Upcoming

MIT Class of 1971 Environment and Risk Subcommitee

The US Grid: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Wednesday, November 20, 2024, 6:00 - 7:15 pm EST online

The MIT Class of '71 CAT Environment and Risk team presents the next program in its series about the evolution of the US electric grid, its regulations, and how your input could help the clean energy transition and lower your utility bill.

MACA MIT Campus Team

A Plan to De-Carbonize the MIT Campus by 2035

Tuesday, December 3, 2024, 6:00 - 7:30 pm eastern on-line

Come learn about how a team of alums has worked with Geo@MIT students and researchers to design a plan to decarbonization MIT's campus. Their plan is significantly less costly, less disruptive to campus activities, and could eliminate emissions years faster than approaches being proposed by the MIT Facility Department's engineering consultant. The team's leader, Susan Murcott '90, SM '92, MIT D-Lab Lecturer, will provide an overview of the work, and Rick Clemenzi '84, a geothermal heat designer, will discuss technical issues. Panelists John Dabels, SM '79, and Megan Lim '24 will discuss stakeholders and other challenges. The plan could be a model that would work on many other campuses.

Join the discussion - the group wants to hear your input on decarbonization planning and your questions. Strengthening the case for this plan, and reaching decisionmakers, could save MIT half a billion dollars.

MIT Club of Northern California - Energy and Environment

Repowering the World:

A Novel Solution for Zero-Emission Nuclear Power Generation

Tuesday, December 3, 2024 5:30 - 7:00 pm (pacific) online

The next event in the MIT Club of Northern California Energy and Environment series will present an on-line, fireside chat with Eric Ingersoll, Founding Director and Co-CEO of the nonprofit Terra Praxis. His organization believes that existing fossil fuel burning power plants could be converted to nuclear power. Meeting the large energy demands of many industrial users this way could produce as much as 10 terawatts electric energy in the 2030's, the same timeframe for permitting and deploying other new, large electric resources.

Ticket prices from $0-19.

Around the Network

Technology Group Meeting - Thursday, November 14

The EESNetwork Technology Group will meet on-line on Thursday, November 14, 2024, 7:30 pm EST, to talk about the latest in climate solutions and how to focus its efforts for the future. Contact group leader Bruce Parker for an invitation and link to the meeting.

MIT Club of Washington DC - December 3

Club members and guests will be meeting in person at a dinner with the Director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, MIT Professor Nuno Lureiro. He will present the Future of Fusion and MIT's fusion strategy. If you're interested and will be in the area, register to join the group from 6:30 - 9:00 pm at Maggiano's Little Italy - Friendship Heights, 5333 Wisconsin Ave. Non-club member alums $55.

MIT Sloan Alumni Club of New York - November 21

If you are in NYC and would like to learn more about the Challenging Realities of climate Change, sign up for this in-person meeting on addressing real and present climate risks. Hear from Griffin Smith, MCP '18, about communication strategies worked out with FEMA to gain public support on climate adaptation and resilience and architect Eric Fang, principal at Perkins Eastman, on climate adaptation initiatives. 6:30 - 8:30 pm, at the Perkins Eastman offices, 115 Fifth Ave at 19th St. $20. Registration information here.

Network News 

EESNetwork Meeting - mid January

The EESN Leadership Team is planning a 1-hour, general meeting of Ambassadors from MIT alumni Clubs. Individual alums interested in finding out more and attending are also welcome. The preliminary agenda: overview of EESN webinars, communications, network groups and Ambassador role; helping alumni/ae connect; ways to pass along alumni clean energy, climate and environment news; and engaging others.

Let us know if there are other items that you'd like to discuss.

Keep an eye on the EESN website and the next EESN emails for details on the date/time.

Alumni/ae News

Peter Heller, SM ’24, is a coauthor of a new study in the journal, Science Advances. By mapping the energy burden on families around the US. It identified the mismatch between federal grants and areas where households pay utility bills (between 2015 adn 2020) higher than 6% of their income, aka in "energy poverty."

Cornell Professor Jefferson W. Tester, PhD '71, will present the chemical engineering Hottel lecture on campus for the MIT Energy & Climate Club on November 8, at 3:00 pm, on the potential of geothermal district heating as carbon-neutral energy. He'll discuss subsurface science and engineering innovation in Cornell's Earth Source Heat project design. more info.

Enerknol is sponsoring the annual meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) Nov 10-13 in San Francisco. Enernol CEO, Angelique Mercurio, SM '08, supports and does interesting energy transition work.

A Bloomberg Zero podcast posted September 25, 2024, featured Bob Mumgaard, SM '15, PhD '15, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems. He spoke about tokamak reactors and his belief that the fusion industry is just getting started.

On November 13, Bent Erik Bakken, PhD '94, is leading an in-person meeting of Oslo (Norway) Venstre's entrepreneurial network. Register by Nov 10.

The newsletter of the MIT School of Engineering has highlighted a clean water by a team working with Professor Amos Winter, SM '05, PhD '11. They developed and are piloting a system that optimizes solar power generation to produce drinking water from brackish waters without battery or other backup. The paper in the journal, Nature Water, proposes that electrodialysis (ED) may be a better choice for certain applications compared with reverse osmosis, which relies on pressure.

MIT Energy & Climate Night of Energy & Climate and Innovation will be held Friday, November 8, 6-9PM at the MIT Museum. Free and open to the public, it will showcase close to 50 posters/interactive presentations

MIT Industrial Liaison Program is presenting a DeCarbonization webinar on Thursday, Nov 7, with talks by two MITEI Scientists on industrial decarbonizaton and interplay between CO2 removal and carbon trading systems. At 12:30, short presentations of two MIT Startup Exchange companies include Jimmy Rojas '16, CEO of EvolOH, manufacturer of high throughput electrochemical stacks for H2 production.

Videos from the ILP 2024 Sustainability Conference sessions last month can be viewed here.

A new paper by MIT CEE researchers in the journal "Nature communication earth & environment" shows how marshes provide cost-effective coastal protection.

?? Where do you like to get your clean energy and climate news and updates??

The EESN LinkedIn subgroup of the MIT Alumni Association is a good place to celebrate alums in energy and environment (and climate). Or announce professional news and events.

About EESN

Educate, Connect, and Act

The EESNetwork and its groups welcome all MIT alumni/ae to help make a difference in speeding up the transition to a clean sustainable economy and environmental restoration.

• EESN home page
• EESN webinar list with links to available slides and recordings.
• MIT Links: MITEI, ESI, CEEPR, Climate HQ, MIT Climate Portal, MITOS.