RISE-Midwest – Regional Industry Symbiosis for Environment and Resource

RISE-Midwest – Regional Industry Symbiosis for Environment and Resource

Regional Industry Symbiosis for Energy-Water-Resource Loop Closure (RISE)-Midwest envisions a more sustainable, circular economy by closing energy-water-resource loops. The abundant freshwater resources, extensive agricultural landscapes, and construction activity of the Midwestern region, coupled with growing pressures on the region’s housing stock, infrastructure, and water, food, and energy systems from climate change and the need to support a growing population, generate both urgency and an opportunity to understand how to integrate resource flows among traditionally separate sectors, like agriculture, industry, and construction. This research advances a model of industrial symbiosis in which the outputs of one sector (e.g., waste heat, carbon dioxide, wastewater, demolition debris) serve as inputs for another, and the region can operate more like an integrated ecosystem. By developing both a framework and methodology for understanding how to integrate energy, water, and resource flows at a regional scale, this work reduces redundancies, inefficiencies, and waste in the Midwest, as well as provides a model for other U.S. regions.

A multi-institutional, interdisciplinary team of investigators collaborates on RISE-Midwest. The team is led by PI and co-investigators, Dr. Ming Hu (University of Notre Dame), Dr. Gabriel Filippelli (Indiana University-Indianapolis), Dr. Andrea Hicks (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Dr. Shweta Singh (Purdue University), Prof. Jason Carley (University of Notre Dame), and Dr. Amrou Awaysheh (Indiana University-Indianapolis).