“We’re right here to speak about actually substantive adjustments, and we would like you to be a participant in that,” stated Desirée Plata, the College of Engineering Distinguished Professor of Local weather and Vitality in MIT’s Division of Civil and Environmental Engineering, at Energizing@MIT: the MIT Vitality Initiative’s (MITEI) Annual Analysis Convention that was held on Sept. 9-10.
Plata’s phrases resonated with the 150-plus contributors from academia, trade, and authorities assembly in Cambridge for the convention, whose theme was “tackling rising vitality challenges.” Assembly such challenges and finally altering the trajectory of worldwide local weather outcomes requires partnerships, audio system agreed.
“We’ve got to be humble and open,” stated Giacomo Silvestri, chair of Eniverse Ventures at Eni, in a shared keynote deal with. “We can’t develop innovation simply specializing in ourselves and our competencies … so we have to accomplice with startups, enterprise funds, universities like MIT and different private and non-private establishments.”
Added his Eni colleague, Annalisa Muccioli, head of analysis and know-how, “The vitality transition is a race we will win solely by combining mature options able to deploy, along with rising applied sciences that also require acceleration and threat administration.”
Analysis targets
In a convention that showcased a set of analysis priorities MITEI has recognized as central to making sure a low-carbon vitality future, contributors shared each promising discoveries and methods for advancing confirmed applied sciences within the face of shifting political winds and coverage uncertainties.
One panel targeted on grid resiliency — a subject that has moved from the periphery to the middle of vitality discourse as climate-driven disruptions, cyber threats, and the mixing of renewables problem legacy methods. A dramatic working example: the April 2025 outage in Spain and Portugal that left hundreds of thousands with out energy for eight to fifteen hours.
“I wish to emphasize that this failure was about greater than the ability system,” stated MITEI analysis scientist Pablo Duenas-Martinez. Whereas he pinpointed technical issues with reactive energy and voltage management behind the system collapse, Duenas-Martinez additionally referred to as out a scarcity of transmission capability with Central Europe and out-of-date working procedures, and really useful higher preparation and communication amongst transmission methods and utility operators.
“You may’t plan for each single eventuality, which suggests we have to broaden the portfolio of maximum occasions we put together for,” famous Jennifer Pearce, vice chairman at vitality firm Avangrid. “We’re making the system smarter, stronger, and extra resilient to higher defend from a variety of threats resembling storms, flooding, and excessive warmth occasions.” Pearce famous that Avangrid’s dedication to ship protected, dependable energy to its prospects necessitates “meticulous emergency planning procedures.”
The resiliency of the electrical grid beneath enormously elevated demand is a crucial motivation behind MITEI’s September 2025 launch of the Knowledge Middle Energy Discussion board, which was additionally introduced throughout the annual analysis convention. The discussion board will embody analysis initiatives, webinars, and different content material targeted on vitality provide and storage, grid design and administration, infrastructure, and public and financial coverage associated to information facilities. The discussion board’s members embody MITEI firms that additionally take part in MIT’s Middle for Environmental and Vitality Coverage Analysis (CEEPR).
Storage and transportation: Staggering challenges
Assembly local weather objectives to decarbonize the world by 2050 requires constructing round 300 terawatt-hours of storage, in response to Asegun Henry, a professor within the MIT Division of Mechanical Engineering. “It’s an unbelievably monumental downside folks must wrap their minds round,” he stated. Henry has been creating a high-temperature thermal vitality storage system he has nicknamed “solar in a field.” His system makes use of liquid steel and graphite to carry electrical energy as warmth after which convert it again to electrical energy, enabling storage anyplace from 5 to 500 hours.
“On the finish of the day, storage supplies a service, and the kind of know-how that you simply want is a operate of the service that you simply worth probably the most,” stated Nestor Sepulveda, business lead for superior vitality investments and partnerships at Google. “I do not suppose there may be one winner-takes-all sort of market right here.”
One other panel explored sustainable fuels that might assist decarbonize hard-to-electrify sectors like aviation, transport, and long-haul trucking. Randall Subject, MITEI’s director of analysis, famous that sustainably produced drop-in fuels — fuels which are largely suitable with current engines — “may eradicate doubtlessly trillions of {dollars} of value for fleet alternative and for infrastructure build-out, whereas additionally serving to us to speed up the speed of decarbonization of the transportation sectors.”
Erik G. Birkerts is the chief development officer of LanzaJet, which produces a drop-in, high-energy-density aviation gasoline derived from agricultural residue and different waste carbon sources. “The important thing to driving broad sustainable aviation gasoline adoption is fixing each the supply-side problem by way of extra manufacturing and the demand-side hurdle by decreasing prices,” he stated.
“We predict a very good coverage framework [for sustainable fuels] can be one thing that’s technology-neutral, doesn’t exclude any pathways to supply, is predicated on life cycle accounting practices, and on market mechanisms,” stated Veronica L. Robertson, vitality merchandise know-how portfolio supervisor at ExxonMobil.
MITEI plans a significant enlargement of its analysis on sustainable fuels, saying a two-year research, “The way forward for fuels: Pathways to sustainable transportation,” beginning in early 2026. Based on Subject, the research will analyze and assess biofuels and e-fuels.
Options from labs huge and small
World vitality leaders supplied glimpses of their analysis initiatives. A panel on carbon seize in energy technology featured three takes on the subject: Devin Shaw, business director of decarbonization applied sciences at Shell, described post-combustion carbon seize in energy vegetation utilizing steam for warmth restoration; Jan Marsh, a world program lead at Siemens Vitality, mentioned deploying novel supplies to seize carbon dioxide immediately from the air; and Jeffrey Goldmeer, senior director of know-how technique at GE Vernova, defined integrating carbon seize into gas-powered turbine methods.
Throughout a panel on car electrification, Brian Storey, vice chairman of vitality and supplies on the Toyota Analysis Institute, offered an summary of Toyota’s portfolio of initiatives for decarbonization, together with solid-state batteries, versatile manufacturing strains, and grid-forming inverters to help EV charging infrastructure.
A session on MITEI seed fund initiatives revealed promising early-stage analysis inside MIT’s personal labs. A brand new course of for decarbonizing the manufacturing of ethylene was introduced by Yogesh Surendranath, Donner Professor of Science within the MIT Division of Chemistry. Supplies Science and Engineering assistant professor Aristide Gumyusenge additionally mentioned the event of polymers important for a brand new type of sodium-ion battery.
Shepherding daring, new applied sciences like these from tutorial labs into the actual world can’t succeed with out ample help and deft administration. A panel on paths to commercialization featured the work of Iwnetim Abate, Chipman Profession Growth Professor and assistant professor within the MIT Division of Supplies Science and Engineering, who has spun out an organization, Addis Vitality, based mostly on a novel geothermal course of for harvesting clear hydrogen and ammonia from subsurface, iron-rich rocks. Amongst his funders: ARPA-E and MIT’s personal The Engine Ventures.
The panel additionally highlighted the MIT Proto Ventures Program, an initiative to grab early-stage MIT concepts and unleash them as world-changing startups. “A mere 4.2 p.c of all of the patents which are truly prosecuted on the earth are ever commercialized, which looks like a stunning quantity,” stated Andrew Inglis, an entrepreneur working with Proto Ventures to translate geothermal discoveries into companies. “Can’t we do that higher? Let’s do that higher!”
Geopolitical hazards
All through the convention, contributors usually voiced concern in regards to the impacts of competitors between america and China. Kelly Sims Gallagher, dean of the Fletcher College at Tufts College and an knowledgeable on China’s vitality panorama, delivered the sobering information in her keynote deal with: “U.S. competitiveness in low-carbon applied sciences has eroded in almost each class,” she stated. “The Chinese language are profitable the clear tech race.”
China enjoys a 51 p.c share in international wind turbine manufacture and 75 p.c in photo voltaic modules. It additionally controls low-carbon provide chains that a lot of the world depends upon. “China is getting so dominant that no person can carve out a comparative benefit in something,” stated Gallagher. “China is simply so huge, and the dimensions is so enormous that the Chinese language can actually conquer markets and make it very laborious for potential opponents to discover a manner in.”
And for america, the issue is “the seesaw of vitality coverage,” she says. “It’s extremely troublesome for the personal sector to plan and to function, given the shortage of predictability and coverage right here.”
However, Gallagher believes america nonetheless has an opportunity of not less than regaining competitiveness, by establishing a secure, bipartisan vitality coverage, rebuilding home manufacturing and provide chains; offering constant fiscal incentives; attracting and retaining international expertise; and fostering worldwide collaboration.
The convention shone a lightweight on one such collaboration: a China-U.S. three way partnership to fabricate lithium iron phosphate batteries for business autos in america. The enterprise brings collectively Eve Vitality, a Chinese language battery know-how and manufacturing firm; Daimler, a world business car producer; PACCAR Inc., a U.S.-based truck producer; and Accelera, the zero-emissions enterprise of Cummins Inc. “Manufacturing batteries within the U.S. makes the provision chain extra strong and reduces geopolitical dangers,” stated Mike Gerty, of PACCAR.
Whereas she acknowledged the obstacles confronting her colleagues within the room, Plata nonetheless concluded her remarks as a panel moderator with some optimism: “I hope you all depart this convention and look again on it sooner or later, saying I used to be within the room once they truly solved among the challenges standing between now and the longer term that all of us want to manifest.”
