Commonwealth Fusion Systems, an MIT spinout, has announced plans to “build its first fusion power plant in Virginia, with the aim of generating zero-emissions electricity there in the early 2030s,” reports Raymond Zhong for The New York Times. “The …
MIT spinout Commonwealth Fusion Systems has announced plans to build the “world’s first grid-scale fusion power plant in Virginia, to generate power by the early 2030s,” reports Timothy Gardner for Reuters. The project, “could revolutionize the global …
On June 18, 2023, the Titan submersible was about an hour-and-a-half into its two-hour descent to the Titanic wreckage at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean when it lost contact with its support ship. This cease in communication set off a frantic search for …
Kara Miller: I'm Kara Miller. Rob Stoner: And I'm Rob Stoner. KM: And this is What if it works? From the MIT Energy Initiative, this is What If It Works?, a podcast looking at the solutions for climate change. I'm Kara Miller. RS: And I…
Kara Miller: This is What if it works? Coming to you from the MIT Energy Initiative and looking at the energy solutions to climate change. I'm Kara Miller. Robert Stoner: And I'm Robert Stoner. KM: And to start today, I'm going to throw out …
America is one step closer to tapping into a new and potentially limitless clean energy source today, with the announcement from MIT spinout Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) that it plans to build the world’s first grid-scale fusion power plant in …
Nancy W. Stauffer As the world looks for ways to stop climate change, much discussion focuses on using hydrogen instead of fossil fuels, which emit climate-warming greenhouse gases (GHGs) when they’re burned. The idea is appealing. Burning hydrogen doesn’t …
Brought together as part of the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC) initiative within the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, a community of students known as SERC Scholars is collaborating to examine the most urgent problems humans …
This story by MIT Environmental Solutions Journalism Fellow Reid Frazier was originally published in the Allegheny Front, where it appears with additional photos and resources. Steel is a modern necessity – a critical component of everything from …
The amount of waste generated by the construction sector underscores an urgent need for embracing circularity — a sustainable model that aims to minimize waste and maximize material efficiency through recovery and reuse — in the built environment: 600 …
If you're looking for hard problems, building a nuclear fusion power plant is a pretty good place to start. Fusion — the process that powers the sun — has proven to be a difficult thing to recreate here on Earth despite decades of research. “There’s …
David L. Chandler Deciding where to build new solar or wind installations is often left up to individual developers or utilities, with limited overall coordination. But a new study shows that regional-level planning using fine-grained weather data, …
Dry river channels and lake beds on Mars point to the long-ago presence of a liquid on the planet's surface, and the minerals observed from orbit and from landers seem to many to prove that the liquid was ordinary water. Not so fast, the authors of a …
For the first time, MIT sent an organized engagement to the global Conference of the Parties for the Convention on Biological Diversity, which this year was held Oct. 21 to Nov. 1 in Cali, Colombia. The 10 delegates to COP16 included faculty, researchers, …
Although it is less abundant than carbon dioxide, methane gas contributes disproportionately to global warming because it traps more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, due to its molecular structure. MIT chemical engineers have now designed a new …
The MIT Global Seed Funds (GSF) program fosters global research collaborations with MIT faculty and their peers abroad — creating partnerships that tackle complex global issues, from climate change to health-care challenges and beyond. Administered by the …
Capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius is a tall order. Achieving that goal will not only require a massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, but also a substantial reallocation of land to support that effort and sustain …
Whether you’re manufacturing cement, steel, chemicals, or paper, you need a large amount of heat. Almost without exception, manufacturers around the world create that heat by burning fossil fuels. In an effort to clean up the industrial sector, some …
The Consortium for Climate Solutions, which is led by MIT, Harvard and Mass General Brigham, is helping to build and run a solar farm in Texas and a wind farm in North Dakota, which should generate enough renewable energy annually to power 130,000 homes, …
Kara Miller: I'm Kara Miller. Robert Stoner: And I'm Rob Stoner. KM: And this is What if it works? From the MIT Energy Initiative, this is What if it works?—a podcast looking at the energy solutions for climate change. I’m Kara Miller. You might …
