Energy

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares119 Views

      in Energy

      Paula Hammond wins faculty’s Killian Award for 2023-24

      by

      Paula Hammond, a leading innovator in nanotechnology and head of MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering, has been named the recipient of the 2023-2024 James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award.

      Hammond, an MIT Institute Professor, was honored for her work designing novel polymers and nanomaterials, which have extensive applications in fields including medicine and energy.

      “Professor Hammond is a pioneer in nanotechnology research, with a program that spans from basic science to translational research in medicine and energy. She has introduced new approaches for the design and development of complex drug delivery systems for cancer treatment and non-invasive imaging,” according to the award citation, which was read at the May 17 faculty meeting by Laura Kiessling, the chair of the Killian Award Selection Committee and the Novartis Professor of Chemistry at MIT.

      Established in 1971 to honor MIT’s 10th president, James Killian, the Killian Award recognizes extraordinary professional achievements by an MIT faculty member.

      “I’ve been to past Killian Award lectures, and I’ve always thought these were the ultimate achievers at MIT in terms of their work and their science,” Hammond says. “I am incredibly honored and overwhelmed to be considered even close to a part of that group.”

      Hammond, who earned her bachelor’s degree from MIT in 1984, worked as an engineer before returning to the Institute four years later to earn a PhD, which she received in 1993. After two years as a postdoc at Harvard University, she returned to MIT again as a faculty member in 1995.

      “In a world where it isn’t always cool to be heavy into your science and your work, MIT was a place where I felt like I could just be completely myself, and that was an amazing thing,” she says.

      Since joining the faculty, Hammond has pioneered techniques for creating thin polymer films and other materials using layer-by-layer assembly. This approach can be used to build polymers with highly controlled architectures by alternately exposing a surface to positively and negatively charged particles.

      Hammond’s lab uses this technique to design materials for many different applications, including drug delivery, regenerative medicine, noninvasive imaging, and battery technology.

      Her accomplishments include designing nanoparticles that can zoom in on tumors and release their cargo when they associate with cancer cells. She has also developed nanoparticles and thin polymer films that can carry multiple drugs to a specific site and release the drugs in a controlled or staggered fashion. In recent years, much of that work has focused on potential treatments and diagnostics for ovarian cancer.

      “We’ve really had a focus on ovarian cancer over the past several years. My hope is that our work will move us in the direction of understanding how we can treat ovarian cancer, and, in collaboration with my colleagues, how we can detect it more effectively,” says Hammond, who is a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

      The award committee also cited Hammond’s record of service, both to MIT and the national scientific community. She currently serves on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and she is a former member of the U.S. Secretary of Energy Scientific Advisory Board. At MIT, Hammond chaired the Initiative on Faculty Race and Diversity, and co-chaired the Academic and Professional Relationships Working Group and the Implementation Team of the MIT response to the National Academies’ report entitled “Sexual Harassment of Women.”

      Among her many honors, Hammond is one of only 25 scientists who have been elected to the National Academies of Engineering, Sciences, and Medicine.

      Hammond has also been recognized for her dedication to teaching and mentoring. As a reflection of her excellence in those areas, Hammond was awarded the Irwin Sizer Award for Significant Improvements to MIT Education, the Henry Hill Lecturer Award in 2002, and the Junior Bose Faculty Award in 2000. She also co-chaired the recent Ad Hoc Committee on Faculty Advising and Mentoring, and has been selected as a “Committed to Caring” honoree for her work mentoring students and postdocs in her research group.

      “The Selection Committee is delighted to have this opportunity to honor Professor Paula Hammond, not only for her tremendous professional achievements and contributions, but also for her genuine warmth and humanity, her thoughtfulness and effective leadership, and her empathy and ethics. She is someone worth emulating. Indeed, simply put, she is the best of us,” the award committee wrote in its citation. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Energy

      Mike Barrett: Climate goals may take longer, but we’ll get there

      by

      The Covid-19 pandemic, inflation, and the war in Ukraine have combined to cause unavoidable delays in implementation of Massachusetts’s ambitious goals to tackle climate change, state Senator Mike Barrett said during his April 19 presentation at the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) Earth Day Colloquium. But, he added, he remains optimistic that the goals will be reached, with a lag of perhaps two years.

      Barrett, who is senate chair of the state’s Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy, spoke on the topic of “Decarbonizing Massachusetts” at MIT’s Wong Auditorium as part of the Institute’s celebration of Earth Week. The event was accompanied by a poster session highlighting some the work of MIT students and faculty aimed at tackling aspects of the climate issue.

      Martha Broad, MITEI’s executive director, introduced Barrett by pointing out that he was largely responsible for the passage of two major climate-related bills by the Massachusetts legislature: the Roadmap Act in 2021 and the Drive Act in 2022, which together helped to place the state as one of the nation’s leaders in the implementation of measures to ratchet down greenhouse gas emissions.

      The two key pieces of legislation, Barrett said, were complicated bills that included many components, but a major feature of the Roadmap Act was to reduce the time between reassessments of the state’s climate plans from 10 years to five, and to divide the targets for emissions reductions into six separate categories instead of just a single overall number.

      The six sectors the bill delineated are transportation; commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings; residential buildings; industrial processes; natural gas infrastructure; and electricity generation. Each of these faces different challenges, and needs to be evaluated separately, he said.

      The second bill, the Drive Act, set specific targets for implementation of carbon-free electricity generation. “We prioritize offshore wind,” he pointed out, because that’s one resource where Massachusetts has a real edge over other states and regions. Because of especially shallow offshore waters and strong, steady offshore winds that tend to be strongest during the peak demand hours of late afternoon and evening, the state’s coastal waters are an especially promising site for offshore wind farms, he said.

      Whereas the majority of offshore wind installations around the world are in deep water, which precludes fixed foundations and adds significantly to construction costs, Massachusetts’s shallow waters can allow relatively inexpensive construction. “So you can see why offshore wind became a linchpin, not only to our cleaning up the grid, but to feeding it into the building system, and for that matter into transportation, through our electric vehicles,” he said.

      Massachusetts’s needs in addressing climate change are quite different from global averages, or even U.S. averages, he pointed out. Worldwide, agriculture accounts for some 22 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, and 11 percent nationally. In Massachusetts the figure is less than one-half of 1 percent. The industrial sector is also much smaller than the national average. Meanwhile, buildings account for only about 6 percent of U.S. emissions, but 13 percent in the state. That means that overall, “buildings, transportation, and power generation become the whole ballgame” for this state, “requiring a real focus in terms of our thinking,” he said.

      Because of that, in those climate bills “we really insisted on reducing emissions in the energy generation sector, and our primary way to get there … lies with wind, and most of that is offshore.” The law calls for emissions from power generation to be cut by 53 percent by 2025, and 70 percent by 2030. Meeting that goal depends heavily on offshore wind. “Clean power is critical because the transmission and transportation and buildings depend on clean power, and offshore wind is critical to that clean power strategy,” he said.

      At the time the bills passed, plans for new offshore wind farm installations showed that the state was well on target to meet these goals, Barrett said. “There was plenty of reason for Massachusetts to feel very optimistic about offshore wind … Everyone was bullish.” While Massachusetts is a small state — 44th out of 50 — because of its unusually favorable offshore conditions, “we are second in the United States in terms of plans to deploy offshore wind,” after New York, he said.

      But then the real world got in the way.

      As Europe and the U.K. quickly tried to pivot away from natural gas and oil in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the picture changed quickly. “Offshore wind suddenly had a lot of competition for the expertise, the equipment, and the materials,” he said.

      As just one example, he said, the ships needed for installation became unavailable. “Suddenly worldwide, there weren’t enough installation vessels to hold these very heavy components that have to be brought out to sea,” he said. About 20 to 40 such vessels are needed to install a single wind farm. “There are a limited number of these vessels capable of carrying these huge pieces of infrastructure in the world. And in the wake of stepped-up demand from Europe, and other places, including China, there was an enormous shortage of appropriate vessels.”

      That wasn’t the only obstacle. Prices of some key commodities also shot up, partly due to supply chain issues associated with the pandemic, and the resulting worldwide inflation. “The ramifications of these kinds of disruptions obviously have been felt worldwide,“ he said. For example, the Hornsea Project off the coast of the United Kingdom is the largest proposed offshore wind farm in the world, and one the U.K. was strongly dependent on to meet climate targets. But the developer of the project, Ørsted, said it could no longer proceed without a major government bailout. At this point, the project remains in limbo.

      In Massachusetts, the company Avangrid had a contract to build 60 offshore wind turbines to deliver 1,200 megawatts of power. But last month, in a highly unusual move for a major company, “they informed Massachusetts that they were terminating a contract they had signed.” That contract was a big part of the state’s overall clean energy strategy, he said. A second developer, that had also signed a contract for a 1,200-MW offshore farm, signaled that it too could not meet its contract.

      “We technically haven’t failed yet” in meeting the goals that were set for emissions reduction, Barrett said. “In theory, we have two years to recover from the setbacks that I’m describing.” Realistically, though, he said “it is quite likely that we’re not going to hit our 2025 and 2030 benchmarks.”

      But despite all this, Barrett ended his remarks on an essentially optimistic note. “I hate to see us fall off-pace in any way,” he said. But, he added, “the truth is that a short delay — and I think we’re looking at just a couple of years delay — is a speed bump, it’s not a roadblock. It is not the end of climate policy.”

      Worldwide demand for offshore wind power remains “extraordinary,” said Barrett, mainly as a result of the need to get off of Russian fossil fuel. As a result, “eventually supply will come into balance with this demand … The balance will be restored.”

      To monitor the process, Barrett said he has submitted legislation to create a new independent Climate Policy Commission, to examine in detail the data on performance in meeting the state’s climate goals and to make recommendations. The measure would provide open access to information for the public, allowing everyone to see the progress being made from an unbiased source.

      “Setbacks are going to happen,” he said. “This is a tough, tough job. While the real world is going to surprise us, persistence is critical.”

      He concluded that “I think we’re going to wind up building every windmill that we need for our emissions reduction policy. Just not on the timeline that we had hoped for.”

      The poster session was co-hosted by the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab and MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative. The full event was sponsored by the MIT Climate Nucleus. More

    • 188 Shares169 Views

      in Energy

      Solve at MIT 2023: Collaboration and climate efforts are at the forefront of social impact

      by

      “The scale, complexity, the global nature of the problems we’re dealing with are so big that no single institution, industry, or country can deal with them alone,” MIT President Sally Kornbluth stated in her first remarks to the Solve community.

      Over 300 social impact leaders from around the world convened on MIT’s campus for Solve at MIT 2023 to celebrate the 2022 Solver class and to discuss some of the world’s greatest challenges and how we can tackle them with innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology.

      These challenges can be complicated and may even feel insurmountable, but Solve at MIT leaves us with the hope, tools, and connections needed to find solutions together.

      Hala Hanna, executive director of MIT Solve, shared what keeps her inspired and at the front line of social impact: “Optimism isn’t about looking away from the issues but looking right at them, believing we can create the solutions and putting in the work. So, anytime I need a dose of optimism, I look to the innovators we work with,” Hanna shared during the opening plenary, Unlocking our Collective Potential.

      Over the course of three days, more than 300 individuals from around the world convened to celebrate the 2022 Solver class, create partnerships that lead to progress, and address solutions to pressing world issues in real-time.

      Every technologist, philanthropist, investor, and innovator present at Solve at MIT left with their own takeaway, but three main themes seemed to underscore the overall discussions.

      Technology and innovation are as neutral as the makers

      Having bias is a natural part of what makes us human. However, being aware of our predispositions is necessary to transform our lived experiences into actionable solutions for others to benefit from. 

      We’ve largely learned that bias can be both unavoidable and applied almost instantly. Sangbae Kim, director of the Biomimetic Robotics Laboratory and professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, proved this through robotics demonstrations where attendees almost unanimously were more impressed with a back-flipping MIT robot compared to one walking in circles. As it turns out, it took one individual three days to program a robot to do a flip and over two weeks for a full team to program one to walk. “We judge through the knowledge and bias we have based on our lived experiences,” Kim pointed out.

      Bias and lived experiences don’t have to be bad things. The solutions we create based on our own lives are what matter. 

      2022 Solver Atif Javed, co-founder and executive director of Tarjimly, began translating for his grandmother as a child and learned about the struggles that come with being a refugee. This led him to develop a humanitarian language-translation application, which connects volunteer translators with immigrants, refugees, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and more, on demand. 

      Vanessa Castañeda Gill, 2022 Solver and co-founder and CEO of Social Cipher, transformed her personal experience with ADHD and autism to develop Ava, a video game empowering neuro-divergent youth and facilitating social-emotional learning.

      For Kelsey Wirth, co-founder and chair of Mothers Out Front, the experience of motherhood and the shared concerns for the well-being of children are what unite her with other moms. 

      Whitney Wolf Herd, founder and CEO of Bumble, shared that as a leader in technology and a person who witnessed toxic online spaces, she sees it as her responsibility to spearhead change. 

      During the plenary, “Bringing us Together or Tearing us Apart?” Wolf Herd asked, “What if we could use technology to be a force for positivity?” She shared her vision for equality and respect to be part of the next digital wave. She also called for technology leaders to join her to ensure “guardrails and ground rules” are in place to make sure this goal becomes a reality.

      Social innovation must be intersectional and intergenerational

      During Solve at MIT, industry leaders across sectors, cultures, ages, and expertise banded together to address pressing issues and to form relationships with innovators looking for support in real time.

      Adam Bly, founder and CEO of System Inc., discussed the interconnected nature of all things and why his organization is on a mission to show the links, “We’re seeing rising complexity in the systems that make up life on earth, and it impacts us individually and globally. The way we organize the information and data we need to make decisions about those systems [is highly] siloed and highly fragmented, and it impairs our ability to make decisions in the most systemic, holistic, rational way.”

      President and CEO of the National Resources Defense Council Manish Bapna shared his advocacy for cross-sector work: “Part of what I’ve seen really proliferate and expand in a good way over the past 10 to 15 years are collaborations involving startups in the private sector, governments, and NGOs. No single stakeholder or organization can solve the problem, but by coming together, they bring different perspectives and skills in ways that can create the innovation we need to see.”

      For a long time, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) were seen as the subjects that would resolve our complex issues, but as it turns out, art also holds a tremendous amount of power to transcend identity, borders, status, and concerns, to connect us all and aid us in global unity. Artists Beatie Wolfe, Norhan Bayomi, Aida Murad, and Nneka Jones showed us how to bring healing and awareness to topics like social and environmental injustice through their music, embroidery, and painting.

      The 2023 Solv[ED] Innovators, all age 24 or under, have solutions that are improving communication for individuals with hearing loss, transforming plastic waste into sustainable furniture, and protecting the Black birthing community, among other incredible feats.

      Kami Dar, co-founder and CEO of Uniti Networks, summarizes the value of interconnected problem-solving: “My favorite SDG [sustainable development goal] is SDG number 17— the power of partnership. Look for the adjacent problem-solvers and make sure we are not reinventing the wheel.”

      Relationships and the environment connect us all

      Solve is working to address global challenges on an ongoing basis connected to climate, economic prosperity, health, and learning. Many of these focus areas bleed into one another, but social justice and climate action served as a backdrop for many global issues addressed during Solve at MIT.

      “When we started addressing climate change, we saw it primarily as technical issues to bring down emissions … There’s inequality, there’s poverty, there are social tensions that are rising … We are not going to address climate change without addressing the social tensions that are embedded,” said Lewis Akenji, managing director of the Hot or Cool Institute. Akenji sees food, mobility, and housing as the most impactful areas to focus solutions on first.

      During the “Ensuring a Just Transition to Net Zero” plenary, Heather Clancy, vice president and editorial director at Greenbiz, asked panelists what lessons they have learned from their work. Janelle Knox Hayes, ​​professor of economic geography and planning at MIT, shared that listening to communities, especially front-line and Indigenous communities, is needed before deploying solutions to the energy crisis. “Climate work has this sense of urgency, like it rapidly has to be done … to do really engaged environmental justice work, we have to slow down and realize even before we begin, we need a long period of time to plan. But before we even do that, we have to rebuild relationships and trust and reciprocity … [This] will lead to better and longer-lasting solutions.”

      Hina Baloch, executive director and global head of climate change and sustainability strategy and communication at General Motors, asked Chéri Smith, founder of Indigenous Energy Initiative, to share her perspective on energy sovereignty as it relates to Indigenous communities. Smith shared, “Tribes can’t be sovereign if they’re relying on outside sources for their energy. We were founded to support the self-determination of tribes to revamp their energy systems and rebuild, construct, and maintain them themselves.”

      Smith shared an example of human and tribal-centered innovation in the making. Through the Biden administration’s national electronic vehicle (EV) initiative, Indigenous Energy Initiative and Native Sun Community Power Development will collaborate and create an inter-tribal EV charging network. “The last time we built out an electric grid, it deliberately skipped over tribal country. This time, we want to make sure that we not only have a seat at the table, but that we build out the tables and invite everyone to them,” said Smith.

      Solve at MIT led to meaningful discussions about climate change, intersectional and accessible innovation, and the power that human connection has to unite everyone. Entrepreneurship and social change are the paths forward. And although the challenges ahead of us can be daunting, with community, collaboration, and a healthy dose of bravery, global challenges will continue to be solved by agile impact entrepreneurs all around the world. 

      As Adrianne Haslet, a professional ballroom dancer and Boston Marathon bombing survivor, reminded attendees, “What will get you to the finish line is nothing compared to what got you to the start line.” More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Energy

      Finding “hot spots” where compounding environmental and economic risks converge

      by

      A computational tool developed by researchers at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change pinpoints specific counties within the United States that are particularly vulnerable to economic distress resulting from a transition from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy sources. By combining county-level data on employment in fossil fuel (oil, natural gas, and coal) industries with data on populations below the poverty level, the tool identifies locations with high risks for transition-driven economic hardship. It turns out that many of these high-risk counties are in the south-central U.S., with a heavy concentration in the lower portions of the Mississippi River.

      The computational tool, which the researchers call the System for the Triage of Risks from Environmental and Socio-economic Stressors (STRESS) platform, almost instantly displays these risk combinations on an easy-to-read visual map, revealing those counties that stand to gain the most from targeted green jobs retraining programs.  

      Drawing on data that characterize land, water, and energy systems; biodiversity; demographics; environmental equity; and transportation networks, the STRESS platform enables users to assess multiple, co-evolving, compounding hazards within a U.S. geographical region from the national to the county level. Because of its comprehensiveness and precision, this screening-level visualization tool can pinpoint risk “hot spots” that can be subsequently investigated in greater detail. Decision-makers can then plan targeted interventions to boost resilience to location-specific physical and economic risks.

      The platform and its applications are highlighted in a new study in the journal Frontiers in Climate.

      “As risks to natural and managed resources — and to the economies that depend upon them — become more complex, interdependent, and compounding amid rapid environmental and societal changes, they require more and more human and computational resources to understand and act upon,” says MIT Joint Program Deputy Director C. Adam Schlosser, the lead author of the study. “The STRESS platform provides decision-makers with an efficient way to combine and analyze data on those risks that matter most to them, identify ‘hot spots’ of compounding risk, and design interventions to minimize that risk.”

      In one demonstration of the STRESS platform’s capabilities, the study shows that national and global actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could simultaneously reduce risks to land, water, and air quality in the upper Mississippi River basin while increasing economic risks in the lower basin, where poverty and unemployment are already disproportionate. In another demonstration, the platform finds concerning “hot spots” where flood risk, poverty, and nonwhite populations coincide.

      The risk triage platform is based on an emerging discipline called multi-sector dynamics (MSD), which seeks to understand and model compounding risks and potential tipping points across interconnected natural and human systems. Tipping points occur when these systems can no longer sustain multiple, co-evolving stresses, such as extreme events, population growth, land degradation, drinkable water shortages, air pollution, aging infrastructure, and increased human demands. MSD researchers use observations and computer models to identify key precursory indicators of such tipping points, providing decision-makers with critical information that can be applied to mitigate risks and boost resilience in natural and managed resources. With funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, the MIT Joint Program has since 2018 been developing MSD expertise and modeling tools and using them to explore compounding risks and potential tipping points in selected regions of the United States.

      Current STRESS platform data includes more than 100 risk metrics at the county-level scale, but data collection is ongoing. MIT Joint Program researchers are continuing to develop the STRESS platform as an “open-science tool” that welcomes input from academics, researchers, industry and the general public. More

    • 100 Shares169 Views

      in Energy

      The answer may be blowing in the wind

      by

      Capturing energy from the winds gusting off the coasts of the United States could more than double the nation’s electricity generation. It’s no wonder the Biden administration views this immense, clean-energy resource as central to its ambitious climate goals of 100 percent carbon-emissions-free electricity by 2035 and a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. The White House is aiming for 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 — enough to power 10 million homes.

      At the MIT Energy Initiative’s Spring Symposium, academic experts, energy analysts, wind developers, government officials, and utility representatives explored the immense opportunities and formidable challenges of tapping this titanic resource, both in the United States and elsewhere in the world.

      “There’s a lot of work to do to figure out how to use this resource economically — and sooner rather than later,” said Robert C. Armstrong, MITEI director and the Chevron Professor of Chemical Engineering, in his introduction to the event. 

      In sessions devoted to technology, deployment and integration, policy, and regulation, participants framed the issues critical to the development of offshore wind, described threats to its rapid rollout, and offered potential paths for breaking through gridlock.

      R&D advances

      Moderating a panel on MIT research that is moving the industry forward, Robert Stoner, MITEI’s deputy director for science and technology, provided context for the audience about the industry.

      “We have a high degree of geographic coincidence between where that wind capacity is and where most of us are, and it’s complementary to solar,” he said. Turbines sited in deeper, offshore waters gain the advantage of higher-velocity winds. “You can make these machines huge, creating substantial economies of scale,” said Stoner. An onshore turbine generates approximately 3 megawatts; offshore structures can each produce 15 to 17 megawatts, with blades the length of a football field and heights greater than the Washington Monument.

      To harness the power of wind farms spread over hundreds of nautical miles in deep water, Stoner said, researchers must first address some serious issues, including building and maintaining these massive rigs in harsh environments, laying out wind farms to optimize generation, and creating reliable and socially acceptable connections to the onshore grid. MIT scientists described how they are tackling a number of these problems.

      “When you design a floating structure, you have to prepare for the worst possible conditions,” said Paul Sclavounos, a professor of mechanical engineering and naval architecture who is developing turbines that can withstand severe storms that batter turbine blades and towers with thousands of tons of wind force. Sclavounos described systems used in the oil industry for tethering giant, buoyant rigs to the ocean floor that could be adapted for wind platforms. Relatively inexpensive components such as polyester mooring lines and composite materials “can mitigate the impact of high waves and big, big wind loads.”

      To extract the maximum power from individual turbines, developers must take into account the aerodynamics among turbines in a single wind farm and between adjacent wind farms, according to Michael Howland, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Howland’s work modeling turbulence in the atmosphere and wind speeds has demonstrated that angling turbines by just a small amount relative to each other can increase power production significantly for offshore installations, dramatically improving their efficiencies. Howland hopes his research will promote “changing the design of wind farms from the beginning of the process.”

      There’s a staggering complexity to integrating electricity from offshore wind into regional grids such as the one operated by ISO New England, whether converting voltages or monitoring utility load. Steven B. Leeb, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and of mechanical engineering, is developing sensors that can indicate electronic failures in a micro grid connected to a wind farm. And Marija Ilić, a joint adjunct professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a senior research scientist at the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, is developing software that would enable real-time scheduling of controllable equipment to compensate for the variable power generated by wind and other variable renewable resources. She is also working on adaptive distributed automation of this equipment to ensure a stable electric power grid.

      “How do we get from here to there?”

      Symposium speakers provided snapshots of the emerging offshore industry, sharing their sense of urgency as well as some frustrations.

      Climate poses “an existential crisis” that calls for “a massive war-footing undertaking,” said Melissa Hoffer, who occupies the newly created cabinet position of climate chief for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She views wind power “as the backbone of electric sector decarbonization.” With the Vineyard Wind project, the state will be one of the first in the nation to add offshore wind to the grid. “We are actually going to see the first 400 megawatts … likely interconnected and coming online by the end of this year, which is a fantastic milestone for us,” said Hoffer.

      The journey to completing Vineyard Wind involved a plethora of painstaking environmental reviews, lawsuits over lease siting, negotiations over the price of the electricity it will produce, buy-in from towns where its underground cable comes ashore, and travels to an Eversource substation. It’s a familiar story to Alla Weinstein, founder and CEO of Trident Winds, Inc. On the West Coast, where deep waters (greater than 60 meters) begin closer to shore, Weinstein is trying to launch floating offshore wind projects. “I’ve been in marine renewables for 20 years, and when people ask why I do what I do, I tell them it’s because it matters,” she said. “Because if we don’t do it, we may not have a planet that’s suitable for humans.”

      Weinstein’s “picture of reality” describes a multiyear process during which Trident Winds must address the concerns of such stakeholders as tribal communities and the fishing industry and ensure compliance with, among other regulations, the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Species Act. Construction of these massive floating platforms, when it finally happens, will require as-yet unbuilt specialized port infrastructure and boats, and a large skilled labor force for assembly and transmission. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a new industry,” she said, but “how do we get from here to there?”

      Danielle Jensen, technical manager for Shell’s Offshore Wind Americas, is working on a project off of Rhode Island. The blueprint calls for high-voltage, direct-current cable snaking to landfall in Massachusetts, where direct-current lines switch to alternating current to connect to the grid. “None of this exists, so we have to find a space, the lands, and the right types of cables, tie into the interconnection point, and work with interconnection operators to do that safely and reliably,” she said.

      Utilities are partnering with developers to begin clearing some of these obstacles. Julia Bovey, director of offshore wind for Eversource, described her firm’s redevelopment or improvement of five ports, and new transport vessels for offshore assembly of wind farm components in Atlantic waters. The utility is also digging under roads to lay cables for new power lines. Bovey notes that snags in supply chains and inflation have been driving up costs. This makes determining future electricity rates more complex, especially since utility contracts and markets work differently in each state.

      Just seven up

      Other nations hold a commanding lead in offshore wind: To date, the United States claims just seven operating turbines, while Denmark boasts 6,200 and the U.K. 2,600. Europe’s combined offshore power capacity stands at 30 gigawatts — which, as MITEI Research Scientist Tim Schittekatte notes, is the U.S. goal for 2030.

      The European Union wants 400 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2050, a target made all the more urgent by threats to Europe’s energy security from the war in Ukraine. “The idea is to connect all those windmills, creating a mesh offshore grid,” Schittekatte said, aided by E.U. regulations that establish “a harmonized process to build cross-border infrastructure.”

      Morten Pindstrup, the international chief engineer at Energinet, Denmark’s state-owned energy enterprise, described one component of this pan-European plan: a hybrid Danish-German offshore wind network. Energinet is also constructing energy islands in the North Sea and the Baltic to pool power from offshore wind farms and feed power to different countries.

      The European wind industry benefits from centralized planning, regulation, and markets, said Johannes P. Pfeifenberger, a principal of The Brattle Group. “The grid planning process in the U.S. is not suitable today to find cost-effective solutions to get us to a clean energy grid in time,” he said. Pfeifenberger recommended that the United States immediately pursue a series of moves including a multistate agreement for cooperating on offshore wind and establishment by grid operators of compatible transmission technologies.

      Symposium speakers expressed sharp concerns that complicated and prolonged approvals, as well as partisan politics, could hobble the nation’s nascent offshore industry. “You can develop whatever you want and agree on what you’re doing, and then the people in charge change, and everything falls apart,” said Weinstein. “We can’t slow down, and we actually need to accelerate.”

      Larry Susskind, the Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning, had ideas for breaking through permitting and political gridlock. A negotiations expert, he suggested convening confidential meetings for stakeholders with competing interests for collaborative problem-solving sessions. He announced the creation of a Renewable Energy Facility Siting Clinic at MIT. “We get people to agree that there is a problem, and to accept that without a solution, the system won’t work in the future, and we have to start fixing it now.”

      Other symposium participants were more sanguine about the success of offshore wind. “Trust me, floating wind is not a pie-in-the-sky, exotic technology that is difficult to implement,” said Sclavounos. “There will be companies investing in this technology because it produces huge amounts of energy, and even though the process may not be streamlined, the economics will work itself out.” More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Energy

      Asegun Henry wins National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award

      by

      The National Science Foundation (NSF) today named Asegun Henry, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, as a 2023 recipient of its Alan T. Waterman Award. This award is the NSF’s highest honor for early-career researchers and provides funding for research in any science or engineering field. 

      This is the second year NSF has chosen to honor three researchers with the award. Henry is the sixth faculty member from MIT to receive this honor in its 47-year history, and is only the second mechanical engineer to ever win the award. In addition to a medal, Henry and his fellow awardees, Natalie S. King of Georgia State University and William Anderegg from the University of Utah, will each receive $1 million over five years for research in their chosen field of science.

      “I am thrilled to congratulate this year’s Waterman awardees, three outstanding scientists who are courageously tackling some of the most challenging societal problems through their ingenuity and innovative mindset,” says NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “Their pioneering accomplishments are precisely what the Waterman Award was created to recognize, and I look forward to their tremendous contributions in the future.”

      NSF recognizes Henry as an international thermal science and engineering leader. Henry has made breakthrough advances in nanoscale heat transfer and high-temperature energy systems. He directs the Atomistic Simulation and Energy (ASE) Research Group at MIT, focusing on heat transfer at the atomic level. He also works on developing technologies that can help mitigate climate change, addressing many problems from the atomic to the gigawatt scale.

      Henry and colleagues have led the development of several technological breakthroughs, setting a world record for the highest-temperature pump, using an all-ceramic mechanical pump to move liquid metal above 1,400 degrees Celsius, as well as the world record for thermophotovoltaic efficiency.

      “It has been challenging to push the field towards acceptance of new ideas, and it has been a path fraught with resistance and questioning of the validity of our results,” says Henry. “Receiving this award is vindicating and will impact my career greatly as it helps validate that the advances we’ve pioneered really do register as major contributions, and I pride myself on the impact of my work.”

      The Waterman Award will be presented to Henry at a ceremony held in Washington on May 9 during the National Science Board meeting.  More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Energy

      Robert Armstrong: A lifetime at the forefront of chemical engineering research and education

      by

      Robert C. Armstrong, the Chevron Professor of Chemical Engineering who has been the director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) since 2013 and part of MITEI’s leadership team since its inception in 2007, has announced that he will retire effective June 30. At that time he will have completed 50 years on the MIT faculty.  

      Armstrong plans to continue to work at 10 percent capacity, focusing on research projects on which he serves as principal investigator and also advising a number of graduate students.

      “Working at MIT has been a great honor and privilege for me,” says Armstrong. “Nowhere else can I imagine having had the opportunity to work with such exceptional students and colleagues and to have a ‘job’ that makes me want to get up every day to see what I can do to help humanity with its great challenges.”

      Armstrong joined the founding MITEI leadership team with Ernest Moniz, now the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems emeritus and special advisor to the MIT president. When Moniz left MIT in 2013 to become U.S. secretary of energy, Armstrong was named MITEI director.

      “MITEI has enabled us to leverage MIT’s great talent base to make significant advances in energy research, education, and outreach,” says Armstrong. “This is an incredibly important and exciting time in energy, and there is much to be done in envisioning and implementing an energy transition that mitigates the worst impacts of climate change, provides energy justly and equitably to those around the world without access or with inadequate access, and improves security of energy supply. I have been honored to do this work with amazing colleagues at MITEI and throughout MIT, and I will be cheering that team on, as it races to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.”

      MIT Vice President for Research Maria Zuber will form a search committee to select the new MITEI director. Zuber has worked closely with Armstrong since she became vice president for research in 2012.

      “Anyone who knows Bob knows that he is soft-spoken, but a person of deep conviction,” says Zuber. “He is a master of complexity, an admired educator, a respected leader, and a terrific colleague. During his decade as director, Bob has focused the MIT Energy Initiative on the urgent, daunting challenge of transforming the global energy system to respond to the climate crisis. In the last couple of years, Bob led the creation of MITEI’s Future Energy Systems Center, reflecting his keen understanding that an effective climate response requires integrated analysis and a systems approach — there is no one-fix-all solution. I congratulate Bob on a remarkable career, and I thank him for his half-century of dedicated service to MIT.”

      Armstrong joined the MIT faculty in 1973 after earning his doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. A native of Louisiana, he earned his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Georgia Tech. He served as chair of the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering from 1996 until joining MITEI in 2007. 

      “In his 50 years at MIT, Bob has been a truly dedicated educator, researcher, and leader in our department, the Institute, and the field of chemical engineering,” says Paula T. Hammond, Institute professor and the head of the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering — a successor to Armstrong in that role. “During his time as head, he expertly expanded the breadth and depth of the department’s research and academics while maintaining its high level of excellence. He has served as a thoughtful and proactive mentor to so many of our faculty members, as well as a dedicated teacher and advocate for modernizing chemical engineering curriculum. We are extremely fortunate to have profited from his scholarship and leadership over the past several decades and will continue to benefit thanks to his vision and work toward the future of chemical engineering and energy.”

      In 2008, Armstrong was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering, based on his research into non-Newtonian fluid mechanics, his leadership in chemical engineering education, and his co-authoring of influential chemical engineering textbooks. He became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020.

      He received the 2006 Bingham Medal from The Society of Rheology, which is devoted to the study of the science of deformation and flow of matter, as well as the Founders Award (2020), the Warren K. Lewis Award (2006), and the Professional Progress Award (1992), all from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. More

    • 100 Shares189 Views

      in Energy

      Exploring new sides of climate and sustainability research

      by

      When the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC) launched its Climate and Sustainability Scholars Program in fall 2022, the goal was to offer undergraduate students a unique way to develop and implement research projects with the strong support of each other and MIT faculty. Now into its second semester, the program is underscoring the value of fostering this kind of network — a community with MIT students at its core, exploring their diverse interests and passions in the climate and sustainability realms.Inspired by MIT’s successful SuperUROP [Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program], the yearlong MCSC Climate and Sustainability Scholars Program includes a classroom component combined with experiential learning opportunities and mentorship, all centered on climate and sustainability topics.“Harnessing the innovation, passion, and expertise of our talented students is critical to MIT’s mission of tackling the climate crisis,” says Anantha P. Chandrakasan, dean of the School of Engineering, Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and chair of the MCSC. “The program is helping train students from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds to be effective leaders in climate and sustainability-focused roles in the future.”

      “What we found inspiring about MIT’s existing SuperUROP program was how it provides students with the guidance, training, and resources they need to investigate the world’s toughest problems,” says Elsa Olivetti, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Associate Professor in Materials Science and Engineering and MCSC co-director. “This incredible level of support and mentorship encourages students to think and explore in creative ways, make new connections, and develop strategies and solutions that propel their work forward.”The first and current cohort of Climate and Sustainability Scholars consists of 19 students, representing MIT’s School of Engineering, MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, School of Science, School of Architecture and Planning, and MIT Sloan School of Management. These students are learning new perspectives, approaches, and angles in climate and sustainability — from each other, MIT faculty, and industry professionals.Projects with real-world applicationsStudents in the program work directly with faculty and principal investigators across MIT to develop their research projects focused on a large scope of sustainability topics.

      “This broad scope is important,” says Desirée Plata, MIT’s Gilbert W. Winslow Career Development Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering, “because climate and sustainability solutions are needed in every facet of society. For a long time, people were searching for a ‘silver bullet’ solution to the climate change problems, but we didn’t get to this point with a single technological decision. This problem was created across a spectrum of sociotechnological activities, and fundamentally different thinking across a spectrum of solutions is what’s needed to move us forward. MCSC students are working to provide those solutions.”

      Undergraduate student and physics major M. (MG) Geogdzhayeva is working with Raffaele Ferrari, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Oceanography in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, and director of the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate, on their project “Using Continuous Time Markov Chains to Project Extreme Events under Climate.” Geogdzhayeva’s research supports the Flagship Climate Grand Challenges project that Ferrari is leading along with Professor Noelle Eckley Selin.

      “The project I am working on has a similar approach to the Climate Grand Challenges project entitled “Bringing computation to the climate challenge,” says Geogdzhayeva. “I am designing an emulator for climate extremes. Our goal is to boil down climate information to what is necessary and to create a framework that can deliver specific information — in order to develop valuable forecasts. As someone who comes from a physics background, the Climate and Sustainability Scholars Program has helped me think about how my research fits into the real world, and how it could be implemented.”

      Investigating technology and stakeholders

      Within technology development, Jade Chongsathapornpong, also a physics major, is diving into photo-modulated catalytic reactions for clean energy applications. Chongsathapornpong, who has worked with the MCSC on carbon capture and sequestration through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), is now working with Harry Tuller, MIT’s R.P. Simmons Professor of Ceramics and Electronic Materials. Louise Anderfaas, majoring in materials science and engineering, is also working with Tuller on her project “Robust and High Sensitivity Detectors for Exploration of Deep Geothermal Wells.”Two other students who have worked with the MCSC through UROP include Paul Irvine, electrical engineering and computer science major, who is now researching American conservatism’s current relation to and views about sustainability and climate change, and Pamela Duke, management major, now investigating the use of simulation tools to empower industrial decision-makers around climate change action.Other projects focusing on technology development include the experimental characterization of poly(arylene ethers) for energy-efficient propane/propylene separations by Duha Syar, who is a chemical engineering major and working with Zachary Smith, the Robert N. Noyce Career Development Professor of Chemical Engineering; developing methods to improve sheet steel recycling by Rebecca Lizarde, who is majoring in materials science and engineering; and ion conduction in polymer-ceramic composite electrolytes by Melissa Stok, also majoring in materials science and engineering.

      Melissa Stok, materials science and engineering major, during a classroom discussion.

      Photo: Andrew Okyere

      Previous item
      Next item

      “My project is very closely connected to developing better Li-Ion batteries, which are extremely important in our transition towards clean energy,” explains Stok, who is working with Bilge Yildiz, MIT’s Breene M. Kerr (1951) Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering. “Currently, electric cars are limited in their range by their battery capacity, so working to create more effective batteries with higher energy densities and better power capacities will help make these cars go farther and faster. In addition, using safer materials that do not have as high of an environmental toll for extraction is also important.” Claire Kim, a chemical engineering major, is focusing on batteries as well, but is honing in on large form factor batteries more relevant for grid-scale energy storage with Fikile Brushett, associate professor of chemical engineering.Some students in the program chose to focus on stakeholders, which, when it comes to climate and sustainability, can range from entities in business and industry to farmers to Indigenous people and their communities. Shivani Konduru, an electrical engineering and computer science major, is exploring the “backfire effects” in climate change communication, focusing on perceptions of climate change and how the messenger may change outcomes, and Einat Gavish, mathematics major, on how different stakeholders perceive information on driving behavior.Two students are researching the impact of technology on local populations. Anushree Chaudhuri, who is majoring in urban studies and planning, is working with Lawrence Susskind, Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning, on community acceptance of renewable energy siting, and Amelia Dogan, also an urban studies and planning major, is working with Danielle Wood, assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics and media arts and sciences, on Indigenous data sovereignty in environmental contexts.

      “I am interviewing Indigenous environmental activists for my project,” says Dogan. “This course is the first one directly related to sustainability that I have taken, and I am really enjoying it. It has opened me up to other aspects of climate beyond just the humanity side, which is my focus. I did MIT’s SuperUROP program and loved it, so was excited to do this similar opportunity with the climate and sustainability focus.”

      Other projects include in-field monitoring of water quality by Dahlia Dry, a physics major; understanding carbon release and accrual in coastal wetlands by Trinity Stallins, an urban studies and planning major; and investigating enzyme synthesis for bioremediation by Delight Nweneka, an electrical engineering and computer science major, each linked to the MCSC’s impact pathway work in nature-based solutions.

      The wide range of research topics underscores the Climate and Sustainability Program’s goal of bringing together diverse interests, backgrounds, and areas of study even within the same major. For example, Helena McDonald is studying pollution impacts of rocket launches, while Aviva Intveld is analyzing the paleoclimate and paleoenvironment background of the first peopling of the Americas. Both students are Earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences majors but are researching climate impacts from very different perspectives. Intveld was recently named a 2023 Gates Cambridge Scholar.

      “There are students represented from several majors in the program, and some people are working on more technical projects, while others are interpersonal. Both approaches are really necessary in the pursuit of climate resilience,” says Grace Harrington, who is majoring in civil and environmental engineering and whose project investigates ways to optimize the power of the wind farm. “I think it’s one of the few classes I’ve taken with such an interdisciplinary nature.”

      Shivani Konduru, electrical engineering and computer science major, during a classroom lecture

      Photo: Andrew Okyere

      Previous item
      Next item

      Perspectives and guidance from MIT and industry expertsAs students are developing these projects, they are also taking the program’s course (Climate.UAR), which covers key topics in climate change science, decarbonization strategies, policy, environmental justice, and quantitative methods for evaluating social and environmental impacts. The course is cross-listed in departments across all five schools and is taught by an experienced and interdisciplinary team. Desirée Plata was central to developing the Climate and Sustainability Scholars Programs and course with Associate Professor Elsa Olivetti, who taught the first semester. Olivetti is now co-teaching the second semester with Jeffrey C. Grossman, the Morton and Claire Goulder and Family Professor in Environmental Systems, head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and MCSC co-director. The course’s writing instructors are Caroline Beimford and David Larson.  

      “I have been introduced to a lot of new angles in the climate space through the weekly guest lecturers, who each shared a different sustainability-related perspective,” says Claire Kim. “As a chemical engineering major, I have mostly looked into the technologies for decarbonization, and how to scale them, so learning about policy, for example, was helpful for me. Professor Black from the Department of History spoke about how we can analyze the effectiveness of past policy to guide future policy, while Professor Selin talked about framing different climate policies as having co-benefits. These perspectives are really useful because no matter how good a technology is, you need to convince other people to adopt it, or have strong policy in place to encourage its use, in order for it to be effective.”

      Bringing the industry perspective, guests have presented from MCSC member companies such as PepsiCo, Holcim, Apple, Cargill, and Boeing. As an example, in one class, climate leaders from three companies presented together on their approaches to setting climate goals, barriers to reaching them, and ways to work together. “When I presented to the class, alongside my counterparts at Apple and Boeing, the student questions pushed us to explain how can collaborate on ways to achieve our climate goals, reflecting the broader opportunity we find within the MCSC,” says Dana Boyer, sustainability manager at Cargill.

      Witnessing the cross-industry dynamics unfold in class was particularly engaging for the students. “The most beneficial part of the program for me is the number of guest lectures who have come in to the class, not only from MIT but also from the industry side,” Grace Harrington adds. “The diverse range of people talking about their own fields has allowed me to make connections between all my classes.”Bringing in perspectives from both academia and industry is a reflection of the MCSC’s larger mission of linking its corporate members with each other and with the MIT community to develop scalable climate solutions.“In addition to focusing on an independent research project and engaging with a peer community, we’ve had the opportunity to hear from speakers across the sustainability space who are also part of or closely connected to the MIT ecosystem,” says Anushree Chaudhuri. “These opportunities have helped me make connections and learn about initiatives at the Institute that are closely related to existing or planned student sustainability projects. These connections — across topics like waste management, survey best practices, and climate communications — have strengthened student projects and opened pathways for future collaborations.

      Basuhi Ravi, MIT PhD candidate, giving a guest lecture

      Photo: Andrew Okyere

      Previous item
      Next item

      Having a positive impact as students and after graduation

      At the start of the program, students identified several goals, including developing focused independent research questions, drawing connections and links with real-world challenges, strengthening their critical thinking skills, and reflecting on their future career ambitions. A common thread throughout them all: the commitment to having a meaningful impact on climate and sustainability challenges both as students now, and as working professionals after graduation.“I’ve absolutely loved connecting with like-minded peers through the program. I happened to know most of the students coming in from various other communities on campus, so it’s been a really special experience for all of these people who I couldn’t connect with as a cohesive cohort before to come together. Whenever we have small group discussions in class, I’m always grateful for the time to learn about the interdisciplinary research projects everyone is involved with,” concludes Chaudhuri. “I’m looking forward to staying in touch with this group going forward, since I think most of us are planning on grad school and/or careers related to climate and sustainability.”

      The MCSC Climate and Sustainability Scholars Program is representative of MIT’s ambitious and bold initiatives on climate and sustainability — bringing together faculty and students across MIT to collaborate with industry on developing climate and sustainability solutions in the context of undergraduate education and research. Learn about how you can get involved. More