Energy Transition

After more than three and a half years of service as the 13th U.S. Secretary of Energy, nuclear physicist Ernest J. Moniz has returned to his roots at MIT, the place where he served most of his professional career.

Nominated to the cabinet by President Barack Obama in March 2013 and confirmed by the Senate on May 16 in a unanimous vote — a rare occurrence in a polarized political atmosphere — Moniz left the office on Jan. 20, 2017, with the arrival of the Trump administration.

Celebrating the homecoming of Ernest Moniz

On March 8 in Helsinki, Finland, MIT Joint Program Deputy Director Sergey Paltsev delivered a keynote address on energy policy and the new U.S. administration at a seminar on oil and geopolitics hosted by the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and World Energy Council Finland. In his presentation, Paltsev explored the kinds of policies that the new U.S. administration is likely to pursue, and prospects for keeping up U.S. unconventional oil production under continuous low prices.  

Energy and the new U.S. administration

Judges of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2017 Student Poster Competition selected a poster by MIT Joint Program research assistant Michael Davidson as the winner in the Social Sciences category. Davidson’s poster was one of 15 presented in that category at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. in February.

Michael Davidson scores winning poster in Social Sciences category in 2017 AAAS Student Poster Competition

A dozen MIT students and community members clamber into a van on a bright morning in late January. There’s palpable excitement as the van drives down Main Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and crosses onto Portland Street. The chilly weather and light snow does nothing to dampen the group’s spirits. They’re on a hunt — for gas leaks, quiet but potent accelerators of climate change.

Climate science takes to the streets

Gas-to-liquids (GTL), a process that converts natural gas to liquid fuels such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel rather than producing these fuels from crude oil, has barely penetrated the energy market, with fewer than 10 industrial-scale plants currently in operation around the world. For decades, the relative cost of crude oil to natural gas has limited investment in GTL, but persistently low U.S. natural gas prices in recent years have boosted this ratio to an all-time-high, leading investors to reconsider the potential of GTL.

Is there a future for gas-to-liquids technology?
The Impact of Advanced Biofuels on Aviation Emissions and Operations in the U.S.

We analyze the economic and emissions impacts on U.S. commercial aviation of the Federal Aviation Administration’s renewable jet fuel goal when met using advanced fermentation (AF) fuel from perennial grasses. These fuels have recently been certified for use in aircraft and could potentially provide greater environmental benefits than aviation biofuels approved previously. Due to uncertainties in the commercialization of AF technologies, we consider a range of assumptions concerning capital costs, energy conversion efficiencies and product slates. In 2030, estimates of the implicit subsidy required to induce consumption of AF jet fuel range from $0.45 to $20.85 per gallon. These correspond to a reference jet fuel price of $3.23 per gallon and AF jet fuel costs ranging from $4.01 to $24.41 per gallon. In all cases, as renewable jet fuel represents around 1.4% of total fuel consumed by commercial aviation, the goal has a small impact on aviation operations and emissions relative to a case without the renewable jet fuel target, and emissions continue to grow relative to those in 2005. Costs per metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent abated by using biofuels range from $42 to $652.

The Future of Natural Gas in China: Effects of Pricing Reform and Climate Policy

China is currently attempting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase natural gas consumption as a part of broader national strategies to reduce the air pollution impacts of the nation’s energy system. To assess the scenarios of natural gas development up to 2050, we employ a global energy-economic model — the MIT Economic Projection and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model. The results show that a cap-and-trade policy will enable China to achieve its climate mitigation goals, but will also reduce natural gas consumption. An integrated policy that uses a part of the carbon revenue obtained from the cap-and-trade system to subsidize natural gas use promotes natural gas consumption, resulting in a further reduction in coal use relative to the cap-and-trade policy case. The integrated policy has a very moderate welfare cost; however, it reduces air pollution and allows China to achieve both the climate objective and the natural gas promotion objective.

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