Student project identifies improvements for campus PVs
The Photovoltaic Research Laboratory in Building 35 is not the only venue on campus for hands-on investigation of solar technology. Last fall, students from Tonio Buonassisi's class, "Fundamentals of...
View ArticleA novel way to concentrate sun’s heat
Most technologies for harnessing the sun’s energy capture the light itself, which is turned into electricity using photovoltaic materials. Others use the sun’s thermal energy, usually concentrating the...
View ArticlePowering the Chinese dragon
Just weeks after an MIT report showed fast-growing nations such as China and India would drive energy growth over the next half century, the Institute received a visit from a leading company powering...
View ArticleThe heat is on
Many workplaces feature major changes in occupancy over the course of a week. In academic buildings, hundreds of students may pour in for a lecture, then leave an hour or two later, while faculty,...
View ArticleNo crystal ball for natural gas
Natural gas prices neared the lowest they've been in about a decade this past winter, as utilities scrambled to take advantage of the fuel's low price tag and producers began to turn away from the...
View ArticleLegatum Center awards seed grants
The Legatum Center at MIT awards seed grants to assist student teams in developing for-profit enterprises in a low-income country. With the funding for this summer's projects, the center will have...
View ArticleDouble the benefits: clean energy also saves water
In his first State of the Union, President Barack Obama set a goal for 80 percent of America's electricity to come from clean energy. Last week, the release of the Renewable Electricity Future study by...
View ArticleClimate change: a developing challenge for poor nations
Higher temperatures, extreme flooding, longer droughts — for those living in the developed world, the symptoms of climate change mean building higher bridges and paying more for a bowl of cereal. But...
View ArticleFunneling the sun’s energy
The quest to harness a broader spectrum of sunlight’s energy to produce electricity has taken a radically new turn, with the proposal of a “solar energy funnel” that takes advantage of materials under...
View ArticlePower outage darkens MIT
At about 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, the MIT campus lost electricity for two hours, part of a larger blackout reportedly caused by a failed Nstar transmission line. Much of Cambridge, including Harvard...
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Power to the people
Like many Nigerians, MIT graduate student Chidube Ezeozue grew up frustrated by his nation’s erratic electrical grid. “Electrical outages are a huge problem in Nigeria,” says Ezeozue, who is pursuing...
View ArticleCooking up innovation
While Scot Frank ’08 was interning in China as part of the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) program in 2005, he visited the rural Himalayan plateau — which opened his eyes...
View ArticlePruning the power grid
Each summer, power grids are pushed to their limits, as homes and offices crank up the air conditioning in response to rising temperatures. A single failure in the system — such as a downed power line...
View ArticleMIT and NSTAR celebrate energy efficiency success, extend ‘Efficiency...
MIT and utility company NSTAR recently concluded the first phase of “MIT Efficiency Forward” — a groundbreaking, multimillion-dollar pilot collaboration on energy-use reduction — and achieved their...
View Article‘Hybrid’ nuclear plants could make a dent in carbon emissions
Many efforts to smooth out the variability of renewable energy sources — such as wind and solar power — have focused on batteries, which could fill gaps lasting hours or days. But MIT’s Charles...
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