Please plan to attend an upcoming workshop titled "Developing A Research Agenda for The Energy-Water Nexus" sponsored by the National Science Foundation and is organized by Mike Hightower (Sandia National Laboratory/ASME), Danny Reible (UT Austin/AIChE), and Michael Webber (UT Austin/ASME).  The workshop is organized around three themes:

• Water for Power- Research needs to ensure that water does not limit our ability to produce power, including (but not limited to):
  • Reducing water needs for cooling
  • Water source switching (effluent, etc.)
     
• Water for Fuels - Research needs to ensure that water does not limit our ability to exploit fuel sources, including
  • Reducing the needs for water for biofuels
  • Maximizing  water reuse
  • Improving wastewater treatment and disposal options
• Energy for Water - Research needs to ensure that energy costs do not control the availability of water management options
  • More efficient water treatment approaches
  • Efficient water sourcing and recycling
  • Efficient water distribution

The workshop is scheduled to take place June 10-11 at NSF Headquarters in Arlington, VA.  Further details and a link to register to attend are found at  http://efs.aiche.org/event/nsf-energy-water-nexus-workshop.  
 
The invitees for the workshop include a mix of academia, NGOs, industry and government agencies.  The objective is to provide guidance to NSF and other sponsoring agencies on a robust, wide-ranging, and forward-looking research agenda at the nexus of energy and water. The workshop will depend heavily on extensive interaction between participants.  Rapporteurs will collect notes on the breakout sessions, which will subsequently be synthesis into a post-workshiop report that will be publicly available.  
 
Some travel support will be available to prospective attendees on a case-by-case basis.   To ensure an opportunity for an interactive workshop, attendance will likely be limited to 1-2 participants from each company and/or institution.  Please feel free to contact Sharon Bernard (sbernard@mail.utexas.edu) or Michael Godwin (godwin@mail.utexas.edu) at the University of Texas at Austin with questions about logistics.

Also, we will be holding a special session on coordination of society activities related to the Energy Water Nexus—contact Darlene Schuster (darls@aiche.org) for additional information on coordination activities.  
 
Best regards,
 
Michael Webber, Danny Reible and Mike Hightower

Darlene S. Schuster, Ph.D.

Executive Director

Institute for Sustainability

An AIChE Technological Community

3 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10016

410 458 5870

darls@aiche.org