Welcome to the Applied Energy Symposium：MIT A+B.

The IPCC report “Global Warming of 1.5°C” (Oct. 2018) issued a dire warning that unless CO2 emissions are halved by 2030, devastating changes, which will be sooner than expected and irreversible, will occur in ocean and on land. Time is running out for transitioning to new energy systems globally. Logic and numbers show that the world must take a two-step approach: (A) deploy existing, industrially proven technologies, namely solar, wind and nuclear base load at an unprecedented scale and pace, from now to 2050 -- when a house catches fire, firemen must run to the closest hydrants and stop disputing which water stream would be purer; and (B) develop new concepts and technologies that may replace the dirtier parts of (A) post-2050, at terawatt scale.

The Applied Energy Symposium: MIT “A+B” (MITAB) is dedicated to the accelerated deployment of (A), and new concepts and emerging technologies for (B). For (A), reducing capital and operating costs, managing social dynamics, and minimizing environmental impact while maintaining extreme productivity are key; automation, artificial intelligence, social mobilization, governmental actions and international coordination will provide essential boosts. For (B), we seek new concepts and emerging technologies (e.g. fusion power engineering, superconducting transmission, etc.) that stand a chance to scale to terawatts after 30 years, i.e. “baby technologies” can grow to adulthood in 20-30 years.

MITAB 2020 consists of a three-day symposium on Aug 12-14, 2020, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA. All presentations (with the author’s permission) will be video recorded and posted on YouTube or other open sources for public dissemination. Outstanding presentations will be recommended by the session chair and scientific committee to be further considered for publication in a special issue of Applied Energy (journal Impact Factor 8.4, please find more information at. https://www.journals.elsevier.com/applied-energy).

To be invited to present at this symposium, please upload one of the following: a .zip file (<20MB) containing a video or voice file (≤10 min), or a Powerpoint presentation (≤30 slides), or an abstract (≤2 pages) or a conference paper (≤6 pages), which explain how and why your work matters to A or B. The manuscript will be reviewed by symposium organizers for acceptance to the conference. Examples of topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Renewable energy: Solar energy (A or B), wind energy (A), bioenergy (A or B), ocean energy (A or B), and others.
• Clean energy conversion technologies: Fuel cells and electrolyzers (A or B), conversion of petroleum/gas/coal to high-valued materials and chemicals (A), hybrid energy systems, such as the combination of intermittent renewable energies and nuclear heat storage for load following, chemicals/materials/fuel production (A or B), multi-energy carrier energy systems (A or B).
• Energy storage: Grid-scale batteries (A), battery management systems (A), fuel cell/electrolyzer management systems (A), pumped hydro/compressed air (A), thermal energy storage (A or B), distributed energy storage (A).
• Nuclear energy: Innovative concrete solutions and civil constructions (A), application of robotics and AI (A), shipyard constructed floating reactors (A), small modular reactors and micro-reactors (A or B), fast neutron reactors (B), fusion reactors (B).
• Mitigation technologies: Carbon capture and sequestration (B), nuclear waste (A), solar waste (A), battery waste (A), reduced-CO2 production of cement, bulk metals and chemicals (A or B).
• Intelligent energy systems: Smart grids (A), ultra-efficient/superconducting power transmission (B), wireless power transmission (B); electrification of transportation and industrial production, such as electric cars/trucks (A or B), electrified air flight (A or B), microwave-plasma-electrochemical processing (A or B).
• Sustainability of energy systems: Environmental monitoring (A), social mobilization (A), consensus building (A), governmental policy making (A), international coordination (A)， renewable energy integration (A), energy system decarbonization (A or B), low-carbon power systems and electricity markets (A), energy resource evaluation standard and sustainability.
• Sustainable geoenergy: Geothermal (A or B), gas hydrate (A), unconventional natural gas (A), LNG, reducing methane and CO2 emission (A) of oil and gas sector, sustainable geoenergy development and management (A).
• Energy, food, water and air: Water and air treatment (A), reduced-CO2production of food (A), Water-Food-Energy Nexus (A).

Given the grave urgency of our mission, we ask authors to be earnest, practical and in a problem-solving mode in their presentations. Creativity will be highly valued.

Details and updated information are available at www.applied-energy.org/mitab2020. If you have questions regarding this conference or submission, please contact Conference Organization Chair Dr. Ray (Zhenhua) Rui at MIT (mitab2020@applied-energy.org).