Energy is the juice that runs today’s world. Energy is also one of the main cause of much of turmoil in world’s politics. Clean, economical, and sustainable production of sufficient energy to satisfy the need of 8 billion humans requires continued research and development in production and harvesting of available primary and secondary energy sources: fossil, renewables, nuclear, biofuels, electricity, and hydrogen.

Areas of Research Focus

The University of Illinois is home to some of the most cutting edge research in the field of energy production and the new field of energy harvesting. From research on making renewables such as wind and solar more competitive, fossil-based energy production more clean, nuclear power more economical while being safe, to efficient production of secondary energy sources such as electricity and hydrogen, research and development at the University of Illinois is addressing the challenges being faced in production, extraction and harvesting of energy for a sustainable planet. Some specific projects:

• Small modular nuclear reactor design.
• Making coal clean by carbon sequestration.
• Ethanol production.
• Making solar thermal and solar photovoltaic competitive.
• Engineering solutions for biomass feedstock production and provision.
• Demonstration of biomass boiler using chopped Miscanthus for on-farm heating.
• Greenhouse gas emissions from land use change.
• Small modular (nuclear) reactors.
• Sodium-cooled fast reactors.
• Digital instrumentation and control for nuclear power plants.
• Reliable unconventional hydrocarbon resource assessment methodologies.
• Geochemical tracers in oil and gas fingerprinting