News and Events Archive

Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) staff members participate in several national and international events.

JISEA Hosts 2012 Annual Meeting

March 2012 — JISEA, a transdisciplinary global research group focused on the nexus of energy, environment, finance, and society, addresses transformational trends in the global energy economy at its annual meeting, March 7–8 in Golden, Colo. The second annual meeting brings together key stakeholders from across the financial, legal and industrial sectors as well as academic research teams. See press release for details.

Qatar Forum

On November 8-10, Joint Institute Executive Director Doug Arent participated in the Doha Carbon and Energy Forum as a panelist, and helped facilitate components of the event. This forum, which was invitation-only, included about 150 experts from the region and internationally. The forum was organized by the Qatar Foundation in conjunction with Texas A&M University at Qatar. Its main objective was to provide a platform for experts from around the world to discuss and address current and emerging energy and greenhouse gas challenges in Qatar and in the region. Participating companies and institutes with near-to-market technologies and capabilities discussed RDD&D opportunities and steps necessary bring expertise and commercialization opportunities in Qatar and the region.

The forum clarified an understanding of the region's strategy (Vision 2030), mechanisms and institutions for supporting promising technologies in carbon capture and storage, energy efficiency and alternative energy technologies leading to recommendations related to emerging technologies, regulatory frameworks, and industrial developments and applications relevant for the region.

Arent and other panel members spoke directly with Mohammed Al-Sada, minister of state for Energy and Indusrial Affairs. Arent also identified potential collaborators to support the DOE/DOS initiative in Qatar in support of NREL's Ron Benioff and Larry Kazmerski.

Leadership Summit

Joint Institute Executive Director Doug Arent recently participated in the annual Blouin Creative Leadership Summit in New York City on September 22-23. The summit brings together 120 leading figures in the areas of science, technology, culture, business, and politics. During the two-day event, delegates discussed the critical threats and opportunities presented by globalization at the local and global levels. Arent focused on the role of clean energy technologies to meet climate challenges and options for accelerating the use of these low carbon solutions globally.

The summit is a think-tank forum organized by the Louise Blouin Foundation in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Partnerships. The open, multidisciplinary exchange generated by the summit allows heads of state, business leaders and scholars to develop new solutions to the challenges posed by poverty, conflict, and economic instability.

IPCC Appointment

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has named Joint Institute Executive Director Doug Arent as a lead author for its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) cycle. The IPCC's work on AR5 is divided among three Working Groups, and Arent will be one of the Coordinating Lead Authors (CLA) of Chapter 10 for Working Group Two. As a CLA, Arent will work with co-CLA Richard Tol and a team of seven authors from around the world to contribute to the global assessment of current literature and make a determination of what it means for the current state of climate change.

Arent's working group will specifically look at the vulnerability of socioeconomic and natural systems to climate change, negative and positive consequences of climate change, and options for adapting to it. AR5 is scheduled to be completed in 2013.

The IPCC was established in 1988 by the United Nations Environmental Program and the World Meteorological Organization to assess, on a scientific basis, the risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts, and options for adaptation and mitigation.

December 14, 2010—"Modeling and Simulation Aspects of Topological Design of Distributed Resource Islands."

During this presentation, Sid Suryanarayanan of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), Colorado State University; and Sriram Sankaranarayanan of the Department of Computer Science (CS), University of Colorado, gave an overview on modeling distributed generation. As electric power distribution systems evolve under the Smart Grid Initiative, an optimization problem is defined to simultaneously determine optimal locations for distributed generation (DG) and feeder interties. This is done in a legacy radial distribution system to improve reliability in the islanded mode of operation. An evolutionary approach using the Multi Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA) is also formulated. The choice of this algorithmic approach is justified due to the intractability of the problem associated with optimal location of DGs and feeder interties for large distribution systems. During this presentation, the speakers discussed a filtering technique using machine learning (ML) for improving performance by avoiding expensive simulations for potentially suboptimal inputs. The algorithm is applied to a test system, which explores two methods of expressing the load. In both cases, similar satisfactory design solutions are obtained.

September 13, 2010—"Energy Efficiency in Buildings and Industry: A Low Carbon Future."

Energy efficiency has had a substantial impact on U.S. energy consumption since the 1970s. Some products (e.g., refrigerators, clothes washers, central air conditioners) have made dramatic (50%–70%) energy-use improvements over the years, resulting from a combination of technology innovation and policies. A future with low greenhouse gas emissions is technologically and economically feasible, and energy-efficient technologies will make a major contribution to this future. Additional contributions from systems (buildings, cities, electricity supply) including human behaviors will be critical. During this presentation, James E. "Jim" McMahon, of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, discussed methods and examples for technical and economic analysis of energy efficiency standards. He will describe energy, economic, and environmental impacts, both retrospectively and prospectively to year 2035. He'll also highlight additional elements for reducing industrial energy demand.

August 5, 2010—"From Trades to Turbines: The Art and Science of Wind Energy Resource Assessment."

During the past 20 years, the Risø-DTU National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy has been one of the world's leading institutions for wind resource assessment. Using a combination of measurements and fast-flow modeling, they developed the European Wind Atlas in 1989. As a result of this project, the "WAsP" method also was developed and is now used in nearly 90% of the wind farms built today. The WAsP wind resource method allows high-resolution data to be incorporated into the wind resources assessment. In 2001, through the use of meso-scale models combined with the WAsP method, Risø-DTU also developed the Numerical Wind Atlas method (KAMM/WAsP method). During this presentation, Hans Jørgensen, of Risø-DTU, talked about the method used to calculate the annual resource with the option to cover monthly resources as well. In addition to the KAMM/WASP method, Jørgensen's group has developed a dynamic method that includes the daily variation. These methods have been applied in various regions around the world and Jørgensen gave an introduction to the different methods developed at Risø-DTU. He included examples and verification from the Egyptian, Chinese, South African, Indian, and Danish wind atlas.

July 12, 2010—"The Status of CO2 Capture and Storage Technology,"

Edward Rubin, of Carnegie Mellon University, gave an overview of carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture and storage (CCS) technologies applicable to combustion-based and gasification-based electric power plants that are fueled by coal, natural gas, biomass, or other carbonaceous fuels. He summarized the performance and cost of current systems along with the major factors that affect these parameters. Several measures of cost were discussed, including capital cost, added cost of electricity generation, cost per ton of CO₂ captured, and cost per ton of CO₂ avoided. The seminar also discussed the effects of CO₂ capture technology on overall plant efficiency as well as the impacts on other environmental emissions. Rubin presented a range of CO₂ transport and storage costs to illustrate the dependency of total plant-level costs on geographical and geological characteristics and variability. The outlook for lower-cost CCS technologies also was examined and Rubin presented a publicly available modeling tool for estimating CCS costs.

May 14, 2010—"Renewable Energy Integration and New Storage Concepts."

This seminar, presented by Michael Sterner of Fraunhofer Institute, discussed linking the grid to renewable energy technologies. Germany is planning to increase the use of renewable energy (RE) to a full 100% supply. Many challenges have been solved, and many — such as energy storage — are still ahead. Sterner's talk gave firsthand insights into the current energy scenarios of the German government up to 2050. He also will discuss the challenges, possible solutions for renewable energy integrations, and a new way to store energy by linking power and gas networks. He'll also present an outline of a possible transformation toward low-carbon energy systems.