New (Eni-MIT) solar research center inaugurated

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/eni-solar-center.html

New solar research center inaugurated

Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center, funded by Italian oil company, will support research by 21 MIT faculty members

David L. Chandler, MIT News Office

May 4, 2010

MIT President Susan Hockfield and Paolo Scaroni, CEO of the Italian energy company http://www.eni.com/en_IT/home.html">Eni, today celebrated the opening of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center (SFC), headquartered on the MIT campus, which promotes research in advanced solar technologies through projects ranging from new materials to hydrogen production from solar energy.

Hockfield said that the center’s aim is to develop solar technologies that can be competitive with other energy sources, without the need for any government subsidies. “This center has the potential to fundamentally transform how the world produces and uses energy,” she said.

Scaroni said his company, which is primarily an oil and gas production company, has three basic reasons for making a serious commitment to the future of solar energy. First, he said, the world’s supply of oil will eventually run out, and it is important to prepare for that post-oil future. Second, because there is such an abundance of solar energy raining down on the world every day, “we always thought that solar energy is what is going to replace hydrocarbons.” And third, the technologies for solar energy collection currently being used around the world “seemed to us very inefficient,” so there is substantial room to make major advances.

After spending a couple of hours being briefed on the solar research at MIT and touring some of the labs, Scaroni said that “if only 10 percent of what I’ve seen here materializes, this research will change the world.”

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“If only 10 percent of what I’ve seen here materializes, this research will change the world.”