Global Energy Observatory

The OpenModel project harnesses the growing capabilities of the Internet to address these global challenges. Specifically, how can people collaborate globally to extract knowledge efficiently from large heterogeneous bodies of information and present it in a simple and transparent format? Such an effort would engage the international public, create virtual organizations to reach consensus across boundaries, and motivate collective bottom-up solutions to the many daunting challenges.

We investigate these questions by focusing on a critically important issue facing mankind, namely the growing energy-environment-climate challenge. Our approach is to establish an open platform for geographical and temporally referenced information on, and analysis of, global energy systems, and the energy end-use and associated environmental impacts of individuals. Furthermore, we are developing an automated system for gathering, validating and managing heterogeneous data (volunteered and captured from open sources) and integrating it with analysis and modeling tools. In addition to informing the public about ongoing changes in energy systems and how individuals can reduce their environmental footprint, we engage both experts and the public through a common and transparent data and analysis management system to organically grow the proposed knowledge base. Achieving this engagement allows the investigation of the process of making decisions where the decision makers and those impacted have access to similar data, analysis, and deductive tools.

Our goal is to combine world leading computational science, information management systems, systems analysis and modeling expertise with global public participation in order to understand emergent behavior in energy systems, public perceptions and opinions. This understanding can then be applied to facilitate the transition to environmentally sustainable, economically viable carbon-neutral solutions to the energy challenge.

Internship Program

The first part of the project, executed over the summer of 2008 (May-August) as a collaboration between Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) (PI Rajan Gupta) and the University of New Mexico (UNM) (PI: Professor Chaouki Abdallah, Chair Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and Prof. R. Jordan), consisted of developing a web-based observatory of global power plants (GEOwiki) located here. Specific tasks accomplished by the team of Parthiban Jayabal, Harihar Shankar, Ratheeshprabhu Rajendran and Rajan Gupta include:

• Developed a MySQL database to house information on ten different types of power plants – coal, natural gas, oil and diesel, nuclear, hydro, geothermal, solar PV, solar thermal, wind and waste. The data consist of geo-spatial location, plant characteristics, description of fuel chain, performance and emission figures by year, and references to sources of information. The front-end to the MySQL database was developed using the PHP scripting language.

• Developed web based forms that allow users to view, edit and add information on these ten different types of power plants. This development was done using PHP and HTML languages. The setup allows a user to load data for a chosen power plant into one of these interactive forms so that she/he can view and edit the existing data and add to it. These forms include geo-spatial location of the plant that is viewable and editable using Google maps. There also exist corresponding forms for creating totally new entries (new power plant entries).

• Developed scripts written in PHP that allow users to download data in different formats. The first fully working output format is KML to allow users to view existing data using Google Earth.

• Developed scripts to scrape data available from open credible websites and publications in different formats (Excel, html, KML, pdf) into the database. By the end of August a large fraction of the global power generation capacity (over 50%) has already been collated and will be available for viewing and editing by October 1, 2008.

Future Plans The focus of the work proposed for FY09 will be on both (i) to continue developing the scope of the GEOwiki and (ii) to start adding analysis capability. The goals are:

• To develop and implement a Content Management System (CMS) on top of the database that will allow this system to serve as a Wiki, allow moderators and users to track the history of changes, and to recover from errors and deliberate falsification of data.

• To extend the database to include the next two categories of data – fuels and resources (coal and uranium mines, oil and gas fields, refineries, LNG terminals, wind power density and solar insulation) and transmission infrastructure (pipelines, railway links, ports and terminals, shipping lanes, and electric power grid) that constitute the global energy system.

• To add features that will allow users to view and carry out analyses of this complex dynamical system that include graphing data, evaluating and plotting time-lines, and correlating changes with drivers such as policy, regulations, incentives, and resource constraints. The goal is to build a steadily growing suite of analysis routines that allow users to understand the dynamics of change of these systems, vulnerabilities and opportunities for growth.

• Finally, to continue to create the framework which facilitates a global community of users to not just use the database but to become active contributors to its development in all aspects from data to analysis.

How to Engage

• Explore, contribute, comment on the OpenModel website
• Participate in the LANL Global Energy Summer School. We are actively recruiting mentors Check the summerschool website in the next month for opportunities for students.
• Contact Rajan Gupta (rajan@lanl.gov) or Hans Ziock (ziock@lanl.gov)