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      in Energy

      The answer may be blowing in the wind

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

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

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

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

      R&D advances

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

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

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

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

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

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

      “How do we get from here to there?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Just seven up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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      in Environment

      US and UAE governments highlight early warning system for climate resilience

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      The following is a joint announcement from MIT and Community Jameel.

      An international project to build community resilience to the effects of climate change, launched by Community Jameel and a research team at MIT, has been recognized as an innovation sprint at the 2023 summit of the United States’ and United Arab Emirates’ Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM4C).

      The Jameel Observatory Climate Resilience Early Warning System Network (Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet), one of MIT’s five Climate Grand Challenges flagship projects, aims to empower communities worldwide, specifically within the agriculture sector, to adapt to climate shocks by launching cross-sector collaborations and by combining state-of-the-art climate and socioeconomic forecasting techniques with technological solutions to support communities’ resilience.

      AIM4C is a joint initiative of the U.S. and U.A.E. that seeks to enhance climate action by accelerating agriculture and food systems innovation and investment. Innovation sprints are selected by AIM4C to accelerate their impact following a competitive process that considers scientific excellence and financial support.

      “As we launch Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet, the AIM4C summit offers a great opportunity to share our plans and initial work with all those who are interested in enhancing the capacity of agricultural communities in vulnerable countries to deal with challenges of climate change,” says Elfatih Eltahir, HM King Bhumibol Professor of Hydrology and Climate at MIT and project leader of the Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet.

      Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet seeks to bridge the gap between the knowledge about climate change created at research institutions such as MIT and the local farming communities that are adapting to the impacts of climate change. By effectively informing and engaging local communities, the project seeks to enable farmers to sustainably increase their agricultural productivity and income.     

      The Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet will initially pilot in Bangladesh and Sudan, working with local partners BRAC, a leading international nonprofit headquartered in Bangladesh, and the Agricultural Research Corporation-Sudan, the principal agricultural research arm of the Sudanese government, and with MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), the global research center working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Beginning in southwestern Bangladesh, the Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet will integrate next-generation climate forecasting, predictive analytics, new technologies, and financial instruments. In East Africa, with a focus on Sudan, the initiative will emphasize adopting modern technology to use a better variety of heat-resistant seeds, increasing the use of targeted fertilizers, strengthening soils through soil fertility mapping combined with data modeling, and emphasizing vertical expansion of agriculture over traditional horizontal expansion. The work in Sudan is extensible to other regions in Africa. Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet’s activities and timeline will be reevaluated as the team monitors the ongoing situation in Sudan.

      Using local climate insights, communities will be empowered to adapt proactively to climate change by optimally planning their agricultural activities, targeting emergent economic opportunities, and proactively managing risks from climate change.

      George Richards, director of Community Jameel, says: “Community Jameel is proud to be collaborating with MIT, BRAC, and the Agricultural Research Corporation-Sudan to empower agricultural communities to adapt to the ever-growing challenges arising from climate change — challenges which, as we are seeing acutely in Sudan, are compounded by other crises. We welcome the support of the U.S. and U.A.E. governments in selecting the Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet as an AIM4C innovation sprint.”

      Md Liakath Ali, director of climate change, urban development, and disaster risk management at BRAC, says: “Over our five decades working alongside climate-vulnerable communities in Bangladesh, BRAC has seen firsthand how locally led climate adaptation helps protect lives and livelihoods. BRAC is proud to work with Community Jameel and MIT to empower vulnerable communities to proactively adapt to the impacts of climate change.”

      The Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet was launched at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh as part of the Jameel Observatory, an international collaboration launched in 2021 that focuses on convening researchers and practitioners who use data and technology to help communities adapt to the impacts of climate change and short-term climate shocks.

      The Jameel Observatory focuses on using data and evidence to prepare for and act on environmental shocks as well as those impacts of climate change and variability which threaten human and environmental well-being. With a special focus on low- and middle-income countries, the Jameel Observatory works at the interface of climate, natural disasters, agricultural and food systems, and health. It emphasizes the need to incorporate local as well as scientific knowledge to prepare and act in anticipation of environmental shocks.

      Launched in 2020, MIT’s Climate Grand Challenges initiative is designed to mobilize the Institute’s research community around tackling the most difficult unsolved climate problems in emissions reduction, climate adaptation and resilience, risk forecasting, carbon removal, and understanding the human impacts of climate change. MIT selected 27 teams as finalists from a field of nearly 100 initial proposals. In 2022, five teams with the most promising concepts were announced as multi-year flagship projects. More

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      in Energy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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      in Energy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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      in Security

      Ingestible “electroceutical” capsule stimulates hunger-regulating hormone

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      Hormones released by the stomach, such as ghrelin, play a key role in stimulating appetite. These hormones are produced by endocrine cells that are part of the enteric nervous system, which controls hunger, nausea, and feelings of fullness.

      MIT engineers have now shown that they can stimulate these endocrine cells to produce ghrelin, using an ingestible capsule that delivers an electrical current to the cells. This approach could prove useful for treating diseases that involve nausea or loss of appetite, such as cachexia (loss of body mass that can occur in patients with cancer or other chronic diseases).

      In tests in animals, the researchers showed that this “electroceutical” capsule could significantly boost ghrelin production in the stomach. They believe this approach could also be adapted to deliver electrical stimulation to other parts of the GI tract.

      “This study helps establish electrical stimulation by ingestible electroceuticals as a mode of triggering hormone release via the GI tract,” says Giovanni Traverso, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the senior author of the study. “We show one example of how we’re able to engage with the stomach mucosa and release hormones, and we anticipate that this could be used in other sites in the GI tract that we haven’t explored here.”

      Khalil Ramadi SM ’16, PhD ’19, a graduate of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology who is now an assistant professor of bioengineering at the New York University (NYU) Tandon School of Engineering and the director of the Laboratory for Advanced Neuroengineering and Translational Medicine at NYU Abu Dhabi, and James McRae, an MIT graduate student, are the lead authors of the paper, which appears today in Science Robotics.

      Electrical stimulation

      The enteric nervous system controls all aspects of digestion, including the movement of food through the GI tract. Some patients with gastroparesis, a disorder of the stomach nerves that leads to very slow movement of food, have shown symptomatic improvement after electrical stimulation generated by a pacemaker-like device that can be surgically implanted in the stomach.

      Doctors had theorized that the electrical stimulation would provoke the stomach into contracting, which would help push food along. However, it was later found that while the treatment does help patients feel better, it affected motility to a lesser degree. The MIT team hypothesized that the electrical stimulation of the stomach might be leading to the release of ghrelin, which is known to promote hunger and reduce feelings of nausea.

      To test that hypothesis, the researchers used an electrical probe to deliver electrical stimulation in the stomachs of animals. They found that after 20 minutes of stimulation, ghrelin levels in the bloodstream were considerably elevated. They also found that electrical stimulation did not lead to any significant inflammation or other adverse effects.

      Once they established that electrical stimulation was provoking ghrelin release, the researchers set out to see if they could achieve the same thing using a device that could be swallowed and temporarily reside in the stomach. One of the main challenges in designing such a device is ensuring that the electrodes on the capsule can contact the stomach tissue, which are coated with fluid. 

      Play video

      To create a drier surface that electrodes can interact with, the researchers gave their capsule a grooved surface that wicks fluid away from the electrodes. The surface they designed is inspired by the skin of the Australian thorny devil lizard, which uses ridged scales to collect water. When the lizard touches water with any part of its skin, water is transported by capillary action along the channels to the lizard’s mouth.

      “We were inspired by that to incorporate surface textures and patterns onto the outside of this capsule,” McRae says. “That surface can manage the fluid that could potentially prevent the electrodes from touching the tissue in the stomach, so it can reliably deliver electrical stimulation.”

      The capsule surface consists of grooves with a hydrophilic coating. These grooves function as channels that draw fluid away from the stomach tissue. Inside the device are battery-powered electronics that produce an electric current that flows across electrodes on the surface of the capsule. In the prototype used in this study, the current runs constantly, but future versions could be designed so that the current can be wirelessly turned on and off, according to the researchers.

      Hormone boost

      The researchers tested their capsule by administering it into the stomachs of large animals, and they found that the capsule produced a substantial spike in ghrelin levels in the bloodstream.

      “As far as we know, this is the first example of using electrical stimuli through an ingestible device to increase endogenous levels of hormones in the body, like ghrelin. And so, it has this effect of utilizing the body’s own systems rather than introducing external agents,” Ramadi says.

      The researchers found that in order for this stimulation to work, the vagus nerve, which controls digestion, must be intact. They theorize that the electrical pulses transmit to the brain via the vagus nerve, which then stimulates endocrine cells in the stomach to produce ghrelin.

      Traverso’s lab now plans to explore using this approach in other parts of the GI tract, and the researchers hope to test the device in human patients within the next three years. If developed for use in human patients, this type of treatment could potentially replace or complement some of the existing drugs used to prevent nausea and stimulate appetite in people with cachexia or anorexia, the researchers say.

      “It’s a relatively simple device, so we believe it’s something that we can get into humans on a relatively quick time scale,” Traverso says.

      The research was funded by the Koch Institute Support (core) Grant from the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the Division of Engineering at New York University Abu Dhabi, a National Science Foundation graduate research fellowship, Novo Nordisk, and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. More

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      in Environment

      Exploring the bow shock and beyond

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      For most people, the night sky conjures a sense of stillness, an occasional shooting star the only visible movement. A conversation with Rishabh Datta, however, unveils the supersonic drama crashing above planet Earth. The PhD candidate has focused his recent study on the plasma speeding through space, flung from sources like the sun’s corona and headed toward Earth, halted abruptly by colliding with the planet’s magnetosphere. The resulting shock wave is similar to the “bow shock” that forms around the nose cone of a supersonic jet, which manifests as the familiar sonic boom.

      The bow shock phenomenon has been well studied. “It’s probably one of the things that’s keeping life alive,” says Datta, “protecting us from the solar wind.” While he feels the magnetosphere provides “a very interesting space laboratory,” Datta’s main focus is, “Can we create this high-energy plasma that is moving supersonically in a laboratory, and can we study it? And can we learn things that are hard to diagnose in an astrophysical plasma?”

      Datta’s research journey to the bow shock and beyond began when he joined a research program for high school students at the National University Singapore. Tasked with culturing bacteria and measuring the amount of methane they produced in a biogas tank, Datta found his first research experience “quite nasty.”

      “I was working with chicken manure, and every day I would come home smelling completely awful,” he says.

      As an undergraduate at Georgia Tech, Datta’s interests turned toward solar power, compelled by a new technology he felt could generate sustainable energy. By the time he joined MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, though, his interests had morphed into researching the heat and mass transfer from airborne droplets. After a year of study, he felt the need to go in a yet another direction.

      The subject of astrophysical plasmas had recently piqued his interest, and he followed his curiosity to Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering Professor Nuno Loureiro’s introductory plasma class. There he encountered Professor Jack Hare, who was sitting in on the class and looking for students to work with him.

      “And that’s how I ended up doing plasma physics and studying bow shocks,” he says, “a long and circuitous route that started with culturing bacteria.”

      Gathering measurements from MAGPIE

      Datta is interested in what he can learn about plasma from gathering measurements of a laboratory-created bow shock, seeking to verify theoretical models. He uses data already collected from experiments on a pulsed-power generator known as MAGPIE (the Mega-Ampere Generator of Plasma Implosion Experiments), located at Imperial College, London. By observing how long it takes a plasma to reach an obstacle, in this case a probe that measures magnetic fields, Datta was able to determine its velocity.   

      With the velocity established, an interferometry system was able to provide images of the probe and the plasma around it, allowing Datta to characterize the structure of the bow shock.

      “The shape depends on how fast sound waves can travel in a plasma,” says Datta. “And this ‘sound speed’ depends on the temperature.”

      The interdependency of these characteristics means that by imaging a shock it’s possible to determine temperature, sound speed, and other measurements more easily and cheaply than with other methods.

      “And knowing more about your plasma allows you to make predictions about, for example, electrical resistivity, which can be important for understanding other physics that might interest you,” says Datta, “like magnetic reconnection.”

      This phenomenon, which controls the evolution of such violent events as solar flares, coronal mass ejections, magnetic storms that drive auroras, and even disruptions in fusion tokamaks, has become the focus of his recent research. It happens when opposing magnetic fields in a plasma break and then reconnect, generating vast quantities of heat and accelerating the plasma to high velocities.

      Onward to Z

      Datta travels to Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to work on the largest pulsed power facility in the world, informally known as “the Z machine,” to research how the properties of magnetic reconnection change when a plasma emits strong radiation and cools rapidly.

      In future years, Datta will only have to travel across Albany Street on the MIT campus to work on yet another machine, PUFFIN, currently being built at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC). Like MAGPIE and Z, PUFFIN is a pulsed power facility, but with the ability to drive the current 10 times longer than other machines, opening up new opportunities in high-energy-density laboratory astrophysics.

      Hare, who leads the PUFFIN team, is pleased with Datta’s increasing experience.

      “Working with Rishabh is a real pleasure,” he says, “He has quickly learned the ins and outs of experimental plasma physics, often analyzing data from machines he hasn’t even yet had the chance to see! While we build PUFFIN it’s really useful for us to carry out experiments at other pulsed-power facilities worldwide, and Rishabh has already written papers on results from MAGPIE, COBRA at Cornell in Ithaca, New York, and the Z Machine.”

      Pursuing climate action at MIT

      Hand-in-hand with Datta’s quest to understand plasma is his pursuit of sustainability, including carbon-free energy solutions. A member of the Graduate Student Council’s Sustainability Committee since he arrived in 2019, he was heartened when MIT, revising their climate action plan, provided him and other students the chance to be involved in decision-making. He led focus groups to provide graduate student input on the plan, raising issues surrounding campus decarbonization, the need to expand hiring of early-career researchers working on climate and sustainability, and waste reduction and management for MIT laboratories.

      When not focused on bringing astrophysics to the laboratory, Datta sometimes experiments in a lab closer to home — the kitchen — where he often challenges himself to duplicate a recipe he has recently tried at a favorite restaurant. His stated ambition could apply to his sustainability work as well as to his pursuit of understanding plasma.

      “The goal is to try and make it better,” he says. “I try my best to get there.”

      Datta’s work has been funded, in part, by the National Science Foundation, National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Department of Energy. More

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      in Energy

      Exploring new sides of climate and sustainability research

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

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

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

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

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

      Investigating technology and stakeholders

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

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

      Photo: Andrew Okyere

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Photo: Andrew Okyere

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

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

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

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

      Basuhi Ravi, MIT PhD candidate, giving a guest lecture

      Photo: Andrew Okyere

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      Having a positive impact as students and after graduation

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

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

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      3 Questions: New MIT major and its role in fighting climate change

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      Launched this month, MIT’s new Bachelor of Science in climate system science and engineering is jointly offered by the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). As part of MIT’s commitment to aid the global response to climate change, the new degree program is designed to train the next generation of leaders, providing a foundational understanding of both the Earth system and engineering principles — as well as an understanding of human and institutional behavior as it relates to the climate challenge. Jadbabaie and Van der Hilst discuss the new Course 1-12 multidisciplinary major and why it’s needed now at MIT. 

      Q: What was the idea behind launching this new major at MIT?

      Jadbabaie: Climate change is an incredibly important issue that we must address, and time is of the essence. MIT is in a unique position to play a leadership role in this effort. We not only have the ability to advance the science of climate change and deepen our understanding of the climate system, but also to develop innovative engineering solutions for sustainability that can help us meet the climate goals set forth in the Paris Agreement. It is important that our educational approach also incorporates other aspects of this cross-cutting issue, ranging from climate justice, policy, to economics, and MIT is the perfect place to make this happen. With Course 1’s focus on sustainability across scales, from the nano to the global scale, and with Course 12 studying Earth system science in general, it was a natural fit for CEE and EAPS to tackle this challenge together. It is my belief that we can leverage our collective expertise and resources to make meaningful progress. There has never been a more crucial time for us to advance students’ understanding of both climate science and engineering, as well as their understanding of the societal implications of climate risk.

      Van der Hilst: Climate change is a global issue, and the solutions we urgently need for building a net-zero future must consider how everything is connected. The Earth’s climate is a complex web of cause and effect between the oceans, atmosphere, ecosystems, and processes that shape the surface and environmental systems of the planet. To truly understand climate risks, we need to understand the fundamental science that governs these interconnected systems — and we need to consider the ways that human activity influences their behavior. The types of large-scale engineering projects that we need to secure a sustainable future must take into consideration the Earth system itself. A systems approach to modeling is crucial if we are to succeed at inventing, designing, and implementing solutions that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, build climate resilience, and mitigate the inevitable climate-related natural disasters that we’ll face. That’s why our two departments are collaborating on a degree program that equips students with foundational climate science knowledge alongside fundamental engineering principles in order to catalyze the innovation we’ll need to meet the world’s 2050 goals.

      Q: How is MIT uniquely positioned to lead undergraduate education in climate system science and engineering? 

      Jadbabaie: It’s a great example of how MIT is taking a leadership role and multidisciplinary approach to tackling climate change by combining engineering and climate system science in one undergraduate major. The program leverages MIT’s academic strengths, focusing on teaching hard analytical and computational skills while also providing a curriculum that includes courses in a wide range of topics, from climate economics and policy to ethics, climate justice, and even climate literature, to help students develop an understanding of the political and social issues that are tied to climate change. Given the strong ties between courses 1 and 12, we want the students in the program to be full members of both departments, as well as both the School of Engineering and the School of Science. And, being MIT, there is no shortage of opportunities for undergraduate research and entrepreneurship — in fact, we specifically encourage students to participate in the active research of the departments. The knowledge and skills our students gain will enable them to serve the nation and the world in a meaningful way as they tackle complex global-scale environmental problems. The students at MIT are among the most passionate and driven people out there. I’m really excited to see what kind of innovations and solutions will come out of this program in the years to come. I think this undergraduate major is a fantastic step in the right direction.

      Q: What opportunities will the major provide to students for addressing climate change?

      Van der Hilst: Both industry and government are actively seeking new talent to respond to the challenges — and opportunities — posed by climate change and our need to build a sustainable future. What’s exciting is that many of the best jobs in this field call for leaders who can combine the analytical skill of a scientist with the problem-solving mindset of an engineer. That’s exactly what this new degree program at MIT aims to prepare students for — in an expanding set of careers in areas like renewable energy, civil infrastructure, risk analysis, corporate sustainability, environmental advocacy, and policymaking. But it’s not just about career opportunities. It’s also about making a real difference and safeguarding our future. It’s not too late to prevent much more damaging changes to Earth’s climate. Indeed, whether in government, industry, or academia, MIT students are future leaders — as such it is critically important that all MIT students understand the basics of climate system science and engineering along with math, physics, chemistry, and biology. The new Course 1-12 degree was designed to forge students who are passionate about protecting our planet into the next generation of leaders who can fast-track high-impact, science-based solutions to aid the global response, with an eye toward addressing some of the uneven social impacts inherent in the climate crisis. More