STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
AN ACADEMIC’S IDEAS about what the future might hold inspired Gov. Charlie Baker to invite him to speak to Canadian premiers and New England governors.
Speaking to the international assembly in Boston on Monday, MIT School of Engineering Dean Ian Waitz said in two decades or more the technology of electricity production could change profoundly.
Waitz said some people are studying “compact nuclear fusion,” which he said is the “same kind of physics that power the sun.” Waitz said that type of technology could power Boston for 50 years “with the energy in the top inch of the water in Boston Harbor.” (Nuclear fusion at MIT was the focus of a recent story in CommonWealth.)
“If they come to fruition, they really will change our lives. There’s a reason to be optimistic about what’s happening,” Waitz said in a ballroom at the Hynes Convention Center.
Baker introduced Waitz and recalled meeting him at an event at a church in Cambridge where people presented big ideas and then faced questions about them. Baker said he asked Waitz to speak to the Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers after that event.
Waitz opened up a panel Monday that looked at the near-term future, though he said he looks a little farther over the horizon.
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About Andy Metzger
Andy Metzger is currently studying law at Temple University in Philadelphia. Previously, he joined CommonWealth Magazine as a reporter in January 2019. He has covered news in Massachusetts since 2007. For more than six years starting in May 2012 he wrote about state politics and government for the State House News Service. At the News Service, he followed three criminal trials from opening statements to verdicts, tracked bills through the flumes and eddies of the Legislature, and sounded out the governor’s point of view on a host of issues – from the proposed Olympics bid to federal politics.
Before that, Metzger worked at the Chelmsford Independent, The Arlington Advocate, the Somerville Journal and the Cambridge Chronicle, weekly community newspapers that cover an array of local topics. Metzger graduated from UMass Boston in 2006. In addition to his written journalism, Metzger produced a work of illustrated journalism about Gov. Charlie Baker’s record regarding the MBTA. He lives in Somerville and commutes mainly by bicycle.
About Andy Metzger
Andy Metzger is currently studying law at Temple University in Philadelphia. Previously, he joined CommonWealth Magazine as a reporter in January 2019. He has covered news in Massachusetts since 2007. For more than six years starting in May 2012 he wrote about state politics and government for the State House News Service. At the News Service, he followed three criminal trials from opening statements to verdicts, tracked bills through the flumes and eddies of the Legislature, and sounded out the governor’s point of view on a host of issues – from the proposed Olympics bid to federal politics.
Before that, Metzger worked at the Chelmsford Independent, The Arlington Advocate, the Somerville Journal and the Cambridge Chronicle, weekly community newspapers that cover an array of local topics. Metzger graduated from UMass Boston in 2006. In addition to his written journalism, Metzger produced a work of illustrated journalism about Gov. Charlie Baker’s record regarding the MBTA. He lives in Somerville and commutes mainly by bicycle.
“You should know that one of the things that prompted Governor Baker to invite me here is that I talk about something that’s probably a little farther than 10 years out,” Waitz said. “But there are things that are 20 or 30 years out that are very dramatic.”
According to MIT, Waitz is also a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and his current work focuses on the environmental impacts of aviation and ways to mitigate those effects.
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