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
Leon Glicksman designs buildings with an eye toward improved energy efficiency, and, like many of his MIT colleagues, he brings with him a high-tech portfolio. He develops aerogel panels to...
MIT President L. Rafael Reif and Gianfelice Rocca, chair of the Fondazione Fratelli Agostino ed Enrico Rocca, signed an agreement today renewing the Progetto Roberto Rocca, a two-way partnership...
Global warming may be a hot topic of conversation among scientists and political policymakers, but when it comes to swaying public opinion, the subject leaves most Americans cold, according to...
Organic photovoltaic material offers great promise for solar energy. The semi-conducting plastic is lightweight, flexible, relatively inexpensive, and easy to make. The problem is that, unlike...
There’s an advantage to working with natural materials: They already exist. Their locations are often known and their behaviors are somewhat predictable. But those are also disadvantages, as...
Biomimicry — known as “innovation inspired by nature” — has led to the invention of bullet trains, vaccines, adhesives, and light bulbs, among other things.
Add to that list the...
Lynn Orr, undersecretary for science and energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), spoke at MIT Thursday about the department’s newly issued Quadrennial...
With only months before the highly anticipated international climate negotiations in Paris, a project at MIT offers a set of new innovations for effective climate action.
But these ideas...
This October, Boston will celebrate its technology, art, and culture at HUBweek, an eight-day festival showcasing what is best about this city.
A...
As an incoming freshman, Diego Giraldez '15 had some big visions for his energy future.
“I thought that I would come here and work on some really innovative energy [source] and put...
An arresting image fills the screen before hundreds of rapt members of the MIT community as Vladimir Bulović, professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, begins his...
Jay Whitacre, a materials scientist and professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering, is the recipient of the 2015 $500,000...
The politics of climate change are often depicted as a simple battle, between environmentalists and particular industries, over government policy. That’s not wrong, but it’s only a rough sketch of...
Like the leaves of New England maples, phytoplankton, the microalgae at the base of most oceanic food webs, photosynthesize when exposed to sunlight. In the process, they absorb carbon dioxide...
The boiling of water is at the heart of many industrial processes, from the operation of electric power plants to chemical processing and desalination. But the details of what happens on a hot...
India is the world’s leading milk producer, with many of its people relying on milk as a primary source of income. Indian dairies buy milk from local farmers at village collection centers, and...
It has been said of India that the more you get to know it, the less you understand. The country’s vast size, diversity, and complexity gives it a knack for defying logic and confounding accepted...
Smart temperature-control devices — such as thermostats that learn and adjust to pre-programmed temperatures — are poised to increase comfort and save energy in homes.
Now MIT...
An exotic kind of magnetic behavior, driven by the mere proximity of two materials, has been analyzed by a team of researchers at MIT and elsewhere using a technique called spin-polarized neutron...
An exotic kind of magnetic behavior, driven by the mere proximity of two materials, has been analyzed by a team of researchers at MIT and elsewhere using a technique called spin-polarized neutron...
If you pry open one of today’s ubiquitous high-tech devices — whether a cellphone, a laptop, or an electric car — you’ll find that batteries take up most of the space inside. Indeed, the recent...
If you pry open one of today’s ubiquitous high-tech devices — whether a cellphone, a laptop, or an electric car — you’ll find that batteries take up most of the space inside. Indeed, the recent...
Franz-Josef Ulm works on big issues such as concrete manufacturing, urban architecture, and gas shale recovery. All involve “the physics of what many consider dirty materials and messy systems,”...
Franz-Josef Ulm works on big issues such as concrete manufacturing, urban architecture, and gas shale recovery. All involve “the physics of what many consider dirty materials and messy systems,”...
It’s an old joke that many fusion scientists have grown tired of hearing: Practical nuclear fusion power plants are just 30 years away — and always will be.
But now, finally, the joke...