Grant: Canada Research Chairs

Energy is critical for human activity. Demand for energy is increasing because of the increase in global population and economic activity. Today, most energy comes from fossil fuel energy sources. The production, conversion, and use of energy has environmental impacts including increases in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, increased freshwater consumption, and land use disturbances. Several energy production, conversion and use pathways are being developed as the world goes through energy transition. The key question in this transition is how to choose the environmentally friendly, economically viable, and socially acceptable energy pathways. This is a challenging question with complex solutions and is the focus of Dr. Amit Kumar’s research program. The Canada Research Chair (CRC) Program in Assessment of Energy Systems, under the leadership of Dr. Kumar, will develop novel approaches and techniques through the integration of fundamental science-based engineering principles and machine learning techniques for the assessment of energy systems. The CRC program will consider energy resource availability including the infrastructure, energy conversion pathways, and energy use pathways for the integrated assessment of energy systems. The research will develop a novel framework for short-, medium-, and long-term assessments of energy systems considering both renewable and non-renewable energy technologies. This will help us understand the cost-effective and environmentally friendly pathways to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions as part of energy transition. The information developed by the CRC program will be helpful in decision-making and policy formulation globally. The program will train highly qualified personnel who will contribute to the global workforce and to greenhouse gas and climate change mitigation efforts.