The Energy System

Energy education at MIT focuses on the entire energy system, with an emphasis on innovations in technology, policy, and behavior that will enable the transformations required to meet the challenges of environmental impacts of energy use, security, and economic development for all.

Sources of energy include renewables such as wind and solar, traditional and clean(er) sources of fossil fuels, and nuclear power. Conversion, transmission, and distribution include improved ways to convert primary energy sources into secondary power, as well as the electric power grid and transport fuels systems. End use focuses on major categories of energy demand – such as commercial and residential buildings, transportation, and industrial processes – and includes innovations that increase energy efficiency as well as market, policy, and behavioral changes that fundamentally alter the use of energy in particular contexts.

The Energy Studies Minor core subjects in science and social science, as well as a number of electives, address the full system, while the technology core subjects and most electives focus on particular technologies and/or elements of the system.