News

Amos Winter (Mechanical Engineering) discusses his work developing a desalination system that relies on solar power. “The reason we use solar power is that most people around the world are going to be resource-constrained. [...] So, our technology makes desalination much more accessible in all areas around the world.”

Inflation and spending freezes from the Trump administration are discouraging investments in U.S. carbon capture storage facilities, which are key to decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors such as cement and steel. According to MITEI Senior Research Engineer Howard Herzog, developers now face about 30% higher capital costs.

MITEI Senior Research Engineer Howard Herzog discussed the challenges and benefits of carbon capture and storage during this year’s Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate, where panelists discussed geoengineering—a controversial approach to addressing climate change that some believe worth exploring.

The Trump administration recently announced tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods, including a 10% tariff on Canadian energy resources. Chris Knittel (MIT Sloan) expects consumers will pay more than three quarters of the tax.

Experts expect solar energy generation to continue to expand, even under the Trump administration. Chris Knittel (MIT Sloan) states that low solar costs are “driving a lot of adoption, because it’s just a cheap source of electricity.”

Nuclear startup Core Power, MIT, and the Idaho National Laboratory were awarded funds to develop floating nuclear power plants (FNPPs). “The value proposition is faster, cheaper, more versatile, and with a greater tolerance to loss of cooling events,” states Jacopo Buongiorno (Nuclear Science and Engineering) on the benefits of FNPPs.

Desirée Plata (Civil and Environmental Engineering) discusses her efforts “to make our chemical processes and industries compatible with human and ecological health.”

In order to meet the growing energy demand from data centers, tech giants are seeking to connect directly to power plants and avoid the delays and higher costs associated with using the electric grid. MITEI Director Bill Green weighs in on the time-sensitivity of related federal regulations.

A recent MITEI report on fusion predicts that fusion power could surpass coal as the world's leading power source by 2050, reshaping the global energy market.

Jessika Trancik (Institute for Data, Systems, and Society) weighs in on the developing energy transition infrastructure in Texas and the potential incorporation of green hydrogen: “There's a lot of efforts to try to grow that industry and take it in new, innovative directions.”

A new study—led by MIT graduate student Martin Staadecker—found that large-scale, long-duration energy storage deployment is essential for renewables to reach their full potential. “Battery storage on its own—or what people call short-duration energy storage—is very important. But you can’t just rely on lithium-ion batteries, because it would be very expensive to have enough to actually provide power for an entire week,” states Staadecker.

Jessika Trancik (Institute for Data, Systems, and Society) discusses the future of EVs and her research lab’s online tool, Carboncounter, that analyzes the climate impact of different vehicles: “A shift to an electric vehicle is one of the single most impactful decisions that someone can make if they want to reduce their own emissions.”