For the previous 4 years, Jing Li ’11 has been learning energy applied sciences that might assist the world transfer to a low-carbon future. Her experience is technology diffusion and adoption. Fresh out of an economics PhD program at Harvard, Li says she “loves thinking about how technological progress comes about, how technology is adopted.”
She’s returning to MIT to do this and extra — first as a postdoc for a yr after which as an assistant professor of utilized economics on the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Her analysis focuses on the race to introduce higher batteries into {the marketplace}. The availability of low-cost, high-energy-density, scalable, and protected batteries is essential in each transportation and energy era, that are two of essentially the most polluting sectors within the energy ecosystem, Li factors out. Better batteries might imply larger effectivity and decrease emissions.
“We’re not quite there yet in terms of battery technology that checks all the boxes, but why not? There are many patents out there, but when do we expect to see them on the market?” she says.
Li’s coaching in economics permits her to look at every step as a technology progresses from the lab to {the marketplace}. She hopes her research will assist pace up that course of.
“Energy is critical to everyday life, and low-carbon energy is critical to addressing climate change concerns,” she says. “At some point, I just started thinking about that, and I couldn’t let go.”
Li organizes her analysis on technology adoption round three core questions. First: Why aren’t adoption charges as excessive as we’d like or count on for a promising technology? Cost and pricing are generally the obstacle, however not all the time. Sometimes it’s a query of infrastructure, as within the instance of electrical automobiles, which Li targeted on in her dissertation. Electric automobiles want a dependable community of charging stations earlier than widespread adoption is feasible.
Li’s second query offers with the mysteries of technological innovation. She asks: “Is technological innovation a black box, and all we need to do is wait? Or is there scope for government policy to accelerate innovation by addressing inefficiencies?” She research cases wherein extra funding for fundamental analysis might make a distinction, or wherein the innovations are prepared however companies or customers want a push within the type of measures comparable to authorities subsidies for the product to obtain larger ranges of adoption.
The ultimate query driving her analysis is: How can we meet rising energy demand in growing nations whereas defending human well being and the setting? Over the course of her training and the start of her analysis profession, Li has explored fields from growth economics to environmental economics and industrial group.
“If we’re going to improve the lives of people in developing countries, energy consumption is going to play a big role,” she says. “But at the same time, how do we make things better for human health by alleviating pollution, improving air quality?”
With her fast-approaching professorship very a lot on her thoughts, Li has plans to take an in depth have a look at the economics curriculum on the Institute to see if there are any gaps in what’s being supplied.
“There’s a history of high-quality energy economics classes at MIT,” she says. “I want to learn more about the classes that are being taught currently and bring back some of the really important parts of classes that are no longer around.”
She plans to meet with a variety of scholars — from Sloan MBAs to undergraduates in engineering, science, and the humanities — to formulate a way of which energy and economics points they really feel are most essential. She’s conserving studying outdoors the classroom in thoughts, too. As an undergrad, she says she benefited immensely from the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) “learning a lot about the grunt work of research.” And If the correct analysis alternative presents itself, she says she plans to create a UROP for undergrads working in energy economics.
Li says she appears to be like ahead to the prospect to give again to her alma mater.
“MIT just feels special to me in a way that I cannot even articulate,” she says. “To me, it’s nerds — in the best sense of the word — coming together to celebrate learning and knowledge.”
This article appeared within the Autumn 2017 subject of Energy Futures, the journal of the MIT Energy Initiative.