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    Taking the “training wheels” off clean energy

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    Renewable power sources have seen unprecedented levels of investment in recent years. But with political uncertainty clouding the future of subsidies for green energy, these technologies must begin to compete with fossil fuels on equal footing, said participants at the 2025 MIT Energy Conference.“What these technologies need less is training wheels, and more of a level playing field,” said Brian Deese, an MIT Institute Innovation Fellow, during a conference-opening keynote panel.The theme of the two-day conference, which is organized each year by MIT students, was “Breakthrough to deployment: Driving climate innovation to market.” Speakers largely expressed optimism about advancements in green technology, balanced by occasional notes of alarm about a rapidly changing regulatory and political environment.Deese defined what he called “the good, the bad, and the ugly” of the current energy landscape. The good: Clean energy investment in the United States hit an all-time high of $272 billion in 2024. The bad: Announcements of future investments have tailed off. And the ugly: Macro conditions are making it more difficult for utilities and private enterprise to build out the clean energy infrastructure needed to meet growing energy demands.“We need to build massive amounts of energy capacity in the United States,” Deese said. “And the three things that are the most allergic to building are high uncertainty, high interest rates, and high tariff rates. So that’s kind of ugly. But the question … is how, and in what ways, that underlying commercial momentum can drive through this period of uncertainty.”A shifting clean energy landscapeDuring a panel on artificial intelligence and growth in electricity demand, speakers said that the technology may serve as a catalyst for green energy breakthroughs, in addition to putting strain on existing infrastructure. “Google is committed to building digital infrastructure responsibly, and part of that means catalyzing the development of clean energy infrastructure that is not only meeting the AI need, but also benefiting the grid as a whole,” said Lucia Tian, head of clean energy and decarbonization technologies at Google.Across the two days, speakers emphasized that the cost-per-unit and scalability of clean energy technologies will ultimately determine their fate. But they also acknowledged the impact of public policy, as well as the need for government investment to tackle large-scale issues like grid modernization.Vanessa Chan, a former U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) official and current vice dean of innovation and entrepreneurship at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, warned of the “knock-on” effects of the move to slash National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for indirect research costs, for example. “In reality, what you’re doing is undercutting every single academic institution that does research across the nation,” she said.During a panel titled “No clean energy transition without transmission,” Maria Robinson, former director of the DoE’s Grid Deployment Office, said that ratepayers alone will likely not be able to fund the grid upgrades needed to meet growing power demand. “The amount of investment we’re going to need over the next couple of years is going to be significant,” she said. “That’s where the federal government is going to have to play a role.”David Cohen-Tanugi, a clean energy venture builder at MIT, noted that extreme weather events have changed the climate change conversation in recent years. “There was a narrative 10 years ago that said … if we start talking about resilience and adaptation to climate change, we’re kind of throwing in the towel or giving up,” he said. “I’ve noticed a very big shift in the investor narrative, the startup narrative, and more generally, the public consciousness. There’s a realization that the effects of climate change are already upon us.”“Everything on the table”The conference featured panels and keynote addresses on a range of emerging clean energy technologies, including hydrogen power, geothermal energy, and nuclear fusion, as well as a session on carbon capture.Alex Creely, a chief engineer at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, explained that fusion (the combining of small atoms into larger atoms, which is the same process that fuels stars) is safer and potentially more economical than traditional nuclear power. Fusion facilities, he said, can be powered down instantaneously, and companies like his are developing new, less-expensive magnet technology to contain the extreme heat produced by fusion reactors.By the early 2030s, Creely said, his company hopes to be operating 400-megawatt power plants that use only 50 kilograms of fuel per year. “If you can get fusion working, it turns energy into a manufacturing product, not a natural resource,” he said.Quinn Woodard Jr., senior director of power generation and surface facilities at geothermal energy supplier Fervo Energy, said his company is making the geothermal energy more economical through standardization, innovation, and economies of scale. Traditionally, he said, drilling is the largest cost in producing geothermal power. Fervo has “completely flipped the cost structure” with advances in drilling, Woodard said, and now the company is focused on bringing down its power plant costs.“We have to continuously be focused on cost, and achieving that is paramount for the success of the geothermal industry,” he said.One common theme across the conference: a number of approaches are making rapid advancements, but experts aren’t sure when — or, in some cases, if — each specific technology will reach a tipping point where it is capable of transforming energy markets.“I don’t want to get caught in a place where we often descend in this climate solution situation, where it’s either-or,” said Peter Ellis, global director of nature climate solutions at The Nature Conservancy. “We’re talking about the greatest challenge civilization has ever faced. We need everything on the table.”The road aheadSeveral speakers stressed the need for academia, industry, and government to collaborate in pursuit of climate and energy goals. Amy Luers, senior global director of sustainability for Microsoft, compared the challenge to the Apollo spaceflight program, and she said that academic institutions need to focus more on how to scale and spur investments in green energy.“The challenge is that academic institutions are not currently set up to be able to learn the how, in driving both bottom-up and top-down shifts over time,” Luers said. “If the world is going to succeed in our road to net zero, the mindset of academia needs to shift. And fortunately, it’s starting to.”During a panel called “From lab to grid: Scaling first-of-a-kind energy technologies,” Hannan Happi, CEO of renewable energy company Exowatt, stressed that electricity is ultimately a commodity. “Electrons are all the same,” he said. “The only thing [customers] care about with regards to electrons is that they are available when they need them, and that they’re very cheap.”Melissa Zhang, principal at Azimuth Capital Management, noted that energy infrastructure development cycles typically take at least five to 10 years — longer than a U.S. political cycle. However, she warned that green energy technologies are unlikely to receive significant support at the federal level in the near future. “If you’re in something that’s a little too dependent on subsidies … there is reason to be concerned over this administration,” she said.World Energy CEO Gene Gebolys, the moderator of the lab-to-grid panel, listed off a number of companies founded at MIT. “They all have one thing in common,” he said. “They all went from somebody’s idea, to a lab, to proof-of-concept, to scale. It’s not like any of this stuff ever ends. It’s an ongoing process.” More

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      Toward sustainable decarbonization of aviation in Latin America

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      According to the International Energy Agency, aviation accounts for about 2 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, and aviation emissions are expected to double by mid-century as demand for domestic and international air travel rises. To sharply reduce emissions in alignment with the Paris Agreement’s long-term goal to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has set a goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Which raises the question: Are there technologically feasible and economically viable strategies to reach that goal within the next 25 years?To begin to address that question, a team of researchers at the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy (CS3) and the MIT Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment has spent the past year analyzing aviation decarbonization options in Latin America, where air travel is expected to more than triple by 2050 and thereby double today’s aviation-related emissions in the region.Chief among those options is the development and deployment of sustainable aviation fuel. Currently produced from low- and zero-carbon sources (feedstock) including municipal waste and non-food crops, and requiring practically no alteration of aircraft systems or refueling infrastructure, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) has the potential to perform just as well as petroleum-based jet fuel with as low as 20 percent of its carbon footprint.Focused on Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru, the researchers assessed SAF feedstock availability, the costs of corresponding SAF pathways, and how SAF deployment would likely impact fuel use, prices, emissions, and aviation demand in each country. They also explored how efficiency improvements and market-based mechanisms could help the region to reach decarbonization targets. The team’s findings appear in a CS3 Special Report.SAF emissions, costs, and sourcesUnder an ambitious emissions mitigation scenario designed to cap global warming at 1.5 C and raise the rate of SAF use in Latin America to 65 percent by 2050, the researchers projected aviation emissions to be reduced by about 60 percent in 2050 compared to a scenario in which existing climate policies are not strengthened. To achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, other measures would be required, such as improvements in operational and air traffic efficiencies, airplane fleet renewal, alternative forms of propulsion, and carbon offsets and removals.As of 2024, jet fuel prices in Latin America are around $0.70 per liter. Based on the current availability of feedstocks, the researchers projected SAF costs within the six countries studied to range from $1.11 to $2.86 per liter. They cautioned that increased fuel prices could affect operating costs of the aviation sector and overall aviation demand unless strategies to manage price increases are implemented.Under the 1.5 C scenario, the total cumulative capital investments required to build new SAF producing plants between 2025 and 2050 were estimated at $204 billion for the six countries (ranging from $5 billion in Ecuador to $84 billion in Brazil). The researchers identified sugarcane- and corn-based ethanol-to-jet fuel, palm oil- and soybean-based hydro-processed esters and fatty acids as the most promising feedstock sources in the near term for SAF production in Latin America.“Our findings show that SAF offers a significant decarbonization pathway, which must be combined with an economy-wide emissions mitigation policy that uses market-based mechanisms to offset the remaining emissions,” says Sergey Paltsev, lead author of the report, MIT CS3 deputy director, and senior research scientist at the MIT Energy Initiative.RecommendationsThe researchers concluded the report with recommendations for national policymakers and aviation industry leaders in Latin America.They stressed that government policy and regulatory mechanisms will be needed to create sufficient conditions to attract SAF investments in the region and make SAF commercially viable as the aviation industry decarbonizes operations. Without appropriate policy frameworks, SAF requirements will affect the cost of air travel. For fuel producers, stable, long-term-oriented policies and regulations will be needed to create robust supply chains, build demand for establishing economies of scale, and develop innovative pathways for producing SAF.Finally, the research team recommended a region-wide collaboration in designing SAF policies. A unified decarbonization strategy among all countries in the region will help ensure competitiveness, economies of scale, and achievement of long-term carbon emissions-reduction goals.“Regional feedstock availability and costs make Latin America a potential major player in SAF production,” says Angelo Gurgel, a principal research scientist at MIT CS3 and co-author of the study. “SAF requirements, combined with government support mechanisms, will ensure sustainable decarbonization while enhancing the region’s connectivity and the ability of disadvantaged communities to access air transport.”Financial support for this study was provided by LATAM Airlines and Airbus. More

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      Enabling a circular economy in the built environment

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      The amount of waste generated by the construction sector underscores an urgent need for embracing circularity — a sustainable model that aims to minimize waste and maximize material efficiency through recovery and reuse — in the built environment: 600 million tons of construction and demolition waste was produced in the United States alone in 2018, with 820 million tons reported in the European Union, and an excess of 2 billion tons annually in China.This significant resource loss embedded in our current industrial ecosystem marks a linear economy that operates on a “take-make-dispose” model of construction; in contrast, the “make-use-reuse” approach of a circular economy offers an important opportunity to reduce environmental impacts.A team of MIT researchers has begun to assess what may be needed to spur widespread circular transition within the built environment in a new open-access study that aims to understand stakeholders’ current perceptions of circularity and quantify their willingness to pay.“This paper acts as an initial endeavor into understanding what the industry may be motivated by, and how integration of stakeholder motivations could lead to greater adoption,” says lead author Juliana Berglund-Brown, PhD student in the Department of Architecture at MIT.Considering stakeholders’ perceptionsThree different stakeholder groups from North America, Europe, and Asia — material suppliers, design and construction teams, and real estate developers — were surveyed by the research team that also comprises Akrisht Pandey ’23; Fabio Duarte, associate director of the MIT Senseable City Lab; Raquel Ganitsky, fellow in the Sustainable Real Estate Development Action Program; Randolph Kirchain, co-director of MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub; and Siqi Zheng, the STL Champion Professor of Urban and Real Estate Sustainability at Department of Urban Studies and Planning.Despite growing awareness of reuse practice among construction industry stakeholders, circular practices have yet to be implemented at scale — attributable to many factors that influence the intersection of construction needs with government regulations and the economic interests of real estate developers.The study notes that perceived barriers to circular adoption differ based on industry role, with lack of both client interest and standardized structural assessment methods identified as the primary concern of design and construction teams, while the largest deterrents for material suppliers are logistics complexity, and supply uncertainty. Real estate developers, on the other hand, are chiefly concerned with higher costs and structural assessment. Yet encouragingly, respondents expressed willingness to absorb higher costs, with developers indicating readiness to pay an average of 9.6 percent higher construction costs for a minimum 52.9 percent reduction in embodied carbon — and all stakeholders highly favor the potential of incentives like tax exemptions to aid with cost premiums.Next steps to encourage circularityThe findings highlight the need for further conversation between design teams and developers, as well as for additional exploration into potential solutions to practical challenges. “The thing about circularity is that there is opportunity for a lot of value creation, and subsequently profit,” says Berglund-Brown. “If people are motivated by cost, let’s provide a cost incentive, or establish strategies that have one.”When it comes to motivating reasons to adopt circularity practices, the study also found trends emerging by industry role. Future net-zero goals influence developers as well as design and construction teams, with government regulation the third-most frequently named reason across all respondent types.“The construction industry needs a market driver to embrace circularity,” says Berglund-Brown, “Be it carrots or sticks, stakeholders require incentives for adoption.”The effect of policy to motivate change cannot be understated, with major strides being made in low operational carbon building design after policy restricting emissions was introduced, such as Local Law 97 in New York City and the Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance in Boston. These pieces of policy, and their results, can serve as models for embodied carbon reduction policy elsewhere.Berglund-Brown suggests that municipalities might initiate ordinances requiring buildings to be deconstructed, which would allow components to be reused, curbing demolition methods that result in waste rather than salvage. Top-down ordinances could be one way to trigger a supply chain shift toward reprocessing building materials that are typically deemed “end-of-life.”The study also identifies other challenges to the implementation of circularity at scale, including risk associated with how to reuse materials in new buildings, and disrupting status quo design practices.“Understanding the best way to motivate transition despite uncertainty is where our work comes in,” says Berglund-Brown. “Beyond that, researchers can continue to do a lot to alleviate risk — like developing standards for reuse.”Innovations that challenge the status quoDisrupting the status quo is not unusual for MIT researchers; other visionary work in construction circularity pioneered at MIT includes “a smart kit of parts” called Pixelframe. This system for modular concrete reuse allows building elements to be disassembled and rebuilt several times, aiding deconstruction and reuse while maintaining material efficiency and versatility.Developed by MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium Associate Director Caitlin Mueller’s research team, Pixelframe is designed to accommodate a wide range of applications from housing to warehouses, with each piece of interlocking precast concrete modules, called Pixels, assigned a material passport to enable tracking through its many life cycles.Mueller’s work demonstrates that circularity can work technically and logistically at the scale of the built environment — by designing specifically for disassembly, configuration, versatility, and upfront carbon and cost efficiency.“This can be built today. This is building code-compliant today,” said Mueller of Pixelframe in a keynote speech at the recent MCSC Annual Symposium, which saw industry representatives and members of the MIT community coming together to discuss scalable solutions to climate and sustainability problems. “We currently have the potential for high-impact carbon reduction as a compelling alternative to the business-as-usual construction methods we are used to.”Pixelframe was recently awarded a grant by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) to pursue commercialization, an important next step toward integrating innovations like this into a circular economy in practice. “It’s MassCEC’s job to make sure that these climate leaders have the resources they need to turn their technologies into successful businesses that make a difference around the world,” said MassCEC CEO Emily Reichart, in a press release.Additional support for circular innovation has emerged thanks to a historic piece of climate legislation from the Biden administration. The Environmental Protection Agency recently awarded a federal grant on the topic of advancing steel reuse to Berglund-Brown — whose PhD thesis focuses on scaling the reuse of structural heavy-section steel — and John Ochsendorf, the Class of 1942 Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Architecture at MIT.“There is a lot of exciting upcoming work on this topic,” says Berglund-Brown. “To any practitioners reading this who are interested in getting involved — please reach out.”The study is supported in part by the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium. 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      in Energy

      Is there enough land on Earth to fight climate change and feed the world?

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      Capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius is a tall order. Achieving that goal will not only require a massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, but also a substantial reallocation of land to support that effort and sustain the biosphere, including humans. More land will be needed to accommodate a growing demand for bioenergy and nature-based carbon sequestration while ensuring sufficient acreage for food production and ecological sustainability.The expanding role of land in a 1.5 C world will be twofold — to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and to produce clean energy. Land-based carbon dioxide removal strategies include bioenergy with carbon capture and storage; direct air capture; and afforestation/reforestation and other nature-based solutions. Land-based clean energy production includes wind and solar farms and sustainable bioenergy cropland. Any decision to allocate more land for climate mitigation must also address competing needs for long-term food security and ecosystem health.Land-based climate mitigation choices vary in terms of costs — amount of land required, implications for food security, impact on biodiversity and other ecosystem services — and benefits — potential for sequestering greenhouse gases and producing clean energy.Now a study in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of competing land-use and technology options to limit global warming to 1.5 C. Led by researchers at the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy (CS3), the study applies the MIT Integrated Global System Modeling (IGSM) framework to evaluate costs and benefits of different land-based climate mitigation options in Sky2050, a 1.5 C climate-stabilization scenario developed by Shell.Under this scenario, demand for bioenergy and natural carbon sinks increase along with the need for sustainable farming and food production. To determine if there’s enough land to meet all these growing demands, the research team uses the global hectare (gha) — an area of 10,000 square meters, or 2.471 acres — as the standard unit of measurement, and current estimates of the Earth’s total habitable land area (about 10 gha) and land area used for food production and bioenergy (5 gha).The team finds that with transformative changes in policy, land management practices, and consumption patterns, global land is sufficient to provide a sustainable supply of food and ecosystem services throughout this century while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions in alignment with the 1.5 C goal. These transformative changes include policies to protect natural ecosystems; stop deforestation and accelerate reforestation and afforestation; promote advances in sustainable agriculture technology and practice; reduce agricultural and food waste; and incentivize consumers to purchase sustainably produced goods.If such changes are implemented, 2.5–3.5 gha of land would be used for NBS practices to sequester 3–6 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 per year, and 0.4–0.6 gha of land would be allocated for energy production — 0.2–0.3 gha for bioenergy and 0.2–0.35 gha for wind and solar power generation.“Our scenario shows that there is enough land to support a 1.5 degree C future as long as effective policies at national and global levels are in place,” says CS3 Principal Research Scientist Angelo Gurgel, the study’s lead author. “These policies must not only promote efficient use of land for food, energy, and nature, but also be supported by long-term commitments from government and industry decision-makers.” More

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      A vision for U.S. science success

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      White House science advisor Arati Prabhakar expressed confidence in U.S. science and technology capacities during a talk on Wednesday about major issues the country must tackle.“Let me start with the purpose of science and technology and innovation, which is to open possibilities so that we can achieve our great aspirations,” said Prabhakar, who is the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and a co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). “The aspirations that we have as a country today are as great as they have ever been,” she added.Much of Prabhakar’s talk focused on three major issues in science and technology development: cancer prevention, climate change, and AI. In the process, she also emphasized the necessity for the U.S. to sustain its global leadership in research across domains of science and technology, which she called “one of America’s long-time strengths.”“Ever since the end of the Second World War, we said we’re going in on basic research, we’re going to build our universities’ capacity to do it, we have an unparalleled basic research capacity, and we should always have that,” said Prabhakar.“We have gotten better, I think, in recent years at commercializing technology from our basic research,” Prabhakar added, noting, “Capital moves when you can see profit and growth.” The Biden administration, she said, has invested in a variety of new ways for the public and private sector to work together to massively accelerate the movement of technology into the market.Wednesday’s talk drew a capacity audience of nearly 300 people in MIT’s Wong Auditorium and was hosted by the Manufacturing@MIT Working Group. The event included introductory remarks by Suzanne Berger, an Institute Professor and a longtime expert on the innovation economy, and Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the School of Science and an astrophysicist and leader in gravitational-wave detection.Introducing Mavalvala, Berger said the 2015 announcement of the discovery of gravitational waves “was the day I felt proudest and most elated to be a member of the MIT community,” and noted that U.S. government support helped make the research possible. Mavalvala, in turn, said MIT was “especially honored” to hear Prabhakar discuss leading-edge research and acknowledge the role of universities in strengthening the country’s science and technology sectors.Prabhakar has extensive experience in both government and the private sector. She has been OSTP director and co-chair of PCAST since October of 2022. She served as director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) from 2012 to 2017 and director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) from 1993 to 1997.She has also held executive positions at Raychem and Interval Research, and spent a decade at the investment firm U.S. Venture Partners. An engineer by training, Prabhakar earned a BS in electrical engineering from Texas Tech University in 1979, an MA in electrical engineering from Caltech in 1980, and a PhD in applied physics from Caltech in 1984.Among other remarks about medicine, Prabhakar touted the Biden administration’s “Cancer Moonshot” program, which aims to cut the cancer death rate in half over the next 25 years through multiple approaches, from better health care provision and cancer detection to limiting public exposure to carcinogens. We should be striving, Prabhakar said, for “a future in which people take good health for granted and can get on with their lives.”On AI, she heralded both the promise and concerns about technology, saying, “I think it’s time for active steps to get on a path to where it actually allows people to do more and earn more.”When it comes to climate change, Prabhakar said, “We all understand that the climate is going to change. But it’s in our hands how severe those changes get. And it’s possible that we can build a better future.” She noted the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into law in 2021 and the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act as important steps forward in this fight.“Together those are making the single biggest investment anyone anywhere on the planet has ever made in the clean energy transition,” she said. “I used to feel hopeless about our ability to do that, and it gives me tremendous hope.”After her talk, Prabhakar was joined onstage for a group discussion with the three co-presidents of the MIT Energy and Climate Club: Laurentiu Anton, a doctoral candidate in electrical engineering and computer science; Rosie Keller, an MBA candidate at the MIT Sloan School of Management; and Thomas Lee, a doctoral candidate in MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems, and Society.Asked about the seemingly sagging public confidence in science today, Prabhakar offered a few thoughts.“The first thing I would say is, don’t take it personally,” Prabhakar said, noting that any dip in public regard for science is less severe than the diminished public confidence in other institutions.Adding some levity, she observed that in polling about which occupations are regarded as being desirable for a marriage partner to have, “scientist” still ranks highly.“Scientists still do really well on that front, we’ve got that going for us,” she quipped.More seriously, Prabhakar observed, rather than “preaching” at the public, scientists should recognize that “part of the job for us is to continue to be clear about what we know are the facts, and to present them clearly but humbly, and to be clear that we’re going to continue working to learn more.” At the same time, she continued, scientists can always reinforce that “oh, by the way, facts are helpful things that can actually help you make better choices about how the future turns out. I think that would be better in my view.”Prabhakar said that her White House work had been guided, in part, by one of the overarching themes that President Biden has often reinforced.“He thinks about America as a nation that can be described in a single word, and that word is ‘possibilities,’” she said. “And that idea, that is such a big idea, it lights me up. I think of what we do in the world of science and technology and innovation as really part and parcel of creating those possibilities.”Ultimately, Prabhakar said, at all times and all points in American history, scientists and technologists must continue “to prove once more that when people come together and do this work … we do it in a way that builds opportunity and expands opportunity for everyone in our country. I think this is the great privilege we all have in the work we do, and it’s also our responsibility.” More

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      in Energy

      Catherine Wolfram: High-energy scholar

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      In the mid 2000s, Catherine Wolfram PhD ’96 reached what she calls “an inflection point” in her career. After about a decade of studying U.S. electricity markets, she had come to recognize that “you couldn’t study the energy industries without thinking about climate mitigation,” as she puts it.At the same time, Wolfram understood that the trajectory of energy use in the developing world was a massively important part of the climate picture. To get a comprehensive grasp on global dynamics, she says, “I realized I needed to start thinking about the rest of the world.”An accomplished scholar and policy expert, Wolfram has been on the faculty at Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley — and now MIT, where she is the William Barton Rogers Professor in Energy. She has also served as deputy assistant secretary for climate and energy economics at the U.S. Treasury.Yet even leading experts want to keep learning. So, when she hit that inflection point, Wolfram started carving out a new phase of her research career.“One of the things I love about being an academic is, I could just decide to do that,” Wolfram says. “I didn’t need to check with a boss. I could just pivot my career to being more focused to thinking about energy in the developing world.”Over the last decade, Wolfram has published a wide array of original studies about energy consumption in the developing world. From Kenya to Mexico to South Asia, she has shed light on the dynamics of economics growth and energy consumption — while spending some of that time serving the government too. Last year, Wolfram joined the faculty of the MIT Sloan School of Management, where her work bolsters the Institute’s growing effort to combat climate change.Studying at MITWolfram largely grew up in Minnesota, where her father was a legal scholar, although he moved to Cornell University around the time she started high school. As an undergraduate, she majored in economics at Harvard University, and after graduation she worked first for a consultant, then for the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, the agency regulating energy rates. In the latter job, Wolfram kept noticing that people were often citing the research of an MIT scholar named Paul Joskow (who is now the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics Emeritus in MIT’s Department of Economics) and Richard Schmalensee (a former dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management and now the Howard W. Johnson Professor of Management Emeritus). Seeing how consequential economics research could be for policymaking, Wolfram decided to get a PhD in the field and was accepted into MIT’s doctoral program.“I went into graduate school with an unusually specific view of what I wanted to do,” Wolfram says. “I wanted to work with Paul Joskow and Dick Schmalensee on electricity markets, and that’s how I wound up here.”At MIT, Wolfram also ended up working extensively with Nancy Rose, the Charles P. Kindleberger Professor of Applied Economics and a former head of the Department of Economics, who helped oversee Wolfram’s thesis; Rose has extensively studied market regulation as well.Wolfram’s dissertation research largely focused on price-setting behavior in the U.K.’s newly deregulated electricity markets, which, it turned out, applied handily to the U.S., where a similar process was taking place. “I was fortunate because this was around the time California was thinking about restructuring, as it was known,” Wolfram says. She spent four years on the faculty at Harvard, then moved to UC Berkeley. Wolfram’s studies have shown that deregulation has had some medium-term benefits, for instance in making power plants operate more efficiently.Turning on the ACBy around 2010, though, Wolfram began shifting her scholarly focus in earnest, conducting innovative studies about energy in the developing world. One strand of her research has centered on Kenya, to better understand how more energy access for people without electricity might fit into growth in the developing world.In this case, Wolfram’s perhaps surprising conclusion is that electrification itself is not a magic ticket to prosperity; people without electricity are more eager to adopt it when they have a practical economic need for it. Meanwhile, they have other essential needs that are not necessarily being addressed.“The 800 million people in the world who don’t have electricity also don’t have access to good health care or running water,” Wolfram says. “Giving them better housing infrastructure is important, and harder to tackle. It’s not clear that bringing people electricity alone is the single most useful thing from a development perspective. Although electricity is a super-important component of modern living.”Wolfram has even delved into topics such as air conditioner use in the developing world — an important driver of energy use. As her research shows, many countries, with a combined population far bigger than the U.S., are among the fastest-growing adopters of air conditioners and have an even greater need for them, based on their climates. Adoption of air conditioning within those countries also is characterized by marked economic inequality.From early 2021 until late 2022, Wolfram also served in the administration of President Joe Biden, where her work also centered on global energy issues. Among other things, Wolfram was part of the team working out a price-cap policy for Russian oil exports, a concept that she thinks could be applied to many other products globally. Although, she notes, working with countries heavily dependent on exporting energy materials will always require careful engagement.“We need to be mindful of that dependence and importance as we go through this massive effort to decarbonize the energy sector and shift it to a whole new paradigm,” Wolfram says.At MIT againStill, she notes, the world does need a whole new energy paradigm, and fast. Her arrival at MIT overlaps with the emergence of a new Institute-wide effort, the Climate Project at MIT, that aims to accelerate and scale climate solutions and good climate policy, including through the new Climate Policy Center at MIT Sloan. That kind of effort, Wolfram says, matters to her.“It’s part of why I’ve come to MIT,” Wolfram says. “Technology will be one part of the climate solution, but I do think an innovative mindset, how can we think about doing things better, can be productively applied to climate policy.” On being at MIT, she adds: “It’s great, it’s awesome. One of the things that pleasantly surprised me is how tight-knit and friendly the MIT faculty all are, and how many interactions I’ve had with people from other departments.”Wolfram has also been enjoying her teaching at MIT, and will be offering a large class in spring 2025, 15.016 (Climate and Energy in the Global Economy), that she debuted this past academic year.“It’s super fun to have students from around the world, who have personal stories and knowledge of energy systems in their countries and can contribute to our discussions,” she says.When it comes to tackling climate change, many things seem daunting. But there is still a world of knowledge to be acquired while we try to keep the planet from overheating, and Wolfram has a can-do attitude about learning more and applying those lessons.“We’ve made a lot of progress,” Wolfram says. “But we still have a lot more to do.” More

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      in Energy

      Ensuring a durable transition

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

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      in Environment

      J-PAL North America announces new evaluation incubator collaborators from state and local governments

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      J-PAL North America recently selected government partners for the 2024-25 Leveraging Evaluation and Evidence for Equitable Recovery (LEVER) Evaluation Incubator cohort. Selected collaborators will receive funding and technical assistance to develop or launch a randomized evaluation for one of their programs. These collaborations represent jurisdictions across the United States and demonstrate the growing enthusiasm for evidence-based policymaking.Launched in 2023, LEVER is a joint venture between J-PAL North America and Results for America. Through the Evaluation Incubator, trainings, and other program offerings, LEVER seeks to address the barriers many state and local governments face around finding and generating evidence to inform program design. LEVER offers government leaders the opportunity to learn best practices for policy evaluations and how to integrate evidence into decision-making. Since the program’s inception, more than 80 government jurisdictions have participated in LEVER offerings.J-PAL North America’s Evaluation Incubator helps collaborators turn policy-relevant research questions into well-designed randomized evaluations, generating rigorous evidence to inform pressing programmatic and policy decisions. The program also aims to build a culture of evidence use and give government partners the tools to continue generating and utilizing evidence in their day-to-day operations.In addition to funding and technical assistance, the selected state and local government collaborators will be connected with researchers from J-PAL’s network to help advance their evaluation ideas. Evaluation support will also be centered on community-engaged research practices, which emphasize collaborating with and learning from the groups most affected by the program being evaluated.Evaluation Incubator selected projectsPierce County Human Services (PCHS) in the state of Washington will evaluate two programs as part of the Evaluation Incubator. The first will examine how extending stays in a fentanyl detox program affects the successful completion of inpatient treatment and hospital utilization for individuals. “PCHS is interested in evaluating longer fentanyl detox stays to inform our funding decisions, streamline our resource utilization, and encourage additional financial commitments to address the unmet needs of individuals dealing with opioid use disorder,” says Trish Crocker, grant coordinator.The second PCHS program will evaluate the impact of providing medication and outreach services via a mobile distribution unit to individuals with opioid use disorders on program take-up and substance usage. Margo Burnison, a behavioral health manager with PCHS, says that the team is “thrilled to be partnering with J-PAL North America to dive deep into the data to inform our elected leaders on the best way to utilize available resources.”The City of Los Angeles Youth Development Department (YDD) seeks to evaluate a research-informed program: Student Engagement, Exploration, and Development in STEM (SEEDS). This intergenerational STEM mentorship program supports underrepresented middle school and college students in STEM by providing culturally responsive mentorship. The program seeks to foster these students’ STEM identity and degree attainment in higher education. YDD has been working with researchers at the University of Southern California to measure the SEEDS program’s impact, but is interested in developing a randomized evaluation to generate further evidence. Darnell Cole, professor and co-director of the Research Center for Education, Identity and Social Justice, shares his excitement about the collaboration with J-PAL: “We welcome the opportunity to measure the impact of the SEEDS program on our students’ educational experience. Rigorously testing the SEEDS program will help us improve support for STEM students, ultimately enhancing their persistence and success.”The Fort Wayne Police Department’s Hope and Recovery Team in Indiana will evaluate the impact of two programs that connect social workers with people who have experienced an overdose, or who have a mental health illness, to treatment and resources. “We believe we are on the right track in the work we are doing with the crisis intervention social worker and the recovery coach, but having an outside evaluation of both programs would be extremely helpful in understanding whether and what aspects of these programs are most effective,” says Police Captain Kevin Hunter.The County of San Diego’s Office of Evaluation, Performance and Analytics, and Planning & Development Services will engage with J-PAL staff to explore evaluation opportunities for two programs that are a part of the county’s Climate Action Plan. The Equity-Driven Tree Planting Program seeks to increase tree canopy coverage, and the Climate Smart Land Stewardship Program will encourage climate-smart agricultural practices. Ricardo Basurto-Davila, chief evaluation officer, says that “the county is dedicated to evidence-based policymaking and taking decisive action against climate change. The work with J-PAL will support us in combining these commitments to maximize the effectiveness in decreasing emissions through these programs.”J-PAL North America looks forward to working with the selected collaborators in the coming months to learn more about these promising programs, clarify our partner’s evidence goals, and design randomized evaluations to measure their impact. More

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      in Environment

      Dancing with currents and waves in the Maldives

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      Any child who’s spent a morning building sandcastles only to watch the afternoon tide ruin them in minutes knows the ocean always wins.Yet, coastal protection strategies have historically focused on battling the sea — attempting to hold back tides and fighting waves and currents by armoring coastlines with jetties and seawalls and taking sand from the ocean floor to “renourish” beaches. These approaches are temporary fixes, but eventually the sea retakes dredged sand, intense surf breaches seawalls, and jetties may just push erosion to a neighboring beach. The ocean wins.With climate change accelerating sea level rise and coastal erosion, the need for better solutions is urgent. Noting that eight of the world’s 10 largest cities are near a coast, a recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report pointed to 2023’s record-high global sea level and warned that high tide flooding is now 300 to 900 percent more frequent than it was 50 years ago, threatening homes, businesses, roads and bridges, and a range of public infrastructure, from water supplies to power plants.    Island nations face these threats more acutely than other countries and there’s a critical need for better solutions. MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab is refining an innovative one that demonstrates the value of letting nature take its course — with some human coaxing.The Maldives, an Indian Ocean archipelago of nearly 1,200 islands, has traditionally relied on land reclamation via dredging to replenish its eroding coastlines. Working with the Maldivian climate technology company Invena Private Limited, the Self-Assembly Lab is pursuing technological solutions to coastal erosion that mimic nature by harnessing ocean currents to accumulate sand. The Growing Islands project creates and deploys underwater structures that take advantage of wave energy to promote accumulation of sand in strategic locations — helping to expand islands and rebuild coastlines in sustainable ways that can eventually be scaled to coastal areas around the world. “There’s room for a new perspective on climate adaptation, one that builds with nature and leverages data for equitable decision-making,” says Invena co-founder and CEO Sarah Dole.MIT’s pioneering work was the topic of multiple presentations during the United Nations General Assembly and Climate week in New York City in late September. During the week, Self-Assembly Lab co-founder and director Skylar Tibbits and Maldives Minister of Climate Change, Environment and Energy Thoriq Ibrahim also presented findings of the Growing Islands project at MIT Solve’s Global Challenge Finals in New York.“There’s this interesting story that’s emerging around the dynamics of islands,” says Tibbits, whose U.N.-sponsored panel (“Adaptation Through Innovation: How the Private Sector Could Lead the Way”) was co-hosted by the Government of Maldives and the U.S. Agency for International Development, a Growing Islands project funder. In a recent interview, Tibbits said islands “are almost lifelike in their characteristics. They can adapt and grow and change and fluctuate.” Despite some predictions that the Maldives might be inundated by sea level rise and ravaged by erosion, “maybe these islands are actually more resilient than we thought. And maybe there’s a lot more we can learn from these natural formations of sand … maybe they are a better model for how we adapt in the future for sea level rise and erosion and climate change than our man-made cities.”Building on a series of lab experiments begun in 2017, the MIT Self-Assembly Lab and Invena have been testing the efficacy of submersible structures to expand islands and rebuild coasts in the Maldivian capital of Male since 2019. Since then, researchers have honed the experiments based on initial results that demonstrate the promise of using submersible bladders and other structures to utilize natural currents to encourage strategic accumulation of sand.The work is “boundary-pushing,” says Alex Moen, chief explorer engagement officer at the National Geographic Society, an early funder of the project.“Skylar and his team’s innovative technology reflect the type of forward-thinking, solutions-oriented approaches necessary to address the growing threat of sea level rise and erosion to island nations and coastal regions,” Moen said.Most recently, in August 2024, the team submerged a 60-by-60-meter structure in a lagoon near Male. The structure is six times the size of its predecessor installed in 2019, Tibbits says, adding that while the 2019 island-building experiment was a success, ocean currents in the Maldives change seasonally and it only allowed for accretion of sand in one season.“The idea of this was to make it omnidirectional. We wanted to make it work year-round. In any direction, any season, we should be accumulating sand in the same area,” Tibbits says. “This is our largest experiment so far, and I think it has the best chance to accumulate the most amount of sand, so we’re super excited about that.”The next experiment will focus not on building islands, but on overcoming beach erosion. This project, planned for installation later this fall, is envisioned to not only enlarge a beach but also provide recreational benefits for local residents and enhanced habitat for marine life such as fish and corals.“This will be the first large-scale installment that’s intentionally designed for marine habitats,” Tibbits says.Another key aspect of the Growing Islands project takes place in Tibbits’ lab at MIT, where researchers are improving the ability to predict and track changes in low-lying islands through satellite imagery analysis — a technique that promises to facilitate what is now a labor-intensive process involving land and sea surveys by drones and researchers on foot and at sea.“In the future, we could be monitoring and predicting coastlines around the world — every island, every coastline around the world,” Tibbits says. “Are these islands getting smaller, getting bigger? How fast are they losing ground? No one really knows unless we do it by physically surveying right now and that’s not scalable. We do think we have a solution for that coming.”Also hopefully coming soon is financial support for a Mobile Ocean Innovation Lab, a “floating hub” that would provide small island developing states with advanced technologies to foster coastal and climate resilience, conservation, and renewable energy. Eventually, Tibbits says, it would enable the team to travel “any place around the world and partner with local communities, local innovators, artists, and scientists to help co-develop and deploy some of these technologies in a better way.”Expanding the reach of climate change solutions that collaborate with, rather than oppose, natural forces depends on getting more people, organizations, and governments on board. “There are two challenges,” Tibbits says. “One of them is the legacy and history of what humans have done in the past that constrains what we think we can do in the future. For centuries, we’ve been building hard infrastructure at our coastlines, so we have a lot of knowledge about that. We have companies and practices and expertise, and we have a built-up confidence, or ego, around what’s possible. We need to change that.“The second problem,” he continues, “is the money-speed-convenience problem — or the known-versus-unknown problem. The hard infrastructure, whether that’s groins or seawalls or just dredging … these practices in some ways have a clear cost and timeline, and we are used to operating in that mindset. And nature doesn’t work that way. Things grow, change, and adapt on their on their own timeline.”Teaming up with waves and currents to preserve islands and coastlines requires a mindset shift that’s difficult, but ultimately worthwhile, Tibbits contends.“We need to dance with nature. We’re never going to win if we’re trying to resist it,” he says. “But the best-case scenario is that we can take all the positive attributes in the environment and take all the creative, positive things we can do as humans and work together to create something that’s more than the sum of its parts.” More