In an appearance well timed for Earth Month, Mark Levine, director of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, was a featured speaker last Monday at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society in Los Angeles. During a crowded morning press conference and a subsequent panel discussion, Levine addressed the role of new energy technologies in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Commenting on the large turnout, Levine, a chemist, said, "Of all scientists, physicists are perhaps most closely attuned to the connection between their discipline and energy efficiency."
Levine's remarks were based on a major study released last fall, of which he was a principal author along with Marilyn A. Brown of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Titled "Scenarios of U.S. Carbon Reductions: Potential Impacts of Energy Technologies by 2010 and Beyond," the study was conducted by five Department of Energy national laboratories and served to buttress positions taken by U.S. representatives at the United Nations Frame-work Convention on Climate Change held last December in Kyoto, Japan.
The agreement that resulted from the Kyoto conference would require a seven percent cut in U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases by 2010.
"What's the likelihood the U.S. will ratify it?" Levine was asked. "Without an outside event, the chances don't look good," he replied. "But if both political parties and the American people got behind the goal, it is certainly possible that we could have both rising productivity and reduced energy consumption, and do it at a relatively low--if not exactly a zero--cost."
Levine pointed to the decade following the OPEC oil embargo of the early 1970s as proof that productivity can rise while energy consumption remains flat. From 1973 to 1986 the U.S. consumed about 74 quads (quadrillion British thermal units) of energy each year; during the same period the Gross National Product increased by 35 percent. The U.S. could return to a period of sustained productivity, Levine said, while significantly reducing, instead of continuing to increase, the release of gases that contribute to global warming. The savings in energy efficiency are likely to offset the costs of implementation. Nevertheless, reducing emissions of greenhouse gases will inevitably result in profound economic changes, with some winners and some losers.
Carbon emissions are an important indicator of efficient energy use. To reach 1990 levels of carbon emitted into the environment by the year 2010 will require a reduction of some 390 million metric tons a year. A simultaneous attack on several fronts is essential to accomplish this, Levine said.
"Some 70 percent of the reduction could come from simply switching electric power generation from coal to natural gas." Other reductions would come from using wind power to generate electricity, from burning biomass such as agricultural trash in co-generation plants, from extending the life of nuclear power plants, and from new and restored hydroelectric facilities.
"But to get this to happen in the power sector, we are going to need incentives," Levine said. "A tax on carbon would work, but that doesn't seem politically likely." Levine suggested a system of "feebates," in which utilities would pay a fee for fuels (coal, specifically) that emit higher-than-average amounts of carbon, and get a rebate for lower carbon fuels.
"What happens to the coal miners?" someone asked. Levine answered that mitigation of intolerable adverse impacts would be essential. If a thousand coal miners a year were put out of work, the cost to compensate and retrain them would still be less than a billion dollars.
The final thrust of the attack on carbon emissions must come from new technologies, said Levine. "It will be very difficult, and costly, to avoid a resumption in emissions after 2010 unless we increase public and private investment in energy technology R&D." While new technologies can play a role in reaching near-term goals --notably DOE's Energy Star labeling program for efficient appliances--technology's biggest impact on energy efficiency will come by 2020 and beyond.
One area in which Berkeley Lab has made particularly important contributions is in building technologies, including compact torchiere-style bulbs that are already commercially available. These lamps put out as much light but much less heat than popular but dangerous halogen torchieres, and do so with much less electricity. If all halogen torchieres in use were replaced by the compact fluorescent bulb, Levine noted, the energy savings would be 35 terawatt-hours--or some $2 billion a year.
Another technology now on the market is a new method of plugging leaks in heating and air-conditioning ducts by injecting airborne sealant. "We buy furnaces that are 90 percent efficient, and then we send 30 percent of the heat right into the air," Levine said. Leaky ducts, which can add hundreds of dollars a year to a home heating bill, represent an annual waste of energy equivalent to the gasoline burned by 13 million automobiles.
The degree to which American businesses and private citizens will embrace the available energy-saving technologies and those on the way is uncertain, Levine admits. "But change is inevitable if Americans don't want to be forced to limit their travel, turn down their thermostats, and decrease manufacturing as we enter the new century."
Photo: The most significant savings in carbon emissions could be accomplished if electrical utitlies would switch from coal -- the major culprit in greenhouse gas emissions -- to natural gas. (oil.jpeg)
Photo: EET Division Director Mark Levine (XBD9703-00678-02)
University of California President Richard Atkinson asked the employees of Berkeley Lab to participate in his new education initiative--the Outreach Action Plan--which he called "my highest priority for the University and the next step in the Regents' mandate to develop new paths to diversity."
The Plan seeks to develop activities and programs that help prepare more students from California's diverse society for admission to UC. It is designed to implement the Univer-sity's Outreach Task Force recommendations, which called for enhanced partnerships with selected schools, collaborations with students to strengthen their academic preparation, more timely information about UC programs, and more research into the root causes of achievement disparities.
Laboratory Director Charles Shank said it is most appropriate that Berkeley Lab play a role in the outreach effort since the Lab has been instrumental in developing elements of the plan, particularly in building on-line computer access for students and teachers.
"The Laboratory is greatly enriched by the diversity of students and teachers who participate in our programs," Shank said. "They gain valuable experience, broaden their education, and establish positive career paths. It is in everyone's best interest to contribute energy and ideas to this effort."
In particular, he cited three areas in which Laboratory employees can be involved: as a volunteers in outreach programs currently supported by the Center for Science and Engineering Education (CSEE); as mentors for undergraduate and graduate students; and as contributors to the effort to develop online tools to enhance student access to information.
Interested volunteers should call CSEE at X5511. Berkeley Lab's coordinator of these efforts is CSEE director Rollie Otto. Local in-school volunteer programs are coordinated by Marva Wilkins, and programs for mentors and teacher/student activities at the Lab are coordinated by Laurel Egenberger.
Atkinson unveiled his new initiative on Jan. 15 in response to the new UC policy and state law that have eliminated the use of race, gender and ethnicity as factors in student admission.
The Outreach Action Plan has three main elements: coordination by former UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Karl Pister, an ambitious funding strategy that envisions $60 million annually in added support over the next five years, and intensified personal efforts on the part of University staff in a range of outreach activities. It is to the latter element that Berkeley Lab has been asked to contribute.
"Our intent is to create opportunities to learn for many thousands of young people who would not otherwise have them, and thus change lives throughout the state," Atkinson told members of the Board of Regents in January.
Students and teachers' access to information and advice has been enabled through an innovative web-based technology program called "UC Nexus," whose conception and application was influenced by Berkeley Lab's Otto and Stu Loken, division director for Information and Computing Sciences.
The purpose of Nexus is to make UC's educational technology resources available to K-12 teachers and students, and thereby to promote the use of these technologies in California's schools. Through UC Nexus, for example, teachers are working with UC faculty to develop creative ways to use computers and the Internet as tools for instruction. A website has been established to serve as a link among UC's resources for K-12 teachers and students, to offer interactive tools for teachers, and to provide K-12 students with online mentoring and tutoring.
These University-based efforts are complementary to other Berkeley Lab in-school outreach programs, including recent partnerships announced by the Department of Energy and the State of California. DOE Secretary Federico Peña is supporting a major science education initiative, part of which involves a collaboration between the Laboratory and Oakland schools to develop web-based teaching tools. And the California Postsecondary Education Commission recently awarded the Laboratory funding to enhance teachers' multi-disciplinary science experiences through the Lab's sharing of resources and expertise with Berkeley city schools.
Photo: Sather Gate
Using seismic wave data gathered from tens of thousands of earthquakes, Berkeley Lab researchers have produced the first three-dimensional image of the Earth's entire structure, from the crust to the inner core.
In creating their model, Don Vasco and Lane Johnson of the Lab's Center for Computational Seismology, found evidence that the outer core is not homogeneous, as has been long hypothesized. This information could help understand the Earth's magnetic field, the researchers said. Their findings have been published in the February 1998 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Vasco and Johnson used seismic data collected during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and measured the time that the waves took to travel from the epicenter of each earthquake to seismographic stations located around the world. By using computers to analyze travel times from some 40,000 earthquakes, Vasco and Johnson were able to characterize the seismic velocity of materials which make up our planet.
"What we did is sort of like performing a CAT scan on the planet," Vasco said. "Just as a CAT scan uses thousands of rays to characterize a part of the human body, we used thousands of waves to characterize the makeup of Earth."
Until now, most researchers have focused on one region, such as the mantle, rather than the entire structure of Earth. Although they don't claim to have any definitive answers, Vasco said the work is another step in determining the Earth's makeup and the way in which its structure affects our world. The three-dimensional structure of the Earth's mantle has only been determined over the past 20 years, and scientists are now digging deeper and studying the inner and outer cores.
It is thought that the outer core--which starts about 3,000 kilometers (1,850 miles) below the Earth's surface and is 2,300 km thick--is a liquid, with viscosity not much different from water. This led some to conclude that the outer core has no real structure.
"We found indications of heterogeneity at the bottom of the outer core," said Vasco, describing the material as an iron-nickel-sulfur compound. High pressures and temperatures could be causing nickel-rich iron to solidify and deplete the nickel at the base of the outer core, which could help explain the nature of the Earth's magnetic field. The depleted iron is less dense than the surrounding core, causing it to rise, and in turn leads to convection and a magnetic field.
"We're interested in this area because there has been some recent modeling of the Earth's magnetic field," he said. The research found a rough symmetry in structure around the Earth's rotation axis, and this agrees with the symmetry of the magnetic field.
"None of this is unambiguous," Vasco says. "The big problem is trying to see inside the Earth, looking through the very heterogeneous crust and mantle at a volume that is relatively small."
While most of the research to date has been carried out on powerful desktop computers, Vasco is starting to use Cray T3E supercomputers at the Lab's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center for the next stage of his research. That work calls for analyzing other types of seismic data to check and refine their findings.
"Nobody knows for certain how the whole thing works," Vasco said.
Photo: Don Vasco of the Lab's Center for Computational Seismology says that nickel-depleted iron rising in denser liquid iron--like globules in his lava lamp--may contribute to currents in the Earth's outer core, which give rise to the magnetic field. Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt (XBD9803-00456.jpeg)
Many of the recommendations made in 1995 by the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board Task Force on the Future of the National Laboratories, chaired by Robert Galvin, concerned the role of DOE's national labs. One of the chief recommendations called for reduced federal oversight of the labs. DOE told GAO that it has been working to improve the management and leadership structure within the department as recommended by the Galvin report.
However, DOE did not agree with all of the Galvin report suggestions, especially with the call for privatizing some of the national labs. DOE said it believes reducing the administrative burden on the labs is preferable to privatization. Another area of disagreement involved budgeting money for DOE facilities. The report called for creating a separate fund within the Office of Energy Research for lab operations and management. DOE said that this approach could hamper the effectiveness of its labs.
This MOU could serve as a model for future multiple laboratory partnerships, according to Office of Energy Research Director Martha Krebs. In an interview in Inside Energy, Krebs said the MOU ensures that each of the lab directors involved in SNS understands his responsibility for seeing that construction timetables and budgets are met and that no money is wasted during construction. "DOE has made a clear statement to the lab directors that this is their project," Krebs said.
DOE Under Secretary Ernest Moniz said the SNS will be the department's largest construction project in terms of dollars over the next decade.--Lynn Yarris
Cook was born in Pretoria, South Africa in 1938. Always an overachiever, he graduated from high school at the age of 16 and earned his doctorate in geophysics from the University of Witwatersrand at 22. In the early 1960s he worked at the Australian National University in Canberra with noted scientist John Jaeger. Later Cook and Jaeger would co-author Fundamentals of Rock Mechanics, which is still considered by many as the definitive text in the science of rock mechanics. The book is used worldwide and has been translated into Japanese, Chinese and Russian.
In 1964 Cook returned to South Africa where he became the first director of the Mining Research Laboratories of the Chamber of Mines. He was awarded South Africa's highest scientific honor for his pioneering work in the field of mine safety-- most notably for the development of a "rapid yielding prop" to prevent ceiling collapses during mine cave-ins.
Cook joined the faculty of UC Berkeley's College of Engineering in 1976, when he also became a senior scientist in the Earth Science Division at Berkeley Lab. He served as chairman of the Faculty of the College of Engineer-ing and in 1988 received the Donald McLaughlin Professor of Mineral Engineering endowed chair. In 1988 Cook was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering--the highest honor awarded an engineer.
During his 20 years of teaching at Berkeley, he was an advisor to more than 50 Ph.D. candidates. His research spanned the fields of geophysics, fracture mechanics, fluid flow, metallurgy, and network theory.
Cook was known among his friends for his love of cars. Although he gave up car racing after getting married, he continued to build cars throughout his life. He became a U.S. citizen in 1984.
Cook is survived by his wife, Jennifer, daughter Anna-Marie, and son Paul. Donations in his memory may be made to the Berkeley Engineering Fund, 205 McLaughlin Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.
Photo: Neville Cook
The Wolf Foundation was established by the late Ricardo Wolf, inventor, diplomat and philanthropist, "to promote science and art for the benefit of mankind." Annual awards of $100,000 each are made in the areas of chemistry and physics. This year's prize will be presented on May 10 at the Knesset building in Jerusalem by Israeli President Ezer Weizman.
Somorjai was born in Budapest, Hungary. He came to the U.S. in the midst of the Russian invasion of Hungary in 1956 as a chemical engineering student and enrolled in a graduate program at UC Berkeley. After earning his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1960, he joined the research staff at IBM in New York, where he worked for four years. He obtained his U.S. citizenship in 1962 and resides in Berkeley with his wife Judith.
Somorjai is the author of more than 700 scientific papers and three textbooks. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Association for the Advance-ment of Science and the American Physical Society, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Among the many awards he has received are Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry from the American Chemical Society and the Chemical Pioneer Award of the American Institute of Chemists.
Part of the Netscape Enterprise Suite, the new IMAP4 electronic mailing system was purchased to restructure the Laboratory's computing infrastructure. In addition to e-mailing capability, the system will also provide scheduling and electronic directory services, as well as electronic certificate and signature authority.
Users will be able to switch to the new system as soon as it goes into effect on May 1, but may continue to use their current system if they so choose.
A presentation on the new system will be offered by the Computing Infrastructure Support Department on April 9 in the Bldg. 50 auditorium. E-mail classes will also be scheduled in the near future.
More detailed information on the new e-mail system will be provided in the next issue of Currents.
EDITOR: Monica Friedlander, X2248 (495-2248 from outside),
msfriedlander@lbl.gov
STAFF WRITERS: Jeffery Kahn, X4019; Paul Preuss, X6249; Lynn Yarris, X5375
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Jon Bashor, X5849; Allan Chen, X4210
FLEA MARKET / CALENDAR: Jacqueline Noble, X5771
fleamarket@lbl.gov / currents_calendar@lbl.gov
Public Information Department, Berkeley Lab, MS 65A, One Cyclotron Road, Berkeley CA 94720. Tel: 510/486-5771; Fax: 510/486-6641
Berkeley Lab is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy.
You need to be especially mindful of software licenses if you:
To prove proper license ownership, you need to have the original media on which the software was shipped, the software documentation, or a license certificate. The Lab's position is that if there is no proof of licensing, there is no valid license.
Software usually falls into one of three categories, and employees should know what kind they have and what the licensing requirements are.
More information on software licenses and responsibilities can be found in Chapter 9 of the RPM. The web version can be found at: http://www.lbl.gov/Workplace/RPM/R9.01.html.
Questions about computer-related issues can be directed to the Computing Infrastructure Support (CIS) Department Help Desk at X4357 (H-E-L-P).--Jon Bashor
Imagine drawing a building on your computer. On your desktop you place your walls, design the look of the building, plug in a cooling and heating system. Then--one at a time--you bring in various computer tools to determine how your design will affect everything from illumination to air flow and energy use.
But what if all these and many other parameters could be simultaneously calculated and visually simulated right as you design your plans, allowing you to make changes and choose among alternative designs? A software package recently released by Berkeley Lab will do just that, and in the process help architects and engineers design better, more energy-efficient and comfortable buildings.
Scientists in the Environmen-tal Energy Technologies Division have announced the release of an advanced, Windows-based software called the Building Design Advisor (BDA). The program provides a user-friendly graphic interface and integrates multiple tools that can simulate various building specifications. Architects can thereby compare alternative building designs right on their desktops.
"The design of buildings today requires a series of complex decisions involving many performance considerations, such as comfort, energy requirements, code compliance, environmental impact, and aesthetic appeal," says Konstantinos Papamichael of EET's Building Technologies Program and BDA's principal developer.
Studies suggest that buildings designed with computer simulation tools are on average 20 percent more energy efficient than those designed without them. While BDA is not the first computer simulation software for the building design industry, it has some clear advantages over similar tools on the market, Papamichael says.
"Most of these tools were developed by researchers for research purposes and are not easy to use. They take months to learn and require a significant amount of time to prepare the input in terms of keywords and numbers structured in particular formats. Moreover, they provide their output in the form of alphanumeric tables that are hard to read and interpret.."
Another problem with available simulation tools is that they each model a different element and are often incompatible. "A lighting simulation program usually represents walls as polygons with information about placement and orientation, texture, and light reflectance," Papa-michael says. "A heating/cooling simulation program usually models walls as thermal barriers with information about heat transfer coefficients and thermal capacities."
The BDA software addresses both of these problems. Building designers benefit from the use of multiple simulation tools that use a single, object-oriented representation of the building and its context. While the designer draws the building using an editor similar to those in computer-assisted design software, the BDA automatically prepares the required input to multiple, linked simulation tools; it also supplies "smart" default values for any required information that may have been overlooked by the designer.
Users can quickly review the specifications of building components or systems and use the information to compare alternative designs and make critical decisions with respect to multiple performance criteria.
Version 1.0 of BDA is linked to two existing software tools: the Schematic Graphic Editor (a daylight simulation tool) and an energy simulation tool. Future releases will add other tools, including DOE-2, the standard software for building energy analyses, RADIANCE, a sophisticated day/lighting simulation program with photo-accurate rendering capabilities, and COMIS, a software tool for modeling airflow and indoor air quality.
"There is no intrinsic limitation on which and how many tools can be connected," says Papamichael. "We hope that this initial release will excite the building design industry and initiate collaborations for the development of links to additional tools and databases, as well as for the expansion and enhancement of BDA's main features and capabilities."
Papamichael said he also hopes to collaborate with commercial and academic institutions to develop concurrent, multi-user building design over the Internet, distribute it over local and wide area networks, and add videoconferencing and whiteboard capabilities.
A beta version of the BDA software can be downloaded off the web at http://kmp.lbl. gov/BDA. Users are encouraged to make suggestions and to report bugs at the same website.
Volunteers will meet on Saturday and Sunday at Sacramento Street. and University Avenue at 9 a.m. and will work for about three hours. The City of Berkeley will provide the tools, and lanes on University Ave. will be blocked off to insure workers' safety.
The University Avenue Gardeners work on weekend mornings to help beautify the Native Plants Garden of the University Avenue median strips.
Photo: Ken Rivera lent a hand and a smile to the recent bulb-planting drive organized by the Lab's Green Team. Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt (XBD9803-00380-02)
Oracle classes:
http://www.lbl.gov/Workplace/EDT/computers/oracle.html
AIM Computer Training:
http://www.lbl.gov/Workplace/EDT/computers/PC_Classes.html
EH&S Classes:
http://www-ehs.lbl.gov/training/registration/
Bins for book collection are located at the entrance to the cafeteria and outside of the DOE Site Office in Bldg. 90. Materials needed include new or nearly-new books and magazines on current science and technology for grade levels K-12. For more information, contact Janice Brown at X6412.
The DOE book drive is the result of a commitment to community service made in 1997 by Energy Secretary Federico Peña following the Presidents' Summit for America's Future. For more information on the DOE book drive, or for assistance in organizing a book drive at your location, contact Bill Nay at (301) 903-6576.
The four-part workshop, led by Anne Maclachlan, will be held on the UCB campus on April 9, 16, 23, and 30 from 4 to 7 p.m. Participants will be informed of the workshop location when they receive the registration confirmation. The workshop is open to all Lab personnel.
The program will overview employment opportunities in the major scientific and engineering fields. Topics will include job application, interviewing technique, contract negotiation, and self-evaluation.
To register for the four sessions (free of charge), send e-mail to pswork1@lbl.gov by April 1. Please include your name, extension number, mailstop, and e-mail address and mention "Academic Job Search" in your message. Enrollment is limited so make sure to register on time. Confirmation of registration will be sent by April 5. More information about the workshop can be found on the Postdoctoral Society website at http://white.lbl.gov/~postdoc/.
A joint project of the Public Information Department and the Facilities Department, the site map shows major landmarks, offices and labs with their respective building numbers and bus routes/bus stops. An even more detailed PDF version of the map, which allows users to zoom in, may be downloaded off the web.
Packages, including hazardous materials and international shipments, will continue to go through the Shipping Department. Divisions are encouraged to fill out the air bill prior to taking it to Shipping. For further questions, call Lauretta Corsair at X6938.
And on March 13, a "Starr" was born to Bill Starr of the Lab's cafeteria. Amanda Rose Starr weighed in at 7 lb, 5oz.
Published once a month by the Communications Department for the employees and retirees of Berkeley Lab.
Reid Edwards, Public Affairs Department head
Ron Kolb, Communications Department headEDITOR
Pamela Patterson, 486-4045, pjpatterson@lbl.gov
Associate editor
Lyn Hunter, 486-4698, lhunter@lbl.govSTAFF WRITERS
Dan Krotz, 486-4019
Paul Preuss, 486-6249
Lynn Yarris, 486-5375CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Ucilia Wang, 495-2402
Allan Chen, 486-4210
David Gilbert, (925) 296-5643DESIGN
Caitlin Youngquist, 486-4020
Creative Services OfficeBerkeley Lab
Communications Department
MS 65, One Cyclotron Road, Berkeley CA 94720
(510) 486-5771
Fax: (510) 486-6641Berkeley Lab is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy.
Flea Market is now online at www.lbl.gov/fleamarket
