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Today's events in Washington shocked us all. The pain reminded us sharply of how much we value those democratic traditions and of how fragile they are. They demand our respect, protection, and care. They demand the best of us.”
—MIT President L. Rafael Reif in a letter on January 6 to the MIT community. |
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InEnTec: Turning trash into valuable chemical products and clean fuels
MIT News
The MIT waste-processing spinoff InEnTech is expanding its business with projects that include plastics recycling and low-cost distributed hydrogen fuel production—using advanced versions of their core technologies to keep waste out of landfills and greenhouse gases out of the air.
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There’s a simple way to green the economy–and it involves cash prizes for all
The Guardian
In this opinion piece, Henry D. Jacoby (MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change) argues that the ‘carbon dividend’ is so elegant that it seems too good to be true and that governments should make it a post-pandemic priority.
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Is nuclear fusion the answer to the climate crisis?
The Guardian
Promising new studies suggest that nuclear fusion, a long elusive technology, may be capable of producing electricity for the grid by the end of the decade.
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We already have the technology to decarbonize U.S. electricity
Gizmodo
Patrick Brown and Audun Botterud (MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society and MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems) have co-authored a new study that finds that U.S. electricity demand can be met with currently available carbon-free technology.
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The climate challenges and opportunities ahead
The Boston Globe
Former U.S. Secretary of Energy and MITEI Founding Director Ernest Moniz discusses the climate- and energy-related opportunities and challenges that the U.S. will face under the Biden administration.
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Podcast: Building technology
MITEI
Jessica Granderson, a staff scientist and deputy of research programs for the Building Technology and Urban Systems Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, discusses building analytics, energy efficiency, and the grid.
 Listen.
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MITEI / MIT ILP Energy innovation webinar series: Low-carbon fuels
January 14, 2021, 10:00 am-12:00 pm ET
There is a dire need to further reduce the carbon footprint of sectors including transportation, industry, and buildings. In this webinar, Karine Boissy-Rousseau, the president of Air Liquide Hydrogen Energy U.S. LLC; Adam Bratis, the associate lab director of Bio Energy Sciences and Technology at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory; Dharik S. Mallapragada, a research scientist at the MIT Energy Initiative; and Kristala L. Jones Prather, the Arthur D. Little Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT; will discuss the role that low-carbon fuels, such as hydrogen and biofuels, can play in getting us to net-zero emissions across all of these sectors—an increasingly urgent cornerstone of any effective climate change mitigation strategy.
Register.
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MITEI IAP course: Computational modeling tools for promoting low-carbon electricity
January 25-29, 9:00 am-1:00 pm ET
Registration deadline: January 19, 2021
This 5-session intensive activity presents power system analysis techniques that will help in modeling and understanding the role of electric power systems in a carbon-constrained economy. The massive deployment of intermittent renewable energy sources, the anticipated surge of active demand response, and the development of smart grids are among the challenges that must be faced by mathematical models for optimization, analysis, and simulation of the complex decision-making processes in power systems. Apart from a theoretical description of the models, the instructors will provide students with a collection of prototypes that will allow them to run study cases and to understand the effect of the different mathematical formulations on the outcomes. The use of these models in some real-world applications will also be presented.
This activity is open to the MIT community (students, staff, faculty, and alumni). To sign up, email Karen Tapia-Ahumada by Tuesday, January 19.
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U.S. C3E webinar series: Enterprise-scale sustainability and emerging global challenges
January 28, 2021, 2:00-3:00 pm ET
U.S. C3E Ambassadors Britt Ide and Judy Dorsey will present how the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) movement is driving enterprise-scale sustainability and clean energy. Ide, a corporate director at NorthWestern Energy, will speak to the impact of the ESG focus of large investors like State Street, Vanguard, and Blackrock on companies and their ESG, sustainability, and climate strategies. Dorsey, the founder and owner of The Brendle Group, an engineering and planning consultancy, will speak to what cities, ski resorts, and small companies are doing to respond to ESG pressures.
Register.
For more information on future webinars, join the C3E mailing list.
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MITEI postdoctoral associate
Come work at MITEI! We’re looking for a postdoc to work in the area of low-carbon energy systems with a focus on the role of energy storage in the power grid.
Apply.
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WAVE Fellows undergraduate research program
Application deadline: January 9, 2021
Caltech’s WAVE Fellows program provides support for undergraduate students, who are underrepresented in STEM and intent on pursuing a PhD, to conduct a 10-week summer research project under the mentorship of Caltech faculty. Research opportunities in biology, neuroscience, chemistry, chemical engineering, engineering and applied science, geology, environmental science, sustainability, astronomy, physics, nanotechnology, quantum sciences, humanities, social science, and more!
Apply by January 9, 2021.
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ClimateTech & Energy Prize at MIT
Application deadline: February 5, 2021
The ClimateTech & Energy Prize at MIT (formerly known as the Clean Energy Prize) is the longest-running and largest cleantech startup competition for university students in the country. CEP@MIT teams compete for a grand prize and other monetary prizes. All semi-finalist teams also receive mentorship from industry experts and gain access to other resources through CEP@MIT’s sponsors and partners.
The competition has been rebranded to expand its scope beyond clean energy and be more inclusive of all early-stage startups tackling climate change. Over 220 companies have successfully launched out of CEP@MIT, with over $2.8 million awarded in cash prizes, and alumni startups have since raised over $1.1 billion in follow-on funding. The competition is open to university teams from across the world.
Apply for the prize by February 5, 2021, at 11:59 pm ET.
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Moving market-oriented economies off fossil energy is going to be a long and difficult struggle. ...But marshaling the power of the price system to rebalance the whole economy away from carbon-intensive industries–while supporting those on lower incomes–seems like a wonderful place to start.
—Henry D. Jacoby, co-director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, on how to leverage key economic drivers to incentivize a clean economy. |
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7%
The amount that global renewable power capacity increased in 2020. With over 200 gigawatts added, the International Energy Agency found that 2020 marked a new record of growth for the sector. |
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