To stave off the worst impacts of climate change, “we must decarbonize, and decarbonize even faster,” said William H. Green, director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and Hoyt C. Hottel Professor within the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering, on the annual MITEI Research Conference.
“But how the hell will we actually achieve this goal when the United States is in the course of a divisive election campaign and we face all kinds of geopolitical conflicts, trade protectionism, weather disasters and increasing demand from developing countries around the globe? a middle class and data centers in countries just like the USA?”
Researchers, government officials and business leaders gathered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, September 25-26 to deal with this thorny query on the conference, titled “A Lasting Energy Transition: How to Stay on Track within the Face of Rising Demand.” “faced unforeseeable obstacles.”
“We have quite a lot of power on this space,” Green said, “if we work together, communicate to your complete community what we consider are real ways and policies to resolve problems, and take collective motion.”
The critical role of consensus constructing in driving the energy transition was highlighted time and again in conference sessions, whether it’s the event and adoption of latest technologies, the development and siting of infrastructure, the event and adoption of key energy policies, or the attraction and retention of a talented workforce went.
Resolve conflicts
Divesting from fossil fuels comes with “backlashes and social costs,” said Stephen Ansolabehere, the Frank G. Thompson Professor of Government at Harvard University, in a panel on the social barriers to decarbonization. “Companies need to have interaction in another way and recognize the rights of communities,” he said.
Nora DeDontney, development manager at Vineyard Offshore, described her company's two years of outreach and negotiations to bring large offshore wind turbine cables to shore.
“Our motto is 'Community first,'” she said. Her company is working to mitigate any impact on cities from the development of offshore wind energy infrastructure, for instance by expanding sewers; provides workforce training to tribal nations; and locates wind turbines to create protected and reliable areas for local fishing.
Elsa A. Olivetti, a professor within the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT and leader of the decarbonization mission of MIT's recent climate project, discussed the urgent have to rapidly expand mineral extraction. “It is estimated that around six recent large copper mines will need to come back online every year to impress the vehicle fleet by 2050,” she said. Meeting the demand for metals within the United States requires penetrating indigenous lands and environmentally sensitive habitats. “The approval timeline shouldn’t be aligned with the required acceleration,” she said.
Larry Susskind, Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning in MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning, is attempting to resolve such tensions by having universities tackle the role of mediators. He is establishing renewable energy clinics that train students to have interaction in emerging siting disputes. “Talk to people before decisions are made, conduct joint fact-finding in order that institutions reduce harm and share the advantages,” he said.
Clean energy boom and bust
A comparatively recent and unexpected surge in energy demand comes from data centers being built by major technology firms for brand new offerings corresponding to artificial intelligence.
“Overall energy demand has been flat for 20 years — and now it’s booming,” said Sean James, senior director of knowledge center research at Microsoft. “It caught utilities off guard.” With the expansion of AI and the frenzy to power data centers with greater than 35 gigawatts of latest (mostly renewable) energy within the near future, pressure is increasing on large firms to deal with the concerns of the Balancing stakeholders across multiple areas. Google is aiming for twenty-four/7 carbon-free energy supply by 2030, said Devon Swezey, the corporate's senior manager of worldwide energy and climate.
“We are pursuing this by purchasing more and several types of clean energy locally and accelerating technological innovations corresponding to next-generation geothermal projects,” he said. Pedro Gómez Lopez, strategy and development director at Ferrovial Digital, an organization that designs and builds data centers, incorporates renewable energy into its projects, contributing to decarbonization goals and bringing advantages to the locations where they’re positioned. “We can create a brand new power supply by transporting the warmth generated by an information center to homes or industries within the neighborhood through district heating initiatives,” he said.
The Inflation Reduction Act and other laws have increased clean energy job opportunities nationwide and touched all regions, including those most depending on fossil fuels. “As of early 2024, there have been roughly 3.5 million clean energy jobs, with 'red' states experiencing the fastest growth in clean energy jobs,” said David S. Miller, managing partner at Clean Energy Ventures. “The majority (58 percent) of latest energy jobs are actually in clean energy – this variation has happened. And one in 16 recent jobs across the country was in clean energy, with clean energy jobs growing greater than 3 times faster than job growth across the economy.”
In this rapid expansion, the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) is prioritizing economically marginalized places, in keeping with Zoe Lipman, director of excellent jobs and labor standards within the DoE's Office of Energy Jobs. “The community profit process is built into our funding,” she said. “We are laying the groundwork for a virtuous cycle” by encouraging advantages to disadvantaged and high-energy communities, advancing workforce training partnerships and promoting good-paying union jobs. “These policies incentivize proactive community and workforce engagement and supply community advantages, each of that are critical to constructing support for technological change.”
Hydrogen opportunity and challenge
While collaboration with stakeholders helps pave the best way for technology implementation and infrastructure dissemination, enormous policy, scientific and technical challenges remain to be resolved, several conference participants said. In a “fireside chat,” Prasanna V. Joshi, vp of low-carbon solutions technology at ExxonMobil, and Ernest J. Moniz, professor of physics and special adviser to the president at MIT, discussed efforts to exchange natural gas and coal with carbon-free hydrogen to scale back greenhouse gas emissions in essential industries corresponding to steel and fertilizer production.
“We have entered an era of commercial policy,” Moniz said, pointing to a brand new DoE program that gives incentives to generate demand for hydrogen – dearer than traditional fossil fuels – in end-use applications. “We have to move from our current approach, which I’d call ‘carrots and sticks,’ to ultimately ‘carrots and sticks,’” Moniz warned, so as to achieve “a self-sustaining, large-scale, scalable, inexpensive hydrogen economy.”
To achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, ExxonMobil plans to make use of carbon capture and sequestration in natural gas-based hydrogen and ammonia production. Ammonia can even function a carbon-free fuel. The industry is exploring direct combustion of ammonia in coal-fired power plants to expand the hydrogen value chain. But there are challenges. “How do you burn one hundred pc ammonia?” asked Joshi. “This is some of the essential technological breakthroughs we’d like.” Joshi believes that collaboration with MIT’s “ecosystem of breakthrough innovations” will likely be crucial to breaking blockages within the hydrogen and ammonia-based industries.
MIT ingenuity essential
The energy transition places very different demands on different regions around the globe. Take India, where per capita electricity consumption is now one in all the bottom. But Indians “are an emerging people… and with increasing urbanization and industrial activity, the rise in electricity demand is anticipated to triple by 2050,” Praveer Sinha, CEO and managing director of Tata Power Co. Ltd., said in his keynote address. For this country, which currently relies on coal, the transition to scrub energy means bringing a further 300 gigawatts of carbon-free capability online over the subsequent five years. Sinha sees this energy coming from wind, solar and hydropower, supplemented by nuclear energy.
“India plans to triple nuclear power generation capability by 2032 and is specializing in further development of small modular reactors,” Sinha said. “The country also needs the rapid deployment of storage solutions to secure intermittent energy supplies.” The aim is to make use of long-distance transmission lines and native microgrids to offer the population in each large cities and geographically distant villages with reliable electricity across the clock. “India's energy transition requires modern and inexpensive technology solutions, and there is no such thing as a higher place than MIT to have the very best minds, startups and technologies,” he said.
These assets were on full display on the conference. Including a gaggle of young firms including:
- MIT spinout Form Energy, which developed a 100-hour iron battery as a backup for renewable energy sources during multi-day interruptions;
- Startup Noya, which goals to capture atmospheric CO directly from the air2 Use of carbon-based materials;
- the corporate Active Surfaces with a light-weight material for putting solar photovoltaics in previously inaccessible places;
- Copernic Catalysts with recent chemistry to supply ammonia and sustainable aviation fuel way more cost-effectively than current processes; And
- Sesame Sustainability, a software platform born out of MITEI that gives industry with an entire financial evaluation of the prices and advantages of decarbonization.
The pipeline of research talent prolonged into the coed ranks, with a conference “slam” competition showcasing students' summer research projects in areas from carbon capture using enzymes to 3D design for the coils presented on the Inclusion of fusion energy might be used.
“MIT students like me wish to be the subsequent generation of energy leaders and are in search of careers where we will use our technical skills to tackle exciting climate problems and make a tangible impact,” said Trent Lee, a junior in mechanical engineering, who Lithium-ion energy storage is researching improvements. “We are excited concerning the energy transition since it shouldn’t be only the longer term, but additionally our opportunity to shape it.”
