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."
A study from senior researcher Rolland Pellenq finds that grid-like cities retain more heat than those that are less-linear, due to the “Urban Heat Island” effect. “For new cities, or even neighborhoods, our findings can be used…in designing block layouts that would help optimize temperature,” Pellenq explains to Marlene Cimons of Popular Science.
MIT will partner with Commonwealth Fusion Systems in an effort to make fusion power a reality in 15 years. “MIT and CFS are hoping to facilitate a leap forward on several of these problems at once with a new superconducting material that will help make more efficient magnets to control the plasma,” Eric Limer writes for Popular Mechanics.
WBUR's Bruce Gellerman discusses the latest fusion news out of MIT with Morning Edition host Bob Oakes. "They really do believe that they've got the technology. They've got the science. They've got the engineering. They've got the money. And they're ready to roll," says Gellerman.
Scientists at MIT and a private company are looking to "transform fusion from an expensive science experiment into a viable commercial energy source," reports Hannah Devlin for The Guardian. Devlin quotes Prof. Maria Zuber, MIT's Vice President for Research: "At the heart of today’s news is a big idea - a credible, viable plan to achieve net positive energy for fusion.”
Prof. Michael Strano has developed a new device that generates electricity by harnessing energy from temperature changes. Elements that usually hinder the effectiveness of solar panels, like clouds or sand, “wouldn’t affect [this device's] ability to harness power from the ever-changing temperatures,” explains Sydney Pereira of Newsweek.