Kelsey Semrod of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Energy and water systems are deeply interconnected, leading to complex interdependencies that change in magnitude with changing natural, socioeconomic, and policy landscapes. Energy systems rely on water directly, for activities like cooling power plants or as a “feedstock” for hydropower and electrolysis, and indirectly, for mining primary fuels or cultivating biomass. Similarly, water systems require energy for a range of applications, such as groundwater extraction, reservoir operations, and water conveyance and treatment. Co- management of these interdependent and often competing energy and water flows is crucial for understanding the complexities of both systems and ensuring resilience.

This presentation will discuss historical, aggregated water and energy data for various economic sectors at the county level throughout the United States, as well as modeled futures using the GCAM-USA version of the Global Change Analysis Model. These diagrams are an effective tool to illustrate the flow of key resources, fuels, and commodities from source to end use, capturing the impacts of scenario constraints on technological transformations and resource allocation decisions. This work is funded by the U.S. DOE Water Power Technologies Office under the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Integrated Water Power Resilience Program.

Biography:

Kelsey Semrod is a senior water resources scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. She leads the Integrated Water Power Resilience Program (IWPR), sponsored by the Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office. This program's vision is to identify and develop opportunities to improve resilience in the water and power sectors through coordinated planning, investment, and operations.

Kelsey's projects and expertise include: water resilience policy and strategy development, water infrastructure site assessments (e.g., Installation Energy Water Management Plans), water management training, energy-water resilience workshop facilitation, and technical program management for the Department of Energy and Department of Defense.

Address:United States

Hassan Niazi of Joint Global Change Research Institute within PNNL

Biography:

Hassan Niazi is an integrated human-Earth systems researcher who is working as an Earth scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute within Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). He specializes in discovering and leveraging multi-scale, multi-sector energy-water-land dynamics to address complex problems under socioeconomic, technological, and natural drivers of future global change. Using AI/ML, integrated assessment, and coupled human-Earth system models with a focus on water systems, his work informs global system resilience, sustainability, and resource security. He also researches nature-based engineered systems to enable ecosystem services and disaster risk reduction for inland and coastal waters using probabilistic and process-based numerical models. Collectively, his contributions have advanced the understanding of fundamental dynamics among multiple anthropogenic and natural sectors, including water supply and demand, energy production and use, agriculture, biogeochemical cycles, and emerging technologies. For regional work, he has collaborated with stakeholders across the United States, as well as Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, Australia, and Latin America. He is active in several professional societies and holds two master's and a bachelor's degree in civil engineering with the highest honors.

Address:United States