News

Is MITOS Article (field_is_mitos_article)
Big Elm Solar in Bell County, Texas, a 200 MW renewable energy facility, is now operational.
Featured Story
Consortium led by MIT, Harvard University, and Mass General Brigham spurs development of 408 MW of renewable energy

Projects in Texas and North Dakota support clean energy transition as MIT moves closer to 2026 net-zero goal.

MIT News explores the environmental and sustainability implications of generative AI technologies and applications.
Explained: Generative AI’s environmental impact

Rapid development and deployment of powerful generative AI models comes with environmental consequences, including increased electricity demand and water consumption.

Giving people better data about their energy use, plus some coaching, can help them substantially reduce their consumption and costs, according to a study by MIT researchers in Amsterdam.
Study shows how households can cut energy costs

An experiment in Amsterdam suggests providing better information to people can help move them out of “energy poverty.”

Vijay Gadepally, a senior staff member in the Lincoln Laboratory Supercomputing Center, discusses steps the research community can take to help mitigate the environmental impact of generative AI.
Q&A: The climate impact of generative AI

As the use of generative AI continues to grow, Lincoln Laboratory's Vijay Gadepally describes what researchers and consumers can do to help mitigate its environmental impact.

“I would love to see a world where we could eliminate thermal separations, and where heat is no longer a problem in creating the things that we need and producing the energy that we need,” Zachary Smith says.
Designing tiny filters to solve big problems

By developing new materials for separating a mixture’s components, Zachary Smith hopes to reduce costs and environmental impact across many U.S. industries.

Before coming to MIT, 2024 MAD Design Fellow Zane Schemmer, who grew up in the mountains of Utah, earned a BS and MS in civil and environmental engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, where his graduate work focused on seismic design.
Minimizing the carbon footprint of bridges and other structures

MAD Design Fellow Zane Schemmer writes algorithms that optimize overall function, minimize carbon footprint, and produce a manufacturable design.

An MIT team recently published a study on public sentiment regarding climate policy. The co-authors are (left to right) Professor Evan Lieberman, Associate Professor Volha Charnysh, PhD student Jared Kalow, and Erin Walk PhD ’24. “Our research suggests that emphasizing a bit of blaming and shaming is more powerful than more diffuse messages of shared responsibility,” Lieberman explains.
Q&A: Examining American attitudes on global climate policies

Professor Evan Lieberman describes new research in which he and colleagues find a sharp partisan divide over providing aid to poor nations.

Hurricane Maria ravaged this neighborhood in Vega Alta, Puerto Rico.
How hard is it to prevent recurring blackouts in Puerto Rico?

Using the island as a model, researchers demonstrate the “DyMonDS” framework can improve resiliency to extreme weather and ease the integration of new resources.

The researchers demonstrated the membrane’s performance in lab-scale experiments, pictured, using a novel membrane to filter various solutions that were similar in content to the waste streams produced by aluminum plants.
New filter captures and recycles aluminum from manufacturing waste

MIT engineers designed a nanofiltration process that could make aluminum production more efficient while reducing hazardous waste.

Dame Clare Grey, Royal Society research professor and the Geoffrey Moorhouse-Gibson Professor of Chemistry at Cambridge University, delivered the 2024 Mildred S. Dresselhaus Lecturer on Nov. 18.
At MIT, Clare Grey stresses battery development to electrify the planet

In her 2024 Dresselhaus Lecture, the Cambridge University professor of chemistry describes her work making batteries more reliable and sustainable.