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There’s a lot of untapped potential in our homes and vehicles that could be harnessed to reinforce local power grids and make them more resilient to unforeseen outages, a new study shows.

In response to a cyber attack or natural disaster, a backup network of decentralized devices — such as residential solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles, heat pumps, and water heaters — could restore electricity or relieve stress on the grid, MIT engineers say.

Such devices are “grid-edge” resources found close to the consumer rather than near central power plants, substations, or transmission lines. Grid-edge devices can independently generate, store, or tune their consumption of power. In their study, the research team shows how such devices could one day be called upon to either pump power into the grid, or rebalance it by dialing down or delaying their power use.

In a paper appearing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the engineers present a blueprint for how grid-edge devices could reinforce the power grid through a “local electricity market.” Owners of grid-edge devices could subscribe to a regional market and essentially loan out their device to be part of a microgrid or a local network of on-call energy resources.

In the event that the main power grid is compromised, an algorithm developed by the researchers would kick in for each local electricity market, to quickly determine which devices in the network are trustworthy. The algorithm would then identify the combination of trustworthy devices that would most effectively mitigate the power failure, by either pumping power into the grid or reducing the power they draw from it, by an amount that the algorithm would calculate and communicate to the relevant subscribers. The subscribers could then be compensated through the market, depending on their participation.

The team illustrated this new framework through a number of grid attack scenarios, in which they considered failures at different levels of a power grid, from various sources such as a cyber attack or a natural disaster. Applying their algorithm, they showed that various networks of grid-edge devices were able to dissolve the various attacks.

The results demonstrate that grid-edge devices such as rooftop solar panels, EV chargers, batteries, and smart thermostats (for HVAC devices or heat pumps) could be tapped to stabilize the power grid in the event of an attack.

“All these small devices can do their little bit in terms of adjusting their consumption,” says study co-author Anu Annaswamy, a research scientist in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “If we can harness our smart dishwashers, rooftop panels, and EVs, and put our combined shoulders to the wheel, we can really have a resilient grid.”

The study’s MIT co-authors include lead author Vineet Nair and John Williams, along with collaborators from multiple institutions including the Indian Institute of Technology, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and elsewhere.

Power boost

The team’s study is an extension of their broader work in adaptive control theory and designing systems to automatically adapt to changing conditions. Annaswamy, who leads the Active-Adaptive Control Laboratory at MIT, explores ways to boost the reliability of renewable energy sources such as solar power.

“These renewables come with a strong temporal signature, in that we know for sure the sun will set every day, so the solar power will go away,” Annaswamy says. “How do you make up for the shortfall?”

The researchers found the answer could lie in the many grid-edge devices that consumers are increasingly installing in their own homes.

“There are lots of distributed energy resources that are coming up now, closer to the customer rather than near large power plants, and it’s mainly because of individual efforts to decarbonize,” Nair says. “So you have all this capability at the grid edge. Surely we should be able to put them to good use.”

While considering ways to deal with drops in energy from the normal operation of renewable sources, the team also began to look into other causes of power dips, such as from cyber attacks. They wondered, in these malicious instances, whether and how the same grid-edge devices could step in to stabilize the grid following an unforeseen, targeted attack.

Attack mode

In their new work, Annaswamy, Nair, and their colleagues developed a framework for incorporating grid-edge devices, and in particular, internet-of-things (IoT) devices, in a way that would support the larger grid in the event of an attack or disruption. IoT devices are physical objects that contain sensors and software that connect to the internet.

For their new framework, named EUREICA (Efficient, Ultra-REsilient, IoT-Coordinated Assets), the researchers start with the assumption that one day, most grid-edge devices will also be IoT devices, enabling rooftop panels, EV chargers, and smart thermostats to wirelessly connect to a larger network of similarly independent and distributed devices. 

The team envisions that for a given region, such as a community of 1,000 homes, there exists a certain number of IoT devices that could potentially be enlisted in the region’s local network, or microgrid. Such a network would be managed by an operator, who would be able to communicate with operators of other nearby microgrids.

If the main power grid is compromised or attacked, operators would run the researchers’ decision-making algorithm to determine trustworthy devices within the network that can pitch in to help mitigate the attack.

The team tested the algorithm on a number of scenarios, such as a cyber attack in which all smart thermostats made by a certain manufacturer are hacked to raise their setpoints simultaneously to a degree that dramatically alters a region’s energy load and destabilizes the grid. The researchers also considered attacks and weather events that would shut off the transmission of energy at various levels and nodes throughout a power grid.

“In our attacks we consider between 5 and 40 percent of the power being lost. We assume some nodes are attacked, and some are still available and have some IoT resources, whether a battery with energy available or an EV or HVAC device that’s controllable,” Nair explains. “So, our algorithm decides which of those houses can step in to either provide extra power generation to inject into the grid or reduce their demand to meet the shortfall.”

In every scenario that they tested, the team found that the algorithm was able to successfully restabilize the grid and mitigate the attack or power failure. They acknowledge that to put in place such a network of grid-edge devices will require buy-in from customers, policymakers, and local officials, as well as innovations such as advanced power inverters that enable EVs to inject power back into the grid.

“This is just the first of many steps that have to happen in quick succession for this idea of local electricity markets to be implemented and expanded upon,” Annaswamy says. “But we believe it’s a good start.”

This work was supported, in part, by the U.S. Department of Energy and the MIT Energy Initiative.

© Credit: Courtesy of the researchers

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Across a career’s worth of pioneering product designs, Doug Field’s work has shaped the experience of anyone who’s ever used a MacBook Air, ridden a Segway, or driven a Tesla Model 3.

But his newest project is his most ambitious yet: reinventing the Ford automobile, one of the past century’s most iconic pieces of technology.

As Ford’s chief electric vehicle (EV), digital, and design officer, Field is tasked with leading the development of the company’s electric vehicles, while making new software platforms central to all Ford models.

To bring Ford Motor Co. into that digital and electric future, Field effectively has to lead a fast-moving startup inside the legacy carmaker. “It is incredibly hard, figuring out how to do ‘startups’ within large organizations,” he concedes.

If anyone can pull it off, it’s likely to be Field. Ever since his time in MIT’s Leaders for Global Operations (then known as “Leaders in Manufacturing”) program studying organizational behavior and strategy, Field has been fixated on creating the conditions that foster innovation.

“The natural state of an organization is to make it harder and harder to do those things: to innovate, to have small teams, to go against the grain,” he says. To overcome those forces, Field has become a master practitioner of the art of curating diverse, talented teams and helping them flourish inside of big, complex companies.

“It’s one thing to make a creative environment where you can come up with big ideas,” he says. “It’s another to create an execution-focused environment to crank things out. I became intrigued with, and have been for the rest of my career, this question of how can you have both work together?”

Three decades after his first stint as a development engineer at Ford Motor Co., Field now has a chance to marry the manufacturing muscle of Ford with the bold approach that helped him rethink Apple’s laptops and craft Tesla’s Model 3 sedan. His task is nothing less than rethinking how cars are made and operated, from the bottom up.

“If it’s only creative or execution, you’re not going to change the world,” he says. “If you want to have a huge impact, you need people to change the course you’re on, and you need people to build it.”

A passion for design

From a young age, Field had a fascination with automobiles. “I was definitely into cars and transportation more generally,” he says. “I thought of cars as the place where technology and art and human design came together — cars were where all my interests intersected.”

With a mother who was an artist and musician and an engineer father, Field credits his parents’ influence for his lifelong interest in both the aesthetic and technical elements of product design. “I think that’s why I’m drawn to autos — there’s very much an aesthetic aspect to the product,” he says. 

After earning a degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University, Field took a job at Ford in 1987. The big Detroit automakers of that era excelled at mass-producing cars, but weren’t necessarily set up to encourage or reward innovative thinking. Field chafed at the “overstructured and bureaucratic” operational culture he encountered.

The experience was frustrating at times, but also valuable and clarifying. He realized that he “wanted to work with fast-moving, technology-based businesses.”

“My interest in advancing technical problem-solving didn’t have a place in the auto industry” at the time, he says. “I knew I wanted to work with passionate people and create something that didn’t exist, in an environment where talent and innovation were prized, where irreverence was an asset and not a liability. When I read about Silicon Valley, I loved the way they talked about things.”

During that time, Field took two years off to enroll in MIT’s LGO program, where he deepened his technical skills and encountered ideas about manufacturing processes and team-driven innovation that would serve him well in the years ahead.

“Some of core skill sets that I developed there were really, really important,” he says, “in the context of production lines and production processes.” He studied systems engineering and the use of Monte Carlo simulations to model complex manufacturing environments. During his internship with aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, he worked on automated design in computer-aided design (CAD) systems, long before those techniques became standard practice.

Another powerful tool he picked up was the science of probability and statistics, under the tutelage of MIT Professor Alvin Drake in his legendary course 6.041/6.431 (Probabilistic Systems Analysis). Field would go on to apply those insights not only to production processes, but also to characterizing variability in people’s aptitudes, working styles, and talents, in the service of building better, more innovative teams. And studying organizational strategy catalyzed his career-long interest in “ways to look at innovation as an outcome, rather than a random spark of genius.”

“So many things I was lucky to be exposed to at MIT,” Field says, were “all building blocks, pieces of the puzzle, that helped me navigate through difficult situations later on.”

Learning while leading

After leaving Ford in 1993, Field worked at Johnson and Johnson Medical for three years in process development. There, he met Segway inventor Dean Kamen, who was working on a project called the iBOT, a gyroscopic powered wheelchair that could climb stairs.

When Kamen spun off Segway to develop a new personal mobility device using the same technology, Field became his first hire. He spent nearly a decade as the firm’s chief technology officer.

At Segway, Field’s interests in vehicles, technology, innovation, process, and human-centered design all came together.

“When I think about working now on electric cars, it was a real gift,” he says. The problems they tackled prefigured the ones he would grapple with later at Tesla and Ford. “Segway was very much a precursor to a modern EV. Completely software controlled, with higher-voltage batteries, redundant systems, traction control, brushless DC motors — it was basically a miniature Tesla in the year 2000.”

At Segway, Field assembled an “amazing” team of engineers and designers who were as passionate as he was about pushing the envelope. “Segway was the first place I was able to hand-pick every single person I worked with, define the culture, and define the mission.”

As he grew into this leadership role, he became equally engrossed with cracking another puzzle: “How do you prize people who don’t fit in?”

“Such a fundamental part of the fabric of Silicon Valley is the love of embracing talent over a traditional organization’s ways of measuring people,” he says. “If you want to innovate, you need to learn how to manage neurodivergence and a very different set of personalities than the people you find in large corporations.”

Field still keeps the base housing of a Segway in his office, as a reminder of what those kinds of teams — along with obsessive attention to detail — can achieve.

Before joining Apple in 2008, he showed that component, with its clean lines and every minuscule part in its place in one unified package, to his prospective new colleagues. “They were like, “OK, you’re one of us,’” he recalls.

He soon became vice president of hardware development for all Mac computers, leading the teams behind the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro and eventually overseeing more than 2,000 employees. “Making things really simple and really elegant, thinking about the product as an integrated whole, that really took me into Apple.”

The challenge of giving the MacBook Air its signature sleek and light profile is an example.

“The MacBook Air was the first high-volume consumer electronic product built out of a CNC-machined enclosure,” says Field. He worked with industrial design and technology teams to devise a way to make the laptop from one solid piece of aluminum and jettison two-thirds of the parts found in the iMac. “We had material cut away so that every single screw and piece of electronics sat down into it an integrated way. That’s how we got the product so small and slim.”

“When I interviewed with Jony Ive” — Apple’s legendary chief design officer — “he said your ability to zoom out and zoom in was the number one most important ability as a leader at Apple.” That meant zooming out to think about “the entire ethos of this product, and the way it will affect the world” and zooming all the way back in to obsess over, say, the physical shape of the laptop itself and what it feels like in a user’s hands.

“That thread of attention to detail, passion for product, design plus technology rolled directly into what I was doing at Tesla,” he says. When Field joined Tesla in 2013, he was drawn to the way the brash startup upended the approach to making cars. “Tesla was integrating digital technology into cars in a way nobody else was. They said, ‘We’re not a car company in Silicon Valley, we’re a Silicon Valley company and we happen to make cars.’”

Field assembled and led the team that produced the Model 3 sedan, Tesla’s most affordable vehicle, designed to have mass-market appeal.

That experience only reinforced the importance, and power, of zooming in and out as a designer — in a way that encompasses the bigger human resources picture.

“You have to have a broad sense of what you’re trying to accomplish and help people in the organization understand what it means to them,” he says. “You have to go across and understand operations enough to glue all of those (things) together — while still being great at and focused on something very, very deeply. That’s T-shaped leadership.”

He credits his time at LGO with providing the foundation for the “T-shaped leadership” he practices.

“An education like the one I got at MIT allowed me to keep moving that ‘T’, to focus really deep, learn a ton, teach as much as I can, and after something gets more mature, pull out and bed down into other areas where the organization needs to grow or where there’s a crisis.”

The power of marrying scale to a “startup mentality”

In 2018, Field returned to Apple as a vice president for special projects. “I left Tesla after Model 3 and Y started to ramp, as there were people better than me to run high-volume manufacturing,” he says. “I went back to Apple hoping what Tesla had learned would motivate Apple to get into a different market.”

That market was his early love: cars. Field quietly led a project to develop an electric vehicle at Apple for three years.

Then Ford CEO Jim Farley came calling. He persuaded Field to return to Ford in late 2021, partly by demonstrating how much things had changed since his first stint as the carmaker.

“Two things came through loud and clear,” Field says. “One was humility. ‘Our success is not assured.’” That attitude was strikingly different from Field’s early experience in Detroit, encountering managers who were resistant to change. “The other thing was urgency. Jim and Bill Ford said the exact same thing to me: ‘We have four or five years to completely remake this company.’”

“I said, ‘OK, if the top of company really believes that, then the auto industry may be ready for what I hope to offer.’”

So far, Field is energized and encouraged by the appetite for reinvention he’s encountered this time around at Ford.

“If you can combine what Ford does really well with what a Tesla or Rivian can do well, this is something to be reckoned with,” says Field. “Skunk works have become one of the fundamental tools of my career,” he says, using an industry term that describes a project pursued by a small, autonomous group of people within a larger organization.

Ford has been developing a new, lower-cost, software-enabled EV platform — running all of the car’s sensors and components from a central digital operating system — with a “skunk works” team for the past two years. The company plans to build new sedans, SUVs, and small pickups based on this new platform.

With other legacy carmakers like Volvo racing into the electric future and fierce competition from EV leaders Tesla and Rivian, Field and his colleagues have their work cut out for them.

If he succeeds, leveraging his decades of learning and leading from LGO to Silicon Valley, then his latest chapter could transform the way we all drive — and secure a spot for Ford at the front of the electric vehicle pack in the process.

“I’ve been lucky to feel over and over that what I’m doing right now — they are going to write a book about it,” say Field. “This is a big deal, for Ford and the U.S. auto industry, and for American industry, actually.”

© Photo courtesy of the Ford Motor Co.

Farm Foundation has named Dr. Sunghun Lim as its 2025 Agricultural Economics Trade and Sustainability Fellow.

Farm Foundation’s Agricultural Economics Fellow program is a yearlong program for a faculty agricultural economist. The 2025 fellowship is focused on integrated systems approaches to understanding and overcoming the challenges in developing a greater understanding of how trade and sustainability are interconnected and are impacting the food and agricultural sectors in the United States and beyond in rapidly changing circumstances.
In addition to being mentored by staff in USDA’s Office of the Chief Economist, Lim in turn will mentor participants in the Farm Foundation and USDA Economic Research Service Agricultural Scholars program, among other engagements. 

His research has been published in leading academic journals, including the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Nature Communications, NBER Book Series, Food Policy, Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Handbook of Agricultural Economics, and The World Economy.

He earned his BS in Economics in 2013 and his MS in Agricultural and Resource Economics in 2015 from the University of California, Davis. He received his Ph.D. in Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota in 2020.

Dr. Lim is Farm Foundation’s fifth Agricultural Economics Fellow and succeeds Dr. Sandro Steinbach (North Dakota State University), Drs. Trey Malone (University of Arkansas), Amanda Countryman (University of Colorado), and Alejandro Plastina (University of Iowa).

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In the Perspectives guest blog series, Farm Foundation invites participants from among the varied Farm Foundation programs to share their unique viewpoint on a topic relevant to a Farm Foundation focus area. Dr. Sandro Steinbach, the 2024 Farm Foundation Agricultural Economics Fellow, and Claire Citeau, a distinguished fellow at the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute, contributed this guest blog. In July 2024, they attended the Global Forum on Farm Policy & Innovation‘s second workshop, held in Washington D.C. on the topic of measuring sustainability outcomes to facilitate agricultural trade. An in-depth paper summarizing the event’s key takeaways and next steps is also now available.

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As climate pressures increase and sustainable practices become a priority, the agricultural sector faces a unique challenge: balancing trade policies with the need for sustainable farming. In July 2024, global experts gathered at the Global Forum for Farm Policy & Innovation (GFFPI) workshop in Washington, D.C., to tackle these pressing questions. Here, we highlight key takeaways from the workshop on aligning global trade with sustainable agriculture.

Why Integrating Sustainability into Trade Matters

Global agriculture is at a crossroads as countries strive to boost productivity and meet sustainability goals without causing unintended trade disruptions. Trade plays a vital role in food security, yet poorly coordinated policies can lead to barriers, especially as more nations adopt individual sustainability measures. To keep the agricultural sector competitive and resilient, there’s a growing need for a unified framework to guide trade and sustainability.

The Challenges of Harmonizing Trade with Sustainable Agriculture

Sustainable agriculture protects natural resources, maintains profitability, and supports community well-being. While the concept is widely understood, applying it consistently across countries and trade agreements takes time and effort. The workshop underscored that each country faces unique hurdles in integrating sustainable practices. For example, while some regions prioritize carbon reduction, others focus on reducing food insecurity or supporting local farmers. As a result, a “one-size-fits-all” approach to sustainable trade isn’t feasible.

What Role Can Trade Agreements Play?

Trade agreements hold the potential to foster sustainability, but they must be crafted carefully. Adding sustainability chapters focused on environmental and labor standards can help, as can voluntary incentive-based programs that encourage best practices without restricting farmers’ flexibility. Workshop participants agreed that trade policy can be a powerful tool, but only if it promotes shared goals while respecting local contexts.

Adopting an Outcome-Based Approach to Measure Sustainability

One key takeaway from the workshop was shifting from traditional, input-based sustainability measures (such as mandating specific farming practices) to outcome-based approaches. This shift allows farmers to adapt and innovate while focusing on measurable results like soil health, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity. Though more complex, outcome-based metrics can yield more meaningful insights and foster an environment where sustainable practices are both encouraged and achievable.

The Importance of Global Standards and Local Flexibility

Global standards are essential for assessing sustainability fairly across different countries. However, rigid frameworks may overlook local realities, particularly for smallholder farmers who face unique challenges. Workshop discussions emphasized the importance of balancing global standards and local flexibility to ensure sustainability goals are relevant and achievable worldwide. This balance is critical for creating trade policies that don’t stifle innovation or penalize farmers in resource-limited regions.

Supporting Sustainable Innovation in Agriculture

International trade enables innovation by allowing the transfer of knowledge, technology, and best practices. Golden Rice, an innovation born of global collaboration to address vitamin A deficiency, was one example discussed at the workshop. Cross-border cooperation accelerates such breakthroughs, underscoring the need for open markets that allow agricultural innovations to reach areas most needed.

Recommendations for Sustainable Trade

The workshop concluded with actionable steps for aligning trade and sustainability:

1. Adopt Flexible, Science-Based Policies: Avoid rigid policies and instead focus on outcome-oriented, science-based standards that allow flexibility for farmers to adopt practices locally.
2. Invest in Consistent Metrics and Data Management: Developing universally accepted metrics will make sustainability more transparent and achievable, especially with emerging technologies like remote sensing and real-time data tracking.
3. Strengthen Global Cooperation: Collaborating with institutions like the WTO and FAO can help establish frameworks integrating trade with sustainability. Global collaboration is essential to create cohesive, effective standards.
4. Position Sustainability as a Trade Opportunity: Rather than viewing sustainability as a trade barrier, policymakers should consider it a pathway to new markets and greater competitiveness.
5. Involve Farmers in Policy Development: Policies should reflect the realities on the ground, including the needs and challenges of farmers. Ensuring farmers’ participation in policy discussions helps craft practical and impactful solutions.

The Path to a Sustainable Agricultural Future

As agriculture faces mounting challenges, aligning trade with sustainable practices is essential. With thoughtful policies and collaborative efforts, global trade can support a more sustainable and food-secure world. The insights from the GFFPI workshop provide a strong foundation for future discussions, reminding us that trade policies should empower, not hinder, the transition to sustainable agriculture. With aligned policies and a shared commitment, the agricultural sector can advance toward a more resilient, sustainable future.

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Claire Citeau is a distinguished fellow at the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute. She is also a senior fellow at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. Sandro Steinbach is an associate professor in the Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics and the director of the Center for Agricultural Policy and Trade Studies at North Dakota State University. They can be reached at cciteau@uottawa.ca and sandro.steinbach@ndsu.edu, respectively.

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A new report from the Global Forum on Farm Policy & Innovation (GFFPI) highlights the complexities of balancing trade and sustainability objectives, emphasizing the pressing need to align trade rules with sustainability goals while avoiding unintended consequences.

The report, Policy and Practice for Sustainable Agriculture and Trade, is based on observations from the second workshop held by GFFPI, held in Washington D.C. in July 2024. The first workshop was hosted at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris in 2023 and focused on the ideal state of agriculture sustainability and trade.

The second workshop explored ways to integrate sustainability into global trade frameworks and develop standardized measurements to avoid unintended consequences. The workshop brought together over 70 participants representing 17 countries, including government officials, industry representatives, and trade policy experts. The discussions grappled with fundamental questions, including whose sustainability should be prioritized in trade agreements—the exporting country, the importing country, or global outcomes—and trade-offs between the environmental, social, and economic pillars of sustainability.

Key points identified in the report include:

• Adopting an outcome-based approach to sustainability, starting with soil health, water, biodiversity and carbon measures as benchmarks.
• Developing a Sustainable Agriculture Trade Framework with clear definitions, science-based standards and guiding principles.
• Strengthening international cooperation to promote policy coherence GFFPI representatives were pleased to be able to further develop insights from the Paris workshop and push this important conversation forward.

“We are proud of and grateful for the global collaboration we have built over the last few years via GFFPI for respectful and evidence-based dialogue to elevate and advance possible pathways forward for agricultural trade and sustainability,” said Shari Rogge-Fidler, president and CEO of Farm Foundation.

Mark Titterington, co-founder and director of the Forum for the Future of Agriculture, agreed saying, “This is another strong contribution to the ongoing discussion on the role of trade policies in supporting the development of a more resilient and sustainable agri-food system. There is certainly a worthy case to consider for developing a global sustainable agriculture trade framework, underpinned by robust science, measurement and data, and which is outcome based. We were delighted to work with our partners in GFFPI in facilitating the discussion that led to this report and look forward to building on the key insights that emerged, also by bringing the European point of view and sensibilities to the discussion.”

The benefit of being able to share their specific point of view was shared by other GFFPI representatives. “As a trade-focused nation, Australian farmers know that our food-secure future depends on collaborative global action to meet shared goals,” said Katie McRobert, executive director of the Australian Farm Institute. “Trade can be a powerful lever to incentivize action on building natural, social, and economic capital in agricultural systems, provided that policies recognize unique local environmental and cultural contexts.”

When considering what comes next, the workshop highlighted the complex interplay between trade policy and agricultural sustainability and acknowledged there are many steps to make towards meaningful progress.

“The dialogue at the Washington workshop built on GFFPI’s past work, but underscored how much more work needs to be done to find solutions to the challenge of agriculture sustainability and trade,” said Tyler McCann, managing director of the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute. “This work needs to be done between countries and must include leaders in trade and sustainability to lead to meaningful outcomes.”

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The Global Forum for Farm Policy and Innovation (GFFPI) leverages evidence and dialogue leading to increased understanding, substantive action, and enhanced outcomes for more sustainable agriculture around the world. GFFPI members include the Australian Farm Institute, the Canadian Agri-food Policy Institute, the Farm Foundation (United States) and the Forum for the Future of Agriculture (Europe).

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As a major contributor to global carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, the transportation sector has immense potential to advance decarbonization. However, a zero-emissions global supply chain requires re-imagining reliance on a heavy-duty trucking industry that emits 810,000 tons of CO₂, or 6 percent of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions, and consumes 29 billion gallons of diesel annually in the U.S. alone.

A new study by MIT researchers, presented at the recent American Society of Mechanical Engineers 2024 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, quantifies the impact of a zero-emission truck’s design range on its energy storage requirements and operational revenue. The multivariable model outlined in the paper allows fleet owners and operators to better understand the design choices that impact the economic feasibility of battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell heavy-duty trucks for commercial application, equipping stakeholders to make informed fleet transition decisions.

“The whole issue [of decarbonizing trucking] is like a very big, messy pie. One of the things we can do, from an academic standpoint, is quantify some of those pieces of pie with modeling, based on information and experience we’ve learned from industry stakeholders,” says ZhiYi Liang, PhD student on the renewable hydrogen team at the MIT K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research Center (GEAR) and lead author of the study. Co-authored by Bryony DuPont, visiting scholar at GEAR, and Amos Winter, the Germeshausen Professor in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering, the paper elucidates operational and socioeconomic factors that need to be considered in efforts to decarbonize heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs).

Operational and infrastructure challenges

The team’s model shows that a technical challenge lies in the amount of energy that needs to be stored on the truck to meet the range and towing performance needs of commercial trucking applications. Due to the high energy density and low cost of diesel, existing diesel drivetrains remain more competitive than alternative lithium battery-electric vehicle (Li-BEV) and hydrogen fuel-cell-electric vehicle (H2 FCEV) drivetrains. Although Li-BEV drivetrains have the highest energy efficiency of all three, they are limited to short-to-medium range routes (under 500 miles) with low freight capacity, due to the weight and volume of the onboard energy storage needed. In addition, the authors note that existing electric grid infrastructure will need significant upgrades to support large-scale deployment of Li-BEV HDVs.

While the hydrogen-powered drivetrain has a significant weight advantage that enables higher cargo capacity and routes over 750 miles, the current state of hydrogen fuel networks limits economic viability, especially once operational cost and projected revenue are taken into account. Deployment will most likely require government intervention in the form of incentives and subsidies to reduce the price of hydrogen by more than half, as well as continued investment by corporations to ensure a stable supply. Also, as H2-FCEVs are still a relatively new technology, the ongoing design of conformal onboard hydrogen storage systems — one of which is the subject of Liang’s PhD — is crucial to successful adoption into the HDV market.

The current efficiency of diesel systems is a result of technological developments and manufacturing processes established over many decades, a precedent that suggests similar strides can be made with alternative drivetrains. However, interactions with fleet owners, automotive manufacturers, and refueling network providers reveal another major hurdle in the way that each “slice of the pie” is interrelated — issues must be addressed simultaneously because of how they affect each other, from renewable fuel infrastructure to technological readiness and capital cost of new fleets, among other considerations. And first steps into an uncertain future, where no one sector is fully in control of potential outcomes, is inherently risky. 

“Besides infrastructure limitations, we only have prototypes [of alternative HDVs] for fleet operator use, so the cost of procuring them is high, which means there isn’t demand for automakers to build manufacturing lines up to a scale that would make them economical to produce,” says Liang, describing just one step of a vicious cycle that is difficult to disrupt, especially for industry stakeholders trying to be competitive in a free market. 

Quantifying a path to feasibility

“Folks in the industry know that some kind of energy transition needs to happen, but they may not necessarily know for certain what the most viable path forward is,” says Liang. Although there is no singular avenue to zero emissions, the new model provides a way to further quantify and assess at least one slice of pie to aid decision-making.

Other MIT-led efforts aimed at helping industry stakeholders navigate decarbonization include an interactive mapping tool developed by Danika MacDonell, Impact Fellow at the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC); alongside Florian Allroggen, executive director of MITs Zero Impact Aviation Alliance; and undergraduate researchers Micah Borrero, Helena De Figueiredo Valente, and Brooke Bao. The MCSC’s Geospatial Decision Support Tool supports strategic decision-making for fleet operators by allowing them to visualize regional freight flow densities, costs, emissions, planned and available infrastructure, and relevant regulations and incentives by region.

While current limitations reveal the need for joint problem-solving across sectors, the authors believe that stakeholders are motivated and ready to tackle climate problems together. Once-competing businesses already appear to be embracing a culture shift toward collaboration, with the recent agreement between General Motors and Hyundai to explore “future collaboration across key strategic areas,” including clean energy. 

Liang believes that transitioning the transportation sector to zero emissions is just one part of an “energy revolution” that will require all sectors to work together, because “everything is connected. In order for the whole thing to make sense, we need to consider ourselves part of that pie, and the entire system needs to change,” says Liang. “You can’t make a revolution succeed by yourself.” 

The authors acknowledge the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium for connecting them with industry members in the HDV ecosystem; and the MIT K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research Center and MIT Morningside Academy for Design for financial support.

© Photo: Bob Adams/Flickr

What are corporate’s sustainability hopes, dreams, and aspirations? Who is in the room leading the charge? And who isn’t there and should be?...

The post The Two Biggest Challenges for Sustainability Teams in Europe appeared first on Cleantech Group.

Climate anxiety affects nearly half of young people aged 16-25. Students like second-year Rachel Mohammed find hope and inspiration through her involvement in innovative climate solutions, working alongside peers who share her determination. “I’ve met so many people at MIT who are dedicated to finding climate solutions in ways that I had never imagined, dreamed of, or heard of. That is what keeps me going, and I’m doing my part,” she says.

Hydrogen-fueled engines

Hydrogen offers the potential for zero or near-zero emissions, with the ability to reduce greenhouse gases and pollution by 29 percent. However, the hydrogen industry faces many challenges related to storage solutions and costs.

Mohammed leads the hydrogen team on MIT’s Electric Vehicle Team (EVT), which is dedicated to harnessing hydrogen power to build a cleaner, more sustainable future. EVT is one of several student-led build teams at the Edgerton Center focused on innovative climate solutions. Since its founding in 1992, the Edgerton Center has been a hub for MIT students to bring their ideas to life.

Hydrogen is mostly used in large vehicles like trucks and planes because it requires a lot of storage space. EVT is building their second iteration of a motorcycle based on what Mohammed calls a “goofy hypothesis” that you can use hydrogen to power a small vehicle. The team employs a hydrogen fuel cell system, which generates electricity by combining hydrogen with oxygen. However, the technology faces challenges, particularly in storage, which EVT is tackling with innovative designs for smaller vehicles.

Presenting at the 2024 World Hydrogen Summit reaffirmed Mohammed’s confidence in this project. “I often encounter skepticism, with people saying it’s not practical. Seeing others actively working on similar initiatives made me realize that we can do it too,” Mohammed says.

The team’s first successful track test last October allowed them to evaluate the real-world performance of their hydrogen-powered motorcycle, marking a crucial step in proving the feasibility and efficiency of their design.

MIT’s Sustainable Engine Team (SET), founded by junior Charles Yong, uses the combustion method to generate energy with hydrogen. This is a promising technology route for high-power-density applications, like aviation, but Yong believes it hasn’t received enough attention. Yong explains, “In the hydrogen power industry, startups choose fuel cell routes instead of combustion because gas turbine industry giants are 50 years ahead. However, these giants are moving very slowly toward hydrogen due to its not-yet-fully-developed infrastructure. Working under the Edgerton Center allows us to take risks and explore advanced tech directions to demonstrate that hydrogen combustion can be readily available.”

Both EVT and SET are publishing their research and providing detailed instructions for anyone interested in replicating their results.

© Photo: Adam Glanzman

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On Thursday, July 18, 2024, Farm Foundation participated in the second Global Forum for Farm and Policy Innovation (GFFPI) workshop, held in Washington D.C. The focus of the workshop was “measuring sustainability outcomes to facilitate agricultural trade.” This was a priority identified in the previous workshop.

The nearly 70 participants representing 18 countries discussed the topics of an outcomes-based approach to trade and sustainability, and measuring challenges and opportunities in trade and sustainability. Farm Foundation President and CEO Shari Rogge-Fidler provided opening remarks and also facilitated small group discussions, along with Farm Foundation Vice President of Programs and Projects Martha King. U.S. Department of Agriculture Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Alexis Taylor spoke on the importance of trade and sustainability for global food and agriculture.

The first workshop, held in late 2023, brought together representatives from OECD countries and OECD Secretariat as well as industry experts from across Europe, North America, Japan, and Australia to discuss the role of trade and agriculture sustainability in an interactive and thought-provoking format. That workshop, held at the OECD in Paris, enabled stakeholders from around the world to identify common goals and priorities. 

The findings from the first workshop were published in a report entitled Advancing the Role of Trade and Agricultural Sustainability. A second paper reflecting the findings of the second workshop is anticipated this fall.  

The Washington D.C. workshop was held in partnership with the Australian Farm Institute, Farm Foundation, the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute, and the Forum for the Future of Agriculture.

GFFPI events, including this one, support Farm Foundation’s mission of building trust and understanding about U.S. agriculture with global food and agricultural stakeholders. In addition, Farm Foundation offers a uniquely independent platform for these dialogues to advance and elevate trade and sustainability issues. 

The post GFFPI Holds Second Workshop on Agricultural Trade and Sustainability appeared first on Farm Foundation.

In the Perspectives guest blog series, Farm Foundation invites participants from among the varied Farm Foundation programs to share their unique viewpoint on a topic relevant to a Farm Foundation focus area. Michelle Klieger is a 2024 Farm Foundation Young Agri-Food Leader and president of Stratagerm Consulting. In this blog she discusses the European Union’s new deforestation regulations.

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The European Union aims to raise the global bar with new Deforestation Regulations. Effective since June of 2023, the regulations ban imported goods that stand to profit off of deforestation practices. By devaluing and even penalizing these practices, the EU hopes to create a  commodity trade standard that will reverse the effects of deforestation. They predict 177,920 acres of forests, or one quarter of Rhode Island, will be saved in 2025, and are optimistic that these steps will reduce air pollution.

Soy, palm oil, beef, coffee, and cocoa trades are expected to experience a significant impact due to these new requirements. Brazil, Argentina, Malaysia, Indonesia, Canada and parts of Africa are on edge as they consider trading options. Some argue this is the beginning of a new era, while others see it as a reorganization of supply chains.

Complexities of EU Regulations

For companies working to meet regulations, the process is complex. While individual companies must produce data to receive deforestation- free certification, entire supply chains must be vetted. Each industry faces unique obstacles.  Soy, for example, goes from farm production, and is then transported to processing facilities, then moved onto crushers, then to product manufacturers, and finally to retailers. If at any point in the process operations have made use of deforested land, the trading company could be banned from exporting goods to EU countries. Palm oil batches typically mix fruit from many sources at once. Many of these companies can only trace a product after it has been processed and would need to develop brand new traceability methods to meet requirements.

Meeting the new regulations requires an investment in technology and manpower. In order to make products fully traceable many companies are purchasing GPS technology that allows them to accurately map and consistently monitor their farms. Similarly, if products must be tracked and segregated from planting all the way to a grocery store shelf, digital tracking technology will also be needed. Guaranteeing deforestation-free methods must include in person inspections done by real people traveling from farm to farm to see operations up close. 

It’s a time consuming process to build out this framework, but one that many companies deem both valuable to the global environment and financially lucrative in the long run. Decisions involve farmers, transportation companies, processing plants and manufacturers, but they also must include government policy, technology and in some cases legal crossroads. There is no overnight shift, but rather a development of practices.

A Supply Chain Split

Already many companies are rerouting supplies to other buyers and avoiding EU regulations altogether. The trend prompts speculation that the new requirements will not raise the bar, but simply split or change the flow of supply chains. Brazil could turn to China as a new soy buyer and Indonesia could potentially trade palm oil to Africa. We’ve seen substitute shifts like these in the past with the U.S.-China trade war and sanctions on Russian energy. It may prove simpler and more cost effective to change buyers rather than invest in meeting new EU regulations. Many of these companies have little ability to enforce downline or upline adherence to regulation and they fear penalties.

Interestingly, in 2020 Brazil produced ⅓ of the world’s soy, but only 13% of crops account for 95% of the deforestation that occurred that year. The other 87% appear to have been produced on grassland and savannah areas.  The scenario is true elsewhere and begs the question; will this create a new environmental imbalance that puts stress on other ecosystems? Companies looking to meet regulations could potentially exploit approved farming areas by over farming them. 

Demand For a Different Type of Supply

Will it be harder to secure buyers or much used commodities? For the EU, value is placed not just on the product, but how it is sourced. The decision will impact both consumers and European agriculture. 

European countries are braced to experience a decreased supply of things like chocolate and coffee. But, exactly how increased operating costs will be absorbed remains uncertain. Typically consumer prices reflect production cost increases, but in this situation one or more points along a supply chain may need to take ownership of costs to ensure tradability. The result, at least in the initial stages, would be lower profit margins for most of these companies and possibly higher purchase prices for consumers.

Several European countries are seeking reduced regulations and maintain that the current requirements are virtually impossible for small and medium sized farms to accommodate. They also argue that these regulations negatively impact many of the current sustainability processes farmers are working to implement for the sake of biodiversity, crop and grazing rotations. Farmers worry that they will not be able to produce the soy meal needed to feed their own livestock and that the EU will become too reliant on exports which would negatively affect the European ag sector.

Good News For U.S. Producers

The EU is not alone. Other countries have similar environmentally focused goals and policy in the works to support these goals. The United States has seen a growing consumer demand for traceability, prompting many businesses to begin the process of leveraging technology and better communication up and down supply chains to help customers make informed decisions.

The Forest Act of 2023 was birthed out of the same desire to stabilize regions of the world that have suffered from illegal deforestation and offer opportunities for many industries and individual businesses to clean up their processes. If it goes into effect, the Forest Act would be very similar to the EU’s Deforestation Regulation; banning products that have been produced on illegally deforested land and penalizing unmet requirements.

Many American operations are positioned to receive deforestation-free certification. Several top soy producers are predicted to meet regulations and be granted access to the EU markets. A welcome relief to farmers who have faced narrowing markets in recent years. 

Exactly how competitive this “new” market will be, only time will tell.  Traceability efforts take time. Unless trade lines were already working toward deforestation-free goals, it will take years for many of these supply chains to implement methods that meet EU regulations.  In the meantime, it’s highly likely that global trade negotiations will be impacted and supply chains will shift in response to the environmental standard.

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A version of this blog originally appeared on the Stratagerm Consulting website. It is reposted with permission.

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