Prof. Jessika Trancik speaks with ABC News about the urgent need to transition to renewable energy sources, and how we can build a future powered by alternative energy. “Up until recently there were really significant questions about whether we could transition to another [energy] foundation,” says Trancik. “This question has now been answered in that we now have cost competitive renewable primary energy in the form of solar and wind energy and also in other types of renewable energy.”
MIT announced five projects "targeting the world's toughest climate riddles" that were selected following a rigorous two-year competition, reports Benjamin Kail for Boston Business Journal. “Climate Grand Challenges represents a whole-of-MIT drive to develop game-changing advances to confront the escalating climate crisis, in time to make a difference,” says President L. Rafael Reif.
Prof. Jessika Trancik speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Nidhi Subbaraman about the dramatic drops in costs to manufacture and sell renewable technologies. Subbaraman notes that Trancik’s research shows that “the steep drop in solar and lithium-ion battery technology was enabled by market expansion policies as well as investment in research and development by governments and the private sector.”
Prof. Jessika Trancik speaks with USA Today reporter Kate S. Petersen about claims that replacing all U.S. gas stations with equal capacity electric vehicle charging stations would require significant resources. “When we’re talking about EV charging, you don’t have to put charging stations everywhere you have gas stations today,” says Trancik. “This would not make sense as a plan for rolling out electric vehicle charging infrastructure.”
Boston Globe reporter Kevin Lewis spotlights how MIT researchers surveyed thousands of Democrats and Republicans to rate the reliability of nonpolitical news headlines. “People genuinely believe that opposing partisans are more gullible, even when that stereotype is costly to them,” writes Lewis. “On the other hand, that stereotype can be corrected with evidence.”
During CNBC’s Technology Executive Council summit, Prof. Christopher Magee related how “allocating R&D resources efficiently is a critical skill, but one that most companies struggle with,” according to CNBC reporter Susan Caminiti. Magee's latest research “uses AI to predict the speed of the development of specific new innovations, all with the goal of deploying resources smartly and effectively,” writes Caminiti.
Washington Post reporter Steven Zeitchik highlights Prof. Jessika Trancik’s work developing a carbon counter that details the carbon impacts of different cars and MIT startup Form Energy, which is “taking the oxidization process, normally only good for ruining your Saturday garage clean-up, and deploying it to store energy on power grids.” Says Trancik of the importance of allowing people the ability to take stock of their environmental impact: “One of the really important aspects of addressing climate change is bringing everyone into the discussion.”
Prof. Christopher Magee and his colleagues have developed a new method that could help provide insights into how quickly different innovations are improving, reports Christopher Mims for The Wall Street Journal. Magee and former MIT fellow Anuraag Singh have developed a search engine that allows users to “answer in a fraction of a second the question of how quickly any given technology is advancing,” writes Mims.
Writing for INFORMS, Prof. Richard Larson honors and remembers those who served on 9/11 and those in public safety who have continued to serve. Larson notes that with over 50 years of contributions to urban public safety, those in operations research “can build on that strong foundation to create even better data-informed methods and procedures for public safety professionals to do their difficult work – effectively, efficiently, equitably and with minimal risk to both themselves and the citizens whom they serve.”
Writing for The Hill, Prof. Sanjoy Mitter, Prof. Munther Dahleh, research affiliate Le Xie and their colleagues underscore the need to build a “resilient energy ‘superhighway,’ an electric grid that delivers a wide portfolio of energy supplies to the end users in a reliable manner.” They add that: “Investments are needed both in building the backbone interconnections, as well as in upgrading the ‘last mile’ distribution grid.”
Prof. Jessika Trancik speaks with Vox contributor David Roberts about the various aspects involved with transforming our world in response to climate change. “There is so much potential, but we really need to be more deliberate about how we are thinking about technology and that means understanding what it is, how it evolves and how we can push it faster towards these beneficial solutions,” says Trancik of the transition to clean energy technologies.
On The Interchange podcast, Prof. Jessika Trancik discusses her research exploring the cost declines in lithium-ion batteries and what it will take to reach mass-market adoption of electric vehicles.
Writing for The Conversation, Prof. Jessika Trancik explores how government policies can spark innovation in clean energy markets, helping to reduce carbon emissions. “Left to its own devices, technological change will not necessarily solve climate change, especially not in the limited time we have left to act,” writes Trancik. “But my research on technology evolution suggests that government policy can help propel this powerful process toward rapid progress and beneficial outcomes.”
A new study by Prof. Jessika Trancik and postdoctoral associate Micah Ziegler examining the plunge in lithium-ion battery costs finds that “every time output doubles, as it did five times between 2006 and 2016, battery prices fall by about a quarter,” reports The Economist. “A doubling in technological know-how, measured by patent filings, is associated with a 40% drop in price.”
Prof. Jessika Trancik speaks with the BBC Newshour about her new study analyzing the dramatic decline in the costs of lithium-ion batteries. Trancik explains that the reduced price, “opens up markets for electric vehicles for more people. The battery makes up a substantial portion of the total cost of an electric vehicle and the fact that costs have fallen by 97% over the last few decades means that these cars are no longer just for the wealthy.”