Energy

Currently, 90 percent of the world’s solar panels are made from crystalline silicon, and the industry continues to grow at a rate of about 30 percent per year.

For cheaper solar cells, thinner really is better

Solar panel costs have dropped lately, but slimming down silicon wafers could lead to even lower costs and faster industry expansion.

January 26, 2020

An Army Corps of Engineers flood model depicting the Ala Wai watershed after a 100-year rain event. The owner of a local design firm described the Ala Wai Flood Control Project as the largest climate impact project in Hawai's modern history.

Reducing risk, empowering resilience to disruptive global change

Workshop highlights how MIT research can guide adaptation at local, regional, and national scales.

January 23, 2020

“My goal is to find out how to make the combustion process more efficient, reliable, safe, and clean,” says Sili Deng, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT.

Understanding combustion

Assistant Professor Sili Deng is on a quest to understand the chemistry involved in combustion and develop strategies to make it cleaner.

January 23, 2020

Julie Newman, director of sustainability at MIT, says the final project for course 2.S999 “uses the campus as a test bed for engaging and exposing students to the complexity of solving [for] global issues in their own backyard.”

Students propose plans for a carbon-neutral campus

Students in class 2.S999 (Solving for Carbon Neutrality at MIT) are charged with developing plans to make MIT’s campus carbon neutral by 2060.

January 17, 2020

“In courses like Nuclear Technology and Society, which covered the benefits and risks of nuclear energy, I saw that some people believed the solution for climate change was definitely nuclear, while others said it was wind or solar,” says doctoral student Nestor Sepulveda. “I began wondering how to determine the value of different technologies.”

Zeroing in on decarbonization

Wielding complex algorithms, nuclear science and engineering doctoral candidate Nestor Sepulveda spins out scenarios for combating climate change.

January 15, 2020

The AES Corporation, based in Virginia, installed the world’s largest solar-plus-storage system on the southern end of the Hawaiian island of Kauai. A scaled-down version was first tested at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Pathways to a low-carbon future

A new study looks at how the global energy mix could change over the next 20 years.

January 9, 2020

A smart window developed by Professor Nicholas Fang includes thermochromic material that turns frosty when exposed to temperatures of 32 C or higher, such as when a researcher touches the window with her hand.

Preventing energy loss in windows

Mechanical engineers are developing technologies that could prevent heat from entering or escaping windows, potentially preventing a massive loss of energy.

January 6, 2020

Assistant Professor Valerie Karplus and her collaborators have demonstrated that measurements of air pollutants taken by NASA satellites are often a good indicator of emissions on the ground. Their approach provides regulators with a low-cost tool to ensure that industrial firms are complying with emissions standards.

Tracking emissions in China

Evaluating a 2014 policy change yields some good news and some concerns.

December 30, 2019

A small-scale device, seen here, was used in the lab to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new shockwave-based system for removing radioactive contaminants from the cooling water in nuclear powerplants.

A new way to remove contaminants from nuclear wastewater

Method concentrates radionuclides in a small portion of a nuclear plant’s wastewater, allowing the rest to be recycled.

December 19, 2019

Postdoc Reshma Rao stands next to a pulsed laser deposition system, which is used to deposit well-defined thin films of catalyst materials.

The race to develop renewable energy technologies

Mechanical engineers rush to develop energy conversion and storage technologies from renewable sources such as wind, wave, solar, and thermal.

December 18, 2019

Anoushka Bose is moving purposefully toward a public-service career in nuclear policy and diplomacy.

Anoushka Bose: Targeting a career in security studies and diplomacy

Nuclear science and engineering and physics met political science to illuminate a new path.

December 17, 2019

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and it currently leaks from production wells, storage tanks, pipelines, and urban distribution pipes for natural gas.

The uncertain role of natural gas in the transition to clean energy

MIT study finds that challenges in measuring and mitigating leakage of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, prove pivotal.

December 16, 2019

Students gather in the Stata Center to hear the 2019 MIT EnergyHack challenges. Participants had 36 hours to come up with a solution to the challenge they were assigned with their team members before presenting to company representatives, fellow hackers, and judges.

Hacking into a sustainable energy future

The 2019 MIT EnergyHack presented opportunities for students and companies to collaborate and solve problems facing the energy sector today.

December 11, 2019

A 70-unit British Columbia lakeside resort hotel was built with local engineered wood products, including cross-laminated timber. New research explores the potential environmental and economic impact in the United States of substituting lumber for energy-intensive building products such as cement and steel.

Taking the carbon out of construction with engineered wood

Substituting lumber for materials such as cement and steel could cut building emissions and costs.

December 11, 2019

An MIT-invented circuit uses only a nanometer-wide “magnetic domain wall” to modulate the phase and magnitude of a spin wave, which could enable practical magnetic-based computing — using little to no electricity.

Toward more efficient computing, with magnetic waves

Circuit design offers a path to “spintronic” devices that use little electricity and generate practically no heat.

November 28, 2019

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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