Energy

“If one advance could transform America's prospects, it would be ready access, at scale, to a range of affordable, renewable, low-carbon energy technologies. Only one path will lead to such transformative technologies: research.”                                                                                       - Susan Hockfield

May 16, 2018

The grand prize winner at this year’s MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition was an MIT spinout that’s developing a system that captures and recycles vaporized water from thermoelectric power...

May 15, 2018

With sights set on global greenhouse gas reduction, Tokyo’s IHI Corporation has joined the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI). IHI, a global engineering, construction, and manufacturing company,...

May 08, 2018

Growing up in Romania, Mircea Dincă became fascinated with chemistry at an early age, and by the time he was in high school he was a regular participant — and prizewinner — in chemistry Olympiads...

April 30, 2018

Which is a better deal: an established, off-the-shelf type of solar panel or a cutting-edge type that delivers more power for a given area but costs more?

It turns out that’s far from a...

April 25, 2018

In the Southwestern United States, the country’s sunniest region, sunlight can shine down for up to 14 hours a day. This makes the location ideal for implementing solar energy — and the perfect...

April 23, 2018

Ten student teams with inventions to improve people’s lives worldwide — from portable ventilators for resource-strapped hospitals, to wheelchair cushions that prevent sores, to multipurpose...

April 19, 2018

“I only recently decided on the area to which I would dedicate decades of my life,” confides Mingda Li PhD ’...

April 19, 2018

Growing global food demand, climate change, and climate policies favoring bioenergy production are expected to increase pressures on water resources around the world. Many analysts predict that...

April 18, 2018

The future of the internal combustion engine, with some 2 billion in use in the world today, was a hot topic at last week’s Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) World Congress in Detroit....

April 17, 2018

As renewable energy technologies, such as wind and solar power, become increasingly attractive power sources for the grid, industry is looking for better energy-storage systems that can make these...

April 09, 2018

Theresa Wilks has come full circle, at least geographically. After receiving a master's and PhD from Georgia Tech, she returned to her home state of California in 2016 as an MIT postdoc doing...

April 06, 2018

Juliana Miranda Mitkiewicz learned a great deal from her role in MIT D-Lab’s Resilient Economies Action Lab (REAL), which is led by D-Lab Inclusive Markets Specialist Libby McDonald. REAL...

April 06, 2018

Putting a price on carbon, in the form of a fee or tax on the use of fossil fuels, coupled with returning the generated revenue to the public in one form or another, can be an effective way to...

April 05, 2018

With novel optoelectronic chips and a new partnership with a top silicon-chip manufacturer, MIT spinout Ayar Labs aims to increase speed and reduce energy consumption in computing, starting with...

March 30, 2018

In the face of limited funding to address massive infrastructure needs, and with climate action at top of mind, it is more important than ever for engineers, designers, and policy makers to...

March 30, 2018

Plastics are excellent insulators, meaning they can efficiently trap heat — a quality that can be an advantage in something like a coffee cup sleeve. But this insulating property is less desirable...

March 28, 2018

Daniel Kammen is a professor of energy at the University of California at Berkeley, with parallel appointments in the Energy and Resources Group (which he chairs), the Goldman School of Public...

March 25, 2018

A new approach to analyzing and designing new ion conductors — a key component of rechargeable batteries — could accelerate the development of high-energy lithium batteries, and possibly other...

March 25, 2018

MIT on Saturday hosted an “Innovation to Impact” forum focused on Saudi Arabia, bringing together governmental leaders, business executives, and academic researchers in an effort to analyze and...

March 22, 2018

A couple of years into graduate school, Yuriy Roman had what he calls a “tipping point” in his career. He realized that all of the classes he had taken were leading him toward a deep understanding...

March 19, 2018

A motif of Japanese basketweaving known as the kagome pattern has preoccupied physicists for decades. Kagome baskets are typically made from strips of bamboo woven into a highly symmetrical...

March 15, 2018

Senior Ka-Yen Yau recalls with perfect clarity when and why she decided to become a nuclear engineer.

“The Fukushima Daiichi accident occurred while I was in 9th grade, and because I knew...

March 13, 2018

Daniel Sperling is a distinguished professor of civil engineering and environmental science and policy at the University of California at Davis, where he is also founding director of the...

March 09, 2018

Today, MIT announced plans to work with a newly formed company, Commonwealth Fusion...

March 09, 2018

A new chapter is beginning for fusion energy research at MIT.

This week the Italian energy company Eni, a founding member of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), announced it has reached an...

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