For Axios Boston, reporter Steph Solis highlights “Anita,” a solar-electric boat created by alumnus James Worden ‘89 that is due to launch this year. The boat was previewed at the 80th anniversary Charles River sail-a-thon. “The prototype, named ‘Anita’ after Worden's late wife, moves silently with no fumes or exhaust and uses LiFePO4 battery cells with a battery management system (it lets you charge the batteries while they're in use),” writes Solis.
NPR reporter Jeff Brady spotlights a study by Prof. Jessika Trancik and Marco Miotti PhD ’20 that found “across most of the U.S., electric vehicles are cost-competitive with their gas counterparts. And it found that in most locations, EVs also reduce emissions between 40% and 60%.”
MIT engineers have developed a new low-temperature process for extracting battery-grade lithium from hard rock, while also reducing waste, reports Gayoung Lee for Gizmodo. “Mining is essential to technology and therefore to society, yet it is perceived negatively by much of the public as a destructive, polluting industry, in some cases with good reason,” explains Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang. “We hope to help change that perception by showing that there are cleaner, more sustainable ways to do it.”
Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. Christopher Knittel and graduate student Fischer Espiritu Argosino make the case that in Massachusetts the “current compensation structure for the electricity produced by solar panels turns a climate solution into an inequitable cost shift that burdens many residents.” They add: “The state needs to prioritize large-scale wind and solar deployment and fix how residential solar exporters are compensated…. Massachusetts has long been a clean-energy leader. It can remain one by showing that decarbonization and affordability can go hand in hand.”
Brian Bergstein at The Boston Globe speaks with Bob Mumgaard SM '15, PhD '15, CEO of MIT spinout Commonwealth Fusion Systems, about the company’s efforts to advance fusion technologies. “When the federal government said in 2012 that it would cut funding for the experimental fusion reactor on campus, the MIT researchers took that as an opportunity to develop new fusion techniques — which eventually formed the basis of CFS’s plans,” writes Bergstein.
New York Times reporter Rebecca Elliott spotlights Phoenix Tailings, a startup co-founded by MIT alumni that is developing a sustainable process for refining rare-earth refining in the United States. Elliott notes that Phoenix Tailings created a closed-loop design for their manufacturing method that “distinguishes this process from the more energy-intensive techniques used in China, where workers scoop up molten metal with ladles.”
Researchers at MIT have developed a new method that can predict how plasma will behave in a tokamak reactor given a set of initial conditions, reports Gayoung Lee for Gizmodo. The findings “may have lowered one of the major barriers to achieving large-scale nuclear fusion,” explains Lee.
Boston Globe reporter Jon Chesto spotlights the kickoff event for the new MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance, which will “fund research initiatives, fellowships, and other programs with an eye toward improving energy technologies and decarbonization.” GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik emphasized that he has been impressed with the passion and talent for clean-tech among the students at MIT and other universities. “I started these discussions with the objective that we should inspire future leaders to come into our industry and ideally come to our company,” Strazik said. “They’ve probably inspired us more than we’ve inspired them.”
CNBC reporter Diana Olick spotlights Quaise Energy, an MIT spinoff developing geothermal energy technology. “We intend to build the first in the world superhot, or super critical geothermal power plant, to show exactly that 10X output that you get by going hotter,” says Carlos Araque '01 MS '02.
MIT spinoff Commonwealth Fusion System has made its first direct corporate power purchase agreement with Google, reports Timothy Gardner for Reuters. Google plans to buy 200 megawatts of fusion power from Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ first grid-scale fusion power plant in Chesterfield County, Virginia.
Prof. Jacquelyn Pless speaks with Grist reporter Tik Root about the future of the solar power industry amid federal proposals to remove tax credit incentives that assist with residential solar costs. “Policy volatility is really my bigger concern,” says Pless. “Policy uncertainty alone can start to freeze investment, raise costs, and damage market confidence.”
Prof. Amos Winter speaks with WBUR reporter Grace Griffin about his work developing a desalination system that relies on solar power. “The majority of water you find in the ground around the world is salty,” says Winter. “The reason we use solar power is that most people around the world are going to be resource-constrained. They may have lower income levels or not have access to grid electricity. So, our technology makes desalination much more accessible in all areas around the world.”
Anantha Chandrakasan, MIT’s chief innovation and strategy officer and dean of MIT’s School of Engineering, speaks with Boston Globe reporter Jon Chesto about the new MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance. “A great amount of innovation happens in academia. We have a longer view into the future,” says Chandrakasan. He adds that while companies like GE Vernova have “the ability to get products out quickly to scale up, to manufacture, we have the ability to think past the short-term. ... It’s super smart of them to surround themselves with this incredible talent in academia. That will allow us to make the kind of breakthroughs that will keep U.S. competitiveness at its peak.”
E&E News reporter Christa Marshall writes that the new MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance will “scale sustainable energy systems across the globe” and advance breakthrough low-carbon technologies.
New Yorker reporter Brent Crane spotlights Quaise Energy, an MIT geothermal energy startup founded by Carlos Araque BS '01, MS '02. Crane explains that central to Quaise’s system is the gyrotron, a tubular device that “works like a very, very powerful microwave, emitting ‘millimeter waves’ that would vaporize your vegetables; they can generate temperatures of a hundred million degrees Celsius.” Crane notes that: “About a decade ago, Paul Woskov, an MIT research engineer, showed that the technology could be used for ‘energy drilling’ without a physical bit. Quaise’s scientists propose that the heat of a gyrotron could stabilize tunnel walls by vitrifying them into glass.”