The Mexico City Initiative at MIT, led by the Institute’s Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU), has conceived and modeled an impressive array of solutions for challenges facing urban areas in Mexico and beyond. Faculty and students have designed the repurposing of a vintage roller coaster as a public meeting space, modeled strategies […]
Read MoreMany people are optimistic about ammonia’s potential as an energy source and carrier of hydrogen, and though large-scale adoption would require major changes to the way it is currently manufactured, ammonia does have a number of advantages. For one thing, ammonia is energy-dense and carbon-free. It is also already produced at scale and shipped around […]
Read MoreArtificial intelligence has captured headlines recently for its rapidly growing energy demands, and particularly the surging electricity usage of data centers that enable the training and deployment of the latest generative AI models. But it’s not all bad news — some AI tools have the potential to reduce some forms of energy consumption and enable cleaner grids. […]
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In a field defined by discovering, designing, and processing the materials that underpin modern technology, Diran Apelian ScD ’73 has a resounding message: Reuse can’t remain just the focus of a PhD thesis or a startup. It needs to be engineered from the beginning. Apelian, a metallurgist and MIT alumnus known for his pioneering work […]
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The latest United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) concluded in November without a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels and without significant progress in strengthening national pledges to reduce climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions. In aggregate, today’s climate policies remain far too unambitious to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, setting the […]
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The world’s most common construction material has a secret. Cement, the “glue” that holds concrete together, gradually “breathes in” and stores millions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air over the lifetimes of buildings and infrastructure. A new study from the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub quantifies this process, carbon uptake, at a national […]
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A number of advanced energy technologies — including fuel cells, electrolyzers, and an emerging class of low-power electronics — use protons as the key charge carrier. Whether or not these devices will be widely adopted hinges, in part, on how efficiently they can move protons. One class of materials known as metal oxides has shown […]
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Current Climate brings you the latest news about the business of sustainability every Monday. Sign up to get it in your inbox. UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images The rapid growth and impact of massive data centers, especially for AI and cryptocurrency companies, this year has had big economic benefits, especially for construction and design […]
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Governments and companies constantly face decisions about how to allocate finite amounts of money to clean energy technologies that can make a difference to the world’s climate, its economies, and to society as a whole. The process is inherently uncertain, but research has been shown to help predict which technologies will be most successful. Using […]
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Capturing carbon dioxide from industrial plants is an important strategy in the efforts to reduce the impact of global climate change. It’s used in many industries, including the production of petrochemicals, cement, and fertilizers. MIT chemical engineers have now discovered a simple way to make carbon capture more efficient and affordable, by adding a common […]
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Students enrolled in MIT’s New Engineering Education Transformation (NEET) program recently collaborated across academic disciplines to design and construct a solar-powered charging station. Positioned in a quiet campus courtyard, the station provides the MIT community with climate-friendly power for phones, laptops, and tablets. Its installation marked the “first time a cross-departmental team of undergraduates designed, […]
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Current Climate brings you the latest news about the business of sustainability every Monday. Sign up to get it in your inbox. The Trump administration’s plan to weaken U.S. fuel economy rules, claiming it will make new cars about $1,000 cheaper for consumers – presumably because automakers can use less sophisticated powertrains – ignores a […]
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Many organizations are taking actions to shrink their carbon footprint, such as purchasing electricity from renewable sources or reducing air travel. Both actions would cut greenhouse gas emissions, but which offers greater societal benefits? In a first step toward answering that question, MIT researchers found that even if each activity reduces the same amount of […]
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A spray-on coating to keep power lines standing through an ice storm may not be the obvious fix for winter outages — but it’s exactly the kind of innovation that happens when MIT students tackle a sustainability challenge. “The big threat to the power line network is winter icing that causes huge amounts of downed […]
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Growing energy demand means the U.S. will almost certainly have to expand its electricity grid in coming years. What’s the best way to do this? A new study by MIT researchers examines legislation introduced in Congress and identifies relative tradeoffs involving reliability, cost, and emissions, depending on the proposed approach. The researchers evaluated two policy […]
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On a sunny, warm Sunday MIT students, staff, and faculty spread out across the fields of Hannan Healthy Foods in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Some of these volunteers pluck tomatoes from their vines in a patch a few hundred feet from the cars whizzing by on Route 117. Others squat in the shade cast by the greenhouse to […]
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At a high level, ammonia seems like a dream fuel: It’s carbon-free, energy-dense, and easier to move and store than hydrogen. Ammonia is also already manufactured and transported at scale, meaning it could transform energy systems using existing infrastructure. But burning ammonia creates dangerous nitrous oxides, and splitting ammonia molecules to create hydrogen fuel typically […]
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There is growing attention on the links between artificial intelligence and increased energy demands. But while the power-hungry data centers being built to support AI could potentially stress electricity grids, increase customer prices and service interruptions, and generally slow the transition to clean energy, the use of artificial intelligence can also help the energy transition. […]
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Tractor Haymakers Tractor Beverage Co. Tractor is the largest beverage company you’ve never heard of. That’s by design, because Tractor Beverage Company likes to break the status quo. After a decade of creating organic fountain beverages for universities and restaurants like Chipotle, Tractor is heading down a new fork in the road, now entering the […]
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Ernest Opoku knew he wanted to become a scientist when he was a little boy. But his school in Dadease, a small town in Ghana, offered no elective science courses — so Opoku created one for himself. Even though they had neither a dedicated science classroom nor a lab, Opoku convinced his principal to bring […]
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If there was one thing Cameron Halliday SM ’19, MBA ’22, PhD ’22 was exceptional at during the early days of his PhD at MIT, it was producing the same graph over and over again. Unfortunately for Halliday, the graph measured various materials’ ability to absorb CO2 at high temperatures over time — and it […]
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“We’re here to talk about really substantive changes, and we want you to be a participant in that,” said Desirée Plata, the School of Engineering Distinguished Professor of Climate and Energy in MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, at Energizing@MIT: the MIT Energy Initiative’s (MITEI) Annual Research Conference that was held on Sept. 9-10. […]
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MIT and GE Vernova launched the MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance on Sept. 15, a collaboration to advance research and education focused on accelerating the global energy transition. Through the alliance — an industry-academia initiative conceived by MIT Provost Anantha Chandrakasan and GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik — GE Vernova has committed $50 million […]
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Feeling thirsty? Why not tap into the air? Even in desert conditions, there exists some level of humidity that, with the right material, can be soaked up and squeezed out to produce clean drinking water. In recent years, scientists have developed a host of promising sponge-like materials for this “atmospheric water harvesting.” But recovering the […]
Read MoreChina dominates the global supply of lithium. The country processes about 65 percent of the battery material and has begun on-again, off-again export restrictions of lithium-based products critical to the economy. Fortunately, the U.S. has significant lithium reserves, most notably in the form of massive underground brines across south Arkansas and east Texas. But recovering […]
Read More“MIT.nano is essential to making progress in high-priority areas where I believe that MIT has a responsibility to lead,” opened MIT president Sally Kornbluth at the 2025 Nano Summit. “If we harness our collective efforts, we can make a serious positive impact.” It was these collective efforts that drove discussions at the daylong event hosted […]
Read MoreA new class is giving MIT students the opportunity to examine the historical and practical considerations of urban farming while developing a real-world understanding of its value by working alongside a local farm’s community. Course 4.182 (Resilient Urbanism: Green Commons in the City) is taught in two sections by instructors in the Program in Science, Technology, […]
Read MoreSometimes the answers to seemingly intractable environmental problems are found in nature itself. Take the growing challenge of plastic waste. Jacqueline Prawira, an MIT senior in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), has developed biodegradable, plastic-like materials from fish offal, as featured in a recent segment on the CBS show “The Visioneers with Zay […]
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With global power demand from data centers expected to more than double by 2030, the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) in September launched an effort that brings together MIT researchers and industry experts to explore innovative solutions for powering the data-driven future. At its annual research conference, MITEI announced the Data Center Power Forum, a targeted research effort for […]
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Older buildings let thousands of dollars-worth of energy go to waste each year through leaky roofs, old windows, and insufficient insulation. But even as building owners face mounting pressure to comply with stricter energy codes, making smart decisions about how to invest in efficiency is a major challenge. Lamarr.AI, born in part from MIT research, […]
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The MIT Living Climate Futures Lab (LCFL) centers the human dimensions of climate change, bringing together expertise from across MIT to address one of the world’s biggest challenges. The LCFL has three main goals: “addressing how climate change plays out in everyday life, focusing on community-oriented partnerships, and encouraging cross-disciplinary conversations around climate change on […]
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