EETD Communications

The revised and updated 2d edition of Jon Koomey’s book Turning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving will be released on 28 April 2008 by Analytics Press http://www.analyticspress.com/. It’s now in both paperback and hard cover.

The 2d edition includes a new chapter on data sharing web sites, an epilogue summarizing Dr. Koomey’s experience debunking an urban legend, an expanded further reading section, numerous updates and improvements throughout, and a new foreword from John P. Holdren, Past President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, who writes: ““There is nothing else like this book out there. Nobody who deals with problems where numbers matter — and everybody in today’s world really needs to — should be without it.”

Scientific team leaders and managers can just hand the book to their new recruits and say “This book describes my expectations for the quality, rigor, and transparency of your analytical work,” saving them hours of explanations and avoiding the time wasted by bad graphs, poorly documented tables, and sloppy data analysis.

Students can use the book to build and hone their analytical skills–their future bosses, customers, and readers will thank them for it. Journalists can use the book to understand the scientific process and how it interacts (for better and for worse) with the mainstream media.

And professors and supervisors can use the book (as colleagues at UC Berkeley, Stanford, Georgetown, Rochester Institute of Technology, Global Business Network, Dupont, Detroit Edison, and other institutions have done) as a training manual to teach the tricks of the trade that aren’t often covered in typical undergraduate and graduate classes.

Some of the book’s chapters can be downloaded in PDF format, as described below. Feel free to distribute these URLs to others as you see fit (the files are protected under a Creative Commons license that allows copying but not modification or commercial use).

The front matter includes the table of contents, the foreword, and the preface (which contains an annotated chapter list):
http://www.analyticspress.com/keydata/FrontmatterTNIK2ded.pdf

Chapter 4 describes the importance of peer review to the scientific process:
http://www.analyticspress.com/keydata/ch4TNIK2ded.pdf

Chapter 11 defines “critical thinking” and describes how that process can improve your analytical work:
http://www.analyticspress.com/keydata/ch11TNIK2ded.pdf

Chapter 28 describes the uses and limitations of models, both simple and complex:
http://www.analyticspress.com/keydata/ch28TNIK2ded.pdf

You can send comments or questions to Dr. Koomey at jgkoomey@stanford.edu or http://www.koomey.com. If you have suggestions for people or institutions who should hear about the book, please let him know.

Renewable electricity is being supported by a growing number of states through the creation of renewables portfolio standards (RPS). A report released by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) provides a comprehensive overview of the early experiences with these state-level RPS policies.

Read the rest of this article here:
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/EETD-RPS.html

Download the EETD report here:
http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/ems/re-pubs.html

Marc Fischer, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, is a participant in the Vulcan Project, which is working to quantify North American fossil fuel carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions at a much finer scale than anything that has been done so far. The maps and system, called Vulcan, show CO2 emissions at more than 100 times more detail than previously available.

Project scientists have produced a video simulation of North American fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions, which you can view on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJpj8UUMTaI

Th Vulcan project is on the web here:
http://www.purdue.edu/eas/carbon/vulcan/index.php

Bruce Nordman, a researcher in EETD’s energy-efficient digital networks project, and research collaborator Ken Christenson of the University of South Florida have a column in the March issue of Communications News Magazine about saving energy in Ethernet devices.

http://www.comnews.com/features/2008_march/0308_up_to_speed.aspx

Report available:

International Experience with Key Program Elements of Industrial Energy Efficiency or Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction
Target-Setting Programs
Author: Price, Lynn; Galitsky, Christina; Kramer, Klaas Jan
Report Date: 02/02/2008
Report Number: LBNL-63807

http://www-library.lbl.gov/docs/LBNL/638/07/PDF/LBNL-63807.pdf

Berkeley Lab’s Science at the Theatre Lecture Series

Mary Ann Piette
Research Director, Demand Response Research Center
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Berkeley, California

will speak at Berkeley Repertory Theater’s Roda Theater on

“Saving Power at Peak Hours”

Monday March 10, 5:30 pm
Berkeley Repertory Theater
2015 Addison St., Berkeley, California

California needs new, responsive demand-side energy technologies, to ensure that periods of tight electricity supply on the grid don’t turn into power outages. Led by Berkeley Lab’s Mary Ann Piette, the California Energy Commission (through its Public Interest Energy Research Program) has established a Demand Response Research Center that addresses two motivations for adopting demand responsiveness: reducing average electricity prices, and preventing future electricity crises.

The research seeks to understand factors that influence “what works” in Demand Response. Piette’s team is investigating the two types of demand response – load response and price response – that may influence and reduce the use of peak electric power through automated controls, peak pricing, advanced communications, and other strategies. Would you be willing to consider one or some of these? Please join us to learn more about these developments. No reservations or tickets are required.

Demand Response Research Center:
http://drrc.lbl.gov

Robert Sawyer, Class of 1935 Professor of Energy Emeritus of Cal’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and scientist in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He was cited “for pioneering work in reducing energy consumption and improving the environment, and for contributions to our understanding of air pollution.”

Sawyer’s current research interests include: air pollutant formation and control, motor vehicle emissions, energy and environment, regulatory policy. In 2006-2007, he served as Chair of the California Air Resources Board, overseeing California’s air quality and global warming programs.

For more information about his work, go here:
http://www.me.berkeley.edu/faculty/sawyer/index.html

A team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has found evidence that the prevalence of building-related symptoms (BRS) increases with increasing outdoor concentrations of the pollutant ozone. They have also discovered that the type of air filter that some buildings use in their ventilation systems may also play a role in the prevalence of BRS.

Read the press release here:
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/EETD-BRS.html

Report Number: LBNL-56380 (2007)

Title: 2007 Status Report: Savings Estimates for the ENERGY STAR(R)
VoluntaryLabeling Program

Author: Sanchez, Marla; Webber, Carrie A.; Brown, Richard E.; Homan,
Gregory K.
Report Date: 03/23/2007
Division: Environmental Energy Technologies Division

PDF:
http://www-library.lbl.gov/docs/LBNL/563/80/PDF/LBNL-56380_2007.pdf - (Full text (Size 302K))
Subject(s):
Energy conservation, consumption, and utilization (32)

Report Number: LBNL-61527

Title: Using EnergyPlus for California Title-24 compliance
calculations

Author: Huang, Joe; Bourassa, Norman; Buhl, Fred; Erdem, Ender;
Hitchcock, Rob
Report Date: 08/26/2006
Division: Environmental Energy Technologies Division
Conference: SimBuild 2006, Cambridge, MA, August 2-4, 2006
PDF:
http://www-library.lbl.gov/docs/LBNL/615/27/PDF/LBNL-61527.pdf - (Full text (Size 106K))
Subject(s):
Energy conservation, consumption, and utilization (32)

Report Number: LBNL-61643

Title: Designing PV Incentive Programs to Promote System
Performance: A Review of Current Practice

Author: Barbose, Galen; Wiser, Ryan; Bolinger, Mark
Report Date: 11/12/2006
Division: Environmental Energy Technologies Division

PDF:
http://www-library.lbl.gov/docs/LBNL/616/43/PDF/LBNL-61643.pdf - (Full text (Size 820K))
Subject(s):
Energy planning, policy and economy (29)
Solar energy (14)

Report Number: LBNL-63465

Title: Assessing the benefits of design for recycling for plastics
in electronics: A case study of computer enclosures

Author: Masanet, Eric; Horvath, Arpad
Report Date: 12/31/2007
Division: Environmental Energy Technologies Division
Journal: Materials & Design, v.28, no.6, pp.1801-1811, 2007
PDF:
http://www-library.lbl.gov/docs/LBNL/634/65/PDF/LBNL-63465_Preprint.pdf - (Full text PREPRINT (PDF Size 727K))
Subject(s):
Energy conservation, consumption, and utilization (32)
Energy planning, policy and economy (29)

Report Number: LBNL-61800
Title: Achieving China’s Target for Energy Intensity Reduction in
2010: A exploration of recent trends and possible future scenarios
Author: Lin, Jiang; Zhou, Nan; Levine, Mark D.; Fridley, David
Report Date: 12/20/2006
Division: Environmental Energy Technologies Division

PDF:
http://www-library.lbl.gov/docs/LBNL/618/00/PDF/LBNL-61800.pdf - (Full text (Size 688K))
Subject(s):
Energy conservation, consumption, and utilization (32)
Energy planning, policy and economy (29)

In recent years battery failures in laptops and cell phones — many overheating, some bursting into flame — have drawn attention to one of the biggest problems posed by lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries: overcharging can lead to battery failure and chemical leakages from the battery pack, and sometimes fire and personal injury.

“Electrolyte material in these batteries is highly energetic,” says EETD’s Guoying Chen. “It consists of lithium salts dissolved in organic solvents, and it’s flammable. Often, overcharging these batteries is what causes the problem. As the battery heats up it swells, and it can burst into flame.”

Read more here:
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/sabl/2007/Oct/batteries.html

Employees of The New York Times Company (The Times) began occupying their new headquarters on the west side of Manhattan in mid-2007. Three years before this milestone, The Times’s facility team had approached building scientists at Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD), looking for help. They were searching for reliable and affordable technologies, not yet available in the marketplace, to regulate daylight in the new building…

Read the rest here:
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/sabl/2007/Oct/nytimes.html

A press release about the role of Berkeley Lab scientists who contribute to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the organization that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.

Berkeley Lab Scientists Contribute to Climate Change Studies that win the Nobel Peace Prize

“…William Collins and Inez Fung of the Earth Sciences Division (ESD), and Mark Levine, Surabi Menon, Evan Mills, Lynn Price, Jayant Sathaye, and Ernst Worrell of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD) are among current members of Berkeley Lab who were leading authors of this year’s IPCC working group reports.

Collins and Fung, who are also professors in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at the University of California at Berkeley, were among the authors of the report from IPCC Working Group I, “The Physical Science Basis of Climate Change,” for the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) in 2007. Surabi Menon, a member of the Atmospheric Sciences Department in EETD, was also an author of this report. All three authors participate in Berkeley Lab’s new Climate Science Department, based in ESD and headed by Collins, which is developing a powerful Integrated Earth System Model to deliver detailed climate predictions on the regional scale more than 20 years out, and global models that can forecast worldwide changes to the end of the century.

Levine, Price, Sathaye, and Worrell were among the authors of the AR4 report from Working Group III, “Mitigation of Climate Change.” Mills was an author of AR4’s Working Group II report, “Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability.” Levine, former director of EETD, has long studied problems of climate change and global warming with particular attention to energy use in China. He and Price, Sathaye, Worrell, and Mills are members of EETD’s Energy Analysis Department, which among its other research projects develops models of energy use, assesses technological applications, and develops and evaluates policies and programs to improve energy management.

In addition to those named above, other current Berkeley Lab scientists who have contributed to the 2007 reports, or have been authors of the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report issued in 2001 or other past reports, include Norm Miller, Curt Oldenburg, and Karsten Pruess of ESD, and Phil Haves, Maithili Iyer, and Stephane de la Rue du Can of EETD…”

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/Nobel-Peace-Prize-2007.html

Report Number: LBNL-52911
Title: Sharing the burden of climate change stabilization: An energy
sector perspective
Author: Wagner, Fabian; Sathaye, Jayant
Report Date: 05/01/2006
Division: Environmental Energy Technologies Division
FORMAL REPORT

PDF:
http://www-library.lbl.gov/docs/LBNL/529/11/PDF/LBNL-52911.pdf - (Full text (Size 763K))

Subject(s):
Energy conservation, consumption, and utilization (32)

Report Number: LBNL-52790
Title: The Science of Climate Change
Author: Makundi, Willy R.
Report Date: 09/20/2002
Division: Environmental Energy Technologies Division
Conference: Central American Regional Capacity-Building Workshop on
Climate Change, Turialba, Costa Rica, 09/16-20/2002

PDF:
http://www-library.lbl.gov/docs/LBNL/527/90/PDF/LBNL-52790_Preprint.pdf - (Full text PREPRINT (PDF Size 3M))

Subject(s):
Energy planning, policy and economy (29)

Report Number: LBNL-61472

Title: Partnerships for Clean Development and Climate: Business and
Technology Cooperation Benefits
Author: Sathaye, Jayant A.; Price, Lynn; Kumar, Satish; de la Rue du
Can, Stephane; Warfield, Corina; Padmanabhan, S.
Report Date: 08/22/2006
Division: Environmental Energy Technologies Division
Conference: Business & Technology Cooperation Opportunities for
Industry, New Delhi, India, 08/26/2006
PDF:
http://www-library.lbl.gov/docs/LBNL/614/72/PDF/LBNL-61472.pdf - (Full text (Size 597K))
Subject(s):
Energy conservation, consumption, and utilization (32)
Energy planning, policy and economy (29)

For those of you who will be in the Washington D.C. area on November 11, here’s a chance to visit an exposition of energy efficiency. Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division will have a booth there, as will other research institutions, companies, and government agencies. Here’s what the organizer, the Alliance to Save Energy, has to say about it:

Alliance to Save Energy’s EE Global Public Day – an “Energy-Efficiency World’s Fair”

Have fun while learning how to save money and the environment!

The Alliance to Save Energy is a coalition of prominent business, government, environmental, and consumer leaders who promote the efficient and clean use of energy worldwide to benefit consumers, the environment, economy, and national security.

Join us on Sunday, November 11th, from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm at the Washington, DC Convention Center (801 Mount Vernon Pl, NW) to learn how to save money and the environment through energy-efficiency. EE Global Public Day will be a fun family event with entertainment from the Globe 94.7, exciting raffle drawings for energy-saving products, the chance to meet the Maytag Repair Man and see an exciting Energy Hog Show providing kid-friendly tips for saving energy! The event also will serve as a “how-to guide on energy-efficiency” with experts on hand to analyze home energy bills and educational seminars addressing the following topics:
· How to lower your energy bills
· Global Warming 101
· State-of-the-art energy-efficient technologies for the home
· What to look for when buying a new vs. old home
· Hybrid vehicles and efficient driving

Over 60 confirmed exhibitors will be displaying the latest energy-efficiency technologies including state-of-the art home appliances, LED holiday lights and vehicles that get more than 100 miles-per-gallon! The Alliance to Save Energy will open the Exhibition floor to the general public for an admission price of $10 per person (children under 12 are admitted free).

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Maria Ellingson or Mindy Berman
(303) 333-4570 310-915-5947
mellingson@ase.org mberman@ase.org