Dr. Kenneth Carlson is the Director of the Center for Energy Water Sustainability (CEWS) and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Colorado State University. He has over 30 years of experience in addressing water related issues; especially optimizing the synergies between water and energy and has championed efforts to increase the sustainability of water use in the oil and gas industry for over 10 years.
CEWS employs scientists, engineers and researchers working on various energy-water sustainability initiatives. Past initiatives have included optimizing water transportation systems, reducing the cost of produced water recycle treatment technologies, researching the viability of various beneficial reuse opportunities and policy limitations, a first of its kind public facing real-time continuous ground water monitoring framework in oil and gas fields, and GIS-based Decision Support Tool development for managing water and wastewater in spatially diverse oil and gas operations. On-going efforts include developing and deploying industry’s first standardized freshwater reporting framework and metrics that would assess and certify oil and gas operators on their water stewardship program and thereby enable and encourage operator efforts towards freshwater stewardship, an important component of a responsibly sourced gas (RSG) certification program. Dr. Carlson has a BS in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, MS in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University and a PhD in Environmental Engineering from the University of Colorado.