Introduction

The Laboratory for Low-Carbon Energy and Environmental Sustainability promotes a long-term vision for the role of both technology and policy to cope with complex energy, environmental and natural resource challenges. The laboratory conducts systems research that addresses technical, economic and policy issues related to low-carbon energy and environmental systems. The systems research involves a combination of computational modeling and analysis for energy and environmental systems with engineering economics, risk analysis, and policy analysis in support of both technological and policy developments. Current interests of research mainly include low-carbon energy systems, carbon capture, utilization and storage, hydrogen production, negative emissions technologies, low-grade heat & water recovery and reuse, and the energy-water nexus under carbon constraints for climate change mitigation. The laboratory pioneers the development of the Integrated Environmental Control Model (IECM), a publicly available computer tool used worldwide for power plant modeling and techno-economic assessment.