Renewable energy sources have experienced unprecedented investment levels in recent years. But with the political uncertainty troubled the future of green energy subsidies, these technologies must start to compete with fossil fuels on an equal footing, participants said at the MIT 2025 energy conference.
“What these technologies need is to train wheels, and more than one playground,” said Brian Deese, MIT Institute's innovation scholarship holder, during an opening panel of the conference.
The theme of the two -day conference, which is organized each year by MIT students, was “a breakthrough for deployment: conducting climate innovation on the market”. The speakers have largely expressed their optimism as to the progress of green technology, balanced by occasional alarm notes on a rapidly evolving regulatory and political environment.
Deese defined what he called “good, evil and ugly” of the current energy landscape. The good: Energy investment specific to the United States reached a 272 billion dollars summit in 2025. The BAD: Future investment announcements have been reduced. And ugly: macro-conditions make it more difficult for public services and private companies to develop the own energy infrastructure necessary to meet increasing energy demands.
“We have to strengthen massive quantities of energy capacity in the United States,” said Deese. “And the three things that are the most allergic to construction are high uncertainty, high interest rates and high rate rates. So it's a bit ugly. But the question… is how and in what ways, this underlying commercial impulse can go through this period of uncertainty. ”
A changing clean energy landscape
During a panel on artificial intelligence and the growth of electricity demand, speakers said that technology can serve as a catalyst for green energy breakthroughs, in addition to putting pressure on existing infrastructure. “Google is committed to creating digital infrastructures in a responsibility, and this means catalyzing the development of its clean energy infrastructure which does not only meet the need for AI, but also benefits from the network as a whole,” said Lucia Tian, head of clean energy and Google decarbonization technologies.
During the two days, speakers stressed that the cost per unit and the scalability of clean energy technologies will finally determine their fate. But they also recognized the impact of public policy, as well as the need to invest the government to tackle large -scale problems such as the modernization of the network.
Vanessa Chan, former official and vice-dean of innovation and entrepreneurship of the American department (DOE) at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, warned the “Knock-On” effects of the transition to the funding of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for indirect research costs, for example. “In reality, what you do is undermined each university institution that does research across the country,” she said.
During a panel entitled “No clean energy transition without transmission”, Maria Robinson, former director of the DEE network deployment office, said taxpayers alone could probably not finance the network upgrades necessary to meet the growing demand for electricity. “The amount of investments we need in the next two years will be important,” she said. “This is where the federal government will have to play a role.”
David Cohen-Tanugi, an Energy Energy Capital Builder, noted that extreme weather events have changed the conversation on climate change in recent years. “There is a story 10 years ago that said … If we start talking about resilience and adaptation to climate change, we throw a towel or abandonment,” he said. “I noticed a very big change in the story of investors, the start -up story, and more generally, the consciousness of the public. It is realized that the effects of climate change are already on us. ”
“Everything on the table”
The conference included panels and opening addresses on a range of emerging technologies of clean energy, in particular hydrogen power, geothermal energy and nuclear fusion, as well as session on carbon capture.
Alex Creely, chief engineer of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, explained that the fusion (the combination of small atoms in larger atoms, which is the same process that feeds the stars) is safer and potentially more economical than traditional nuclear power. Fusion facilities, he said, can be extinguished instantly, and companies and his develop new magnet technology less expensive to contain the extreme heat produced by fusion reactors.
In the early 2030s, his company said, his company hoped to operate 400 megawatts power plants which only use 50 kilograms of fuel per year. “If you can operate Fusion, it transforms energy into a manufacturing product, not a natural resource,” he said.
Quinn Woodard Jr., principal director of electricity production and surface facilities in the geothermal energy supplier Fervo Energy, said that his business makes geothermal energy more economical by standardization, innovation and economies of scale. Traditionally, he said, drilling is the highest cost to produce geothermal power. Fervo has “completely overturned the cost structure” with progress in drilling, said Woodard, and now the company focuses on reducing the costs of its power plants.
“We must continually focus on cost, and the realization is essential for the success of the geothermal industry,” he said.
A common theme through the conference: a number of approaches make rapid progress, but experts do not know when – or, in some cases, if – each specific technology will reach a tilting point where it is able to transform the energy markets.
“I do not want to get caught in a place where we often go down in this situation of climate solution, where it is either or,” said Peter Ellis, world director of the nature of climatic solutions to conservancy nature. “We are talking about the greatest challenge that civilization has ever been confronted. We need everything on the table. “
The upcoming road
Several speakers have underlined the need for the university world, industry and the government to collaborate in pursuing climatic and energy objectives. Amy Luers, a senior world director of Microsoft's sustainability, compared the challenge to the Apollo space flight program, and said that university establishments must focus more on how to scale and stimulate investments in green energy.
“The challenge is that university establishments are not currently set up to be able to learn how, by leading the quarters of stockings and top to bottom over time,” said Luers. “If the world will succeed in Net Zero, the state of mind of the academic world must change. And fortunately, he starts to. “
During a panel called “From Lab to Grid: scaling up of energy technologies of the first of its kind”, Hannan Happi, CEO of the Exowatt renewable energy company, stressed that electricity is ultimately a commodity. “The electrons are all the same,” he said. “The only thing (customers) care about electrons is that they are available when they need it and they are very cheap.”
Melissa Zhang, director of Azimuth Capital Management, noted that cycles of energy infrastructure development generally take at least five to 10 years – more than one American political cycle. However, she warned that green energy technologies are unlikely to receive significant support at the federal level in the near future. “If you are in something that depends a little too much on subsidies … There are reasons to worry about this administration,” she said.
The CEO of World Energy, Gebolys, the Laboratory Panel moderator in Network, has listed a certain number of companies founded at MIT. “They all have one thing in common,” he said. “They all went from someone's idea, to a laboratory, to the proof of concept, on a scale. It is not as if everything that ends. It is a continuous process.”
