires some up-front help, he explained. Payment for consumers to enroll in programs that allow such time adjustments “is the majority of the cost” of establishing VPPs, he says, “and that means most of the money spent on VPPs goes back into the pockets of American consumers.” But to make that happen, there is a need for standardization of VPP operations “so that we are not recreating the wheel every single time we deploy a pilot or an effort with a utility.”

      The conference’s other keynote speaker, Anne White, the vice provost and associate vice president for research administration at MIT, cited devastating recent floods, wildfires, and many other extreme weather-related crises around the world that have been exacerbated by climate change. “We saw in myriad ways that energy concerns and climate concerns are one and the same,” she said. “So, we must urgently develop and scale low-carbon and zero-carbon solutions to prevent future warming. And we must do this with a practical, systems-based approach that considers efficiency, affordability, equity, and sustainability for how the world will meet its energy needs.”

      White added that at MIT, “we are mobilizing everything.” People at MIT feel a strong sense of responsibility for dealing with these global issues, she said, “and I think it’s because we believe we have tools that can really make a difference.”

      Among the specific promising technologies that have sprung from MIT’s labs, she pointed out, is the rapid development of fusion technology that led to MIT spinoff company Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which aims to build a demonstration unit of a practical fusion power reactor by the decade’s end. That’s an outcome of decades of research, she emphasized — the kinds of early-stage risky work that only academic labs, with help from government grants, can carry out.

      For example, she pointed to the more than 200 projects that MITEI has provided seed funds of $150,000 each for two years, totaling over $28 million to date. Such early support is “a key part of producing the kind of transformative innovation we know we all need.” In addition, MIT’s The Engine has also helped launch not only Commonwealth Fusion Systems, but also Form Energy, a company building a plant in West Virginia to manufacture advanced iron-air batteries for renewable energy storage, and many others.

      Following that theme of supporting early innovation, the conference featured two panels that served to highlight the work of students and alumni and their energy-related startup companies. First, a startup showcase, moderated by Catarina Madeira, the director of MIT’s Startup Exchange, featured presentations about seven recent spinoff companies that are developing cutting-edge technologies that emerged from MIT research. These included:

      Aeroshield, developing a new kind of highly-insulated window using a unique aerogel material;
      Sublime, which is developing a low-emissions concrete;
      Found Energy, developing a way to use recycled aluminum as a fuel;
      Veir, developing superconducting power lines;
      Emvolom, developing inexpensive green fuels from waste gases;
      Boston Metal, developing low-emissions production processes for steel and other metals;
      Transaera, with a new kind of efficient air conditioning; and
      Carbon Recycling International, producing cheap hydrogen fuel and syngas.
      Later in the conference, a “student slam competition” featured presentations by 11 students who described results of energy projects they had been working on this past summer. The projects were as diverse as analyzing opposition to wind farms in Maine, how best to allocate EV charging stations, optimizing bioenergy production, recycling the lithium from batteries, encouraging adoption of heat pumps, and conflict analysis about energy project siting. Attendees voted on the quality of the student presentations, and electrical engineering and computer science student Tori Hagenlocker was declared first-place winner for her talk on heat pump adoption.

      Students were also featured in a first-time addition to the conference: a panel discussion among five current or recent students, giving their perspective on today’s energy issues and priorities, and how they are working toward trying to make a difference. Andres Alvarez, a recent graduate in nuclear engineering, described his work with a startup focused on identifying and supporting early-stage ideas that have potential. Graduate student Dyanna Jaye of urban studies and planning spoke about her work helping to launch a group called the Sunrise Movement to try to drive climate change as a top priority for the country, and her work helping to develop the Green New Deal.

      Peter Scott, a graduate student in mechanical engineering who is studying green hydrogen production, spoke of the need for a “very drastic and rapid phaseout of current, existing fossil fuels” and a halt on developing new sources. Amar Dayal, an MBA candidate at the MIT Sloan School of Management, talked about the interplay between technology and policy, and the crucial role that legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act can have in enabling new energy technology to make the climb to commercialization. And Shreyaa Raghavan, a doctoral student in the Institute of Data, Systems, and Society, talked about the importance of multidisciplinary approaches to climate issues, including the important role of computer science. She added that MIT does well on this compared to other institutions, and “sustainability and decarbonization is a pillar in a lot of the different departments and programs that exist here.”

      Some recent recipients of MITEI’s Seed Fund grants reported on their progress in a panel discussion moderated by MITEI Executive Director Martha Broad. Seed grant recipient Ariel Furst, a professor of chemical engineering, pointed out that access to electricity is very much concentrated in the global North and that, overall, one in 10 people worldwide lacks access to electricity and some 2.5 billion people “rely on dirty fuels to heat their homes and cook their food,” with impacts on both health and climate. The solution her project is developing involves using DNA molecules combined with catalysts to passively convert captured carbon dioxide into ethylene, a widely used chemical feedstock and fuel. Kerri Cahoy, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics, described her work on a system for monitoring methane emissions and power-line conditions by using satellite-based sensors. She and her team found that power lines often begin emitting detectable broadband radio frequencies long before they actually fail in a way that could spark fires.

      Admir Masic, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, described work on mining the ocean for minerals such as magnesium hydroxide to be used for carbon capture. The process can turn carbon dioxide into solid material that is stable over geological times and potentially usable as a construction material. Kripa Varanasi, a professor of mechanical engineering, said that over the years MITEI seed funding helped some of his projects that “went on to become startup companies, and some of them are thriving.” He described ongoing work on a new kind of electrolyzer for green hydrogen production. He developed a system using bubble-attracting surfaces to increase the efficiency of bioreactors that generate hydrogen fuel.

      A series of panel discussions over the two days covered a range of topics related to technologies and policies that could make a difference in combating climate change. On the technological side, one panel led by Randall Field, the executive director of MITEI’s Future Energy Systems Center, looked at large, hard-to-decarbonize industrial processes. Antoine Allanore, a professor of metallurgy, described progress in developing innovative processes for producing iron and steel, among the world’s most used commodities, in a way that drastically reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Greg Wilson of JERA Americas described the potential for ammonia produced from renewable sources to substitute for natural gas in power plants, greatly reducing emissions. Yet-Ming Chiang, a professor in materials science and engineering, described ways to decarbonize cement production using a novel low-temperature process. And Guiyan Zang, a research scientist at MITEI, spoke of efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of producing ethylene, a major industrial chemical, by using an electrochemical process.

      Another panel, led by Jacopo Buongiorno, professor of nuclear science and engineering, explored the brightening future for expansion of nuclear power, including new, small, modular reactors that are finally emerging into commercial demonstration. “There is for the first time truly here in the U.S. in at least a decade-and-a-half, a lot of excitement, a lot of attention towards nuclear,” Buongiorno said. Nuclear power currently produces 45 to 50 percent of the nation’s carbon-free electricity, the panelists said, and with the first new nuclear power plant in decades now in operation, the stage is set for significant growth.

      Carbon capture and sequestration was the subject of a panel led by David Babson, the executive director of MIT’s Climate Grand Challenges program. MIT professors Betar Gallant and Kripa Varanasi and industry representatives Elisabeth Birkeland from Equinor and Luc Huyse from Chevron Technology Ventures described significant progress in various approaches to recovering carbon dioxide from power plant emissions, from the air, and from the ocean, and converting it into fuels, construction materials, or other valuable commodities.

      Some panel discussions also addressed the financial and policy side of the climate issue. A panel on geopolitical implications of the energy transition was moderated by MITEI Deputy Director of Policy Christopher Knittel, who said “energy has always been synonymous with geopolitics.” He said that as concerns shift from where to find the oil and gas to where is the cobalt and nickel and other elements that will be needed, “not only are we worried about where the deposits of natural resources are, but we’re going to be more and more worried about how governments are incentivizing the transition” to developing this new mix of natural resources. Panelist Suzanne Berger, an Institute professor, said “we’re now at a moment of unique openness and opportunity for creating a new American production system,” one that is much more efficient and less carbon-producing.

      One panel dealt with the investor’s perspective on the possibilities and pitfalls of emerging energy technologies. Moderator Jacqueline Pless, an assistant professor in MIT Sloan, said “there’s a lot of momentum now in this space. It’s a really ripe time for investing,” but the risks are real. “Tons of investment is needed in some very big and uncertain technologies.”

      The role that large, established companies can play in leading a transition to cleaner energy was addressed by another panel. Moderator J.J. Laukatis, MITEI’s director of member services, said that “the scale of this transformation is massive, and it will also be very different from anything we’ve seen in the past. We’re going to have to scale up complex new technologies and systems across the board, from hydrogen to EVs to the electrical grid, at rates we haven’t done before.” And doing so will require a concerted effort that includes industry as well as government and academia. More

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      MIT startup has big plans to pull carbon from the air

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      In order to avoid the worst effects of climate change, the United Nations has said we’ll need to not only reduce emissions but also remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. One method for achieving carbon removal is direct air capture and storage. Such technologies are still in their infancy, but many efforts are underway to scale them up quickly in hopes of heading off the most catastrophic effects of climate change.

      The startup Noya, founded by Josh Santos ’14, is working to accelerate direct-air carbon removal with a low-power, modular system that can be mass manufactured and deployed around the world. The company plans to power its system with renewable energy and build its facilities near injection wells to store carbon underground.

      Using third-party auditors to verify the amount of carbon dioxide captured and stored, Noya is selling carbon credits to help organizations reach net-zero emissions targets.

      “Think of our systems for direct air capture like solar panels for carbon negativity,” says Santos, who formerly played a role in Tesla’s much-publicized manufacturing scale-up for its Model 3 electric sedan. “We can stack these boxes in a LEGO-like fashion to achieve scale in the field.”

      The three-year old company is currently building its first commercial pilot facility, and says its first full-scale commercial facility will have the capacity to pull millions of tons of carbon from the air each year. Noya has already secured millions of dollars in presales to help build its first facilities from organizations including Shopify, Watershed, and a university endowment.

      Santos says the ambitious approach, which is driven by the urgent need to scale carbon removal solutions, was influenced by his time at MIT.

      “I need to thank all of my MIT professors,” Santos says. “I don’t think any of this would be possible without the way in which MIT opened up my horizons by showing me what’s possible when you work really hard.”

      Finding a purpose

      Growing up in the southeastern U.S., Santos says he first recognized climate change as an issue by experiencing the increasing intensity of hurricanes in his neighborhood. One year a hurricane forced his family to evacuate their town. When they returned, their church was gone.

      “The storm left a really big mark on me and how I thought about the world,” Santos says. “I realized how much climate change can impact people.”

      When Santos came to MIT as an undergraduate, he took coursework related to climate change and energy systems, eventually majoring in chemical engineering. He also learned about startups through courses he took at the MIT Sloan School of Management and by taking part in MIT’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), which exposed him to researchers in the early stages of commercializing research from MIT labs.

      More than the coursework, though, Santos says MIT instilled in him a desire to make a positive impact on the world, in part through a four-day development workshop called LeaderShape that he took one January during the Institute’s Independent Activities Period (IAP).

      “LeaderShape teaches students how to lead with integrity, and the core lesson is that any privilege you have you should try to leverage to improve the lives of other people,” Santos says. “That really stuck with me. Going to MIT is a huge privilege, and it makes me feel like I have a responsibility to put that privilege to work to the betterment of society. It shaped a lot of how I view my career.”

      After graduation, Santos worked at Tesla, then at Harley Davidson, where he worked on electric powertrains. Eventually he decided electric vehicle technology couldn’t solve climate change on its own, so in the spring of 2020 he founded Noya with friend Daniel Cavaro.

      The initial idea for Noya was to attach carbon capture devices to cooling towers to keep equipment costs low. The founders pivoted in response to the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 because their machines weren’t big enough to qualify for the new tax credits in the law, which required each system to capture at least 1,000 tons of CO2 per year.

      Noya’s new systems will combine thousands of its modular units to create massive facilities that can capture millions of tons of CO2 right next to existing injection wells.

      Each of Noya’s units is about the size of a solar panel at about 6 feet wide, 4.5 feet tall, and 1 foot thick. A fan blows air through tiny channels in each unit that contain Noya’s carbon capture material. The company’s material solution consists of an activated carbon monolith and a proprietary chemical feedstock that binds to the carbon in the air. When the material becomes saturated with carbon, electricity is applied to the material and a light vacuum collects a pure stream of carbon.

      The goal is for each of Noya’s modules to remove about 60 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere per year.

      “Other direct air capture companies need a big hot piece of equipment — like an oven, steam generator, or kiln — that takes electricity and converts it to get heat to the material,” Santos says. “Any lost heat into the surrounding environment is excess cost. We skip the need for the excess equipment and their inefficiencies by adding the electricity directly to the material itself.”

      Scaling with urgency

      From its office in Oakland, California, Noya is putting an experimental module through tests to optimize its design. Noya will launch its first testing facility, which should remove about 350 tons of CO2 per year, in 2024. It has already secured renewable energy and injection storage partners for that facility. Over the next few years Noya plans to capture and remove thousands of tons of CO2, and the company’s first commercial-scale facility will aim to remove about 3 million tons of carbon annually.

      “That design is what we’ll replicate across the world to grow our planetary impact,” Santos says. “We’re trying to scale up as fast as possible.”

      Noya has already sold all of the carbon credits it expects to generate in its first five years, and the founders believe the growing demand from companies and governments to purchase high-quality carbon credits will outstrip supply for at least the next 10 years in the nascent carbon removal industry, which also includes approaches like enhanced rock weathering, biomass carbon storage, and ocean alkalinity enhancement.

      “We’re going to need something like 30 companies the size of Shell to achieve the scale we need,” Santos says. “I think there will be large companies in each of those verticals. We’re in the early innings here.”

      Santos believes the carbon removal market can scale without government mandates, but he also sees increasing government and public support for carbon removal technologies around the world.

      “Carbon removal is a waste management problem,” Santos says. “You can’t just throw trash in the middle of the street. The way we currently deal with trash is polluters pay to clean up their waste. Carbon removal should be like that. CO2 is a waste product, and we should have regulations in place that are requiring polluters, like businesses, to clean up their waste emissions. It’s a public good to provide cleaner air.” More

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      Engineers develop an efficient process to make fuel from carbon dioxide

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      The search is on worldwide to find ways to extract carbon dioxide from the air or from power plant exhaust and then make it into something useful. One of the more promising ideas is to make it into a stable fuel that can replace fossil fuels in some applications. But most such conversion processes have had problems with low carbon efficiency, or they produce fuels that can be hard to handle, toxic, or flammable.

      Now, researchers at MIT and Harvard University have developed an efficient process that can convert carbon dioxide into formate, a liquid or solid material that can be used like hydrogen or methanol to power a fuel cell and generate electricity. Potassium or sodium formate, already produced at industrial scales and commonly used as a de-icer for roads and sidewalks, is nontoxic, nonflammable, easy to store and transport, and can remain stable in ordinary steel tanks to be used months, or even years, after its production.

      The new process, developed by MIT doctoral students Zhen Zhang, Zhichu Ren, and Alexander H. Quinn; Harvard University doctoral student Dawei Xi; and MIT Professor Ju Li, is described this week in an open-access paper in Cell Reports Physical Science. The whole process — including capture and electrochemical conversion of the gas to a solid formate powder, which is then used in a fuel cell to produce electricity — was demonstrated at a small, laboratory scale. However, the researchers expect it to be scalable so that it could provide emissions-free heat and power to individual homes and even be used in industrial or grid-scale applications.

      Other approaches to converting carbon dioxide into fuel, Li explains, usually involve a two-stage process: First the gas is chemically captured and turned into a solid form as calcium carbonate, then later that material is heated to drive off the carbon dioxide and convert it to a fuel feedstock such as carbon monoxide. That second step has very low efficiency, typically converting less than 20 percent of the gaseous carbon dioxide into the desired product, Li says.

      By contrast, the new process achieves a conversion of well over 90 percent and eliminates the need for the inefficient heating step by first converting the carbon dioxide into an intermediate form, liquid metal bicarbonate. That liquid is then electrochemically converted into liquid potassium or sodium formate in an electrolyzer that uses low-carbon electricity, e.g. nuclear, wind, or solar power. The highly concentrated liquid potassium or sodium formate solution produced can then be dried, for example by solar evaporation, to produce a solid powder that is highly stable and can be stored in ordinary steel tanks for up to years or even decades, Li says.

      Several steps of optimization developed by the team made all the difference in changing an inefficient chemical-conversion process into a practical solution, says Li, who holds joint appointments in the departments of Nuclear Science and Engineering and of Materials Science and Engineering.

      The process of carbon capture and conversion involves first an alkaline solution-based capture that concentrates carbon dioxide, either from concentrated streams such as from power plant emissions or from very low-concentration sources, even open air, into the form of a liquid metal-bicarbonate solution. Then, through the use of a cation-exchange membrane electrolyzer, this bicarbonate is electrochemically converted into solid formate crystals with a carbon efficiency of greater than 96 percent, as confirmed in the team’s lab-scale experiments.

      These crystals have an indefinite shelf life, remaining so stable that they could be stored for years, or even decades, with little or no loss. By comparison, even the best available practical hydrogen storage tanks allow the gas to leak out at a rate of about 1 percent per day, precluding any uses that would require year-long storage, Li says. Methanol, another widely explored alternative for converting carbon dioxide into a fuel usable in fuel cells, is a toxic substance that cannot easily be adapted to use in situations where leakage could pose a health hazard. Formate, on the other hand, is widely used and considered benign, according to national safety standards.

      Several improvements account for the greatly improved efficiency of this process. First, a careful design of the membrane materials and their configuration overcomes a problem that previous attempts at such a system have encountered, where a buildup of certain chemical byproducts changes the pH, causing the system to steadily lose efficiency over time. “Traditionally, it is difficult to achieve long-term, stable, continuous conversion of the feedstocks,” Zhang says. “The key to our system is to achieve a pH balance for steady-state conversion.”

      To achieve that, the researchers carried out thermodynamic modeling to design the new process so that it is chemically balanced and the pH remains at a steady state with no shift in acidity over time. It can therefore continue operating efficiently over long periods. In their tests, the system ran for over 200 hours with no significant decrease in output. The whole process can be done at ambient temperatures and relatively low pressures (about five times atmospheric pressure).

      Another issue was that unwanted side reactions produced other chemical products that were not useful, but the team figured out a way to prevent these side reactions by the introduction of an extra “buffer” layer of bicarbonate-enriched fiberglass wool that blocked these reactions.

      The team also built a fuel cell specifically optimized for the use of this formate fuel to produce electricity. The stored formate particles are simply dissolved in water and pumped into the fuel cell as needed. Although the solid fuel is much heavier than pure hydrogen, when the weight and volume of the high-pressure gas tanks needed to store hydrogen is considered, the end result is an electricity output near parity for a given storage volume, Li says.

      The formate fuel can potentially be adapted for anything from home-sized units to large scale industrial uses or grid-scale storage systems, the researchers say. Initial household applications might involve an electrolyzer unit about the size of a refrigerator to capture and convert the carbon dioxide into formate, which could be stored in an underground or rooftop tank. Then, when needed, the powdered solid would be mixed with water and fed into a fuel cell to provide power and heat. “This is for community or household demonstrations,” Zhang says, “but we believe that also in the future it may be good for factories or the grid.”

      “The formate economy is an intriguing concept because metal formate salts are very benign and stable, and a compelling energy carrier,” says Ted Sargent, a professor of chemistry and of electrical and computer engineering at Northwestern University, who was not associated with this work. “The authors have demonstrated enhanced efficiency in liquid-to-liquid conversion from bicarbonate feedstock to formate, and have demonstrated these fuels can be used later to produce electricity,” he says.

      The work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. More

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      Rafael Mariano Grossi speaks about nuclear power’s role at a critical moment in history

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      On Sept. 22, Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), delivered the 2023 David J. Rose Lecture in Nuclear Technology at MIT. This lecture series was started nearly 40 years ago in honor of the late Professor David Rose — a nuclear engineering professor and fusion technology pioneer. In addition to his scientific contributions, Rose was invested in the ethical issues associated with new technologies. His widow, Renate Rose, who spoke briefly before Grossi’s lecture, said that her husband adamantly called for the abolishment of nuclear weapons, insisting that all science should serve the common good and that every scientist should follow his or her conscience.

      In his prefatory remarks, MIT Vice Provost Richard Lester, a former PhD student of David Rose, said that even today, he still feels the influence of his thesis advisor, many decades after they’d worked together. Lester called it a “great honor” to introduce Grossi, noting that the director general was guiding the agency through an especially demanding time. “His presence with us is a reminder that the biggest challenges we face today are truly global challenges, and that international organizations like the IAEA have a central role to play in resolving them.”

      The title of Grossi’s talk was “The IAEA at the Crossroads of History,” and he made a strong case for this being a critical juncture, or “inflection point,” for nuclear power. He started his speech, however, with somewhat of an historical footnote, discussing a letter that Rose sent in 1977 to Sigvard Eklund, IAEA’s then-director general. Rose urged the IAEA to establish a coordinated worldwide program in controlled fusion research. It took a while for the idea to gain traction, but international collaboration in fusion formally began in 1985, eight years after Rose’s proposal. “I thought I would begin with this story, because it shows that cooperation between MIT and the IAEA goes back a long way,” Grossi said.

      2023 David J. Rose Lecture in Nuclear TechnologyVideo: MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering

      Overall, he painted a mostly encouraging picture for the future of nuclear power, largely based on its potential to generate electricity or thermal energy without adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. In the face of rapidly-unfolding climate change, Grossi said, “low-carbon nuclear power is now seen as part of [the] solution by an increasing number of people. It’s getting harder to be an environmentalist in good faith who is against nuclear.”

      Public acceptance is growing throughout the world, he added. In Sweden, where people had long protested against radioactive waste transport, a poll now shows that more than 85 percent of the people approve of the nation’s high-level waste handling and disposal facilities. Even Finland’s Green Party has embraced nuclear power, Grossi said. “I don’t think we could imagine a pro-nuclear Green Party five years ago, let alone in 1970 or ’80.”

      Fifty-seven nuclear reactors are being constructed right now in 17 countries. One of the world’s newest facilities, the Barakah nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates, “was built on ground rich in oil and natural gas,” he said. In China, the world’s first pebble-bed high-temperature reactor has been operating for two years, offering potential advantages in safety, efficiency, and modularity. For countries that don’t have any nuclear plants, small modular reactors of this kind “offer the chance of a more gradual and affordable way to scale up nuclear power,” Grossi noted. The IAEA is working with countries like Ghana, Kenya, and Senegal to help them develop the safety and regulatory infrastructures that would be needed to build and responsibly operate modular nuclear reactors like this.

      Grossi also discussed a number of lesser-known projects the IAEA is engaged in that have little to do with power generation. Seventy percent of the people in Africa, for example, have no access to radiotherapy to fight cancer. To this end, the IAEA is now helping to provide radiotherapy services in Tanzania and other African countries. At the IAEA’s Marine Environmental Laboratories in Monaco, researchers are using isotopic tracing techniques to study the impact of microplastic pollution on the oceans. The Covid-19 pandemic illustrated the potentially devastating effects of zoonotic diseases that can infect humans with animal-borne viruses. To counteract this threat, the IAEA has sent hundreds of reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) machines — capable of detecting specific genetic materials in pathogens — to more than 130 countries.

      Meanwhile, new risks have emerged from the war in Ukraine, where fighting has raged for a year-and-a-half near the six nuclear reactors in Zaporizhzhia — Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Early in the conflict, the IAEA sent a team of experts to monitor the plant and to do everything possible to prevent a nuclear accident that would bring “even more misery to people who are already suffering so much,” Grossi said. A major accident, he added, would likely stall investments in nuclear power at a time when its future prospects were starting to brighten.

      At the end of his talk, Grossi returned to the subject of fusion, which he expects to become an important energy source, perhaps in the not-too-distant future. He was encouraged by the visit he’d just had to the MIT spinoff company, Commonwealth Fusion Systems. With regard to fusion, he said, “for the first time, all the pieces of the puzzle are there: the physics, the policy drivers, and the investment.” In fact, an agreement was signed on the day of his lecture, which made MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center an IAEA collaboration center — the second such center in the United States.

      “When I think of all the new forms of collaboration happening today, I imagine Professor Rose would be delighted,” Grossi said. “It really is something to hold [his] letter and know how much progress has been made since 1977 in fusion. I look forward to our collaboration going forward.” More