Pretensions attended a public symposium given by various members of MITEI, the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Energy Initiative last Wednesday. MITEI is an interdisciplinary research programme involving 16 faculty members drawn from the various schools of MIT – they have been tasked to see how MIT could best tackle the global energy crisis. MITEI was first announced by current MIT President Susan Hockfield during her inauguration in 2005.

MIT and two universities in Singapore have had an ongoing research collaboration since 1998, the Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA) although P gathers that the-powers-that-be have not been wildly impressed with the results thereof. As a student-training collaboration however, it seems to have worked somewhat better. Whatever the rationale behind SMA, it has at least established the presence of the US’s top technological university in the region, and probably helped justify the presence of several top MIT professors in our small island-state for the symposium.

Prof. Ernest Moniz, the Director of MITEI and former US undersecretary of Energy during the Clinton administration gave a clear and concise overview of the rationale for MITEI and its goals. Foreseeing the coming global energy crisis (just keep watching the price of oil), MITEI was developed to partner MIT’s blue-skies research with interested industry partners who might be able to create viable energy-related products.  Of course, there is an overt political agenda to MITEI’s seeming altruism (see the next slide on the right – the speech bubble read “It’s time we end foreign oil dependency!”).

However, Moniz made several good points about the need for capping carbon emissions and that even the much vaunted 550 parts per million target may still be too high. We are talking about a 2-4 degree temperature rise in most scenarios and even the present half-a-degree rise has already had visible impact on most of the world’s climates.

Moniz also worked the audience through the sliding scale of global warming by showing us two roulette wheels. The left wheel would represent the probability of catastrophic 6-8 degrees celsius (in red) warming if the US carried on the way it has. The roulette wheel on the right represents the results of meeting the 550ppm carbon dioxide target – it dramatically lowers the chances of extreme temperature rise.

However the magic 550 cannot be reached only with efficiency gains, it would also require a 40% demand reduction. The US currently emits 25 billion tonnes of CO2 every year. A carbon tax would put pressure on industry to optimise efficiency and might curb demand – Moniz made the point that funding for the innovations required could be recycled into society with no impact on the US GDP. Industry is not the only culprit however, 70% of US electricity goes to supply residential and commercial buildings; a lot also goes to transport.

Hence key technological pathways to respond effectively to the energy crisis would include:

• Alternative transport – fuels & vehicles
• Carbon-free electricity – nuclear, coal, renewables
• Unconventional hydrocarbon supplies
• Research on energy delivery systems and energy storage
• Managing global climate change – mitigation, adaptation and re-engineering

Key MIT academics then stood up to explore each pathway.

Prof. Greg Stephanopoulos spoke about biofuels. Despite a lot of ragging from the audience about sacrificing food for fuel, the professor spoke eloquently about the possibilities of microbial synthesis of ethanol. Basically, yeast already does a great job of synthesizing ethanol for consumption – it’s called beer and all it needs to get started is some sugar. Unfortunately yeast doesn’t have a very high tolerance for the toxic ethanol product, which is why you have to drink a lot of beer to get wasted. Prof. Stephanopoulos is looking at developing microbes that could use agricultural waste, wood chips and stover to produce ethanol and would have a higher tolerance to ethanol than yeast would. He already has a microbe that can accumulate 60g/l of ethanol in about 3 days worth of fermentation.

Dr Tonio Buonassisi spoke about current research on solar energy which has been crippled by its high cost relative to traditional fossil fuel-generated electricity.  Another problem with solar has been its need for a large surface area of solar cells which has meant that it cannot serve the primary energy needs of urban residents. Buonassisi  had calculated that the cost of producing solar cells could be lowered by 20% simply by doubling production. Also Seville’s solar tower (see right), a 300 foot tower surrounded by 624 solar panels has been in operation since 2007, happily powering 60,000 homes in the Spanish town.

Prof. Gerd Ceder spoke about the use of thermoelectrics to power cars and the development of plug-in hybrid vehicles that can choose to take energy from fossil fuels or directly from the grid. His lab uses high-throughput computing methods to screen for useful new materials.

Prof. Leslie Norford told us about energy efficient buildings and the combination of traditional knowhow with modern technology. Eg for tropical buildings, large doors and windows combined with thick walls and a central airwell obviate the need for air-conditioning. Germany’s passive houses have special tight construction and a 2-3 times as much insulation as a regular house, resulting in astoundingly low heating costs. A Passivhaus built in Illinois had a US$35 heating bill for the entire month of January!

Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia is currently in the planning stage. It will be the world’s first zero-waste, zero-emissions city. Here is the propaganda, uhm, PR video.

We have a choice, and P for one, hopes that the US and the world choose to invest in the future. Enough time’s been wasted by the Bush administration already – P hopes Obama acts decisively on energy conservation and doesn’t use the economy as the ultimate excuse…

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