Reimagining Energy

If you use a mobile phone or laptop, you are using energy. And if you are using generative AI, the energy toll is high and growing. The theme of the 2025 ECET Summit was that with the increasing demand for energy, we should no longer think about energy substitution but energy addition. But with the continuous use of oil and gas, major focus should be substantial reduction of emissions.

The Ershaghi Center for Energy Transition (ECET), named in honor of USC Professor Iraj Ershaghi, is dedicated to driving innovation in emerging energy solutions—while recognizing the practical demands and technical constraints of today’s world. ECET leads its mission through interdisciplinary research, educational programs, and strategic partnerships among academia, industry, and government. Whether advancing energy storage, reducing emissions, developing renewables, or building inclusive workforce pathways, the Center is focused on tackling the pressing challenges—and seizing the opportunities—by reimagining the energy landscape.

Founded in 2022 through a generous gift from USC Viterbi alumnus Gary Buntmann and his wife Mary, ECET brings together experts, business leaders, and policymakers each year to collaborate on the future of energy. The third annual ECET Summit, co-sponsored by Chevron, continued this tradition of dialogue around industry innovation.

And if energy affects all that we do, the trends shared by Brian Singer, Managing Director and Global Head of Goldman Sachs SUSTAIN, Global Investment Research, related to the “Green Capex” or private capital expenditures/investment in sustainable technologies, suggest the high need for investment in clean water and infrastructure  and “net zero” technologies, and reinforce the notion that the addition of new energy sources cannot be solved by private industry alone. As summarized by Scott Tinker, CEO, Energy Corps and Chairman, Switch Energy Alliance, the bottom line is people generally do not realize their personal reliance on energy and our collective dependence on energy for prosperity.

It necessitates that we all collaborate to meet such a challenge. For the audience at the ECET 2025 Summit, USC Viterbi Dean Yannis C. Yortsos provided a new framework, or mindset to reconsider how we should view sustainability by showing that in his native language, the word has a broader meaning. In Greek, Yortsos said, sustainability is connected to sustainable prosperity and well-being. He suggests that we need to consider how humanity, prosperity and sustainability are intertwined.

And while you can’t flip a switch to transition entirely to other energy sources, as Don Paul, the William M. Keck Professor of Energy Resources and Research Professor of Engineering, once said to explain why we need experts who understand both legacy and future technologies, below are some the ideas and new technologies from around campus shown at the ECET Summit last month.

Issues discussed included the addition of hydrogen as an energy source, subsurface storage of carbon dioxide, the evolving shortage of energy-skilled professionals and the public’s awareness of issues related to energy sources.

Here are also some of the ideas from campus that were highlighted at the poster session of the Summit:

Superconducting Temperature Prediction Tool

Superconductivity refers to processes by which energy is conducted at minimal transmission losses.  One such project ECET has supported involves computational research that looks to finding viable superconducting materials. The researchers are looking at families of materials to see the interactions between electrons and atoms to predict the temperature in which these family of materials would be able to superconduct (or perform without friction). Normally such research is expensive and time-consuming, says Ph.D. student Zien Zhu who works in Zhenglu Li’s lab in the Mork Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. They believe their group has created the most accurate computational method of superconductivity mediated by electron-phonon interaction (or electron-atom interaction). Beyond using this tool to understand existing materials, the computational design could also be used to design ideal superconducting materials that could be used for electronic devices and use less energy.

Improving hydrogen storage technology for transportation and aviation industry.

Another project showcased relates to enabling safe and more efficient hydrogen-powered aviation. Led by Aiichiro Nakano, a Professor of Computer Science at USC Viterbi and the School of Advanced Computing, the team applies computational science to understand the structure of materials at a molecular level and improve the design of polymers that would secure hydrogen tanks from leaking.  This would enable long-distance hydrogen power transportation including hydrogen-powered aviation.

CO2 Monitoring Underground

Behnam Jafarpour, a professor in the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering, serves as the Director of the National Science Foundation Industry-University of Cooperative Research Center on CO₂ Storage Modeling, Analytics, and Risk Reduction Technologies (CO₂-SMART)—a center on innovation for geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide to enable industrial decarbonization at scale. He shared his lab’s newest innovation, CO₂-4DNet, an AI-powered tool designed to monitor and predict the movement of carbon dioxide stored underground. Successful monitoring and permanent storage verification of CO₂ require tools like this to consider a wide range of scenarios regarding the condition and characteristics of the subsurface to account for the existing uncertainties. This is where AI comes in: providing fast predictions based on limited data and available domain knowledge. CO₂-4DNET has been fed various geological scenarios prior to implementation to help deal with unknown conditions underground and plan for different scenarios even when limited data is available. The researchers state that tools such as CO₂-4DNet allow for the “efficient plume prediction critical for real-time monitoring and decision-making.”

Making Hydrogen Gas Even Cleaner

Hydrogen gas, a clean fuel, is often produced by steaming methane in a process also known as Steam Methane Reforming or SMR. The process itself uses more energy than it produces and generates significant carbon dioxide (10+ kg of CO2 per kg of hydrogen), says Birendra Jha, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Civil and Environmental Engineering. Reducing the environmental impact of SMR requires carbon capture costs. He adds, “as a result it is not economic and it is not clean.”

Jha is introducing a method to generate hydrogen without methane, by reacting rock minerals with water, in a process similar to geothermal energy production. By controlling the water chemistry and injection parameters as well as hydrogen accumulation and production from wells, the new method optimizes hydrogen recovery while minimizing concerns such as earthquakes. Jha believes that this research, supported by ARPA-E and the Department of Energy, has considerable promise to produce clean fuels.

Cleaner Hydrogen Take 2:

G.K. Surya Prakash, Director of the USC Loker Institute at USC Dornsife, and Distinguished Professor and Holder of the George A. and Judith A. Olah Nobel Laureate Chair in Hydrocarbon Chemistry, works on a variety of projects. During the poster session, his team showed a method to produce hydrogen at what he calls a “reasonable” temperature. They have developed a highly efficient methanol reformer for clean H2 generation under 250 oC. In a novel closed methanol reforming system in a 160 mL Parr pressure reactor generated high pressures of H2 up to 96 bar on-demand with no traces of CO2 and CO as contaminants. The optimized methanol reformer unit was used to model a dehydrogenation reactor. These high pressures/volumes of H2 emphasize the major advantages of a methanol-based system as a “chemical compressor” of H2.

These ideas are just some of the solutions being put forth (a larger list of projects supported by ECET is located here). The demand for energy will continue to grow especially with the growth of data centers as pointed out by Don Paul, and due to AI as pointed out by Massoud Pedram, the Charles Lee Powell Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Pedram noted that there could be significant reduction of energy use by relying on AI for prediction related to energy demand and use, and for managing systems.  International guest speaker Musabbeh Al Kaabi, CEO, Upstream, ADNOC, provided examples of AI’s use for forecasting and decision-making.

ECET will continue to convene academics, industry and policymakers each year, with research continuing in the labs on campus. But there are also new opportunities for students through the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. Department Chair Andrea Hodge shared news related to the school’s newest energy related master’s program, an  MS in Energy Engineering based on the challenge of “how to foster future leaders with the interdisciplinary knowledge and creativity to manage the sector’s seismic shift towards cutting-edge technologies — leaders who can navigate the intricate balance between new and legacy energy systems.”

In addition to discussions and panels, General Manager, Strategy & Market Insights for Offsets & Emerging Technologies, Chevron New Energies, Marisa Hamsik, revealed the Daneshy Energy Transition Awards winners.

Marsha Ershaghi, Senior Advisor Tapestry Networks, and  Adjunct Professor of Management and Organization, USC served as the moderator.

Published on June 6th, 2025

Last updated on June 6th, 2025