Future Energy Systems: Challenges and Insights
The energy transition has three major themes: electrification with a low-carbon, flexible and resilient grid; low-carbon fuels for tough-to-decarbonize sectors of the economy; and carbon management to mitigate future emissions and to remove carbon from the environment. These themes cross major energy consuming sectors of the economy including transportation, industry and buildings. This webinar, co-organized by MITEI and ILP, will examine the decarbonization challenges and provide a view into the research activities and insights supported by the MIT Energy Initiative and the 30+ consortium members of the Future Energy Systems Center.
Dr. CJ Guo joined the Office of Corporate Relations as a Senior Industrial Liaison Officer in July, 2015. CJ comes to OCR with 25 years of extensive global experience in technology innovations, portfolio management and business development in emerging and conventional energy sectors with leading multinational corporations in the US, China and Canada.
CJ is a leading expert in emerging energy technologies and energy system transitions. With Shell, he was the Emerging Technology Theme Leader in China/Beijing (2011 to 2015), worked extensively with the Chinese energy communities on the country's future energy landscape, and the Senior Technology Advisor in alternative transportation fuels in the US / Houston (2006-2010), and served during 2010 as Chairman of the Fuel Operations Group for the US DOE FreedomCar Partnership. Prior to joining Shell, CJ has held technology development, commercialization and management positions with Air Liquide (2002-2006) and The BOC Group (1995-2001) after working as a research scientist in oil-sands upgrading with CANMET in Canada (1992-1994).
CJ earned his Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, at CSU, Ohio, his M.S. and B.S., Chemical Engineering at TYUT, China. He has earned various awards from Shell, Air Liquide, BOC, Shanxi Province (China). He holds many patents and has sat on the board of Shenzhen Sanmu Battery Technology Company as an independent board member during 2009-2010.
Professor Robert C. Armstrong directs the MIT Energy Initiative, an Institute-wide effort at MIT linking science, technology, and policy to transform the world’s energy systems. A member of the MIT faculty since 1973, Armstrong served as head of the Department of Chemical Engineering from 1996 to 2007. His research interests include polymer fluid mechanics, rheology of complex materials, and energy.
Armstrong has been elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2020) and the National Academy of Engineering (2008). He received the Founders Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Chemical Engineering (2020), Warren K. Lewis Award (2006), and the Professional Progress Award (1992), all from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He also received the 2006 Bingham Medal from the Society of Rheology, which is devoted to the study of the science of deformation and flow of matter,
Armstrong was a member of MIT’s Future of Natural Gas and Future of Solar Energy study groups. He advised the teams that developed MITEI’s most recent reports, The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World (2018) and Insights into Future Mobility (2019), and is co-chairing the new MITEI study, The Future of Storage. He co-edited Game Changers: Energy on the Move with former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz.
Randall Field is the executive director of the MITEI’s Future Energy Systems Center. He was previously executive director for the Mobility Systems Center, MITEI’s Low-Carbon Energy Center assessing the impact of emerging transformations in vehicle and fuel technologies, service and business models, policies, demographics, and consumer behavior in the movement of both passengers and goods. He was also the executive director for MIT’s Mobility of the Future study which produced the Insights in the Future Mobility report covering global projections of alternative fuel vehicle fleets and energy consumption, deployment of charging and fueling infrastructure, attitudes towards mobility, and the impacts of innovative technologies and business models on urban mobility. As executive director for the Conversion Research Program at MIT for 10 years, Field worked with a multidisciplinary team of researchers to explore various conversion technologies for production of alternative fuels. Prior to MIT, Field worked for Aspen Technology for 23 years. Field received a SM in chemical engineering practice from MIT and a BS in chemical engineering from Caltech.
Robert J. Stoner is an inventor and technology entrepreneur who has worked extensively in academia and industry throughout his career, having built and managed successful technology firms in the semiconductor, IT and optics industries. From 2007 through 2009 he lived and worked in Africa and India while serving in a variety of senior roles within the Clinton Foundation. Stoner also serves as Director of the Tata Center for Technology and Design at MIT, and as the faculty co-director of the MITEI Electric Power Systems Center. His current research relates to energy technology and policy for developing countries. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in engineering physics from Queen’s University, and his Ph.D. from Brown University in condensed matter physics.
Dr. Jennifer Morris is a Research Scientist at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and the MIT Energy Initiative. Much of her research focuses on energy transitions and economic development pathways as well as uncertainty and decision-making. Jennifer is a key contributor to the development of the MIT Integrated Global System Modeling(IGSM) framework, focusing on the human system component, the Economic Projection and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model. With this modeling framework, she develops integrated economic and climate scenarios, generates large ensembles, analyzes policy impacts, explores technology and mitigation pathways and transitions, and examines multi-sector dynamics. Her uncertainty-related work involves quantifying key uncertainties and applying different methodological approaches to models in order to formally represent such uncertainties and explore how they impact near-term decisions. A key focus is evaluating risks to different investment options in energy and water and identifying those that are robust to potential risks. Jennifer holds a PhD in Engineering Systems and a M.S. in Technology and Policy from MIT.
Tim Schittekatte is a Postdoctoral Associate at the MIT Energy Initiative where the conducts research about power market design and regulation. He is one of the instructors of the MIT course “Engineering, Economics and Regulation of the Electric Power Sector”. He is also a part-time assistant professor at the Florence School of Regulation (FSR), where before he was a research fellow for 5 years. Before joining FSR in May 2016, he was a visiting researcher at the Grid Integration Group of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and a junior economist at Microeconomix in Paris. He graduated as an engineer from Ghent University, Belgium and completed the EMIN program, an international master in economics. He holds a PhD in energy economics from University Paris-Sud XI.
Bilge Yildiz is a professor in the Nuclear Science and Engineering and the Materials Science and Engineering Departments at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she leads the Laboratory for Electrochemical Interfaces. She received her PhD at MIT in 2003 and her BSc from Hacettepe University in 1999. After working at Argonne National Laboratory as a research scientist, she returned to MIT as an assistant professor in 2007. Yildiz’s research focuses on laying the scientific groundwork to enable next generation electrochemical devices for energy conversion and information processing. The scientific insights derived from her research guide the design of novel materials and interfaces for efficient and durable solid oxide fuel cells, electrolytic water splitting, brain-inspired computing, and solid state batteries. Her laboratory has made significant contributions in advancing the molecular-level understanding of oxygen reduction, water splitting, ion diffusion, and charge transfer on mixed ionic-electronic conducting oxides. Her research has uncovered the effects of surface chemistry, elastic strain, dislocations, and strong electric fields on the reactivity, efficiency, and degradation in these applications. Her approach combines computational and experimental analyses of electronic structure, defect mobility and composition, using in situ scanning tunneling and X-ray spectroscopy together with first-principles calculations and novel atomistic simulations. Her teaching and research efforts have been recognized by the Argonne Pace Setter (2016), ANS Outstanding Teaching (2008), NSF CAREER (2011), IU-MRS Somiya (2012), the ECS Charles Tobias Young Investigator (2012), the ACerS Ross Coffin Purdy (2018), and the LG Chem Global Innovation Contest (2020) awards.