Better late than never: last night a federal district court held that backdoor searches of databases full of Americans’ private communications collected under Section 702 ordinarily require a warrant. The landmark ruling comes in a criminal case, United States v. Hasbajrami, after more than a decade of litigation, and over four years since the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found that backdoor searches constitute “separate Fourth Amendment events” and directed the district court to determine a warrant was required. Now, that has been officially decreed.

In the intervening years, Congress has reauthorized Section 702 multiple times, each time ignoring overwhelming evidence that the FBI and the intelligence community abuse their access to databases of warrantlessly collected messages and other data. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which Congress assigned with the primary role of judicial oversight of Section 702, has also repeatedly dismissed arguments that the backdoor searches violate the Fourth Amendment, giving the intelligence community endless do-overs despite its repeated transgressions of even lax safeguards on these searches.

This decision sheds light on the government’s liberal use of what is essential a “finders keepers” rule regarding your communication data. As a legal authority, FISA Section 702 allows the intelligence community to collect a massive amount of communications data from overseas in the name of “national security.” But, in cases where one side of that conversation is a person on US soil, that data is still collected and retained in large databases searchable by federal law enforcement. Because the US-side of these communications is already collected and just sitting there, the government has claimed that law enforcement agencies do not need a warrant to sift through them. EFF argued for over a decade that this is unconstitutional, and now a federal court agrees with us.

EFF argued for over a decade that this is unconstitutional, and now a federal court agrees with us.

Hasbajrami involves a U.S. resident who was arrested at New York JFK airport in 2011 on his way to Pakistan and charged with providing material support to terrorists. Only after his original conviction did the government explain that its case was premised in part on emails between Mr. Hasbajrami and an unnamed foreigner associated with terrorist groups, emails collected warrantless using Section 702 programs, placed in a database, then searched, again without a warrant, using terms related to Mr. Hasbajrami himself.

The district court found that regardless of whether the government can lawfully warrantlessly collect communications between foreigners and Americans using Section 702, it cannot ordinarily rely on a “foreign intelligence exception” to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant clause when searching these communications, as is the FBI’s routine practice. And, even if such an exception did apply, the court found that the intrusion on privacy caused by reading our most sensitive communications rendered these searches “unreasonable” under the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. In 2021 alone, the FBI conducted 3.4 million warrantless searches of US person’s 702 data.

In light of this ruling, we ask Congress to uphold its responsibility to protect civil rights and civil liberties by refusing to renew Section 702 absent a number of necessary reforms, including an official warrant requirement for querying US persons data and increased transparency. On April 15, 2026, Section 702 is set to expire. We expect any lawmaker worthy of that title to listen to what this federal court is saying and create a legislative warrant requirement so that the intelligence community does not continue to trample on the constitutionally protected rights to private communications. More immediately, the FISC should amend its rules for backdoor searches and require the FBI to seek a warrant before conducting them.

The White House executive order “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship,” published Monday, misses the mark on truly protecting Americans’ First Amendment rights. 

The order calls for an investigation of efforts under the Biden administration to “moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech,” especially on social media companies. It goes on to order an Attorney General investigation of any government activities “over the last 4 years” that are inconsistent with the First Amendment. The order states in part: 

Under the guise of combatting “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation,” the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate.

But noticeably absent from the Executive Order is any commitment to government transparency. In the Santa Clara Principles, a guideline for online content moderation authored by EFF and other civil society groups, we state that “governments and other state actors should themselves report their involvement in content moderation decisions, including data on demands or requests for content to be actioned or an account suspended, broken down by the legal basis for the request." This Executive Order doesn’t come close to embracing such a principle. 

The order is also misguided in its time-limited targeting. Informal government efforts to persuade, cajole, or strong-arm private media platforms, also called “jawboning,” have been an aspect of every U.S. government since at least 2011. Any good-faith inquiry into such pressures would not be limited to a single administration. It’s misleading to suggest the previous administration was the only, or even the primary, source of such pressures. This time limit reeks of political vindictiveness, not a true effort to limit improper government actions. 

To be clear, a look back at past government involvement in online content moderation is a good thing. But an honest inquiry would not be time-limited to the actions of a political opponent, nor limited to only past actions. The public would also be better served by a report that had a clear deadline, and a requirement that the results be made public, rather than sent only to the President’s office. Finally, the investigation would be better placed with an inspector general, not the U.S. Attorney General, which implies possible prosecutions. 

As we have written before, the First Amendment forbids the government from coercing private entities to censor speech. This principle has countered efforts to pressure intermediaries like bookstores and credit card processors to limit others’ speech. But not every communication about user speech is unconstitutional; some are beneficial, like platforms when platforms reach out to government agencies as authoritative sources of information. 

For anyone who may have been excited to see a first-day executive order truly focused on free expression, President Trump’s Jan. 20 order is a disappointment, at best. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is writing law today. This has required no changes in legislative procedure or the rules of legislative bodies—all it takes is one legislator, or legislative assistant, to use generative AI in the process of drafting a bill.

In fact, the use of AI by legislators is only likely to become more prevalent. There are currently projects in the US House, US Senate, and legislatures around the world to trial the use of AI in various ways: searching databases, drafting text, summarizing meetings, performing policy research and analysis, and more. A Brazilian municipality ...

Some of the biggest Biden-era regulations did not appear in the wave of executive orders signed by President Donald Trump. It might not matter.

An executive order the president signed Monday revoked CEQ's rulemaking power, further embedding a shocking decision last year by a federal appeals court.

Federal agencies spent four years expanding their climate work. Now, they will pivot to helping boost fossil fuels.

Withdrawing from the Paris climate accord aims to cut U.S. funding to help other countries cut carbon emissions and build resilience.

Tech giants are backing the massive effort to add data centers across the United States.

The oil giant joined Mitsubishi in financially supporting a tech startup that plans to pull climate pollution from the sky above Louisiana.

It would be the second time President Donald Trump has attempted to withdraw the state’s unique ability to exceed Clean Air Act standards.

The bill comes a day after President Donald Trump directed agencies to pause and redirect federal clean energy credits.

The proliferation of sheep on solar farms is part of a broader trend — solar grazing — that has exploded alongside the solar industry.

The EU chief’s remarks came just hours after Donald Trump yanked the U.S. from the landmark climate accord.

Many experts say luck does play a part. But they also say there are many ways that homes can be made less vulnerable to fire.

Faith Brooks, a graduate student in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program, has had a clear dream since the age of 4: to become a pilot.

“At around 8 years old, my neighbor knew I wanted to fly and showed me pictures of her dad landing a jet on an aircraft carrier, and I was immediately captivated,” says Brooks. Further inspired by her grandfather’s experience in the U.S. Navy (USN), and owing to a lifelong fascination with aviation, she knew nothing would stand in her way.

Brooks explored several different paths to becoming a pilot, but she says one conversation with her longtime mentor, Capt. Matt Skone, USN (Ret.), changed the trajectory of her life.

“He asked if I had heard of the Naval Academy,” she recalls. “At the time, I hadn’t … I immediately knew that that was where I wanted to go, and everything else I learned about United States Naval Academy (USNA) reinforced that for me.”

In her “firstie” (senior) year at the USNA, Brooks was selected to go to Pensacola, Florida, and train to become a naval pilot as a student naval aviator, taking her one step closer to her dream. The USNA also helped guide her path to MIT. Her journey to joining the MIT-WHOI Joint Program began with the USNA’s professional knowledge curriculum, where she read about retired Capt. Wendy Lawrence SM ’88, a naval aviator and astronaut.

“Reading her bio prompted me to look into the program, and it sounded like the perfect program for me — where else could you get a better education in ocean engineering than MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution [WHOI]?”

In the MIT-WHOI Joint Program, Brooks is researching the impact of coastal pond breaching on preventing and mitigating harmful algal blooms. Her work focuses on the biannual mechanical breaching of Nantucket’s Sesachacha Pond to the ocean and the resultant impact on the pond’s water quality. This practice aims to improve water quality and mitigate harmful algal blooms (HABs), especially in summer.

Breaching in coastal ponds is a process that was initially used to enhance salinity for herring and shellfish habitats, but has since shifted to address water quality concerns. Traditionally, an excavator creates a breach in the pond, which naturally closes within one to five days, influenced by sediment transport and weather conditions. High winds and waves can accelerate sediment movement, limiting ocean water exchange and potentially increasing eutrophication, where excessive nutrients lead to dense plant growth and depletion of oxygen. In brackish water environments, harmful algal blooms are often driven by elevated nitrogen levels and higher temperatures, with higher nitrogen concentrating leading to more frequent and severe blooms as temperatures rise.

The Nantucket Natural Resources Department (NRD) has been collaborating with local homeowners to investigate the pond breaching process. Existing data are mainly anecdotal evidence and NRD’s monthly sampling since 2022, which has not shown the expected decrease in eutrophication. Brooks’ research will focus on data before, during, and after the breach at two pond sites to assess water changes to evaluate its effectiveness in improving water quality.

When Brooks isn’t knee-deep in the waters of the Sesachacha or training with her MIT Triathlon team, she takes additional opportunities to further her education. Last year, Brooks participated in the MIT-Portugal Marine Robotics Summer School in Faial, Azores, in Portugal, and immersed herself in a combination of a hands-on design projects and lectures on a variety of topics related to oceanography, engineering, and marine robotics.

“My favorite part of the program was how interdisciplinary it was. We had a combination of mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, computer scientists, marine biologists, and oceanographers, and we had teams that included each of these specialties,” she says. “Our project involved designing a lander equipped with an underwater camera connected to a surface buoy that would transmit the footage. Having worked in mostly just engineering teams previously, it was a great experience to work with a more diverse group and I gained a much better understanding of how to design instruments and systems in accordance with what the marine biologists need.”

Brooks also earned her Part 107 Small Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) license to operate the lab’s drone with a multispectral camera for her upcoming fieldwork. When she graduates from the MIT-WHOI Joint Program next September, she’ll report to the Naval Aviation Schools Command in Pensacola, Florida, to begin flight training.

While she says she’ll miss Boston’s charm and history, as well as the Shining Sea Bikeway on crisp fall days in Woods Hole, Brooks is looking forward to putting her uniform back on, and starting her naval career and flight school. The time Brooks has spent at MIT will support her in these future endeavors. She advises others interested in a similar path to focus on research within their areas of interest.

“The biggest lesson that I’ve learned from both research theses is that any research project will change over time, and it’s often a good idea to take a step back and look at how your work fits into the larger picture,” she says. “I couldn’t recommend doing research more; it’s such a great opportunity to dig into something that you’re interested in, and is also very fulfilling.” 

According to the International Energy Agency, aviation accounts for about 2 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, and aviation emissions are expected to double by mid-century as demand for domestic and international air travel rises. To sharply reduce emissions in alignment with the Paris Agreement’s long-term goal to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has set a goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Which raises the question: Are there technologically feasible and economically viable strategies to reach that goal within the next 25 years?

To begin to address that question, a team of researchers at the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy (CS3) and the MIT Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment has spent the past year analyzing aviation decarbonization options in Latin America, where air travel is expected to more than triple by 2050 and thereby double today’s aviation-related emissions in the region.

Chief among those options is the development and deployment of sustainable aviation fuel. Currently produced from low- and zero-carbon sources (feedstock) including municipal waste and non-food crops, and requiring practically no alteration of aircraft systems or refueling infrastructure, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) has the potential to perform just as well as petroleum-based jet fuel with as low as 20 percent of its carbon footprint.

Focused on Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru, the researchers assessed SAF feedstock availability, the costs of corresponding SAF pathways, and how SAF deployment would likely impact fuel use, prices, emissions, and aviation demand in each country. They also explored how efficiency improvements and market-based mechanisms could help the region to reach decarbonization targets. The team’s findings appear in a CS3 Special Report.

SAF emissions, costs, and sources

Under an ambitious emissions mitigation scenario designed to cap global warming at 1.5 C and raise the rate of SAF use in Latin America to 65 percent by 2050, the researchers projected aviation emissions to be reduced by about 60 percent in 2050 compared to a scenario in which existing climate policies are not strengthened. To achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, other measures would be required, such as improvements in operational and air traffic efficiencies, airplane fleet renewal, alternative forms of propulsion, and carbon offsets and removals.

As of 2024, jet fuel prices in Latin America are around $0.70 per liter. Based on the current availability of feedstocks, the researchers projected SAF costs within the six countries studied to range from $1.11 to $2.86 per liter. They cautioned that increased fuel prices could affect operating costs of the aviation sector and overall aviation demand unless strategies to manage price increases are implemented.

Under the 1.5 C scenario, the total cumulative capital investments required to build new SAF producing plants between 2025 and 2050 were estimated at $204 billion for the six countries (ranging from $5 billion in Ecuador to $84 billion in Brazil). The researchers identified sugarcane- and corn-based ethanol-to-jet fuel, palm oil- and soybean-based hydro-processed esters and fatty acids as the most promising feedstock sources in the near term for SAF production in Latin America.

“Our findings show that SAF offers a significant decarbonization pathway, which must be combined with an economy-wide emissions mitigation policy that uses market-based mechanisms to offset the remaining emissions,” says Sergey Paltsev, lead author of the report, MIT CS3 deputy director, and senior research scientist at the MIT Energy Initiative.

Recommendations

The researchers concluded the report with recommendations for national policymakers and aviation industry leaders in Latin America.

They stressed that government policy and regulatory mechanisms will be needed to create sufficient conditions to attract SAF investments in the region and make SAF commercially viable as the aviation industry decarbonizes operations. Without appropriate policy frameworks, SAF requirements will affect the cost of air travel. For fuel producers, stable, long-term-oriented policies and regulations will be needed to create robust supply chains, build demand for establishing economies of scale, and develop innovative pathways for producing SAF.

Finally, the research team recommended a region-wide collaboration in designing SAF policies. A unified decarbonization strategy among all countries in the region will help ensure competitiveness, economies of scale, and achievement of long-term carbon emissions-reduction goals.

“Regional feedstock availability and costs make Latin America a potential major player in SAF production,” says Angelo Gurgel, a principal research scientist at MIT CS3 and co-author of the study. “SAF requirements, combined with government support mechanisms, will ensure sustainable decarbonization while enhancing the region’s connectivity and the ability of disadvantaged communities to access air transport.”

Financial support for this study was provided by LATAM Airlines and Airbus.

Bryan Reimer, a research scientist at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL), and the founder and co-leader of the Advanced Vehicle Technology Consortium and the Human Factors Evaluator for Automotive Demand Consortium in the MIT AgeLab, has been appointed to the Task Force on Human Factors in Aviation Safety Aviation Rulemaking Committee (HF Task Force ARC). The HF Task Force ARC will provide recommendations to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on the most significant human factors and the relative contribution of these factors to aviation safety risk.

Reimer, who has worked at MIT since 2003, joins a committee whose operational or academic expertise includes air carrier operations, air traffic control, pilot experience, aeronautical information, aircraft maintenance and mechanics psychology, human-machine integration, and general aviation operations. Their recommendations to the FAA will help ensure safety for passengers, aircraft crews, and cargo for years to come. His appointment follows a year of serving on the Transforming Transportation Advisory Committee (TTAC) for the U.S. Department of Transportation, where he has taken on the role of vice chair on the Artificial Intelligence subcommittee. The TTAC recently released a report to the Secretary of Transportation in response to its charter.

As a mobility and technology futurist working at the intersection of technology, human behavior, and public policy, Reimer brings his expertise in human-machine integration, transportation safety, and AI to the committee. The committee, chartered by congressional mandate through the bipartisan FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, specifically calls for a portion of the committee to have expertise on human factors but whose experience and training are not primarily in aviation, which Reimer will provide.

MIT CTL creates supply chain innovation and drives it into practice through the three pillars of research, outreach, and education, working with businesses, government, and nongovernmental organizations. As a longtime advocate of collaboration across public and private sectors to ensure consumers’ safety in transportation, Reimer’s particular expertise will help the FAA more broadly consider the human element of aviation safety. Yossi Sheffi, director of MIT CTL, says, “Aviation plays a critical role in the rapid and reliable transportation of goods across vast distances, making it essential for delivering time-sensitive products globally. We must understand the current human factors involved in this process to help ensure smooth operation of this indispensable service amid potential disruptions.”

Reimer recently discussed his research on an episode of The Ojo-Yoshida Report with Phil Koopman, a professor of electrical and computer engineering.

HF Task Force ARC members will serve a two-year term. The first ARC plenary meeting was held Jan. 15-16 in Washington.

Artificial intelligence has become vital in business and financial dealings, medical care, technology development, research, and much more. Without realizing it, consumers rely on AI when they stream a video, do online banking, or perform an online search. Behind these capabilities are more than 10,000 data centers globally, each one a huge warehouse containing thousands of computer servers and other infrastructure for storing, managing, and processing data. There are now over 5,000 data centers in the United States, and new ones are being built every day — in the U.S. and worldwide. Often dozens are clustered together right near where people live, attracted by policies that provide tax breaks and other incentives, and by what looks like abundant electricity.

And data centers do consume huge amounts of electricity. U.S. data centers consumed more than 4 percent of the country’s total electricity in 2023, and by 2030 that fraction could rise to 9 percent, according to the Electric Power Research Institute. A single large data center can consume as much electricity as 50,000 homes.

The sudden need for so many data centers presents a massive challenge to the technology and energy industries, government policymakers, and everyday consumers. Research scientists and faculty members at the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) are exploring multiple facets of this problem — from sourcing power to grid improvement to analytical tools that increase efficiency, and more. Data centers have quickly become the energy issue of our day.

Unexpected demand brings unexpected solutions

Several companies that use data centers to provide cloud computing and data management services are announcing some surprising steps to deliver all that electricity. Proposals include building their own small nuclear plants near their data centers and even restarting one of the undamaged nuclear reactors at Three Mile Island, which has been shuttered since 2019. (A different reactor at that plant partially melted down in 1979, causing the nation’s worst nuclear power accident.) Already the need to power AI is causing delays in the planned shutdown of some coal-fired power plants and raising prices for residential consumers. Meeting the needs of data centers is not only stressing power grids, but also setting back the transition to clean energy needed to stop climate change.

There are many aspects to the data center problem from a power perspective. Here are some that MIT researchers are focusing on, and why they’re important.

An unprecedented surge in the demand for electricity

“In the past, computing was not a significant user of electricity,” says William H. Green, director of MITEI and the Hoyt C. Hottel Professor in the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering. “Electricity was used for running industrial processes and powering household devices such as air conditioners and lights, and more recently for powering heat pumps and charging electric cars. But now all of a sudden, electricity used for computing in general, and by data centers in particular, is becoming a gigantic new demand that no one anticipated.”

Why the lack of foresight? Usually, demand for electric power increases by roughly half-a-percent per year, and utilities bring in new power generators and make other investments as needed to meet the expected new demand. But the data centers now coming online are creating unprecedented leaps in demand that operators didn’t see coming. In addition, the new demand is constant. It’s critical that a data center provides its services all day, every day. There can be no interruptions in processing large datasets, accessing stored data, and running the cooling equipment needed to keep all the packed-together computers churning away without overheating.

Moreover, even if enough electricity is generated, getting it to where it’s needed may be a problem, explains Deepjyoti Deka, a MITEI research scientist. “A grid is a network-wide operation, and the grid operator may have sufficient generation at another location or even elsewhere in the country, but the wires may not have sufficient capacity to carry the electricity to where it’s wanted.” So transmission capacity must be expanded — and, says Deka, that’s a slow process.

Then there’s the “interconnection queue.” Sometimes, adding either a new user (a “load”) or a new generator to an existing grid can cause instabilities or other problems for everyone else already on the grid. In that situation, bringing a new data center online may be delayed. Enough delays can result in new loads or generators having to stand in line and wait for their turn. Right now, much of the interconnection queue is already filled up with new solar and wind projects. The delay is now about five years. Meeting the demand from newly installed data centers while ensuring that the quality of service elsewhere is not hampered is a problem that needs to be addressed.

Finding clean electricity sources

To further complicate the challenge, many companies — including so-called “hyperscalers” such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon — have made public commitments to having net-zero carbon emissions within the next 10 years. Many have been making strides toward achieving their clean-energy goals by buying “power purchase agreements.” They sign a contract to buy electricity from, say, a solar or wind facility, sometimes providing funding for the facility to be built. But that approach to accessing clean energy has its limits when faced with the extreme electricity demand of a data center.

Meanwhile, soaring power consumption is delaying coal plant closures in many states. There are simply not enough sources of renewable energy to serve both the hyperscalers and the existing users, including individual consumers. As a result, conventional plants fired by fossil fuels such as coal are needed more than ever.

As the hyperscalers look for sources of clean energy for their data centers, one option could be to build their own wind and solar installations. But such facilities would generate electricity only intermittently. Given the need for uninterrupted power, the data center would have to maintain energy storage units, which are expensive. They could instead rely on natural gas or diesel generators for backup power — but those devices would need to be coupled with equipment to capture the carbon emissions, plus a nearby site for permanently disposing of the captured carbon.

Because of such complications, several of the hyperscalers are turning to nuclear power. As Green notes, “Nuclear energy is well matched to the demand of data centers, because nuclear plants can generate lots of power reliably, without interruption.”

In a much-publicized move in September, Microsoft signed a deal to buy power for 20 years after Constellation Energy reopens one of the undamaged reactors at its now-shuttered nuclear plant at Three Mile Island, the site of the much-publicized nuclear accident in 1979. If approved by regulators, Constellation will bring that reactor online by 2028, with Microsoft buying all of the power it produces. Amazon also reached a deal to purchase power produced by another nuclear plant threatened with closure due to financial troubles. And in early December, Meta released a request for proposals to identify nuclear energy developers to help the company meet their AI needs and their sustainability goals.

Other nuclear news focuses on small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), factory-built, modular power plants that could be installed near data centers, potentially without the cost overruns and delays often experienced in building large plants. Google recently ordered a fleet of SMRs to generate the power needed by its data centers. The first one will be completed by 2030 and the remainder by 2035.

Some hyperscalers are betting on new technologies. For example, Google is pursuing next-generation geothermal projects, and Microsoft has signed a contract to purchase electricity from a startup’s fusion power plant beginning in 2028 — even though the fusion technology hasn’t yet been demonstrated.

Reducing electricity demand

Other approaches to providing sufficient clean electricity focus on making the data center and the operations it houses more energy efficient so as to perform the same computing tasks using less power. Using faster computer chips and optimizing algorithms that use less energy are already helping to reduce the load, and also the heat generated.

Another idea being tried involves shifting computing tasks to times and places where carbon-free energy is available on the grid. Deka explains: “If a task doesn’t have to be completed immediately, but rather by a certain deadline, can it be delayed or moved to a data center elsewhere in the U.S. or overseas where electricity is more abundant, cheaper, and/or cleaner? This approach is known as ‘carbon-aware computing.’” We’re not yet sure whether every task can be moved or delayed easily, says Deka. “If you think of a generative AI-based task, can it easily be separated into small tasks that can be taken to different parts of the country, solved using clean energy, and then be brought back together? What is the cost of doing this kind of division of tasks?”

That approach is, of course, limited by the problem of the interconnection queue. It’s difficult to access clean energy in another region or state. But efforts are under way to ease the regulatory framework to make sure that critical interconnections can be developed more quickly and easily.

What about the neighbors?

A major concern running through all the options for powering data centers is the impact on residential energy consumers. When a data center comes into a neighborhood, there are not only aesthetic concerns but also more practical worries. Will the local electricity service become less reliable? Where will the new transmission lines be located? And who will pay for the new generators, upgrades to existing equipment, and so on? When new manufacturing facilities or industrial plants go into a neighborhood, the downsides are generally offset by the availability of new jobs. Not so with a data center, which may require just a couple dozen employees.

There are standard rules about how maintenance and upgrade costs are shared and allocated. But the situation is totally changed by the presence of a new data center. As a result, utilities now need to rethink their traditional rate structures so as not to place an undue burden on residents to pay for the infrastructure changes needed to host data centers.

MIT’s contributions

At MIT, researchers are thinking about and exploring a range of options for tackling the problem of providing clean power to data centers. For example, they are investigating architectural designs that will use natural ventilation to facilitate cooling, equipment layouts that will permit better airflow and power distribution, and highly energy-efficient air conditioning systems based on novel materials. They are creating new analytical tools for evaluating the impact of data center deployments on the U.S. power system and for finding the most efficient ways to provide the facilities with clean energy. Other work looks at how to match the output of small nuclear reactors to the needs of a data center, and how to speed up the construction of such reactors.

MIT teams also focus on determining the best sources of backup power and long-duration storage, and on developing decision support systems for locating proposed new data centers, taking into account the availability of electric power and water and also regulatory considerations, and even the potential for using what can be significant waste heat, for example, for heating nearby buildings. Technology development projects include designing faster, more efficient computer chips and more energy-efficient computing algorithms.

In addition to providing leadership and funding for many research projects, MITEI is acting as a convenor, bringing together companies and stakeholders to address this issue. At MITEI’s 2024 Annual Research Conference, a panel of representatives from two hyperscalers and two companies that design and construct data centers together discussed their challenges, possible solutions, and where MIT research could be most beneficial.

As data centers continue to be built, and computing continues to create an unprecedented increase in demand for electricity, Green says, scientists and engineers are in a race to provide the ideas, innovations, and technologies that can meet this need, and at the same time continue to advance the transition to a decarbonized energy system.

Ammonia is the most widely produced chemical in the world today, used primarily as a source for nitrogen fertilizer. Its production is also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions — the highest in the whole chemical industry.

Now, a team of researchers at MIT has developed an innovative way of making ammonia without the usual fossil-fuel-powered chemical plants that require high heat and pressure. Instead, they have found a way to use the Earth itself as a geochemical reactor, producing ammonia underground. The processes uses Earth’s naturally occurring heat and pressure, provided free of charge and free of emissions, as well as the reactivity of minerals already present in the ground.

The trick the team devised is to inject water underground, into an area of iron-rich subsurface rock. The water carries with it a source of nitrogen and particles of a metal catalyst, allowing the water to react with the iron to generate clean hydrogen, which in turn reacts with the nitrogen to make ammonia. A second well is then used to pump that ammonia up to the surface.

The process, which has been demonstrated in the lab but not yet in a natural setting, is described today in the journal Joule. The paper’s co-authors are MIT professors of materials science and engineering Iwnetim Abate and Ju Li, graduate student Yifan Gao, and five others at MIT.

“When I first produced ammonia from rock in the lab, I was so excited,” Gao recalls. “I realized this represented an entirely new and never-reported approach to ammonia synthesis.’”

The standard method for making ammonia is called the Haber-Bosch process, which was developed in Germany in the early 20th century to replace natural sources of nitrogen fertilizer such as mined deposits of bat guano, which were becoming depleted. But the Haber-Bosch process is very energy intensive: It requires temperatures of 400 degrees Celsius and pressures of 200 atmospheres, and this means it needs huge installations in order to be efficient. Some areas of the world, such as sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, have few or no such plants in operation.  As a result, the shortage or extremely high cost of fertilizer in these regions has limited their agricultural production.

The Haber-Bosch process “is good. It works,” Abate says. “Without it, we wouldn’t have been able to feed 2 out of the total 8 billion people in the world right now, he says, referring to the portion of the world’s population whose food is grown with ammonia-based fertilizers. But because of the emissions and energy demands, a better process is needed, he says.

Burning fuel to generate heat is responsible for about 20 percent of the greenhouse gases emitted from plants using the Haber-Bosch process. Making hydrogen accounts for the remaining 80 percent.  But ammonia, the molecule NH3, is made up only of nitrogen and hydrogen. There’s no carbon in the formula, so where do the carbon emissions come from? The standard way of producing the needed hydrogen is by processing methane gas with steam, breaking down the gas into pure hydrogen, which gets used, and carbon dioxide gas that gets released into the air.

Other processes exist for making low- or no-emissions hydrogen, such as by using solar or wind-generated electricity to split water into oxygen and hydrogen, but that process can be expensive. That’s why Abate and his team worked on developing a system to produce what they call geological hydrogen. Some places in the world, including some in Africa, have been found to naturally generate hydrogen underground through chemical reactions between water and iron-rich rocks. These pockets of naturally occurring hydrogen can be mined, just like natural methane reservoirs, but the extent and locations of such deposits are still relatively unexplored.

Abate realized this process could be created or enhanced by pumping water, laced with copper and nickel catalyst particles to speed up the process, into the ground in places where such iron-rich rocks were already present. “We can use the Earth as a factory to produce clean flows of hydrogen,” he says.

He recalls thinking about the problem of the emissions from hydrogen production for ammonia: “The ‘aha!’ moment for me was thinking, how about we link this process of geological hydrogen production with the process of making Haber-Bosch ammonia?”

That would solve the biggest problem of the underground hydrogen production process, which is how to capture and store the gas once it’s produced. Hydrogen is a very tiny molecule — the smallest of them all — and hard to contain. But by implementing the entire Haber-Bosch process underground, the only material that would need to be sent to the surface would be the ammonia itself, which is easy to capture, store, and transport.

The only extra ingredient needed to complete the process was the addition of a source of nitrogen, such as nitrate or nitrogen gas, into the water-catalyst mixture being injected into the ground. Then, as the hydrogen gets released from water molecules after interacting with the iron-rich rocks, it can immediately bond with the nitrogen atoms also carried in the water, with the deep underground environment providing the high temperatures and pressures required by the Haber-Bosch process. A second well near the injection well then pumps the ammonia out and into tanks on the surface.

“We call this geological ammonia,” Abate says, “because we are using subsurface temperature, pressure, chemistry, and geologically existing rocks to produce ammonia directly.”

Whereas transporting hydrogen requires expensive equipment to cool and liquefy it, and virtually no pipelines exist for its transport (except near oil refinery sites), transporting ammonia is easier and cheaper. It’s about one-sixth the cost of transporting hydrogen, and there are already more than 5,000 miles of ammonia pipelines and 10,000 terminals in place in the U.S. alone. What’s more, Abate explains, ammonia, unlike hydrogen, already has a substantial commercial market in place, with production volume projected to grow by two to three times by 2050, as it is used not only for fertilizer but also as feedstock for a wide variety of chemical processes.

For example, ammonia can be burned directly in gas turbines, engines, and industrial furnaces, providing a carbon-free alternative to fossil fuels. It is being explored for maritime shipping and aviation as an alternative fuel, and as a possible space propellant.

Another upside to geological ammonia is that untreated wastewater, including agricultural runoff, which tends to be rich in nitrogen already, could serve as the water source and be treated in the process. “We can tackle the problem of treating wastewater, while also making something of value out of this waste,” Abate says.

Gao adds that this process “involves no direct carbon emissions, presenting a potential pathway to reduce global CO2 emissions by up to 1 percent.” To arrive at this point, he says, the team “overcame numerous challenges and learned from many failed attempts. For example, we tested a wide range of conditions and catalysts before identifying the most effective one.”

The project was seed-funded under a flagship project of MIT’s Climate Grand Challenges program, the Center for the Electrification and Decarbonization of Industry. Professor Yet-Ming Chiang, co-director of the center, says “I don’t think there’s been any previous example of deliberately using the Earth as a chemical reactor. That’s one of the key novel points of this approach.”  Chiang emphasizes that even though it is a geological process, it happens very fast, not on geological timescales. “The reaction is fundamentally over in a matter of hours,” he says. “The reaction is so fast that this answers one of the key questions: Do you have to wait for geological times? And the answer is absolutely no.”

Professor Elsa Olivetti, a mission director of the newly established Climate Project at MIT, says, “The creative thinking by this team is invaluable to MIT’s ability to have impact at scale. Coupling these exciting results with, for example, advanced understanding of the geology surrounding hydrogen accumulations represent the whole-of-Institute efforts the Climate Project aims to support.”

“This is a significant breakthrough for the future of sustainable development,” says Geoffrey Ellis, a geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, who was not associated with this work. He adds, “While there is clearly more work that needs to be done to validate this at the pilot stage and to get this to the commercial scale, the concept that has been demonstrated is truly transformative.  The approach of engineering a system to optimize the natural process of nitrate reduction by Fe2+ is ingenious and will likely lead to further innovations along these lines.”

The initial work on the process has been done in the laboratory, so the next step will be to prove the process using a real underground site. “We think that kind of experiment can be done within the next one to two years,” Abate says. This could open doors to using a similar approach for other chemical production processes, he adds.

The team has applied for a patent and aims to work towards bringing the process to market.

“Moving forward,” Gao says, “our focus will be on optimizing the process conditions and scaling up tests, with the goal of enabling practical applications for geological ammonia in the near future.”

The research team also included Ming Lei, Bachu Sravan Kumar, Hugh Smith, Seok Hee Han, and Lokesh Sangabattula, all at MIT. Additional funding was provided by the National Science Foundation and was carried out, in part, through the use of MIT.nano facilities.

Topics Include National Security Surveillance, Consumer Privacy, AI, Cybersecurity, and Many More

SAN FRANCISCO—Standing up for technology users in 2025 and beyond requires careful thinking about government surveillance, consumer privacy, artificial intelligence, and encryption, among other topics. To help incoming federal policymakers think through these key issues, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has shared a transition memo with the Trump Administration and the 119th U.S. Congress. 

“We routinely work with officials and staff in the White House and Congress on a wide range of policies that will affect digital rights in the coming years,” said EFF Director of Federal Affairs India McKinney. “As the oldest, largest, and most trusted nonpartisan digital rights organization, EFF’s litigators, technologists, and activists have a depth of knowledge and experience that remains unmatched. This memo focuses on how Congress and the Trump Administration can prioritize helping ordinary Americans protect their digital freedom.”  

The 64-page memo covers topics such as surveillance, including warrantless digital dragnets, national security surveillance, face recognition technology, border surveillance, and reproductive justice; encryption and cybersecurity; consumer privacy, including vehicle data, age verification, and digital identification; artificial intelligence, including algorithmic decision-making, transparency, and copyright concerns; broadband access and net neutrality; Section 230’s protections of free speech online; competition; copyright; the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act; and patents. 

EFF also shared a transition memo with the incoming Biden Administration and Congress in 2020. 

“The new Congress and the Trump Administration have an opportunity to make the internet a much better place for users. This memo should serve as a blueprint for how they can do so,” said EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn. “We’ll be here when this administration ends and the next one takes over, and we’ll continue to push. Our nonpartisan approach to tech policy works because we always work for technology users.” 

For the 2025 transition memo: https://eff.org/document/eff-transition-memo-trump-administration-2025 

For the 2020 transition memo: https://www.eff.org/document/eff-transition-memo-incoming-biden-administration-november-2020

Contact:  IndiaMcKinneyDirector of Federal Affairsindia@eff.org MaddieDalyAssistant Director of Federal Affairs