JOHN B. DRAKE, shown here studying a computer simulation of future climate under a global warming scenario, is a mathematician in the Mathematical Sciences Section of ORNL's Computer Science and Mathematics Division. He leads a team that has been developing parallel algorithms for climate modeling and implementing the Community Climate Model-2 of the National Center of Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, on the Intel Paragon supercomputer at ORNL. ORNL is one of several institutions attempting to predict impacts on climate of greenhouse gases emitted by fossil-fuel combustion and other human activities.
A parallel version of the Community Climate Model-2 was developed for ORNL's Intel Paragon XP/S 150 supercomputer to provide answers to energy-related climate questions. For example, what are the effects on climate of 100 years of raising the earth's surface temperature by burning fossil fuels at a rate high enough to double atmospheric CO2 concentrations? The parallel climate model, as modified at ORNL, can be used to predict climate states resulting from global warming and allow researchers to examine particular quantities such as the precipitable water available in the atmosphere. These fields can be compared with observed data, providing a better understanding of the type and severity of climate impacts. Scientific visualizations of the computed patterns, shown as clouds of varying thicknesses moving over the oceans and continents for each day of a year, have been developed and put on videotape at ORNL.
The Vostok ice core temperature variation in degrees Celsius as a difference from the modern surface-temperature value (top) and solar insolation as a function of time (bottom).
Janet Cushman and Gregg Marland examine the cross section of a tree, which began sequestering carbon from the atmosphere in 1648. Despite being harvested in 1972, some portions of this tree continue to store carbon in wood products.
Wood chips from fast-growing trees are stored in Hawaii. These chips will later be used as fuel.
Top: Growing forest accumulates carbon until it achieves, over time, a balance between the carbon taken up in photosynthesis and the carbon released back to the atmosphere from respiration, oxidation of dead organic matter, and fires and pests. In the meantime, fossil fuels are used to meet society's energy needs. Bottom: In productive forests, trees can be harvested for use in producing heat or power. Although harvesting may result in less carbon stored in standing biomass and forest soils, biomass fuels replace some of the fossil fuel that would otherwise be burned. The carbon in that fossil fuel remains stored in the ground rather than being released to the atmosphere. In both scenarios there are some energy needs for gathering the resource and converting it into useful energy, but, as the arrows on the transportation system suggest here, these are generally comparatively small. Arrows provide a qualitative indication of the magnitude and direction of carbon flows.
When a productive forest is harvested and the site replanted with energy crops, the initial harvest will yield some long-lived products, some short-lived products, and some energy products. Over time, the various products will gradually decay and release their carbon to the atmosphere and some carbon will be lost from the soil because of more intensive management. The energy products harvested periodically over time will displace fossil fuels, allowing them to be left in the ground. There will also be some fossil fuels left unburned because wood products typically require less energy for their production than do other materials for which they substitute. The cumulative reduction in carbon emissions over time will depend on the rate of energy-crop growth, the efficiency of biomass substitution for fossil fuels, and many other parameters being modeled in studies at ORNL and Joanneum Research. The carbon balance would look much different (better) if this scenario were implemented on surplus agricultural land because we would expect a buildup of soil carbon and no loss of carbon to the atmosphere as wood products are oxidized over time.
Gerald Tuskan uses genetic engineering techniques to determine the gender of a hybrid willow tree in an early stage of development.
Interior of a plantation of Swedish willow trees at the State University of New York in Syracuse.
ORNL scientists examine the response of yellow poplar and white oak trees grown in chambers whose atmosphere is enriched in carbon dioxide. They found increased productivity that showed up as additional fine roots rather than in wood.
Paul Hanson checks the plastic troughs used in ORNL's "throughfall displacement experiment" at the Walker Branch Watershed on DOE's Oak Ridge Reservation.
Aerial view of the troughs near ORNL used to ensure that trees in various plots of a predominantly oak forest receive different amounts of soil moisture from rain and snow.
The photograph (above) and satellite image (below) show alluvial fan deposits in the Organ Mountains in New Mexico. The view in the photo is looking roughly to the west. In the geologic record in these deposits, an ORNL geochemist found stable isotopic evidence for a vegetation shift 7000 to 9000 years ago that resulted principally from an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Fred Stoss studies a poster showing the endangered earth. The dark areas on the land represent forest and vegetation, and the light areas represent desert.
Production of numeric data packages, as shown in this flow chart, has been a major achievement in environmental data management at ORNL.
CDIAC's principal information products are its fully documented numeric packages on which quality-assurance checks have been performed. Ready access to landmark (benchmark) data sets provides researchers, policymakers, and educators with information to increase the certainties (or decrease the uncertainties) with which environmental decisions are proposed. Photograph by Tom Cerniglio and Curtis Boles.
Julia Kelley (left), Melissa Voss, and Marilyn Brown examine the latest issue of the CADDET Newsletter, which covers the work of the Center for the Analysis and Dissemination of Demonstrated Energy Technologies.
These shaded countries currently participate in GREENTIE.
The capabilities of organizations listed in the IEA GREENTIE directory are categorized.
Under the GREENTIE concept, people needing information on suppliers of greenhouse gas technologies are connected to the information sources.
CADDET's 1658 demonstration projects are broken down by end-use sector.
In this comparison of the range of carbon dioxide emissions from various heating systems (in kilograms per megajoule), coal-fired boilers are the largest emitters and diesel engine heat pumps are the smallest.
Eric Hirst is a corporate fellow with ORNL.
The annual cost of owning (capital and labor) and operating (electricity) different kinds of exit signs depends on whether they are illuminated by incandescent lights, compact fluorescent lights, or light-emitting diodes.
The 12 large commercial and industrial customers participating in Florida Power and Light's load-control program experienced a reduction in summer demand for electricity. At 3 p.m., for example, the demand for power was 36 megawatts lower than it was on comparison days when customers were not required to cut demand.
Costs and effects (energy and demand reductions) of electric-utility DSM programs from 1989 through 1993 and early-1994 projections to 1998.
The cost-effectiveness of DSM programs depends on the environmental costs of using a particular fuel for electricity production. The numbers in parentheses beneath each bar are the assumed capacity factors for each type of power plant.
Barriers to improving U.S. energy efficiency
Structural barriers-- conditions beyond the control of the end user
* distortions in electricity pricing
* supply infrastructure limitations
Behavioral barriers--conditions that characterize end users
* efficiency attitudes and awareness
* perceived riskiness of efficiency measures
* obtaining and processing information
* limited access to capitol
* misplaced incentives
* inconvenience, loss of amenities
Larry Hill is head of the Public Utility Studies Group in ORNL's Energy Division, which he joined in 1980. His group works on electric power issues for both domestic and foreign utilities. He is also a visiting fellow for the National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver, Colorado, where he works with state legislators and their staffs on issues and legislation associated with restructuring the U.S. electric power industry. He has a Ph.D. degree in economics from Indiana University.
Integrated resource planning is part of a dynamic process.
Modern, new buildings in Haikou, Hainan, the capital of Hainan Province, China, could be less costly to operate with improved building energy efficiency standards.
One hundred years ago, only trees and maybe a few buildings would have occluded this sunset. Freeway horizons are now a common sight to commuters. The environmental effects of the increase in vehicle travel is the main driver of a strong and diverse research effort at ORNL.
ORNL's contributions to the Clean Car Initiative are highlighted in color.
Reducing the comfort penalty: researchers Fang Chen and Vince Mei in ORNL's Energy Division have invented the liquid-overfeed air conditioner, which may help bring electric hybrid vehicles to the mass market sooner.
Mark Valk, a University of Tennessee senior mechanical engineering student, prepares a 1995 Chrysler Neon for a test in the Large Scale Climate Simulator at ORNL's Buildings Technology Center. This hybrid electric vehicle placed first in its category in the 1995 Hybrid Electric Vehicle Challenge held in June 1995 in Auburn Hills, Michigan.
AlliedSignal Ceramic Components fabricated this turbine rotor from silicon nitride using ORNL's gelcasting technology.
Lightweight composite automotive body structures of the future will have to withstand the effects of low-energy impacts, such as tool drops and roadway gravel kickups, without significant damage. Here, Rick Battiste (left) and Jim Corum subject instrumented composite plaques to pendulum drop impacts (representing tool drops) and projectile impacts from a gas gun (representing roadway kickups).
As a researcher in ORNL's Energy Division, David Greene's world revolves around the plethora of vehicles in the world and the ramifications of policies designed to deal with them.
Considering all of the electronic equipment that intelligent vehicles will require, will there be any trunk space left? Thanks to the microchip and miniature technology, ORNL researchers can conceal electronics in the rear-view mirror.
Frank Barickman uses a voltmeter to check a laser device on a vehicle outfitted to collect data on the behavior of drivers in various situations. The information could aid the development of crash-avoidance technologies.
Richard Carter programs a test vehicle with a laptop computer. ORNL researchers are working with Scientific Atlanta to equip automobiles with data acquisition systems to obtain information on driver behavior.
This aerial view of ORNL shows the Buildings Technology Center--the three buildings with white roofs approximately in the center of the photograph.
In ORNL's Building Envelope Research Center, Phil Childs works with Clayton Homes and Phase Change Technology to develop future insulation panels for mobile homes and other manufactured housing. Here, full-size roof sections are tested. At center, attic insulation and conditioned air ducts are tested to guide industry in building better, more energy-efficient attics. In ORNL's Rotatable Guarded Hot Box at right, Laboratory and industrial researchers work together to test full-size walls to determine their energy performance. Photograph by Tom Cerniglio.
Phil Childs checks the moisture content in roof insulation for Building 2518.
Schematic of an engineered self-drying roofing system envisioned for the future.
Energy savings for utilities by installing NEAT's recommended measures in 80,000 homes could total $70 million.
Mike Gettings (right), principal developer of the National Energy Audit (NEAT) software for analysis of home energy use, calls attention to a feature on one of the computer program's input screens. At the keyboard is Regina Parks, a program secretary at ORNL's Buildings Technology Center. Terry Sharp (in background) concentrated on the software's application by conducting the field trial of NEAT in North Carolina and assisting in training seminars.
The economic benefits to the country are 35 times the cost.
A technician permanently seals the joint between the rooftop-mounted air conditioner and the metal ducts after adjusting the air conditioner's position using materials such as mastic, roof cement, and caulking.
A field technician points out the deteriorated seal between the rooftop-mounted air conditioner and the metal supply-and-return air ducts. This seal was a common leakage site that was repaired in the Arizona field test.
The seal between the air conditioner and the metal supply-and-return ducts often fails on rooftop-mounted units because the sealant material deteriorates after long-term exposure to ambient temperatures and the sun. Also, the air conditioner pulls away from the ducts as it settles on its mounting supports.
Mounting a home's air conditioner on its roof is a common installation practice in Phoenix, Arizona. Field technicians participating in an Arizona field test have found such units to be a frequent source of duct leakage.
ORNL researchers analyzed the United Unions office building (shown here) in Washington,
D. C., before and after energy conservation measures were installed.
Brooks Lunger, a guest user at ORNL's Buildings Technology Center from DuPont, checks instrumentation on test refrigerators.
Ed Vineyard checks instrument readings during a test of chlorine-free refrigerant mixtures and alternatives to the coolant HCFC-22.
Charlie Hardin (now retired) sets up a breadboard refrigeration loop to test heat transfer performance of zeotropic mixture alternatives to HCFC-22.
Refrigerator of the future.
Bill Miller inspects a facility for testing heat exchanger designs for advanced heat pump systems.
Defying Gravity: How the GAX works
A flame from the natural gas burner heats a sealed pot containing a mixture of refrigerant and absorbent solution such as ammonia and water. The refrigerant is boiled out. Because the refrigerant--the ammonia--is in an enclosed chamber, heating also raises its pressure. The high-pressure ammonia vapor is then condensed, extracting heat from the refrigerant. The condensed refrigerant travels to the low-pressure evaporator, where the liquid refrigerant picks heat up from the environment--the cooling effect--and is turned once again into vapor, except now at low pressure and temperature. At the same time, the absorbent (water) from the generator, after the refrigerant is boiled out, travels to another heat exchanger called the absorber, which is at low pressure. The refrigerant vapor from the evaporator is next recombined with the water in the absorber. This recombining of the ammonia refrigerant and the water absorbent involves a chemical reaction that produces heat. This heat is removed from the absorber to increase GAX's thermal efficiency, and the now cool low-pressure mixture is pumped back to the generator, completing the process.
Gerald Mahan
Robert Compton
Herbert Mook
Malcolm Stocks
Linda Cain
Robert V. O'Neill
Don Bible
Rich Leggett
Doug Lowndes
Students participating in the GEM program who worked at ORNL in the summer of 1995 pose with former GEM students (back row, from left) Johney Green and Nathan Wood, who are now researchers in the Engineering Technology Division. The students are (from left) Vicente Reynal, Charles Winfrey, Carolyn Baker, Cicely Brown, and Sharon Rogers.
Eric Wachter (right) and Walt Fisher show the composite damage imager they developed for imaging thermal damage in structural components of aircraft.
P. T. Selvaraj, a postdoctoral scientist with the Bioprocessing Research and Development Center at ORNL, adjusts controls on a bioreactor. The glass vessel contains bacteria in beads suspended in sewage media. Sulfur dioxide, a coal power plant pollutant, is passed through the bioreactor, and the bacteria convert the pollutant to hydrogen sulfide for subsequent conversion to sulfur, a useful product.
This micrograph shows tungsten carbide-tungsten needles produced in the chemistry laboratory of Carlos Bamberger from needle-shaped crystals of sodium tungsten bronze. These needles could be used to make ceramic-metal composites for engines.
A permeable wall of iron filings, serving as an in situ reactive barrier in groundwater, removes chlorine from a contaminated groundwater plume. An iron-palladium preparation was found to be even more effective in achieving total dechlorination.
Liyuan Liang and John Goodlaxson adjust the zero-headspace extractors for studies of the effectiveness of iron and palladium in removing chlorine from organic compounds found in contaminated groundwater.
David Reichle (left), Paul Gailey, and Guy Griffin examine ORNL's Electromagnetic Fields Bioeffects Laboratory.
The diabetes hemoglobin A1c device being developed at ORNL with SpectRx is examined by, from left, Tuan Vo-Dinh of ORNL's Health Sciences Research Division; Jonathan Eppstein, vice president of research and development for SpectRx; Mark Samuels, president of SpectRx; and Dennis Hueber, a postdoctdoral scientist who works with Vo-Dinh.