A study by MIT researchers demonstrates how air pollution can significantly reduce profits from solar panel installations, reports Avery Thompson for Popular Mechanics. The researchers found that in Delhi, “electricity generation is reduced by more than 10 percent,” Thompson explains, “which translates to a cost of more than $20 million.”
Prof. Donald Sadoway speaks with Forbes contributor Arne Alsin about the future of sustainable energy and battery design. “We definitely have to be bolder in our innovation when it comes to what goes beyond lithium-ion,” says Sadoway. “We have to apply the criterion ‘If successful, how big is the impact?’ And we have to have the courage to fail.”
Physics Today reporter David Kramer highlights how Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), an MIT startup, is on a mission to prove that fusion power is a viable energy source. “CFS benefits from decades of experience by MIT researchers working on high-field, high-plasma-density tokamaks,” notes Kramer.
In this video, VOA reporter Steve Baragona looks at different methods of harvesting water from fog. Baragona highlights a new system developed by MIT researchers, explaining that in some areas where the water supply is dwindling, “the technology is far cheaper than other options like desalination.”
Engadget reporter Jon Fingas writes that MIT researchers have developed a tiny computer chip small enough to fit on a honeybee-sized drone that can help the drone navigate. The technology could eventually be applied to, “smart pills that navigate to where they're needed, or virtually any vehicle that may need to last for a very long time on one battery charge.”
MIT graduates Maher Damak and Karim Khalil discuss their startup Infinite Cooling and the new technique they developed to capture and recycle water expelled from power plant cooling towers on Bloomberg Baystate Business. Co-host Tom Moroney calls this energy efficient method that captures up to 80 percent of the water, an “idea that could change the world.”
Xinhua reports that MIT engineers have developed a new method of harvesting water from industrial cooling towers that could decrease the operating cost of power plants. Eventually the new method could also be used to harvest, “safe drinking water for coastal cities where seawater is used to cool local power plants.”
Writing for IEEE Spectrum, David Wagman spotlights a new technology from MIT researchers that could offer water-scarce cities, “a new source of the precious resource” by capturing and reusing water from cooling towers. Prof. Kripa Varanasi notes that their system, “can achieve on the order of 99 percent efficiency,” in capturing the water droplets.
MIT researchers have developed a system that captures water from power plant cooling towers, writes Martin Finucane for The Boston Globe. Finucane explains that, “the captured water would be pure, distilled water and could be piped to a city’s water system or it could be used in the power plant’s boilers, which, unlike the cooling system, require clean water.”
MIT researchers developed an electrically charged fog collector that can attract and collect more water droplets than a regular fog harvester, writes Matt Simon for Wired. The technology could eventually be used to recover water from power plant cooling towers where it can, “capture the plumes and collect that water,” explains Prof. Kripa Varanasi.
In an article for The Verge, Angela Chen highlights a new technique developed by MIT researchers to harvest water from fog. In the future, the researchers hope to place the harvesters, “near cooling plumes to collect and reuse water that would otherwise be lost.”
Fast Company reporter Adele Peters writes that MIT researchers have developed a system that captures large amounts of water from the cooling towers used on power plants and data centers. Prof. Kripa Varanasi explains that he hopes this new technology can be used to address water scarcity: “We are thinking of each of these cooling towers as water farms.”
Kagome metal, a new discovery made through research by Assistant Prof. Joseph Checkelsky and graduate student Linda Ye, allows for the transfer of electrical currents “across atomic layers in the crystal” without any energy loss. Aristos Georgiou for Newsweek writes that such material may enable quantum computers "to solve certain problems that even the most powerful classical computers struggle to calculate.”
BBC News reports on the creation of Kagome metal, an “electrically conducting crystal, made from layers of iron and tin atoms,” that could be used in more powerful quantum computers. The shape of the conductor, developed by Assistant Professor Joseph Checkelsky and graduate student Linda Ye, mimics a popular pattern in Japanese basket-weaving.
Prof. Zach Hartwig and Bob Mumgaard, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, discuss the new fusion initiative live on Bloomberg Radio (beginning at 34:40) with hosts Peter Barnes, Tom Moroney and Pat Carroll. "MIT brings 40 years of federally funded expertise in physics to contribute to the project," said Hartwig, "and we see that as a tremendous strength of this new kind of model."