Energy

Fund helps energy efficiency bloom across campusAlumni gifts support the greening of MIT, and the resulting savings are being reinvested in similar projects.

Monaco’s Prince Albert visits MIT and discusses his film

Toward more efficient wireless power deliveryLatest research shows that efficiency improves when multiple devices are charged at once.

Viruses harnessed to split waterMIT team’s biologically based system taps the power of sunlight directly, with the aim of turning water into hydrogen fuel.

Slideshow: Solar power, shaped up3-D shapes covered in solar cells could produce more power than flat panels, MIT researchers find.

Providing for future energy needsStrategies for safe, economically competitive nuclear power

3 Questions: David MacKay on renewable energyScience advisor to the British government talks about Climategate, the Copenhagen conference, and emission-free energy technology

Slideshow: A Terrascope spring breakStudents visit Abu Dhabi to learn about plans for the world’s first carbon-neutral city

A step toward lighter batteriesResearch shows metal catalysts play important role in improving the efficiency of lithium-oxygen batteries

Charting a course toward cleaner carsMIT team recommends strategy for reducing automotive fuel use, emissions

John Sterman on sustainable accessibiltyFrom Transportation@MIT

Taming the wild phonon‘Particles’ of heat are everywhere, and usually a nuisance, but newly designed materials could help put them to good use.

Slideshow: Photos from President Barack Obama's lab tour

Wind resistanceMIT analysis suggests generating electricity from large-scale wind farms could influence climate — and not necessarily in the desired way.

Explained: Radiative forcingWhen there’s more energy radiating down on the planet than there is radiating back out to space, something’s going to have to heat up

Action needed to save climate, create jobsMIT Energy Conference speakers see need to boost clean-energy businesses through a price on carbon and incentives for manufacturing

Big power from tiny wiresNew discovery shows carbon nanotubes can produce powerful waves that could be harnessed for new energy systems.

3 Questions: Hunt Allcott on behavioral economics and the energy crisisCan understanding human irrationality help solve our energy problems? An MIT researcher explains

In Profile: Alex SlocumTeaching and tinkering, and teaching how to tinker, are the driving forces for longtime MIT mechanical engineer

The power of nanofluidsDepartment of Nuclear Science and Engineering research spotlight focuses on the work of Jacopo Buongiorno

How to turn blueprints greenOpen-source program developed at MIT allows architects and engineers to optimize a building’s energy systems early in the design process

John Heywood on reducing greenhouse gas emissionsPresented by Transportation@MIT

A new way to build membranes for fuel cellsLayer-by-layer assembly system could lead to improved fuel cells, batteries and solar panels

Power from motion and vibrationsForget about batteries. The ability to harness electricity from tiny vibrations could power a new generation of electronic devices.

Self-powered sensorsHarvesting electricity from small temperature differences could enable a new generation of electronic devices that don’t need batteries

A silver lining to the Copenhagen cloud?Though widely seen as a failure, December’s climate conference may actually have set the world on the right path, panelists suggest

Congressman Markey visits Plasma Science and Fusion CenterLawmaker observes experiments under way at campus facility

Gulati hopes to power up nuclear energy for the U.S. and developing nationsIntroducing Saaransh Gulati, EDF-MIT Energy Fellow