DAVOS,
Switzerland (AP) — With repercussions of the global financial crisis
straining government budgets and energy costs rising in many countries,
the search has intensified for green energy that is widely available and
widely accessible at low cost.
Ernest
Moniz, director of the MIT Energy Initiative and a member of President
Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, said that solar
power “is ultimately the real game changer.”
At
the moment it’s too expensive for large-scale projects, but he said MIT
is doing research in many areas, including trying to utilize advances
in material science and biology.
“Eventually,
we want the sun not only to make electricity but to make fuels,” Moniz
told a breakfast Thursday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum
highlighting MIT’s research. “This is not science fiction. … The sun
can take care of our mobility needs.”
He
said “the big Achilles heel” of solar electricity is that the sun
doesn’t shine 24 hours a day, so ways have to be found to store it to
avoid disruptions. He said MIT is doing research on a “Liquid Metal
Battery” to store electricity which is showing progress.
Moniz said “a game changer” would also be finding an economical way to capture carbon dioxide.
He stressed the necessity of de-carbonizing electricity, and predicted “this is not far away.”
Moniz also stressed that reducing demand for carbon-fueled electricity is critical in the coming years.
“I would say there is no credible alternative,” he said. “We just have to do it.”
Kristala
Jones Prather, an assistant professor in MIT’s Department of Chemical
Engineering, said she is also “optimistic on battery technology.”
Among the areas she’s researching is the possibility of engineering organisms to help make biofuels.
Amy
Glasmeier, head of MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering, described
research on how to make residential and commercial buildings, cities and
regions more energy efficient.
For
example, she said, researchers are taking existing materials like
cement and trying to reformulate them to be energy efficient, they’re
examining how buildings interact to see what structure is more energy
efficient, and they’re looking at regional cooperation and behavioral
changes.
Also
at Davos, Beth Comstock, senior vice president and chief marketing
officer of General Electric, presented a survey of 1,000 business
executives in 12 countries, which found a widespread hunger for more
collaborative innovation, bringing in original thinkers, encouraging
collaboration between corporations and governments and small business,
and developing products tailored to the needs of local markets.
Also,
she told The Associated Press there was a sense of idealism — that the
most important innovations not only make profit but address a human
need: “Innovation has to have some kind of mission — but it has to make
money.”
Among
GE products that fit that mold, she cited “hybrid rail technology; the
cleanest jet engines on earth; an ultrasound that fits in your pocket; a
$500 heart monitor.”
World Economic Forum: http://www.weforum.org/
SOURCE: The Associated Press
