Cornell engineers have refined a model that not only cultivates green energy, but also desalinates ocean water for large, drought-stricken coastal populations. By pumping seawater to a mountaintop reservoir and then employing gravity to send the salty water down to a co-located hydropower plant and a reverse osmosis desalination facility, science can satisfy the energy and hydration needs of coastal cities with one system. … Haji and Matthew Haefner, a doctoral student in systems engineering, are co-authors of “Integrated Pumped Hydro Reverse Osmosis System Optimization Featuring Surrogate Model Development in Reverse Osmosis Modeling,” which was published in Applied Energy.