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Clean Energy Systems Integration Lab Energy, Buildings, and Systems

Food-Energy-Water Nexus at WSU 1-6-16

A great group of WSU faculty and staff met today to discuss strategies to address challenges in Food, Energy, and Water. While not everyone who was interested could attend here is a list of those that did, and those that have engaged in this discussion. Scientists and engineers from multiple disciplines are interested in this area, and all have something to contribute to the solution.

Click here for a summary presentation given by Dustin McLarty at today’s meeting.

Click here for a list of attendees and other faculty engaged in the FEW discussion.

Click here for a meeting summary. Thanks to Jake and Shelley for their notes

Click here for the NSF solicitation.

A google spreed sheet to expand on specific project ideas is located here.

A follow up meeting is being scheduled via Doodle.

Meeting Outcomes:

2 tracks were established for faculty to engage in food-energy-water.

Track 1: FEW as Storage-Transfer Problems

Under the assumption that optimizing storage is a key to resource resilience, and that resources are most easily extracted when in their most highly concentrated storage phase, there is a need to improve the storage capacity across all FEW sectors to meet current and future resource demand. This track focuses on the conceptualization of FEW linkages through their natural cycles to assess, and likely increase, storage capacity across the FEW system, likely through modeling. Outcomes can include identifying exiting management and physical constraints that are limiting the potential for sustainable resource use, as well as the potential for new policies and technologies to enhance natural system resilience.

Track 2: Greater Local/Regional Case Study

Select a case study (greater Pullman, the Palouse, and Columbia River Basin were discussed) to quantify and define the linkages between FEW components, including assessing unintended consequences of optimizing across a connected FEW system. The goal with this track is to identify existing technologies (or technological gaps) that have traditionally existed within individual industries, but that could be connected across sectors to actually allow for a system to be managed by linking FEW cycles.