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    Working to beat the clock on climate change

    “There’s so much work ahead of us and so many obstacles in the way,” said Raisa Lee, director of project development with Clearway Energy Group, an independent clean power producer. But, added Lee, “It’s most important to focus on finding spaces and people so we can foster growth and support each other — the power of belonging!”

    These sentiments captured the spirit of the 12th annual Women in Clean Energy Education and Empowerment (C3E) Symposium and Awards, held recently at MIT. The conference is part of the C3E Initiative, which aims to connect women in clean energy, recognize the accomplishments of leaders across different fields, and engage more women in the enterprise of decarbonization.

    The conference topic, “Clearing hurdles to achieve net zero by 2050: Moving quickly, eliminating risks, and leaving no one behind,” spoke to the shared sense of urgency and commitment to community-building among the several hundred participants attending in person and online.

    As symposium speakers attested, the task of saving the world doesn’t seem as daunting when someone has your back.

    Melinda Baglio, chief investment officer and general counsel of the renewable energy finance firm  CleanCapital, said “I have several groups of women in my life … and whenever I am doing something really difficult, I like to close my eyes for a minute and imagine their hands right on my shoulders and just giving me that support and pushing me forward to do the thing that I need to do.”

    The C3E symposium was hosted by the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), which partners in the C3E Initiative with the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy, and the Texas A&M Energy Institute.

    Gender diversity and emissions

    “Time is not on our side in the race to achieve net zero by 2050,” said Martha Broad, executive director of MITEI, in her opening remarks.“However, by increasing the gender diversity of the energy sector, we’re putting our best team forward to tackle this challenge.”

    Closing a pronounced gender gap in corporate leadership and legislative bodies would also help, she said. Research has demonstrated that improving gender diversity in the energy sector leads to stronger climate governance and innovation. In addition, Broad noted, a recent study showed that increasing gender diversity in legislative bodies results in stronger climate policy and “hence lowers CO2 emissions.”

    There was wide agreement that beating the clock on climate change means recruiting, training, and retaining a vast and diverse workforce. In talks and panels, symposium participants described their wide-ranging roles as leaders in this enterprise.

    “This is a very exciting time to be working in clean energy, and an exciting time to be doubling down on the work that C3E does, because clean energy technologies are ready,” said Kathleen Hogan, principal undersecretary for infrastructure at DoE. In her keynote address, Hogan highlighted “the amazing, historic funding through the bipartisan infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act, where we are putting ultimately trillions of dollars into clean energy.” This presents a “tremendous opportunity to grow the clean energy workforce … to pull in the next generation of women to advance this field of work, and to figure out how to deliver the maximum impact.”

    Gina McCarthy, who received the C3E Lifetime Achievement Award, rallied symposium participants to remain hopeful and engaged. “It’s all about a world of new possibilities, new partnerships we can create together,” said the former White House national climate advisor and Environmental Protection Agency administrator. “Use each milestone as an opportunity to pat ourselves on the back and be more passionate than ever before — that is how change happens.”

    “You belong”

    Other speakers provided ample evidence of passion and persistence in their pursuit of clean energy goals.

    C3E advocacy award winner and climate justice policy leader Jameka Hodnett works to ensure that historically underfunded Black communities benefit from decarbonization programs. Not all of her community contacts share her concerns about climate change or recognize the necessity of an energy transition. “This is difficult work, where I must be willing to stick my neck out and build relationships with others across differences,” she said.

    Remote and often marginalized communities in the United States and around the world pose other kinds of challenges. Wahleah Johns, director of DoE’s Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs, described the loss of jobs on tribal lands as fossil fuel companies shut down, and the problem of developing trust with local groups. She believes energy justice in these communities must draw “on Indigenous, traditional knowledge of design, building, and planning” and demonstrate “value for future generations.”

    Evangelina Galvan Shreeve, daughter of immigrant farm workers, is tapping the talent of diverse communities to build the next generation’s clean energy workforce. The C3E education award winner, chief diversity officer, and director of STEM education at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory tells young people: “You are worthy of joining places you dream about, you are brilliant, and we need both to pursue the clean energy future. You belong.”

    Reducing the carbon budget

    In her keynote address, Sally M. Benson, the Precourt Family Professor of Energy Science Engineering at Stanford University’s School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences, warned of the hazards of not acting quickly to reduce the global carbon budget. “It’s starting to cost us lots of money: In some years we are getting half a trillion dollars in damage,” she said. “We need all hands on deck, and to do that we need to align people’s views to give us the speed and scale to beat incredibly short timelines.”

    Benson’s strategies include generating community- and city-scale, rather than individual-scale actions; streamlining the process for approving renewable energy projects; and advancing technological innovations based on “which would have the largest, transformational impact, the kind that could meet our 2050 [net-zero carbon emissions] goals.”

    The symposium offered examples of innovations that could play out at the scale and speed that Benson recommends. 

    Elise Strobach SM ’17, PhD ’20 developed a nanoporous nanogel coating for windows that can cut energy losses — estimated at $40 billion a year — in half. Her spinout company, AeroShield Materials, aims to make windows light, thin, and affordable.

    Claire Woo’s startup employer, Form Energy, has designed an iron-air battery that could bolster the electric grid as renewable sources such as sun and wind fuel more of the world’s energy needs. Stacked like so many blocks in giant arrays, the batteries provide 100-hour energy backup for multi-day power outages due to storms or other emergencies.

    Grids and energy equity

    Panelists discussed the requirements for resilient electric grids in the clean energy transition. Peggy Heeg, a corporate board member of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), celebrated her state’s top-ranked status in solar and wind production but cautioned that “the shift is creating some real problems with our operations of the grid.” She believes that, currently, the only viable backup when heat or storms cause demand peaks is natural gas generation.

    Caroline Choi, the senior vice president of corporate affairs at Edison International and Southern California Edison, described “unprecedented grid expansion” under way in California, as more solar and wind suppliers plug in. This will require “a significant acceleration in the pace of deployment of transmission systems,” said Julie Mulvaney Kemp, a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Such expansion is complicated by fragmented regional planning, high costs, and local siting issues.

    Not all power systems are super-sized. “I flew in small bush planes with my baby daughter in order to shadow Alaska microgrid operators,” said Piper Foster Wilder, founder and CEO of 60Hertz Energy and the C3E entrepreneurship award winner. Her software enables energy suppliers in even the most inaccessible places to monitor and protect utilities and infrastructure.

    “Given the fundamental aspects of energy for life, the widely entrenched nature of the energy system, and the intersecting challenges with other priorities, everyone has a vital role to play,” said Kathleen Araújo, a professor of sustainable energy systems, innovation, and policy at Boise State University. In a panel devoted to energy justice, speakers hammered home the centrality of historically marginalized groups in achieving a global energy transition.

    In the United States, communities must play a vital role in shaping their clean energy futures, whether former mining counties in Pennsylvania, Indian tribes whose lands have been exploited for fossil fuel production, or diesel-importing regions in Alaska, said Araújo. “Inclusive engagement, knowledge sharing, and other forms of collaboration can strengthen the legitimacy and [lead to] more enduring outcomes.”

    Worldwide, 675 million people lack access to electricity, and 590 million of them live in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Rhonda Jordan Antoine, a senior energy specialist at The World Bank. The bank is committed to providing the populace of this vast region with reliable, renewable energy sources, customizing solutions to specific countries and communities. “Africa’s not just about connecting households to power but also supporting activities, agricultural productivity, and provision of essential services such as health care and education,” she said.

    Whether confronting environmental injustice, supply chain gridlock, financing difficulties or communities resistant to addressing decarbonization, symposium participants candidly shared their challenges and frustrations. “I personally find this is really hard work,” Sally Benson acknowledged. “It took us 100 years or more to build the energy system that we have today and now we’re saying that we want to change it in the next 20 years.”

    But the words of Gina McCarthy were invoked repeatedly over the two-day conference, lifting spirits in the room: “I am hugely optimistic,” she said. “The clean energy future isn’t just around, it isn’t just possible, it is already under way. And it is the opportunity of a lifetime.” More

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    How to decarbonize the world, at scale

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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    Celebrating Kendall Square’s past and shaping its future

    Kendall Square’s community took a deep dive into the history and future of the region at the Kendall Square Association’s 15th annual meeting on Oct. 19.

    It’s no secret that Kendall Square, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, moves fast. The event, titled “Looking Back, Looking Ahead,” gave community members a chance to pause and reflect on how far the region has come and to discuss efforts to shape where it’s going next.

    “The impact of the last 15 years of working together with a purposeful commitment to make the world a better place was on display this evening,” KSA Executive Director Beth O’Neill Maloney told the audience toward the end of the evening. “It also shows how Kendall Square can continue contributing to the world.”

    The gathering took place at the Microsoft NERD Center on Memorial Drive, on a floor that also featured music from the Kendall Square Orchestra and, judging by the piles of empty trays at the end of the night, an exceedingly popular selection of food from Kendall Square restaurants. Attendees came from across Cambridge’s prolific innovation ecosystem — not just entrepreneurs and life science workers but also high school and college students, restaurant and retail shop owners, workers at local cleantech and robotics companies, and leaders of nonprofits.

    KSA itself is a nonprofit made up of over 150 organizations across Kendall Square, from major companies to universities like MIT to research organizations like the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the independent shops and restaurants that give Kendall Square its distinct character.

    The night’s programming included talks about recent funding achievements in the region, a panel discussion on the implications of artificial intelligence, and a highly entertaining, whirlwind history lesson led by Daniel Berger-Jones of Cambridge Historical Tours.

    “Our vision for the state is to be the best, and Kendall really represents that,” said Yvonne Hao, Massachusetts secretary of economic development. “When I went to DC to talk to folks about why Massachusetts should win some of these grants, they said, ‘You already have Kendall, that’s what we’re trying to get the whole country to be like!’”

    Hao started her talk by noting her personal connection to Kendall Square. She moved to Cambridge with her family in 2010 and has watched the neighborhood transform, with her kids frequenting the old and new restaurants and shops around town.

    The crux of Hao’s talk was to remind attendees they had more to celebrate than KSA’s anniversary. Massachusetts was recently named the recipient of two major federal grants that will fuel the state’s innovation work. One of those grants, from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), designated the state an “Investor Catalyst Hub” to accelerate innovation around health care. The other, which came through the federal CHIPS and Science Act, will allow the state to establish the Northeast Microelectronics Coalition Hub to advance microelectronics jobs, workforce training opportunities, and investment in the region’s advanced manufacturing.

    Hao recalled making the pitch for the grants, which could collectively amount to hundreds of millions of dollars in funding over time.

    “The pitch happened in Kendall Square because Kendall highlights everything magical about Massachusetts — we have our universities, MIT, we have our research institutions, nonprofits, small businesses, and great community members,” Hao said. “We were hoping for good weather because we wanted to walk with government officials, because when you walk around Kendall, you see the art, you see the coffee shops, you see the people bumping into each other and talking, and you see why it’s so important that this one square mile of geography become the hub they were looking for.”

    Hao is also part of work to put together the state’s newest economic development plan. She said the group’s tier one priorities are transportation and housing, but listed a number of other areas where she hopes Massachusetts can improve.

    “We can be an amazing, strong economy that’s mission-driven and innovation-driven with all kinds of jobs for all kinds of people, and at the same time an awesome community that loves each other and has great food and small businesses and looks out for each other, that looks diverse just like this room,” Hao said. “That’s the story we want to tell.”

    After the historical tour and the debut of a video explaining the origins of the KSA, attendees fast-forwarded into the future with a panel discussion on the impact and implications of generative AI.

    “I think the paradigm shift we’re seeing with generative AI is going to be as transformative as the internet, perhaps even more so because the pace of adoption is much faster now,” said Microsoft’s Soundar Srinivasan.

    The panel also featured Jennat Jounaidi, a student at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School and member of Innovators for Purpose, a nonprofit that seeks to empower young people from historically marginalized groups to become innovators.

    “I’m interested to see how generative AI shapes my upbringing as well as the lives of future generations, and I think it’s a pivotal moment to decide how we can best develop and incorporate AI into all of our lives,” Jounaidi said.

    Panelists noted that today’s concerns around AI are important, such as its potential to perpetuate inequality and amplify misinformation. But they also discussed the technology’s potential to drive advances in areas like sustainability and health care.

    “I came to Kendall Square to do my PhD in AI at MIT back when the internet was called the ARPA-Net… so a while ago,” said Jeremy Wertheimer SM ’89, PhD ’96. “One of the dreams I had back then was to create a program to read all biology papers. We’re not quite there yet, but I think we’re on the cusp, and it’s very exciting.

    Above all else, the panelists characterized AI as an opportunity. Despite all that’s been accomplished in Kendall Square to date, the prevailing feeling at the event was excitement for the future.

    “Generative AI is giving us chance to stop working in siloes,” Jounaidi said. “Many people in this room go back to their companies and think about corporate responsibility, and I want to expand that to creating shared value in companies by seeking out the community and the people here. I think that’s important, and I’m excited to see what comes next.” More

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    3 Questions: What should scientists and the public know about nuclear waste?

    Many researchers see an expansion of nuclear power, which produces no greenhouse gas emissions from its power generation, as an essential component of strategies to combat global climate change. Yet there is still strong resistance to such expansion, and much of that is based on the issue of how to safely dispose of the resulting radioactive waste material. MIT recently convened a workshop to help nuclear engineers, policymakers, and academics learn about approaches to communicating accurate information about the management of nuclear waste to students and the public, in hopes of allaying fears and encouraging support for the development of new, safer nuclear power plants around the world.

    Organized by Haruko Wainwright, an MIT assistant professor of nuclear science and engineering and of civil and environmental engineering, the workshop included professors, researchers, industry representatives, and government officials, and was designed to emphasize the multidisciplinary nature of the issue. MIT News asked Wainwright to describe the workshop and its conclusions, which she reported on in a paper just published in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity.

    Q: What was the main objective of the this workshop?

    A: There is a growing concern that, in spite of much excitement about new nuclear reactor deployment and nuclear energy for tackling climate change, relatively less attention is being paid to the thorny question of long-term management of the spent fuel (waste) from these reactors. The government and industry have embraced consent-based siting approaches — that is, finding sites to store and dispose nuclear waste through broad community participation with equity and environmental justice considered. However, many of us in academia feel that those in the industry are missing key facts to communicate to the public.

    Understanding and managing nuclear waste requires a multidisciplinary expertise in nuclear, civil, and chemical engineering as well as environmental and earth sciences. For example, the amount of waste per se, which is always very small for nuclear systems, is not the only factor determining the environmental impacts because some radionuclides in the waste are vastly more mobile than others, and thus can spread farther and more quickly. Nuclear engineers, environmental scientists, and others need to work together to predict the environmental impacts of radionuclides in the waste generated by the new reactors, and to develop waste isolation strategies for an extended time.

    We organized this workshop to ensure this collaborative approach is mastered from the start. A second objective was to develop a blueprint for educating next-generation engineers and scientists about nuclear waste and shaping a more broadly educated group of nuclear and general engineers.

    Q: What kinds of innovative teaching practices were discussed and recommended, and are there examples of these practices in action?

     A: Some participants teach project-based or simulation-based courses of real-world situations. For example, students are divided into several groups representing various stakeholders — such as the public, policymakers, scientists, and governments — and discuss the potential siting of a nuclear waste repository in a community. Such a course helps the students to consider the perspectives of different groups, understand a plurality of points of view, and learn how to communicate their ideas and concerns effectively. Other courses may ask students to synthesize key technical facts and numbers, and to develop a Congressional testimony statement or an opinion article for newspapers. 

    Q: What are some of the biggest misconceptions people have about nuclear waste, and how do you think these misconceptions can be addressed?

    A: The workshop participants agreed that the broader and life-cycle perspectives are important. Within the nuclear energy life cycle, for example, people focus disproportionally on high-level radioactive waste or spent fuel, which has been highly regulated and well managed. Nuclear systems also produce secondary waste, including low-level waste and uranium mining waste, which gets less attention.

    The participants also believe that the nuclear industry has been exemplary in leading the environmental and waste isolation science and technologies. Nuclear waste disposal strategies were developed in the 1950s, much earlier than other hazardous waste which began to receive serious regulation only in the 1970s. In addition, current nuclear waste disposal practices consider the compliance periods of isolation for thousands of years, while other hazardous waste disposal is not required to consider beyond 30 years, although some waste has an essentially infinite longevity, for example, mercury or lead. Finally, there is relatively unregulated waste — such as CO2 from fossil energy, agricultural effluents and other sources — that is released freely into the biosphere and is already impacting our environment. Yet, many people remain more concerned about the relatively well-regulated nuclear waste than about all these unregulated sources.

    Interestingly, many engineers — even nuclear engineers — do not know these facts. We believe that we need to teach students not just cutting-edge technologies, but also broader perspectives, including the history of industries and regulations, as well as environmental science.

    At the same time, we need to move the nuclear community to think more holistically about waste and its environmental impacts from the early stages of design of nuclear systems. We should design new reactors from the “waste up.”  We believe that the nuclear industry should continue to lead waste-management technologies and strategies, and also encourage other industries to adopt lifecycle approaches about their own waste to improve the overall sustainability. More

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    Solve Challenge Finals 2023: Action in service to the world

    In a celebratory convergence of innovation and global impact, the 2023 Solve Challenge Finals, hosted by MIT Solve, unfolded to welcome the 2023 Solver Class. These teams, resolute in their commitment to addressing Solve’s 2023 Global Challenges and rooted in advancing the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, serve as the perfect examples of the impact technology can have when addressed toward social good.

    To set the tone of the day, Cynthia Barnhart, MIT provost, called for bold action in service to the world, and Hala Hanna, MIT Solve executive director, urged the new Solver teams and attendees to harness the power of technology for benevolent purposes. “Humans have lived with the dichotomy of technology since the dawn of time. Today we find ourselves at another juncture with generative AI, and we have choices to make. So, what if we choose that every line of code heals, and every algorithm uplifts, and every device includes?” she said during the opening plenary, Tech-Powered and Locally-Led: Solutions for Global Progress.

    Global, intergenerational, and contextual change for good

    This year’s Solve Challenge Finals served as a global platform for reflection. Majid Al Suwaidi, director-general of COP28, shared the experiences that have shaped his approach to climate negotiation. He recounted a poignant visit to a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees-facilitated refugee camp housing 300,000 climate migrants. There he met a mother and her nine children. In a sprawling camp housing 300,000 people, scarcity was evident, with just one toilet for every 100 residents. “There are people who contribute nothing to the problem but are impacted the most,” Majid emphasized, stressing the need to prioritize those most affected by climate change when crafting solutions.

    Moderator Lysa John, secretary-general of CIVICUS, steered the conversation toward Africa’s growing influence during her fireside chat with David Sengeh SM ’12, PhD ’16, chief minister of Sierra Leone, and Toyin Saraki, president of the Wellbeing Foundation. The African Union was recently named a permanent member of the G20. Saraki passionately advocated for Africa to assert itself: “I would like this to be more than just the North recognizing the South. This is the time now for us to bring African intelligence to the forefront. We have to bring our own people, our own data, our own resources.” She also called for an intergenerational shift, recognizing the readiness of the younger generation to lead.

    Sengeh, who is 36 himself, emphasized that young people are natural leaders, especially in a nation where 70 percent of the population is youth. He challenged the status quo, urging society to entrust leadership roles to the younger generation.

    Saraki praised Solve as a vital incubation hub, satisfying the need for contextual innovation while contributing to global progress. She views Solve as a marketplace of solutions to systemic weaknesses, drawing upon the diverse approaches of innovators both young and old. “That is the generation of intelligence that needs to grow, not just in Africa. Solve is amazing for that, it’s an investor’s delight,” she said.

    Henrietta Fore, managing partner, chair, and CEO of Radiate Capital, Holsman International, shared an example of entrepreneurship catalyzed by country-level leaders, referencing India’s Swachh Bharat program aimed at promoting cleaner environments. The government initiative led to a burst of entrepreneurial activity, with women opening various shops for toilets and bathroom commodities. Fore highlighted the potential for companies to collaborate with countries on such programs, creating momentum and innovation.

    Trust as capital

    Trust was a prevalent theme throughout the event, from personal to business levels.

    Johanna Mair, academic editor of the Stanford Social Innovation Review, asked Sarah Chandler, vice president of environment and supply chain innovation at Apple, for advice she may have for corporations and startups thinking about their holistic climate goals. Chandler emphasized the importance of trust that businesses must have that environmental goals can align with business goals, highlighting Apple’s 45 percent reduction in carbon footprint since 2015 and 65 percent revenue increase.

    Neela Montgomery, board partner at Greycroft, discussed her initial skepticism around collaborating with large entities, seeking advice from Ilan Goldfajn, president of the Inter-American Development Bank. “Don’t be shy to come … take advantage of a multilateral bank … think about multilateral organizations as the ones to make connections. We can be your support commercially and financially, we could be your clients, and we could be your promoters,” said Goldfajn.

    During a fireside chat among Janti Soeripto, president and CEO of Save the Children USA, and Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of Center for Countering Digital, Soeripto shared her belief that the most effective change comes from the country and local community level. She pointed to a contextual example of this where Save the Children invested in scaling a small Austrian ed-tech startup — Library for All. The partnership positively impacted literacy for other communities around the world by making literature more accessible.

    There still exist major hurdles for small enterprises to enter the global market. Imran points to sclerosis and hesitancy to trust small-scale innovation as a roadblock to meaningful change. 

    The final discussion of the closing plenary, Funding the Future: Scaling up Inclusive Impact, featured Fore; Mohammed Nanabhay, managing partner of Mozilla Ventures; and Alfred Ironside, vice president of communications at MIT, who asked the two panelists, “What do you [look for] when thinking about putting money into leaders and organizations who are on this mission to create impact and achieve scale?”

    Beyond aligning principles with organizations, Nanabhay said that he looks for tenacity and, most importantly, trust in oneself. “Entrepreneurship is a long journey, it’s a hard journey — whether you’re on the for-profit side or the nonprofit side. It’s easy to say people should have grit, everyone says this. When the time comes and you’re struggling … you need to have the fundamental belief that what you’re working on is meaningful and that it’s going to make the world better.” More

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    MIT climate and sustainability interns consider aviation emissions and climate change

    Over 600 MIT students are traveling abroad with the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) to intern, research, and work in organizations across 25 countries this summer. Twenty percent of the students were placed in areas related to climate and sustainability.

    Through MISTI, hundreds of MIT students travel abroad each summer to intern in companies, universities, governments, and nongovernmental organizations. Since 2018, around 20 percent of the internships and research experiences have been in areas related to climate and sustainability. MISTI has been working to increase the number of interns working on these projects by increasing the number of hosts and available grants, as well as connecting with other labs, departments, and centers across MIT to support students’ global experiences.

    For the first time this year, MISTI developed pre-departure sessions intended to help students reflect on their experiences in the wider context of sustainability and climate change. Around 90 students were invited to participate in a Canvas course and an in-person session with guest speakers. In the Canvas session, students were asked to calculate the carbon footprint of their flight to their MISTI destination and compare the results to other common daily activities. Four out of five of them expressed that the level of emissions from their flights was higher, or much higher, than they previously thought. Half of the students expressed that this was the first time they thought about their flight emissions for the summer. The students were then directed to the MIT Climate Portal website and asked to reflect on the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on the climate and the effects of climate change on economically developing countries. The Canvas exercise concluded with readings and reflections on what can be done to address the climate crisis.

    The in-person session featured David Hsu, associate professor of urban and environmental planning and co-chair of the Campus Fast Forward working group on climate education, who presented his research and work on flight emissions. He emphasized the high impact of aviation on carbon dioxide emissions and how emissions are unevenly distributed on a global scale, based on income levels and per capita bases. A small group of travelers account for most of the emissions, which is also true in academic settings where a small number of travelers have a much higher carbon footprint. Hsu also explained the School of Architecture and Planning climate action plan and how it addresses faculty and student travel. “I know it’s hard. If we at MIT want to be leaders in this area, talking about it is not enough,” he said. “We have to act. We cannot be models just by doing research; we have to be role models at all levels. Faculty, staff, and students have to change their flight habits.”

    Having completed the climate and sustainability training, Favianna Colón Irizarry, a rising second-year majoring in chemical and biological engineering, explains, “to minimize our carbon footprint, we are taught to eat consciously and use environmentally friendly products. What we are not taught is that this alone will not make a difference; we ought to sacrifice more, like flying selectively and meaningfully, to truly make an impact. MISTI’s Climate and Sustainability helped me recognize this, as well as prepare me for how I choose to proceed in my future green endeavors.”

    Also during the session, rising seniors Anushree Chaudhuri and Melissa Stok, the leads for the MIT Student Sustainability Coalition, presented their work around coordinating efforts among students and the vast landscape of groups, organizations, and entities at the Institute. They invited all interested students to join and reach out to any of the entities that could be a good fit for their interests. Chaudhuri reflected afterwards, “Sustainability is inherently interdisciplinary. Every MIT student can incorporate sustainability into their work, regardless of major, class year, or interests! I was excited to join my SSC co-lead, Melissa, in speaking with a diverse group of MISTI interns about how to explore sustainability-related academic, extracurricular, professional, and experiential opportunities at MIT and beyond. These students come from many different disciplines, so it was incredibly heartening to hear that they are all pursuing a climate-related project abroad this summer.”

    Eduardo Rivera, MISTI’s coordinator for climate and sustainability expressed that “educational experiences abroad are a fundamental part of MIT’s mission to foster global leaders to tackle the climate crisis. This summer, more than 110 students will be working around the world in solar and wind technologies, carbon capture, climate adaptation and urban planning, sustainable concrete, electric mobility, among others. We are using this opportunity to expand on the reflection part of the experiential learning cycle. The goal of these pre-departure sessions is to raise awareness and help our students reflect on the impact of their everyday activities on the climate, and to also give them resources to learn and act thoughtfully. We hope they will not only become conscious travelers, but also agents for change.”

    “This year’s climate and sustainability pre-departure training were pilot sessions, and the goal is to expand this learning experience to all MISTI students, not just those working in the fields of climate and sustainability. This will be a unique opportunity to raise awareness and expand the knowledge to over 1,000 of our students as they travel to more than 40 countries across the globe,” explains Abby MacKenzie, MIT-India coordinator who co-developed the pre-departure sessions. More

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    MIT speaker series taps into students’ passion for entrepreneurship and social impact.

    Last summer, leaders of MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service (VMS) noticed a growing trend in entrepreneur applications to the program: An increasing number of aspiring founders were expressing a passion for social impact.

    VMS, which connects students and alumni with teams of mentors, hosts bootcamps, holds expert office hours, and offers an annual Demo Day, did not previously have offerings to help founders focused on this type of impact, so its leaders decided to pilot an Impact Speaker Series.

    The series, which featured experienced early-stage entrepreneurs from the MIT community and took place throughout the year, was a smashing success. In total, more than 1,200 MIT community members registered across eight events, including students at all stages of their education as well as alumni interested in making a positive impact on the world through entrepreneurship.

    “We felt an intense desire from attendees to explore entrepreneurship as a path to solve our most pressing problems,” VMS mentor and series co-Lead Paul Bosco says. “The degree to which students identified with challenges such as climate, health, sustainability, and education, rather than their major, was striking. Our goal was to help them see a path as first-time founders.”

    Now VMS is riding the momentum from the speaker series by rolling out more support services for impact-driven students, including hosting additional events, adding experienced impact entrepreneurs and social enterprise experts to its network of mentors, and connecting with more funders and executives with experience leading organizations focused on impact.

    Ultimately, VMS believes these new efforts will bolster MIT’s broader mission of translating science and innovation from its labs and classrooms into positive advances around the world.

    “Our pivot to strengthen support for founders with a passion for impact is absolutely aligned with the mission of MIT,” Bosco says. “Pursuing research and ideas with a passion for world-changing impact has always been in the DNA of MIT. A new generation of entrepreneurs is challenging us to help them hone their skills and lead organizations to build a better world.”

    Striking a chord

    Each one of VMS’ events had a different theme, from addressing general founder challenges, like first time pre-seed or nondilutive fundraising to building startup ventures in sectors like climate, health care, and education. One panel focused on helping entrepreneurs find their personal paths to success and impact, featuring founders leading impactful companies at different stages of development. Another panel discussion, titled Funding Your Path to Impact and Success, featured investors and directors of programs funding ventures delivering impact.

    “I want to encourage founders to consider driving toward a new ‘unicorn success’ model, where success is not measured in $1-billion-dollar valuations, but is based on world-changing carbon reductions, water cleanliness, lives saved, students inspired, etc.,” Ela Mirowski, a program director with the National Science Foundation, told the audience at one event.

    In total, the events featured 24 expert speakers, early-stage founders, and funders. Impact driven businesses, speakers emphasized, can take many forms. Bosco, who moderated one of the panels, says he’s heard from students and alumni interested in starting for-profit companies focused on profit and impact, what he called “dual bottom lines,” as well as students interested in starting public benefit companies, social enterprises, and traditional nonprofit organizations.

    “VMS is getting better at tapping into the different types of entrepreneurs at different stages of their journeys,” says Akshit Singla SM ’22. “It’s exactly what’s needed, and I know that because there was a huge waitlist for these events.”

    Zahra Kanji, who attended VMS’s most recent event in May and is currently director of MIT Hacking Medicine, sees the speaker series as a natural response to evolving student needs.

    “For students, I think the focus has changed a lot over the years,” Kanji said. “There used to be a lot more interest in entrepreneurship with making money as the final goal, and now it’s turned into more of a triple goal, like a public benefit corporation or something that has more impact. So, hearing key lessons learned from experts is really important — these aren’t answers you can get in a textbook.”

    Listening to the community

    Many of next year’s VMS events will be similar to the events that most resonated with the MIT community this year. VMS will also be adding an event on entrepreneurship in artificial intelligence and computing for impact. VMS is hoping to continue expanding student connections to recent founders, or what Bosco refers to as “near-peer founders,” that can relate more closely with first-time founders navigating the current startup environment.

    “Given that many new entrepreneurs are shifting to focus on impact, we need to evolve,” says VMS mentor Matt Cherian SM ’11. “I’m glad students are starting to think differently, and I’m really glad VMS is making this programming to help people think in this new way.”

    “The most notable aspect of our series was the commitment of students, including undergrads, graduates, and postdocs, pursuing their passion for impact through entrepreneurship,” Bosco says. “Many students we met exploring entrepreneurship for impact have exceptional job offers from top employers, or if they are alums they’re leaving significant positions to pursue a greater purpose in their lives. It is profoundly inspiring and an honor to help each of these founders.” More