Recently, University of Illinois has been working on the front-end engineering design (FEED) of carbon capture facilities for several power plants in Illinois. While carbon capture facilities often would need cooling water for operation, the water supply and demand for power plants carbon capture facilities has not received much attention. Dr. Jason Zhang’s group has been working on water for energy and water for carbon studies and engineering design in Illinois.

Dr. Jason Zhang is the Water Supply Hydrologist with the Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and adjunct faculty at Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the President of American Water Resources Association (AWRA) and associate editor for Journal of Hydrology and Journal of American Water Resources Association.

On 13 January 2023, Dr. Zhang presented the seminar on “Water-Energy-Carbon Nexus in Illinois” in the premises of AIT. The seminar covered following topics:

  1. water for energy accounting, i.e., determining how much water is needed for power generation, associated water use intensities, and impacting factors;
  2. water for energy modelling, which is focused on developing water-energy nexus model to explore integrated water and energy supply risk management;
  3. water for carbon studies, which is focused on the real-world front end engineering (FEED) design projects of carbon capture facilities in Illinois.

If you have further queries or interest in this topic, you can contact Dr. Zhang: zhang538@illinois.edu