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      Q&A: Climate Grand Challenges finalists on accelerating reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions

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      This is the second article in a four-part interview series highlighting the work of the 27 MIT Climate Grand Challenges finalists, which received a total of $2.7 million in startup funding to advance their projects. In April, the Institute will name a subset of the finalists as multiyear flagship projects.

      Last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an expert body of the United Nations representing 195 governments, released its latest scientific report on the growing threats posed by climate change, and called for drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to avert the most catastrophic outcomes for humanity and natural ecosystems.

      Bringing the global economy to net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by midcentury is complex and demands new ideas and novel approaches. The first-ever MIT Climate Grand Challenges competition focuses on four problem areas including removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and identifying effective, economic solutions for managing and storing these gases. The other Climate Grand Challenges research themes address using data and science to forecast climate-related risk, decarbonizing complex industries and processes, and building equity and fairness into climate solutions.

      In the following conversations prepared for MIT News, faculty from three of the teams working to solve “Removing, managing, and storing greenhouse gases” explain how they are drawing upon geological, biological, chemical, and oceanic processes to develop game-changing techniques for carbon removal, management, and storage. Their responses have been edited for length and clarity.

      Directed evolution of biological carbon fixation

      Agricultural demand is estimated to increase by 50 percent in the coming decades, while climate change is simultaneously projected to drastically reduce crop yield and predictability, requiring a dramatic acceleration of land clearing. Without immediate intervention, this will have dire impacts on wild habitat, rob the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of subsistence farmers, and create hundreds of gigatons of new emissions. Matthew Shoulders, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry, talks about the working group he is leading in partnership with Ed Boyden, the Y. Eva Tan professor of neurotechnology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, that aims to massively reduce carbon emissions from agriculture by relieving core biochemical bottlenecks in the photosynthetic process using the most sophisticated synthetic biology available to science.

      Q: Describe the two pathways you have identified for improving agricultural productivity and climate resiliency.

      A: First, cyanobacteria grow millions of times faster than plants and dozens of times faster than microalgae. Engineering these cyanobacteria as a source of key food products using synthetic biology will enable food production using less land, in a fundamentally more climate-resilient manner. Second, carbon fixation, or the process by which carbon dioxide is incorporated into organic compounds, is the rate-limiting step of photosynthesis and becomes even less efficient under rising temperatures. Enhancements to Rubisco, the enzyme mediating this central process, will both improve crop yields and provide climate resilience to crops needed by 2050. Our team, led by Robbie Wilson and Max Schubert, has created new directed evolution methods tailored for both strategies, and we have already uncovered promising early results. Applying directed evolution to photosynthesis, carbon fixation, and food production has the potential to usher in a second green revolution.

      Q: What partners will you need to accelerate the development of your solutions?

      A: We have already partnered with leading agriculture institutes with deep experience in plant transformation and field trial capacity, enabling the integration of our improved carbon-dioxide-fixing enzymes into a wide range of crop plants. At the deployment stage, we will be positioned to partner with multiple industry groups to achieve improved agriculture at scale. Partnerships with major seed companies around the world will be key to leverage distribution channels in manufacturing supply chains and networks of farmers, agronomists, and licensed retailers. Support from local governments will also be critical where subsidies for seeds are necessary for farmers to earn a living, such as smallholder and subsistence farming communities. Additionally, our research provides an accessible platform that is capable of enabling and enhancing carbon dioxide sequestration in diverse organisms, extending our sphere of partnership to a wide range of companies interested in industrial microbial applications, including algal and cyanobacterial, and in carbon capture and storage.

      Strategies to reduce atmospheric methane

      One of the most potent greenhouse gases, methane is emitted by a range of human activities and natural processes that include agriculture and waste management, fossil fuel production, and changing land use practices — with no single dominant source. Together with a diverse group of faculty and researchers from the schools of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences; Architecture and Planning; Engineering; and Science; plus the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, Desiree Plata, associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is spearheading the MIT Methane Network, an integrated approach to formulating scalable new technologies, business models, and policy solutions for driving down levels of atmospheric methane.

      Q: What is the problem you are trying to solve and why is it a “grand challenge”?

      A: Removing methane from the atmosphere, or stopping it from getting there in the first place, could change the rates of global warming in our lifetimes, saving as much as half a degree of warming by 2050. Methane sources are distributed in space and time and tend to be very dilute, making the removal of methane a challenge that pushes the boundaries of contemporary science and engineering capabilities. Because the primary sources of atmospheric methane are linked to our economy and culture — from clearing wetlands for cultivation to natural gas extraction and dairy and meat production — the social and economic implications of a fundamentally changed methane management system are far-reaching. Nevertheless, these problems are tractable and could significantly reduce the effects of climate change in the near term.

      Q: What is known about the rapid rise in atmospheric methane and what questions remain unanswered?

      A: Tracking atmospheric methane is a challenge in and of itself, but it has become clear that emissions are large, accelerated by human activity, and cause damage right away. While some progress has been made in satellite-based measurements of methane emissions, there is a need to translate that data into actionable solutions. Several key questions remain around improving sensor accuracy and sensor network design to optimize placement, improve response time, and stop leaks with autonomous controls on the ground. Additional questions involve deploying low-level methane oxidation systems and novel catalytic materials at coal mines, dairy barns, and other enriched sources; evaluating the policy strategies and the socioeconomic impacts of new technologies with an eye toward decarbonization pathways; and scaling technology with viable business models that stimulate the economy while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

      Deploying versatile carbon capture technologies and storage at scale

      There is growing consensus that simply capturing current carbon dioxide emissions is no longer sufficient — it is equally important to target distributed sources such as the oceans and air where carbon dioxide has accumulated from past emissions. Betar Gallant, the American Bureau of Shipping Career Development Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, discusses her work with Bradford Hager, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Earth Sciences in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, and T. Alan Hatton, the Ralph Landau Professor of Chemical Engineering and director of the School of Chemical Engineering Practice, to dramatically advance the portfolio of technologies available for carbon capture and permanent storage at scale. (A team led by Assistant Professor Matěj Peč of EAPS is also addressing carbon capture and storage.)

      Q: Carbon capture and storage processes have been around for several decades. What advances are you seeking to make through this project?

      A: Today’s capture paradigms are costly, inefficient, and complex. We seek to address this challenge by developing a new generation of capture technologies that operate using renewable energy inputs, are sufficiently versatile to accommodate emerging industrial demands, are adaptive and responsive to varied societal needs, and can be readily deployed to a wider landscape.

      New approaches will require the redesign of the entire capture process, necessitating basic science and engineering efforts that are broadly interdisciplinary in nature. At the same time, incumbent technologies have been optimized largely for integration with coal- or natural gas-burning power plants. Future applications must shift away from legacy emitters in the power sector towards hard-to-mitigate sectors such as cement, iron and steel, chemical, and hydrogen production. It will become equally important to develop and optimize systems targeted for much lower concentrations of carbon dioxide, such as in oceans or air. Our effort will expand basic science studies as well as human impacts of storage, including how public engagement and education can alter attitudes toward greater acceptance of carbon dioxide geologic storage.

      Q: What are the expected impacts of your proposed solution, both positive and negative?

      A: Renewable energy cannot be deployed rapidly enough everywhere, nor can it supplant all emissions sources, nor can it account for past emissions. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) provides a demonstrated method to address emissions that will undoubtedly occur before the transition to low-carbon energy is completed. CCS can succeed even if other strategies fail. It also allows for developing nations, which may need to adopt renewables over longer timescales, to see equitable economic development while avoiding the most harmful climate impacts. And, CCS enables the future viability of many core industries and transportation modes, many of which do not have clear alternatives before 2050, let alone 2040 or 2030.

      The perceived risks of potential leakage and earthquakes associated with geologic storage can be minimized by choosing suitable geologic formations for storage. Despite CCS providing a well-understood pathway for removing enough of the carbon dioxide already emitted into the atmosphere, some environmentalists vigorously oppose it, fearing that CCS rewards oil companies and disincentivizes the transition away from fossil fuels. We believe that it is more important to keep in mind the necessity of meeting key climate targets for the sake of the planet, and welcome those who can help. More

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      Q&A: Randolph Kirchain on how cool pavements can mitigate climate change

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      As cities search for climate change solutions, many have turned to one burgeoning technology: cool pavements. By reflecting a greater proportion of solar radiation, cool pavements can offer an array of climate change mitigation benefits, from direct radiative forcing to reduced building energy demand.

      Yet, scientists from the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub) have found that cool pavements are not just a summertime solution. Here, Randolph Kirchain, a principal research scientist at CSHub, discusses how implementing cool pavements can offer myriad greenhouse gas reductions in cities — some of which occur even in the winter.

      Q: What exactly are cool pavements? 

      A: There are two ways to make a cool pavement: changing the pavement formulation to make the pavement porous like a sponge (a so-called “pervious pavement”), or paving with reflective materials. The latter method has been applied extensively because it can be easily adopted on the current road network with different traffic volumes while sustaining — and sometimes improving — the road longevity. To the average observer, surface reflectivity usually corresponds to the color of a pavement — the lighter, the more reflective. 

      We can quantify this surface reflectivity through a measurement called albedo, which refers to the percentage of light a surface reflects. Typically, a reflective pavement has an albedo of 0.3 or higher, meaning that it reflects 30 percent of the light it receives.

      To attain this reflectivity, there are a number of techniques at our disposal. The most common approach is to simply paint a brighter coating atop existing pavements. But it’s also possible to pave with materials that possess naturally greater reflectivity, such as concrete or lighter-colored binders and aggregates.

      Q: How can cool pavements mitigate climate change?

      A: Cool pavements generate several, often unexpected, effects. The most widely known is a reduction in surface and local air temperatures. This occurs because cool pavements absorb less radiation and, consequently, emit less of that radiation as heat. In the summer, this means they can lower urban air temperatures by several degrees Fahrenheit.

      By changing air temperatures or reflecting light into adjacent structures, cool pavements can also alter the need for heating and cooling in those structures, which can change their energy demand and, therefore, mitigate the climate change impacts associated with building energy demand.

      However, depending on how dense the neighborhood is built, a proportion of the radiation cool pavements reflect doesn’t strike buildings; instead, it travels back into the atmosphere and out into space. This process, called a radiative forcing, shifts the Earth’s energy balance and effectively offsets some of the radiation trapped by greenhouse gases (GHGs).

      Perhaps the least-known impact of cool pavements is on vehicle fuel consumption. Certain cool pavements, namely concrete, possess a combination of structural properties and longevity that can minimize the excess fuel consumption of vehicles caused by road quality. Over the lifetime of a pavement, these fuel savings can add up — often offsetting the higher initial footprint of paving with more durable materials.

      Q: With these impacts in mind, how do the effects of cool pavements vary seasonally and by location?

      A: Many view cool pavements as a solution to summer heat. But research has shown that they can offer climate change benefits throughout the year.

      In high-volume traffic roads, the most prominent climate change benefit of cool pavements is not their reflectivity but their impact on vehicle fuel consumption. As such, cool pavement alternatives that minimize fuel consumption can continue to cut GHG emissions in winter, assuming traffic is constant.

      Even in winter, pavement reflectivity still contributes greatly to the climate change mitigation benefits of cool pavements. We found that roughly a third of the annual CO2-equivalent emissions reductions from the radiative forcing effects of cool pavements occurred in the fall and winter.

      It’s important to note, too, that the direction — not just the magnitude — of cool pavement impacts also vary seasonally. The most prominent seasonal variation is the changes to building energy demand. As they lower air temperatures, cool pavements can lessen the demand for cooling in buildings in the summer, while, conversely, they can cause buildings to consume more energy and generate more emissions due to heating in the winter.

      Interestingly, the radiation reflected by cool pavements can also strike adjacent buildings, heating them up. In the summer, this can increase building energy demand significantly, yet in the winter it can also warm structures and reduce their need for heating. In that sense, cool pavements can warm — as well as cool — their surroundings, depending on the building insolation [solar exposure] systems and neighborhood density.

      Q: How can cities manage these many impacts?

      A: As you can imagine, such different and often competing impacts can complicate the implementation of cool pavements. In some contexts, for instance, a cool pavement might even generate more emissions over its life than a conventional pavement — despite lowering air temperatures.

      To ensure that the lowest-emitting pavement is selected, then, cities should use a life-cycle perspective that considers all potential impacts. When they do, research has shown that they can reap sizeable benefits. The city of Phoenix, for instance, could see its projected emissions fall by as much as 6 percent, while Boston would experience a reduction of up to 3 percent.

      These benefits don’t just demonstrate the potential of cool pavements: they also reflect the outsized impact of pavements on our built environment and, moreover, our climate. As cities move to fight climate change, they should know that one of their most extensive assets also presents an opportunity for greater sustainability.

      The MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub is a team of researchers from several departments across MIT working on concrete and infrastructure science, engineering, and economics. Its research is supported by the Portland Cement Association and the Ready Mixed Concrete Research and Education Foundation. More

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      MIT Center for Real Estate launches the Asia Real Estate Initiative

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      To appreciate the explosive urbanization taking place in Asia, consider this analogy: Every 40 days, a city the equivalent size of Boston is built in Asia. Of the $24.7 trillion real estate investment opportunities predicted by 2030 in emerging cities, $17.8 trillion (72 percent) will be in Asia. While this growth is exciting to the real estate industry, it brings with it the attendant social and environmental issues.

      To promote a sustainable and innovative approach to this growth, leadership at the MIT Center for Real Estate (MIT CRE) recently established the Asia Real Estate Initiative (AREI), which aims to become a platform for industry leaders, entrepreneurs, and the academic community to find solutions to the practical concerns of real estate development across these countries.

      “Behind the creation of this initiative is the understanding that Asia is a living lab for the study of future global urban development,” says Hashim Sarkis, dean of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning.

      An investment in cities of the future

      One of the areas in AREI’s scope of focus is connecting sustainability and technology in real estate.

      “We believe the real estate sector should work cooperatively with the energy, science, and technology sectors to solve the climate challenges,” says Richard Lester, the Institute’s associate provost for international activities. “AREI will engage academics and industry leaders, nongovernment organizations, and civic leaders globally and in Asia, to advance sharing knowledge and research.”

      In its effort to understand how trends and new technologies will impact the future of real estate, AREI has received initial support from a prominent alumnus of MIT CRE who wishes to remain anonymous. The gift will support a cohort of researchers working on innovative technologies applicable to advancing real estate sustainability goals, with a special focus on the global and Asia markets. The call for applications is already under way, with AREI seeking to collaborate with scholars who have backgrounds in economics, finance, urban planning, technology, engineering, and other disciplines.

      “The research on real estate sustainability and technology could transform this industry and help invent global real estate of the future,” says Professor Siqi Zheng, faculty director of MIT CRE and AREI faculty chair. “The pairing of real estate and technology often leads to innovative and differential real estate development strategies such as buildings that are green, smart, and healthy.”

      The initiative arrives at a key time to make a significant impact and cement a leadership role in real estate development across Asia. MIT CRE is positioned to help the industry increase its efficiency and social responsibility, with nearly 40 years of pioneering research in the field. Zheng, an established scholar with expertise on urban growth in fast-urbanizing regions, is the former president of the Asia Real Estate Society and sits on the Board of American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association. Her research has been supported by international institutions including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

      “The researchers in AREI are now working on three interrelated themes: the future of real estate and live-work-play dynamics; connecting sustainability and technology in real estate; and innovations in real estate finance and business,” says Zheng.

      The first theme has already yielded a book — “Toward Urban Economic Vibrancy: Patterns and Practices in Asia’s New Cities” — recently published by SA+P Press.

      Engaging thought leaders and global stakeholders

      AREI also plans to collaborate with counterparts in Asia to contribute to research, education, and industry dialogue to meet the challenges of sustainable city-making across the continent and identify areas for innovation. Traditionally, real estate has been a very local business with a lengthy value chain, according to Zhengzhen Tan, director of AREI. Most developers focused their career on one particular product type in one particular regional market. AREI is working to change that dynamic.

      “We want to create a cross-border dialogue within Asia and among Asia, North America, and European leaders to exchange knowledge and practices,” says Tan. “The real estate industry’s learning costs are very high compared to other sectors. Collective learning will reduce the cost of failure and have a significant impact on these global issues.”

      The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow shed additional light on environmental commitments being made by governments in Asia. With real estate representing 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the Asian real estate market is undergoing an urgent transformation to deliver on this commitment.

      “One of the most pressing calls is to get to net-zero emissions for real estate development and operation,” says Tan. “Real estate investors and developers are making short- and long-term choices that are locking in environmental footprints for the ‘decisive decade.’ We hope to inspire developers and investors to think differently and get out of their comfort zone.” More

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      Q&A: Climate Grand Challenges finalists on building equity and fairness into climate solutions

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      Note: This is the first in a four-part interview series that will highlight the work of the Climate Grand Challenges finalists, ahead of the April announcement of several multiyear, flagship projects.

      The finalists in MIT’s first-ever Climate Grand Challenges competition each received $100,000 to develop bold, interdisciplinary research and innovation plans designed to attack some of the world’s most difficult and unresolved climate problems. The 27 teams are addressing four Grand Challenge problem areas: building equity and fairness into climate solutions; decarbonizing complex industries and processes; removing, managing, and storing greenhouse gases; and using data and science for improved climate risk forecasting.  

      In a conversation prepared for MIT News, faculty from three of the teams in the competition’s “Building equity and fairness into climate solutions” category share their thoughts on the need for inclusive solutions that prioritize disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, and discuss how they are working to accelerate their research to achieve the greatest impact. The following responses have been edited for length and clarity.

      The Equitable Resilience Framework

      Any effort to solve the most complex global climate problems must recognize the unequal burdens borne by different groups, communities, and societies — and should be equitable as well as effective. Janelle Knox-Hayes, associate professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, leads a team that is developing processes and practices for equitable resilience, starting with a local pilot project in Boston over the next five years and extending to other cities and regions of the country. The Equitable Resilience Framework (ERF) is designed to create long-term economic, social, and environmental transformations by increasing the capacity of interconnected systems and communities to respond to a broad range of climate-related events. 

      Q: What is the problem you are trying to solve?

      A: Inequity is one of the severe impacts of climate change and resonates in both mitigation and adaptation efforts. It is important for climate strategies to address challenges of inequity and, if possible, to design strategies that enhance justice, equity, and inclusion, while also enhancing the efficacy of mitigation and adaptation efforts. Our framework offers a blueprint for how communities, cities, and regions can begin to undertake this work.

      Q: What are the most significant barriers that have impacted progress to date?

      A: There is considerable inertia in policymaking. Climate change requires a rethinking, not only of directives but pathways and techniques of policymaking. This is an obstacle and part of the reason our project was designed to scale up from local pilot projects. Another consideration is that the private sector can be more adaptive and nimble in its adoption of creative techniques. Working with the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium there may be ways in which we could modify the ERF to help companies address similar internal adaptation and resilience challenges.

      Protecting and enhancing natural carbon sinks

      Deforestation and forest degradation of strategic ecosystems in the Amazon, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia continue to reduce capacity to capture and store carbon through natural systems and threaten even the most aggressive decarbonization plans. John Fernandez, professor in the Department of Architecture and director of the Environmental Solutions Initiative, reflects on his work with Daniela Rus, professor of electrical engineering and computer science and director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and Joann de Zegher, assistant professor of Operations Management at MIT Sloan, to protect tropical forests by deploying a three-part solution that integrates targeted technology breakthroughs, deep community engagement, and innovative bioeconomic opportunities. 

      Q: Why is the problem you seek to address a “grand challenge”?

      A: We are trying to bring the latest technology to monitoring, assessing, and protecting tropical forests, as well as other carbon-rich and highly biodiverse ecosystems. This is a grand challenge because natural sinks around the world are threatening to release enormous quantities of stored carbon that could lead to runaway global warming. When combined with deep community engagement, particularly with indigenous and afro-descendant communities, this integrated approach promises to deliver substantially enhanced efficacy in conservation coupled to robust and sustainable local development.

      Q: What is known about this problem and what questions remain unanswered?

      A: Satellites, drones, and other technologies are acquiring more data about natural carbon sinks than ever before. The problem is well-described in certain locations such as the eastern Amazon, which has shifted from a net carbon sink to now a net positive carbon emitter. It is also well-known that indigenous peoples are the most effective stewards of the ecosystems that store the greatest amounts of carbon. One of the key questions that remains to be answered is determining the bioeconomy opportunities inherent within the natural wealth of tropical forests and other important ecosystems that are important to sustained protection and conservation.

      Reducing group-based disparities in climate adaptation

      Race, ethnicity, caste, religion, and nationality are often linked to vulnerability to the adverse effects of climate change, and if left unchecked, threaten to exacerbate long standing inequities. A team led by Evan Lieberman, professor of political science and director of the MIT Global Diversity Lab and MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives, Danielle Wood, assistant professor in the Program in Media Arts and Sciences and the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Siqi Zheng, professor of urban and real estate sustainability in the Center for Real Estate and the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, is seeking to  reduce ethnic and racial group-based disparities in the capacity of urban communities to adapt to the changing climate. Working with partners in nine coastal cities, they will measure the distribution of climate-related burdens and resiliency through satellites, a custom mobile app, and natural language processing of social media, to help design and test communication campaigns that provide accurate information about risks and remediation to impacted groups. 

      Q: How has this problem evolved?

      A: Group-based disparities continue to intensify within and across countries, owing in part to some randomness in the location of adverse climate events, as well as deep legacies of unequal human development. In turn, economically and politically privileged groups routinely hoard resources for adaptation. In a few cases — notably the United States, Brazil, and with respect to climate-related migrancy, in South Asia — there has been a great deal of research documenting the extent of such disparities. However, we lack common metrics, and for the most part, such disparities are only understood where key actors have politicized the underlying problems. In much of the world, relatively vulnerable and excluded groups may not even be fully aware of the nature of the challenges they face or the resources they require.

      Q: Who will benefit most from your research? 

      A: The greatest beneficiaries will be members of those vulnerable groups who lack the resources and infrastructure to withstand adverse climate shocks. We believe that it will be important to develop solutions such that relatively privileged groups do not perceive them as punitive or zero-sum, but rather as long-term solutions for collective benefit that are both sound and just. More

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      MIT entrepreneurs think globally, act locally

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      Born and raised amid the natural beauty of the Dominican Republic, Andrés Bisonó León feels a deep motivation to help solve a problem that has been threatening the Caribbean island nation’s tourism industry, its economy, and its people.

      As Bisonó León discussed with his long-time friend and mentor, the Walter M. May and A. Hazel May Professor of Mechanical Engineering (MechE) Alexander Slocum Sr., ugly mats of toxic sargassum seaweed have been encroaching on the Dominican Republic’s pristine beaches and other beaches in the Caribbean region, and public and private organizations have fought a losing battle using expensive, environmentally damaging methods to clean it up. Slocum, who was on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Deepwater Horizon team, has extensive experience with systems that operate in the ocean.

      “In the last 10 years,” says Bisonó León, now an MBA candidate in the MIT Sloan School of Management, “sargassum, a toxic seaweed invasion, has cost the Caribbean as much as $120 million a year in cleanup and has meant a 30 to 35 percent tourism reduction, affecting not only the tourism industry, but also the environment, marine life, local economies, and human health.”

      One of Bisonó León’s discussions with Slocum took place within earshot of MechE alumnus Luke Gray ’18, SM ’20, who had worked with Slocum on other projects and was at the time was about to begin his master’s program.

      “Professor Slocum and Andrés happened to be discussing the sargassum problem in Andrés’ home country,” Gray says. “A week later I was on a plane to the DR to collect sargassum samples and survey the problem in Punta Cana. When I returned, my master’s program was underway, and I already had my thesis project!”

      Gray also had started a working partnership with Bisonó León, which both say proceeded seamlessly right from the first moment.

      “I feel that Luke right away understood the magnitude of the problem and the value we could create in the Dominican Republic and across the Caribbean by teaming up,” Bisonó León says.

      Both Bisonó León and Gray also say they felt a responsibility to work toward helping the global environment.

      “All of my major projects up until now have involved machines for climate restoration and/or adaptation,” says Gray.

      The technologies Bisonó León and Gray arrived at after 18 months of R&D were designed to provide solutions both locally and globally.

      Their Littoral Collection Module (LCM) skims sargassum seaweed off the surface of the water with nets that can be mounted on any boat. The device sits across the boat, with two large hoops holding the nets open, one on each side. As the boat travels forward, it cuts through the seaweed, which flows to the sides of the vessel and through the hoops into the nets. Effective at sweeping the seaweed from the water, the device can be employed by anyone with a boat, including local fishermen whose livelihoods have been disrupted by the seaweed’s damaging effect on tourism and the local economy.

      The sargassum can then be towed out to sea, where Bisonó León’s and Gray’s second technology can come into play. By pumping the seaweed into very deep water, where it then sinks to the bottom of the ocean, the carbon in the seaweed can be sequestered. Other methods for disposing of the seaweed generally involve putting it into landfills, where it emits greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide as it breaks down. Although some seaweed can be put to other uses, including as fertilizer, sargassum has been found to contain hard-to-remove toxic substances such as arsenic and heavy metals.

      In spring 2020, Bisonó León and Gray formed a company, SOS (Sargassum Ocean Sequestration) Carbon.

      Bisonó León says he comes from a long line of entrepreneurs who often expressed much commitment to social impact. His family has been involved in several different industries, his grandfather and great uncles having opened the first cigar factory in the Dominican Republic in 1903.

      Gray says internships with startup companies and the undergraduate projects he did with Slocum developed his interest in entrepreneurship, and his involvement with the sargassum problem only reinforced that inclination. During his master’s program, he says he became “obsessed” with finding a solution.

      “Professor Slocum let me think extremely big, and so it was almost inevitable that the distillation of our two years of work would continue in some form, and starting a company happened to be the right path. My master’s experience of taking an essentially untouched problem like sargassum and then one year later designing, building, and sending 15,000 pounds of custom equipment to test for three months on a Dominican Navy ship made me realize I had discovered a recipe I could repeat — and machine design had become my core competency,” Gray says.

      During the initial research and development of their technologies, Bisonó León and Gray raised $258,000 from 20 different organizations. Between June and December 2021, they succeeded in removing 3.5 million pounds of sargassum and secured contracts with Grupo Puntacana, which operates several tourist resorts, and with other hotels such as Club Med in Punta Cana. The company subcontracts with the association of fishermen in Punta Cana, employing 15 fishermen who operate LCMs and training 35 others to join as the operation expands.

      Their success so far demonstrates “’mens et manus’ at work,” says Slocum, referring to MIT’s motto, which is Latin for “mind and hand.” “Geeks hear about a very real problem that affects very real people who have no other option for their livelihoods, and they respond by inventing a solution so elegant that it can be readily deployed by those most hurt by the problem to address the problem.

      “The team was always focused on the numbers, from physics to finance, and did not let hype or doubts deter their determination to rationally solve this huge problem.”

      Slocum says he could predict Bisonó León and Gray would work well together “because they started out as good, smart people with complementary skills whose hearts and minds were in the right place.”

      “We are working on having a global impact to reduce millions of tons of CO2 per year,” says Bisonó León. “With training from Sloan and cross-disciplinary collaborative spirit, we will be able to further expand environmental and social impact platforms much needed in the Caribbean to be able to drive real change regionally and globally.”

      “I hope SOS Carbon can serve as a model and inspire similar entrepreneurial efforts,” Gray says. More

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      Advancing public understanding of sea-level rise

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      Museum exhibits can be a unique way to communicate science concepts and information. Recently, MIT faculty have served as sounding boards for curators at the Museum of Science, Boston, a close neighbor of the MIT campus.

      In January, Professor Emerita Paola Malanotte-Rizzoli and Cecil and Ida Green Professor Raffaele Ferrari of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science (EAPS) visited the museum to view the newly opened pilot exhibit, “Resilient Venice: Adapting to Climate Change.”

      When Malanotte-Rizzoli was asked to contribute her expertise on the efforts in Venice, Italy, to mitigate flood damage, she was more than willing to offer her knowledge. “I love Venice. It is fun to tell people all of the challenges which you see the lagoon has … how much must be done to preserve, not only the city, but the environment, the islands and buildings,” she says.

      The installation is the second Museum of Science exhibit to be developed in recent years in consultation with EAPS scientists. In December 2020, “Arctic Adventure: Exploring with Technology” opened with the help of Cecil and Ida Green Career Development Professor Brent Minchew, who lent his expertise in geophysics and glaciology to the project. But for Malanotte-Rizzoli, the new exhibit hits a little closer to home.

      “My house is there,” Malanotte-Rizzoli excitedly pointed out on the exhibit’s aerial view of Venice, which includes a view above St. Mark’s Square and some of the surrounding city.

      “Resilient Venice” focuses on Malanotte-Rizzoli’s hometown, a city known for flooding. Built on a group of islands in the Venetian Lagoon, Venice has always experienced flooding, but climate change has brought unprecedented tide levels, causing billions of dollars in damages and even causing two deaths in the flood of 2019.

      The dark exhibit hall is lined with immersive images created by Iconem, a startup whose mission is digital preservation of endangered World Heritage Sites. The firm took detailed 3D scans and images of Venice to put together the displays and video.

      The video on which Malanotte-Rizzoli pointed to her home shows the potential sea level rise by 2100 if action isn’t taken. It shows the entrance to St. Mark’s Basilica completely submerged in water; she compares it to the disaster movie “The Day After Tomorrow.”

      The MOSE system

      Between critiques of the choice of music (“that’s not very Venice-inspired,” joked Ferrari, who is also Italian) and bits of conversation exchanged in Italian, the two scientists do what scientists do: discuss technicalities.

      Ferrari pointed to a model of a gate system and asked Malanotte-Rizzoli if the hydraulic jump seen in the model is present in the MOSE system; she confirmed it is not.

      This is the part of the exhibit that Malanotte-Rizzoli was consulted on. One of the plans Venice has implemented to address the flooding is the MOSE system — short for Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico, or the Experimental Electromechanical Module. The MOSE is a system of flood barriers designed to protect the city from extremely high tides. Construction began in 2003, and its first successful operation happened on Oct. 3, 2020, when it prevented a tide 53 inches above normal from flooding the city.

      The barriers are made of a series of gates, each 66-98 feet in length and 66 feet wide, which sit in chambers built into the sea floor when not in use to allow boats and wildlife to travel between the ocean and lagoon. The gates are filled with water to keep them submerged; when activated, air is pumped into them, pushing out the water and allowing them to rise. The entire process takes 30 minutes to complete, and half that time to return to the sea floor.

      The top of the gates in the MOSE come out of the water completely and are individually controlled so that sections can remain open to allow ships to pass through. In the model, the gate remains partially submerged, and as the high-velocity water passes over it into an area of low velocity, it creates a small rise of water before it falls over the edge of the barrier, creating a hydraulic jump.

      But Malanotte-Rizzoli joked that only scientists will care about that; otherwise, the model does a good job demonstrating how the MOSE gates rise and fall.

      The MOSE system is only one of many plans taken to mitigate the rising water levels in Venice and to protect the lagoon and the surrounding area, and this is an important point for Malanotte-Rizzoli, who worked on the project from 1995 to 2013.

      “It is not the MOSE or,” she emphasized. “It is the MOSE and.” Other complementary plans have been implemented to reduce harm to both economic sectors, such as shipping and tourism, as well as the wildlife that live in the lagoons.

      Beyond barriers

      There’s more to protecting Venice than navigating flooded streets — it’s not just “putting on rainboots,” as Malanotte-Rizzoli put it.

      “It’s destroying the walls,” she said, pointing out the corrosive effects of water on a model building, which emphasizes the damage to architecture caused by the unusually high flood levels. “People don’t think about this.” The exhibit also emphasizes the economic costs of businesses lost by having visitors take down and rebuild a flood barrier for a gelato shop with the rising and falling water levels.

      Malanotte-Rizzoli gave the exhibit her seal of approval, but the Venice section is only a small portion of what the finished exhibit will look like. The current plan involves expanding it to include a few other World Heritage Sites.

      “How do we make people care about a site that they haven’t been to?” asked Julia Tate, the project manager of touring exhibits and exhibit production at the museum. She said that it’s easy to start with a city like Venice, since it’s a popular tourist destination. But it becomes trickier to get people to care about a site that they maybe haven’t been to, such as the Easter Islands, that are just as much at risk. The plan is to incorporate a few more sites before turning it into a traveling exhibit that will end by asking visitors to think about climate change in their own towns.

      “We want them to think about solutions and how to do better,” said Tate. Hope is the alternative message: It’s not too late to act.

      Malanotte-Rizzoli thinks it’s important for Bostonians to see their own city in Venice, as Boston is also at risk from sea level rise. The history of Boston reminds Malanotte-Rizzoli about her hometown and is one of the reasons why she was willing to emigrate. The history encompassed in Boston makes the need for preservation even more important.

      “Those things that cannot be replaced, they must be respected in the process of preservation,” she said. “Modern things and engineering can be done even in a city which is so fragile, so delicate.” More

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      in Environment

      3 Questions: The future of international education

      by

      Evan Lieberman is the Total Professor of Political Science and Contemporary Africa in the MIT Department of Political Science. He conducts research in the field of comparative politics, with a focus on development and ethnic conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. He directs the Global Diversity Lab (GDL) and was recently named faculty director of the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI), MIT’s global experiential learning program. Here, Lieberman describes international education and its import for solving global problems.

      Q: Why is now an especially important time for international education?

      A: The major challenges we currently face — climate change, the pandemic, supply chain management — are all global problems that require global solutions. We will need to collaborate across borders to a greater extent than ever before. There is no time more pressing for students to gain an international outlook on these challenges; the ideas, thinking, and perspectives from other parts of the world; and to build global networks. And yet, most of us have stayed very close to home for the past couple of years. While remote internships and communications have offered temporary solutions when travel was limited, these have been decidedly inferior to the opportunities for learning and making connections through in-person cultural and collaborative experiences at the heart of MISTI. It is important for students and faculty to be able to thrive in an interconnected world as they navigate their research/careers during this unusual time. The changing landscape of the past few years has left all of us somewhat anxious. Nonetheless, I am buoyed by important examples of global collaboration in problem-solving, with scientists, governments and other organizations working together on the things that unite us all.

      Q: How is MIT uniquely positioned to provide global opportunities for students and faculty?

      A: MISTI is a unique program with a long history of building robust partnerships with industry, universities, and other sectors in countries around the world, establishing opportunities that complement MIT students’ unique skill sets. MIT is fortunate to be the home of some of the top students and faculty in the world, and this is a benefit to partners seeking collaborators. The broad range of disciplines across the entire institute provides opportunities to match in nearly every sector. MISTI’s rigorous, country-specific preparation ensures that students build durable cultural connections while abroad and empowers them to play a role in addressing critical global challenges. The combination of technical and humanistic training that MIT students receive are exactly the profiles necessary to take advantage of opportunities abroad, hopefully with a long-term impact. Student participants have a depth of knowledge in their subject areas as well as MIT’s one-of-a-kind education model that is exceptionally valuable. The diversity of our community offers a wide variety of perspectives and life experiences, on top of academic expertise. Also, MISTI’s donor-funded programs provide the unique ability for all students to be able to participate in international programs, regardless of financial situation. This is a direct contrast with internship programs that often skew toward participants with little-to-no financial need.

      Q: How do these kinds of collaborations help tackle global problems?

      A: Of course, we don’t expect that even intensive internships of a few months are going to generate the global solutions we need. It is our hope that our students — who we anticipate being leaders in a range of sectors — will opt for global careers, and/or bring a global perspective to their work and in their lives. We believe that by building on their MISTI experiences and training, they will be able to forge the types of collaborations that lead to equity-enhancing solutions to universal problems — the climate emergency, ongoing threats to global public health, the liabilities associated with the computing revolution — and are able to improve human development more generally.

      More than anything, at MISTI we are planting the seeds for longer-term collaborations. We literally grant several millions of dollars in seed funds to establish faculty-led collaborations with student involvement in addition to supporting hundreds of internships around the world. The MISTI Global Seed Funds (GSF) program compounds the Institute’s impact by supporting partnerships abroad that often turn into long-standing research relationships addressing the critical challenges that require international solutions. GSF projects often have an impact far beyond their original scope. For example, a number of MISTI GSF projects have utilized their results to jump-start research efforts to combat the pandemic. More

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      in Energy

      First-ever Climate Grand Challenges recognizes 27 finalists

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      All-carbon buildings, climate-resilient crops, and new tools to improve the prediction of extreme weather events are just a few of the 27 bold, interdisciplinary research projects selected as finalists from a field of almost 100 proposals in the first MIT Climate Grand Challenges competition. Each of the finalist teams received $100,000 to develop a comprehensive research and innovation plan.

      A subset of the finalists will make up a portfolio of multiyear projects that will receive additional funding and other support to develop high-impact, science-based mitigation and adaptation solutions on an accelerated basis. These flagship projects, which will be announced later this spring, will augment the work of the many MIT units already pursuing climate-related research activities.

      “Climate change poses a suite of challenges of immense urgency, complexity and scale. At MIT, we are bringing our particular strengths to bear through our community — a rare concentration of ingenuity and determination, rooted in a vibrant innovation ecosystem,” President L. Rafael Reif says. “Through MIT’s Climate Grand Challenges, we are engaging hundreds of our brilliant faculty and researchers in the search for solutions with enormous potential for impact.”

      The Climate Grand Challenges launched in July 2020 with the goal of mobilizing the entire MIT research community around developing solutions to some of the most complex unsolved problems in emissions reduction, climate change adaptation and resilience, risk forecasting, carbon removal, and understanding the human impacts of climate change.

      An event in April will showcase the flagship projects, bringing together public and private sector partners with the MIT teams to begin assembling the necessary resources for developing, implementing, and scaling these solutions rapidly.

      A whole-of-MIT effort

      Part of a wide array of major climate programs outlined last year in “Fast Forward: MIT’s Climate Action Plan for the Decade,” the Climate Grand Challenges focuses on problems where progress depends on the application of forefront knowledge in the physical, life, and social sciences and the advancement of cutting-edge technologies.

      “We don’t have the luxury of time in responding to the intensifying climate crisis,” says Vice President for Research Maria Zuber, who oversees the implementation of MIT’s climate action plan. “The Climate Grand Challenges are about marshaling the wide and deep knowledge and methods of the MIT community around transformative research that can help accelerate our collective response to climate change.”

      If successful, the solutions will have tangible effects, changing the way people live and work. Examples of these new approaches range from developing cost-competitive long-term energy-storage systems to using drone technologies and artificial intelligence to study the role of the deep ocean in the climate crisis. Many projects also aim to increase the humanistic understanding of these phenomena, recognizing that technological advances alone will not address the widespread impacts of climate change, and a comparable behavioral and cultural shift is needed to stave off future threats.

      “To achieve net-zero emissions later this century we must deploy the tools and technologies we already have,” says Richard Lester, associate provost for international activities. “But we’re still far from having everything needed to get there in ways that are equitable and affordable. Nor do we have the solutions in hand that will allow communities — especially the most vulnerable ones — to adapt to the disruptions that will occur even if the world does get to net-zero. Climate Grand Challenges is creating a new opportunity for the MIT research community to attack some of these hard, unsolved problems, and to engage with partners in industry, government, and the nonprofit sector to accelerate the whole cycle of activities needed to implement solutions at scale.” 

      Selecting the finalist projects

      A 24-person faculty committee convened by Lester and Zuber with members from all five of MIT’s schools and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing led the planning and initial call for ideas. A smaller group of committee members was charged with evaluating nearly 100 letters of interest, representing 90 percent of MIT departments and ​​involving almost 400 MIT faculty members and senior researchers as well as colleagues from other research institutions.

      “Effectively confronting the climate emergency requires risk taking and sustained investment over a period of many decades,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, dean of the School of Engineering. “We have a responsibility to use our incredible resources and expertise to tackle some of the most challenging problems in climate mitigation and adaptation, and the opportunity to make major advances globally.”

      Lester and Zuber charged a second faculty committee with organizing a rigorous and thorough evaluation of the plans developed by the 27 finalist teams. Drawing on an extensive review process involving international panels of prominent experts, MIT will announce a small group of flagship Grand Challenge projects in April. 

      Each of the 27 finalist teams is addressing one of four broad Grand Challenge problems:

      Building equity and fairness into climate solutions

      Policy innovation and experimentation for effective and equitable climate solutions, led by Abhijit Banerjee, Iqbal Dhaliwal, and Claire Walsh
      Protecting and enhancing natural carbon sinks – Natural Climate and Community Solutions (NCCS), led by John Fernandez, Daniela Rus, and Joann de Zegher
      Reducing group-based disparities in climate adaptation, led by Evan Lieberman, Danielle Wood, and Siqi Zheng
      Reinventing climate change adaptation – The Climate Resilience Early Warning System (CREWSnet), led by John Aldridge and Elfatih Eltahir
      The Deep Listening Project: Communication infrastructure for collaborative adaptation, led by Eric Gordon, Yihyun Lim, and James Paradis
      The Equitable Resilience Framework, led by Janelle Knox-Hayes

      Decarbonizing complex industries and processes

      Carbon >Building, led by Mark Goulthorpe
      Center for Electrification and Decarbonization of Industry, led by Yet-Ming Chiang and Bilge Yildiz
      Decarbonizing and strengthening the global energy infrastructure using nuclear batteries, led by Jacopo Buongiorno
      Emissions reduction through innovation in the textile industry, led by Yuly Fuentes-Medel and Greg Rutledge
      Rapid decarbonization of freight mobility, led by Yossi Sheffi and Matthias Winkenbach
      Revolutionizing agriculture with low-emissions, resilient crops, led by Christopher Voigt
      Solar fuels as a vector for climate change mitigation, led by Yuriy Román-Leshkov and Yogesh Surendranath
      The MIT Low-Carbon Co-Design Institute, led by Audun Botterud, Dharik Mallapragada, and Robert Stoner
      Tough to Decarbonize Transportation, led by Steven Barrett and William Green

      Removing, managing, and storing greenhouse gases

      Demonstrating safe, globally distributed geological CO2 storage at scale, led by Bradford Hager, Howard Herzog, and Ruben Juanes
      Deploying versatile carbon capture technologies and storage at scale, led by Betar Gallant, Bradford Hager, and T. Alan Hatton
      Directed Evolution of Biological Carbon Fixation Working Group at MIT (DEBC-MIT), led by Edward Boyden and Matthew Shoulders
      Managing sources and sinks of carbon in terrestrial and coastal ecosystems, led by Charles Harvey, Tami Lieberman, and Heidi Nepf
      Strategies to Reduce Atmospheric Methane, led by Desiree Plata

      The Advanced Carbon Mineralization Initiative, led by Edward Boyden, Matěj Peč, and Yogesh Surendranath

      Using data and science to forecast climate-related risk

      Bringing computation to the climate challenge, led by Noelle Eckley Selin and Raffaele Ferrari
      Ocean vital signs, led by Christopher Hill and Ryan Woosley
      Preparing for a new world of weather and climate extremes, led by Kerry Emanuel, Miho Mazereeuw, and Paul O’Gorman
      Quantifying and managing the risks of sea-level rise, led by Brent Minchew
      Stratospheric Airborne Climate Observatory System to initiate a climate risk forecasting revolution, led by R. John Hansman and Brent Minchew
      The future of coasts – Changing flood risk for coastal communities in the developing world, led by Dara Entekhabi, Miho Mazereeuw, and Danielle Wood

      To learn more about the MIT Climate Grand Challenges, visit climategrandchallenges.mit.edu. More