How to bring clean, efficient energy to the world
The challenges of providing clean, reliable energy, water, and food to people everywhere — and especially in parts of the developing world — is a key focus of Solve, a four-day conference taking place this week at MIT. A full day of talks, workshops, and discussions was devoted to the topic on Tuesday. “The developing world is where growth in energy demand is going to be occurring,” said Robert Armstrong, director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and the Chevron Professor in Chemical Engineering, in introducing the day’s final event: a public discussion between Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of India’s Tata Group, and Robert Stoner, MITEI’s deputy director and director of MIT’s Tata Center for Technology and Design. Armstrong stressed that delivering clean energy in South America, Africa, and India carries great challenges — but also great opportunities to dramatically improve the quality of life for people there. Making such progress is...