Breakthrough Alert: MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35

“In finance, other people’s money, or OPM, is a slang term that refers to financial leverage” – Strategic CFO

MIT’s 35 Innovators Under 35 list for 2023 has hit the digital shelves. This is exciting news for anyone interested in discovering useful new technologies as they emerge from the fevered brains of their creators.

MIT’s free newsletter The Download offers a sneak preview of the list. For full access, a subscription to the MIT Technology Review is well worth the price.

Using OPM – Other People’s Money – is a way to achieve financial goals that might be difficult to achieve using one’s own resources. As long as we are dealing in good faith, and are successful, everybody wins. As Dolly Parton famously sang, “Ain’t nothing dirty going on.”

By the same token, we can use OPR – Other People’s Research – to achieve goals we could not reach on our own. As long as we don’t claim that we performed the research, and provide proper attribution, everybody wins.

In that spirit, here is a link to The Download’s preview of the list …

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MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35
Source:
https://www.technologyreview.com/supertopic/2023-mit-technology-reviews-innovators-under-35/?truid=36d06cee295f2d97fb732a7572a23410&utm_source=the_download&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&utm_term=&utm_content=09-12-2023&mc_cid=f8a4a36418&mc_eid=76363cef0a
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The Spark, another free MIT newsletter, highlights a few of the innovators on the 2023 list …

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The Spark
By Casey Crownhart • 09.13.23
Hello hello, welcome back to The Spark!
A lot of bright minds are working on solutions to climate change. You can find some of them in the latest edition of our annual 35 Innovators Under 35 list, which was just published yesterday.
We’ve highlighted a lot of innovators over the years, usually before they become household names. Sergey Brin of Google was on the list in 2002. JB Straubel was honored in 2008 when he was CTO of Tesla. That year also saw Andrew Ng make the list (he’s one of the biggest names in AI right now, and he came back this year to write an intro essay, which I highly recommend.)
As I looked through the folks who made the list in the climate and energy category in 2023, I noticed a few trends. In particular, there was a concentration in two areas I think a lot about: batteries and fuels. So let’s take a closer look at a few of this year’s innovators and consider what their work could mean for the future of climate action.
Charging up
As you probably know if you’re a frequent reader here, I see batteries as one of the most crucial pieces of technology in the fight to address climate change. Not only are powerful, long-lasting batteries crucial to electrifying vehicles and other forms of transportation, but they are expected to play a growing role on the grid, storing energy from intermittent renewable sources like wind and solar for when it’s most needed.
Batteries have come a long way in recent years, and prices have plummeted. (They just fell to under $100 per kilowatt-hour for the first time in two years, continuing a downward trend that’s lasted for a decade.)
However, there’s huge potential for more progress, especially in battery materials. And two innovators on this year’s list are looking to new materials to help make batteries more useful in more ways.
Tongchao Liu of Argonne National Lab is working on making batteries last longer.
Over time, batteries tend to wear out as they charge and discharge. Liu developed a diagnostic system to determine where that failure takes place and identified part of the battery called the cathode as the major culprit. He and his team then came up with an alternative cathode material based on perovskites. (You may have heard of perovskites in the context of solar cells.) In lab tests, battery lifetimes tripled with the new material.
David Mackanic of Anthro Energy is developing bendy batteries, which could power things like wearable devices as well as EVs.
One of the most crucial parts of a battery is the electrolyte, the material that charge moves through in a cell. Many batteries, including the lithium-ion cells that power EVs and laptops today, use a flammable liquid as an electrolyte. But Mackanic and his team invented a flexible polymer electrolyte, which can bend without compromising battery performance.
It’s not easy to bring new battery inventions to the market, and there’s a long path ahead for both of these projects, but I’ll definitely be watching to see how they turn out.
Fueling up
Another trend I noticed among the innovators this year was a focus on fuels. Like batteries, fuels store energy, but they tend to pack more energy into a smaller space than many batteries can, making them easier to transport. So fuels could be the best solution on the table for industries like aviation and shipping.
Peter Godart of Found Energy has a vision of using aluminum as a fuel. He developed a process to pull apart the metal with water, producing both heat and hydrogen that can be used as energy sources. His startup’s initial plans are to work with aluminum producers to help them use scrap to partially power aluminum recycling.
Stafford Sheehan of Air Company developed a process to convert carbon dioxide into alcohol, which can then be used to make jet fuel. The company has a deal with the US military and hopes to sell its fuel more widely in the next few years.
Young Suk Jo of Amogy wants to power ships using ammonia. The chemical is typically used in fertilizer, but it could also be used as a handy way to store hydrogen, a leading clean fuel. Jo and Amogy invented a reactor that can pull ammonia apart into nitrogen and hydrogen that can be used onboard vehicles. The company has tested its system in a drone, a tractor, and a semi-truck and plans to power a tugboat using ammonia later this year.
You might remember Young Suk Jo from an earlier edition of the newsletter—I spoke with him in June, when I visited Amogy’s headquarters in Brooklyn. I also wrote a longer profile of him that was just published yesterday, which you can read here.
A lot of innovators are working on batteries and fuels, but even these fields are a small piece of climate action overall. There are also folks on the list who are tackling demand response on the grid, satellites for climate monitoring, and materials for carbon capture, not to mention all the people in the biotechnology, AI, robotics, and computing categories. Be sure to check out the full list of 35 Innovators Under 35 to get all the details.
Thermal battery startup Antora just flipped on its first commercial-scale system. The company’s technology could help power industrial plants that require high heat and constant power. (Bloomberg)
There’s lots of big news in steel this week. H2 Green Steel raised $1.6 billion in equity to help build its planned green steel plant in Sweden. (Canary Media) And Boston Metal, a startup working to electrify production of one of the world’s most used and most polluting materials, raised a $262 million funding round. (Bloomberg)
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Google® Better!
Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Americas (https://americas.aramco.com/ ), Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.

Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/ for continuing tips on effective online research
Email Jean at jstoneheart@gmail.com with questions on research, training, or anything else

Inside a high-tech cement laboratory -- The path from concept to commercialization

 
You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it. -- Robin Williams

MIT’s The Spark newsletter recently highlighted a company working on enabling cement production that produces far less carbon emissions than traditional processes.

Cement, the glue that binds together the aggregates that make concrete the amazing building material that it has been since ancient Roman engineers began using it, requires high heat to produce.

Startup Sublime Systems has developed a technique using electrochemistry to produce cement at a much lower cost to the environment.

The Spark’s article describes the approach.  Equally interesting to me is the progress the company has made from bench scale to demonstration scale, and their plan to move on to commercial scale. It is a fascinating look into the challenges faced by any company trying to move from concept to commercialization.

TIP: Subscribe to MIT The Spark (https://www.technologyreview.com/ )

Here are excerpts from the article in The Spark …

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The Spark
By Casey Crownhart • 07.05.23

Hello hello, welcome back to The Spark!

A few weeks ago, I found myself in a room where fluorescent lights reflected off the stainless steel tanks lining the walls. The setup reminded me of an exceedingly high-tech craft brewery.

I wasn’t at a cider tasting, but on a visit to Sublime Systems (https://sublime-systems.com/ ), a Boston-based startup working to clean up one of the world’s toughest climate challenges: cement. Today, making cement involves a whole lot of fossil fuels, and this one material accounts for about 8% of global emissions.

But it might not have to be that way. So for the newsletter this week, come along with me to see what the startup is up to, and how its process could change the way we build.

To sum it up briefly, cement is a climate nightmare for two main reasons.

One, the process used to make cement requires super-high temperatures which today basically means you have to burn fossil fuels in the process. Second, there are chemical reactions involved in transforming minerals into working cement, and those release carbon dioxide.

Sublime’s answer is to use electrochemistry. The company’s cofounders, Yet-Ming Chiang and Leah Ellis, both made their mark in the battery world before turning to building materials. While at MIT, the duo developed a set of chemical reactions powered by electricity that can transform minerals into the cement we know and love today. They cofounded Sublime Systems in 2020.

What I was most interested in during my visit was seeing how the company is taking lab results and transforming them to work at a much larger scale.

Things started out small: the first time she and a labmate made cement, it was about the same volume as a single die.

Years later, that small scale is almost inconceivable when you look around the company’s pilot facility. The ceilings feel dozens of feet high, and I wouldn’t be able to get my arms around the tanks that line the room.

This facility started up in November 2022, recalls Mike Corbett, Sublime’s head of engineering. The team moved quickly to build it, going from design to execution in about nine months.

The company is doing something entirely new by bringing electrochemistry to cement production. But they’ve been able to leverage technology from other industries, like mining and chemical production, to find equipment that will work for what they’re trying to do. “You can usually beg and borrow from other industries to solve similar technical problems,” Corbett says.

The pilot line is a huge upgrade from the early days, but as Ellis put it, in the grand scheme of the industry, it’s still “a cement plant for ants.”

The next step for the startup is to build a demonstration facility producing around 100 tons per day. “That’s the size where you’re no longer invisible to the cement world,” Ellis says. The current goal is to have that facility running in 2025. After that, there’s yet another step: commercial scale, at about a million tons a year.

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TIP: Google sublime systems cement
Some results …

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Electrochemical Synthesis of Low-Carbon Cement
Project Innovation + Advantages:
Cement is responsible for 8% of global CO2 emissions. Currently, the only economical way to make Portland cement’s key ingredient, lime, is by thermally decomposing limestone. This reaction contributes ~75% of cement’s emissions. Sublime Systems (Sublime) will build an electrochemical system to produce lime using off-peak renewable electricity and calcium sources that do not release CO2. The lime produced may possess exceptional purity, consistency, and reactivity, enabling next-generation low-carbon cements. If successful and scaled, Sublime’s electrochemical synthesis of lime would reduce energy-related emissions in the U.S. from lime and cement making while simultaneously providing ancillary grid services, enabling proliferation of renewables.
https://arpa-e.energy.gov/technologies/projects/electrochemical-synthesis-low-carbon-cement
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Online published (draft) 25 OCT 2022
Dr. Jutta Lauf for NATO ENSEC CoE
Is de-carbonising the construction industry possible? An overview of advances in materials and processes
Jutta Lauf
Dr. Jutta Lauf was a Research Fellow at the NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence from 2020 to
2022.
Corresponding address: NATO ENERGY SECURITY CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE, Research and Lessons Learned
Division, Šilo g. 5A, LT-10322 Vilnius, Lithuania, NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence, info@enseccoe.org
Cement, a key product for construction, is by mass the largest manufactured product on Earth.
Combined with water and mineral aggregates it forms cement-based materials (e.g., concrete
and mortar), the second most used substance in the world after water. Cement based building
materials are energy and cost efficient1, but the globally large scale usage (4.6 *1012 tons in
2015)1 led to 3% of globally emitted carbon dioxide (CO2) in 20202. Additional advantages are
the wide availability of the raw materials, a sufficient long period of time before settling and
its longevity. All these properties make it a versatile material, which is used in many of NATO’s
infrastructures (Figure 1).
Figure 1: NATO headquarter in Brussel, Blvd Leopold III, 1110 Brussels, Belgium. It was
constructed as a “Green building” mainly from concrete. Generally the “green” credentials are
related to the operation of the building, not its construction.4; 3
The traditional form of cement is the so-called ordinary Portland cement (OPC). The
production process requires grinding and calcining (heating to high temperature of approx.
1450 °C) a mixture mainly consisting of limestone and clay. The resulting intermediate
material - known as clinker - is ground to a fine powder with 3–5% gypsum added to form OPC.
The production of OPC generates on average 842kg CO2 per ton of clinker. Fossil fuel
combustion is responsible for less than 40% of total CO2 emissions, while limestone (CaCO3)
decomposition during calcination to calcium oxide (CaO) is responsible for the remainder5; 1.
In essence, CO2 emissions from clinker production is a mixture of both, an unavoidable
chemical reaction, and the heating process to start the chemical reaction. Therefore,
increasing the energy efficiency of clinker production is not sufficient to significantly reduce
emissions. Carbon capture technologies are necessary to achieve this goal. Significant
https://enseccoe.org/data/public/uploads/2022/11/emissions-in-construction.pdf
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Google® Better!
Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Americas (https://americas.aramco.com/ ), Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.

Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/ for continuing tips on effective online research
Email Jean at jstoneheart@gmail.com with questions on research, training, or anything else

Conference Alert: MIT’s Emerging Technology Event

MIT’s annual EmTech conference is scheduled for November 1-3, 2022.

If you follow the MIT The Download technology newsletter (https://forms.technologyreview.com/newsletters/briefing-the-download/?_ga=2.112149580.97483991.1663092638-2043207510.1659286392 ), you will already know about the upcoming event. If you do not follow The Download, and if you are interested in emerging technologies, here is some information on the event.

TIP: Google® EmTech to find, among other results, the Wikipedia article giving a brief overview of the Emerging Technologies conference.

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EmTech MIT
(https://event.technologyreview.com/emtech-mit-2022/?utm_source=the_download&utm_medium=email&utm_content=etm22-eb-download&utm_campaign=emtech_mit_2022.unpaid.acquisition&utm_term=download-promo&discount=DOWNLOADPROMOEB&mc_cid=24b061f08e&mc_eid=76363cef0a#register )

Immerse yourself in bold thinking and innovation. Discover which breakthrough technologies and global trends have staying power, and get the trustworthy guidance you need for your strategic planning. Join us Nov 1-3 in person on the MIT campus or online from anywhere in the world. Act now - live seating is limited.

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Google® Better!
Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Services, Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.

Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/ for continuing tips on effective online research
Email Jean at letters@jeansteinhardt.com with questions on research, training, or anything else
Visit Jean’s Web site at http://www.jeansteinhardtconsulting.com/ to see examples of the services we can provide

My Triumvirate: Rice, MIT, and Google® Scholar

How do you keep up on developments in emerging technology without spending every waking (or sleepless) moment browsing the Internet?

Here is my triumvirate of sources that help me stay on top of new technology developments while still having time to eat and sleep. Maybe something similar will work for you.

• Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy (https://www.bakerinstitute.org/)
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MIT The Download (https://www.technologyreview.com/newsletter-preferences/)
• Google® Scholar Alerts (https://scholar.google.com/)

The three sources enable me to understand energy policy (Baker Institute), how technology interacts with society (The Download), and papers detailing research results in specific technologies (Scholar).

There are many, many public policy organizations to choose from. I chose to follow the Baker Institute because, based as it is in Houston, its focus tends to be on policy as it impacts energy, and vice versa. It helps me understand the universe within which technologies pertaining to energy develop.

A good description of the Baker Institute appears in a Wikipedia article located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Baker_III_Institute_for_Public_Policy

Here is a description of two of the Institute’s recent Webinars …

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Webinar — Entrepreneurship and the Energy Transition: Part I
Monday, April 25, 2022
Zoom Webinar
In the accelerating transition to a lower-carbon world, no city in the United States stands to gain or lose more than Houston, with entrepreneurial businesses and start-up technologies playing critical roles. Part I of this timely series explores Houston’s position at the locus of the global energy transition and offers a national perspective on business and policy considerations affecting energy entrepreneurship. Part II will examine the local and regional ecosystem for energy entrepreneurship and how Houston can maintain its preeminence as the energy capital of the world.
Panelists
Bobby Tudor, J.D.
CEO, Artemis Energy Partners; Retired Founder and CEO of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.
Adria Wilson, Ph.D.
Manager, U.S. Policy and Advocacy, Breakthrough Energy
Bryan Guido Hassin
Co-Founder and CEO, Third Derivative
Moderator
George Webb, J.D.
Scholar for Entrepreneurship, McNair Center for Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth, Baker Institute
This webinar is co-sponsored by the Baker Institute McNair Center for Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth and Center for Energy Studies.
This webinar is free, but registration is required. Once you register, you will receive a confirmation email with instructions about how to access the webinar.
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Webinar — Entrepreneurship and the Energy Transition Part II: The Houston Ecosystem
Monday, May 23, 2022
Zoom Webinar
In the transition to a lower-carbon world, no city in the United States stands to gain or lose more than Houston, with entrepreneurial businesses and start-up technologies playing critical roles. Yet even with its history as a business-friendly city, Houston faces challenges as a hub for energy entrepreneurship. This webinar, the second of a two-part series, brings together key leaders of the energy entrepreneurship ecosystem in Houston to discuss these challenges and explore how entrepreneur-driven innovation can help the city maintain its preeminence as the energy capital of the world. The panel’s focus on Houston builds on Part I of the series, which explored national perspectives on the business and policy considerations affecting energy entrepreneurship.
Panelists
Barbara Burger, Ph.D.
Former President of Chevron Technology Ventures and Former Vice President of Innovation, Chevron
Jan Odegard, Ph.D.
Executive Director, The Ion
Brad Burke
Executive Director, Rice Alliance for Technology & Entrepreneurship
Lara Cottingham
Chief of Staff, Greentown Labs
Moderator
George Webb, J.D.
Scholar for Entrepreneurship, McNair Center for Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth, Baker Institute
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MIT The Download helps me understand how emerging technologies help – and hurt – society. Their approach is to scour the news universe for items of interest, and then to offer commentary on why they matter. We could do the same thing on our own, of course. But why do what The Download folks are already doing for us? Save time. Make yourself a sandwich. Take a shower. Grab some shut eye.

Here are a few items recently profiled by The Download …

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Yann LeCun has a bold new vision for the future of AI
Around a year and a half ago, Yann LeCun realized he had it wrong.

LeCun, who is chief scientist at Meta’s AI lab and one of the most influential AI researchers in the world, had been trying to give machines a basic grasp of how the world works—a kind of common sense—by training neural networks to predict what was going to happen next in video clips of everyday events. But guessing future frames of a video pixel by pixel was just too complex. He hit a wall.

Now, after months figuring out what was missing, he has a bold new vision for the next generation of AI.

In a draft document shared with MIT Technology Review, LeCun sketches out an approach that he thinks will one day give machines the common sense they need to navigate the world.

For LeCun, the proposals could be the first steps on a path to building machines with the ability to reason and plan like humans—what many call artificial general intelligence, or AGI.

His vision is far from being comprehensive; indeed, it may raise more questions than it answers. The biggest question mark, as LeCun points out himself, is that he does not know how to build what he describes. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkiläa & Will Douglas Heaven

The smart city is a perpetually unrealized utopia
In a new essay, Chris Salter, an artist and professor of immersive arts at the Zurich University of the Arts, talks about how the concept of the smart city has always changed through the decades.

In it he also asks what role people should play in future cities. He writes: “When we assume that data is more important than the people who created it, we reduce the scope and potential of what diverse human bodies can bring to the “smart city” of the present and future. But the real “smart” city consists not only of commodity flows and information networks generating revenue streams for the likes of Cisco or Amazon.
The smartness comes from the diverse human bodies of different genders, cultures, and classes whose rich, complex, and even fragile identities ultimately make the city what it is.” Read the full essay.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 The Online Privacy Bill is gathering momentum
The bill aims to curb businesses’ collection of users’ personal data, as well as helping them opt out of targeted advertising. (WSJ $)
 
2 Carbon capture isn’t the quick fix we want it to be
Experts think it’s smarter to channel time, effort and funding into renewables instead. (WP $)
+ The UK wants to capture CO2 and turn it into baking soda. (New Scientist $)
+ Carbon removal hype is becoming a dangerous distraction. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Climate change is altering the way that wine tastes. (Knowable Magazine)

3 A UK musician sued his record label over streaming royalties
Kieran Hebden, better known as Four Tet, argued that the rate he received was unfair. (BBC)
+ Spotify is still waiting for its podcasting gamble to pay off. (Bloomberg $)
+ The platform is testing a social feature to share what you’re listening to. (TechCrunch)
 
4 It’s getting harder to access China’s internet from abroad
The tighter restrictions seem to coincide with the country’s covid-induced isolation. (LA Times)
+ Now China wants to censor online comments. (MIT Technology Review)
 
5 A recession could make some workers too nervous to work from home
Prompting them to head back into offices to prove their worth to their employers. (The Atlantic $)
+ Remote workers want to re-create those watercooler moments. (MIT Technology Review)
 
6 Controversial crypto founder Do Kwon is staging a comeback
Just weeks after his stablecoins imploded, he’s launched a new version of his embattled Terra blockchain network. (WSJ $)
+ Hackers have stolen $100 million from crypto bridge Horizon. (Bloomberg $)
 
7 Even DALL·E mini’s creator doesn’t know why it’s obsessed with women in saris
But the program’s dataset is the most probable culprit. (Rest of World)
+ Popular text-to-image AI generators are staring down the barrel of a safety reckoning. (Time)
 
8 How an AI app could help detect early dementia
It identifies early signs of mild cognitive impairment in under five minutes. (Neo.Life)
 
9 An excitable NFT conference fell for a fake Snoop Dogg called Doop Snogg
There’s a lesson in this, somewhere. (The Guardian)
+ NFT.NYC sounds completely unhinged. (Motherboard)
+ NFTs of canned ice tea is the industry’s hottest property right now. (The Information)
+ I tried to buy an Olive Garden NFT. All I got was heartburn. (MIT Technology Review)
 
10 Want to feel better? Turn off your phone notifications 📱
Ignoring a device’s default settings can free us from its irritations. (FT $)
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Google® Scholar Alerts help me scan the academic and professional literature for research results on particular technologies of interest to me. Creating a Scholar Alert is easy. Basically, you search for something on Scholar. Then you save the search as an Alert. [See Google Scholar Search Strategies Made Easy (https://desulf.blogspot.com/2014/04/google-scholar-search-strategies-made.html )]

One of my Alerts is based on the simple search term Aramco, because Aramco is such a heavy hitter in the energy arena. Aramco is also very involved in a number areas of research. [See Saudi Aramco Research Centers (https://desulf.blogspot.com/2013/04/saudi-aramco-research-centers.html )]

Here are a few of the articles that I have found thanks to the various Alerts I have created …

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Integration Of Industrial Co2 Capture With District Heating Networks-A Refinery Case Study (2021)
The Interaction Of Finance And Innovation For Low Carbon Economy-Evidence From Saudi Arabia (2022)
Digital Twin In Hydrocarbon Industry (2022)
Energy Driven by Internet of Things Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (2022)
Development of Spare-Parts Process Chain in Oil Gas Industry Using Industry 4.0 Concepts (2022)
Assessing Blockchain Technology Adoption In The Norwegian Oil And Gas Industry Using Bayesian Best Worst Method (2022)
Development and Hardware Implementation of IoT-Based Patrol Robot for Remote Gas Leak Inspection (Bahrain 2022)
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Google® Better!
Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Services, Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.

Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/ for continuing tips on effective online research
Email Jean at letters@jeansteinhardt.com with questions on research, training, or anything else
Visit Jean’s Web site at http://www.jeansteinhardtconsulting.com/ to see examples of the services we can provide