Studies by researchers at MIT have found “that shifting to electric vehicles delivers a 30% to 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over combustion vehicles,” reports Tom Krisher for Associated Press. According to Prof. Jessika Trancik, “electric vehicles are cleaner over their lifetimes, even after taking into account the pollution caused by the mining of metals for batteries,” writes Krisher.
Prof. John Goodenough, who shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work developing the lithium-ion battery, has died at age 100, reports Jim Vertuno for the AP. Goodenough “began his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his research laid the groundwork for development of random-access memory for the digital computer.”
Washington Post reporter Brian Murphy memorializes the life and work of Prof. John Goodenough, who worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratory for over 20 years. Goodenough was “an American scientist who shared a Nobel Prize for helping create the lithium-ion battery that powered the mobile tech revolution and provides the juice for electric cars, but who later raised worries about a design that relies on scarce natural resources,” writes Murphy.
New York Times reporter Robert D. McFadden highlights the work of Prof. John Goodenough, a scientist who worked at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory for over 20 years and played a “crucial role in developing the revolutionary lithium-ion battery” has died at age 100. “At MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory in the 1950s and ’60s, he was a member of teams that helped lay the groundwork for random access memory (RAM) in computers and developed plans for the nation’s first air defense system,” writes McFadden.
Professor Yet-Ming Chiang of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) talks to NOVA’s Miles O’Brien about his research aimed at closing gaps in renewable energy availability when there’s no sun or wind. Through their company, Form Energy, Chiang and William Woodford PhD ’13 have developed iron-air batteries that can store electricity for up to 100 hours. “This is something that just a few years ago was considered impossible,” Chiang explains.
MIT researchers have found that by “encouraging strategic EV charging placement, rather than allowing EV chargers to be situated merely due to charging company convenience or preferences” it may be possible to “mitigate or eliminate EV charging problems without the need for advanced technological systems of connected devices and real-time communications, which could add to costs and energy consumption,” reports Carolyn Fortuna for CleanTechnica.
MIT researchers have found that placing EV charging stations in strategic locations and setting up charging systems to initiate charging at delayed times could help reduce the impact of EVs on the electrical grid, reports Michael Schoeck for PV Magazine.
MIT scientists have found that delayed charging and strategic placement of EV charging stations could help reduce additional energy demands caused by more widespread EV adoption, reports Grace Carroll for Fast Company. “Leveraging these two strategies together significantly eliminates any additional energy demands,” writes Carroll, “and can be tailored to specific local conditions to help cities meet their decarbonization goals.”
A new study by MIT researchers finds that strategic placement of EV charging stations and creating systems to help stagger charging times could help reduce or eliminate the need for new power plants to handle the impact of EV charging on the grid, reports Sharon Udasin and Saul Elbein for The Hill. The researchers found that “better availability of charging stations at workplaces could help take advantage of peak power being produced midday by solar energy facilities.”
Writing for Scientific American, John Fialka spotlights Form Energy, an MIT spinout designing an iron-air battery that “could help decarbonize the nation’s power sector more cheaply than lithium-ion storage systems.” Fialka explains that “unlike current lithium-ion batteries that require expensive materials mostly from other countries such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite, the proposed battery stores electricity using widely available iron metal.”
Physics World has named two research advances by MIT researchers to its list of the Top 10 Breakthroughs of the Year. Prof. Gang Chen and his colleagues were selected for their work “showing that cubic boron arsenide is one of the best semiconductors known to science.” Prof. Asegun Henry, grad student Alina LaPotin and their colleagues were nominated for “constructing a thermophotovoltaic (TPV) cell with an efficiency of more than 40%.”
Popular Science reporter Helen Bradshaw writes that MIT researchers have improved the energy capacity of nonrechargeable batteries, the batteries used in pacemakers and other implantable medical devices, by employing a new type of electrolyte. “Expanding the life of primary batteries may also make them sustainable contenders,” writes Bradshaw. “Fewer batteries will have to be used in pacemakers as their lifespans increase, decreasing overall battery waste in addition to reducing the number of battery replacement surgeries needed.”
Dharik Mallapragada, a principal research scientist at the MIT Energy Initiative, speaks with Vox reporter Neel Dhanesha about the pressing need to find new ways to store renewable energy. “We need to think about solutions that go beyond conventional lithium-ion batteries,” says Mallapragada. “No single technology is going to make this happen. We have to think about it as a jigsaw puzzle, where every piece plays its role in the system.”
Prof. Kripa Varanasi and his colleagues have founded Alsym Energy, a startup working toward developing a lithium battery alternative, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. The founders say “they’ve built a new kind of rechargeable battery that delivers the performance of lithium ion cells at half the cost,” writes Bray.
Prof. Jessika Trancik speaks with Science Friday host Ira Flatow about the future of electric vehicles. “I think there is a lot happening in this space both coming from the private sector and then also from these government incentives coming in to accelerate that process,” says Trancik.