NEXT DECADE CRITICAL TO ENERGY FUTURE
By Alan S. Brown

Actions taken through 2020 to demonstrate and deploy key technologies “will largely determine the nation’s energy options for many decades to come,” according to a new report from the National Research Council.

The report, America’s Energy Future: Technology and Transformation, assesses ways to meet rising energy demand and reduce greenhouse emissions through improved energy efficiency and new power sources.

Over the near term, the least expensive way to keep pace with demand and reduce emissions is to improve energy efficiency.

The report discusses theoretical benefits of the broad application of available energy-efficient technologies.

For instance, energy-efficient technologies for buildings range from low-power lights and whole-house designs that take advantage of passive heating and cooling to air conditioning and heating systems that use less energy under partial load conditions. According to the report, fully deploying energy-efficient technologies in buildings alone could save enough power to eliminate the need for new generating plants.

In transportation, higher fuel efficiency could be met by downsizing cars, building more hybrids, and taking advantage of such proven technologies as variable valve timing, cylinder deactivation, direct injection, and turbocharging. Industry’s on-going drive for efficiency and waste reduction could achieve further efficiencies through broader implementation of such proven technologies as combined-heat-and-power systems.

The authors of the report predict that extending available technologies throughout the industrial and transportation sectors could actually reduce projected U.S. energy use by 15 percent in 2020 and by 30 percent in 2030. Greater savings are possible with more aggressive policies and incentives.

Promising options for electrical generation over the next 20 to 30 years include “evolutionary” nuclear power, and coal plants that capture and store carbon emissions. Both are likely to come with higher price tags.

The nation must also invest in its electrical grid to improve reliability and security, accommodate load growth, and handle power from such intermittent sources as wind and solar energy.

In transportation, petroleum will remain indispensable for years to come, though America will find it challenging to maintain today’s 5.1-million-barrel-per-day oil production rate. The report sees only limited opportunities to reduce or replace petroleum before 2020. By 2030 or 2035, however, improvements in vehicle efficiency, alternative liquid fuels (based on cellulosic ethanol, coal, or biomass), and more economical batteries and fuel cells could make an impact. 

The committee believes the United States can achieve substantial reductions in greenhouse emissions, but only if it acts decisively to demonstrate a portfolio of technologies in power generation and transportation. It calls for demonstrations of such high-priority technologies as carbon capture, nuclear power, cellulosic ethanol, and advanced light-duty vehicles. It recommends that long-term research should focus on producing liquid fuels from renewable resources, advanced batteries, fuel cells, large-scale electricity storage, enhanced geothermal power, and advanced solar technologies.

The committee also believes that regulatory action and government incentives will be needed to implement these technologies in a timely manner.     

WATER IS TOP ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN
By Harry Hutchinson

An international public opinion survey on environmental concerns has found that water pollution and shortages of fresh water are the issues considered serious by most people around the world.

The survey was conducted by the research firm Globe-Scan for the organization Circle of Blue. GlobeScan asked 1,000 people in each of 15 countries how serious they consider each of seven issues to be—water pollution, air pollution, climate change, depletion of natural resources, automobile exhaust, loss of animal and plant species, and shortages of fresh water. They were asked to rate each issue as very serious, somewhat serious, not very serious, or not serious at all.

A total of 93 percent put water pollution in the serious category, and it is a very serious problem according to 72 percent of the people polled.

Shortage of fresh water was a close second. A total of 91 percent believe it is serious, including 71 percent of those polled who called it very serious.

Half the survey group in each of seven countries—Canada, China, India, Mexico, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—were asked additional questions specifically about water. One of the patterns to emerge from these interviews is that a majority consider the government among the most responsible for ensuring clean water.

More than three-quarters of those interviewed, 78 percent, said that “solving drinking water problems will require significant help from companies,” indicating an expectation that partnerships may be important to resolving the world’s fresh water sustainability challenges. Those attributing a level of responsibility to individuals ranged from a high of 76 percent in Mexico to 30 percent in China.

“This research shows that across the globe, concerns about water are reaching a critical level of public consciousness,” said J. Carl Ganter, a Circle of Blue co-founder and its director. “People think water is the most important environmental concern, in many cases more pressing than climate change. It’s the axis issue that intersects the world’s greatest challenges, from health, poverty and security to climate, immigration and environment, even financial and commodities markets.”

Circle of Blue is a Michigan-based international network of journalists, scientists, and communicators re-porting on global water issues. It has published a report of the survey and additional materials, which are available on its Web site at www.circleofblue.org/waternews/waterviews. “Waternews” is the name of the group’s chief publication.

The survey was sponsored by Molson Coors Brewing Co.

The rising world concern about water resources has led to a number of ASME initiatives addressing water. In ASME Water Management Technology Vision and Roadmap, published in September of last year, the organization set for itself a goal to become “a key resource in the development and integration of water management technology solutions that enable the sustainable use and reuse of water.”

A report published this past August, ASME Energy Grand Challenge Roadmap, addresses in part the connection between energy and water. “Energy and water resources are inextricably and reciprocally linked;” the authors write. “The production of energy requires large volumes of water while the treatment and distribution of water is equally dependent upon readily available, low-cost energy.”

The authors acknowledge that “Ensuring adequate supplies of clean, affordable, reliable energy and water will be increasingly challenging in the coming decade as continued economic development strains existing water and energy resources.”

As a result, according to the report, ASME has determined that it must increase its “understanding, profile, and contributions regarding the energy-water nexus.”

READING HIDDEN COLOR
By Jean Thilmany

Scientists at Cornell University and at the Winterthur Museum and Country Estate have come up with an X-ray imaging technique that has revealed color information of a painting hidden beneath another painting by American illustrator Newell Convers Wyeth.

Using simple X-ray techniques, other scientists have already shown that Wyeth had covered an earlier fight scene with another painting called “Family Portrait.” But until now, the fine detail and colors in the fight scene have been lost from view, said Jennifer Mass, senior scientist at the Winterthur Museum in Winterthur, Del.

Nobody has seen the fight-scene painting except in black and white reproductions, she said.

Researchers called upon their X-ray technique to identify the original details and colors in a fistfight scene (above) hidden underneath N.C. Wyeth’s “Family Portrait” painting (top).

They hadn’t seen it, that is, until scientists at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source national X-ray facility—or CHESS—developed a new instrument, called a confocal X-ray fluorescence microscope. The instrument reveals minute details in hidden paintings without removing paint samples, said Arthur Woll, senior CHESS research associate. 

Woll and his colleagues teamed with Mass to study “Family Portrait” after the discovery 12 years ago that a second work, the scene of a dramatic struggle, lay underneath it.

The new instrument shoots X-ray beams into a painting and then collects fluorescent X-ray signals given off by the chemicals in the various paint layers. Since certain elements were used to make pigments and each element gives off a certain intensity of X-ray, the researchers can translate the X-ray measurements into color. Scientists then link each signal to specific paint pigments. For instance, cobalt would indicate a blue pigment, while chromium would signal a yellow or green color, Woll said.

In addition to revealing the original image, the method is providing new information on Wyeth’s materials and methods. The same technique may ultimately reveal hidden images in paintings by other famed artists, Mass said.

Wyeth, the father of the painter James Wyeth, was doing what many artists did to save money. They reused canvases and often painted over older paintings to save on materials, or sometimes to let the colors and shapes of a prior composition influence the new one, Mass said. Art historians believe that the originals of several of Wyeth’s most valued illustrations have been lost from view in that way.   

NEW COOL
By Jeffrey Winters

In the summer of last year, the Western Cooling Efficiency Center on the Davis Campus of the University of California issued a challenge: Design a commercially viable air conditioning system that uses 40 percent less energy than standard cooling units.

Should anyone meet this goal, it would be no small accomplishment. After all, cooling commercial buildings accounts for 22 percent of the electrical demand for non-residential buildings. In August, the center announced that the first company to test a unit at the Advanced HVAC Lab at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., had been certified with a passing grade. Those tests showed that the five-ton commercial rooftop unit should be able to air-condition a typical big-box store with less than half the energy needed by conventional cooling units.

Coolerado Corp. of Denver submitted its five-ton H-80 rooftop unit, designed principally for light commercial buildings. One H-80 is able to cool 1,500 to 3,000 square feet of commercial floor area.

The tests at NREL found that the Coolerado H-80 produced an almost 80 percent energy-use savings and over 60 percent peak-demand reduction versus industry standard units.

The company is in the process of taking orders for the H-80, with the first units expected to be delivered by the beginning of next year. A company spokesman said that the unit will cost more than conventional equipment, but energy savings and various rebates and incentives should make up for that expense in as little as two years.

According to the center, most cooling systems available for commercial buildings were originally designed for the warm and humid climates found on the East Coast. The Western Cooling Challenge is an attempt to spur manufacturers to provide cooling solutions specifically designed for the hot and arid or semi-arid conditions prevalent throughout much of the western United States. The hope is that such climate-specific cooling units will be much more energy efficient.

Five other manufacturers have promised to submit equipment for efficiency testing under the program. The results of those tests should be available by the end of 2009.

MICROFLUIDICS PARTNERSHIP
By Harry Hutchinson

The Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology to arrange joint research projects into microfluidics.

Microfluidics is the technology that is used in ink-jet printing and lab-on-a-chip medical devices. It has implications for biomedical research and diagnostics, chemical processing, water monitoring, and the harnessing of alternative energy sources.

The research collaboration is expected to address such areas as microsystems, environmental monitoring, and lab-on-a-chip developments.

According to a statement issued by both insititutions, a specific project will be the development of a microfluidic platform to monitor water for impurities and contaminants. The Swiss Center is expected to lead the microsystem development and the Singapore Institute will focus on polymer microfluidics to handle liquid samples.

They also expect to work together to develop an integrated biochip system for disease detection.   

BRIEFLY NOTED

June Ling, associate executive director of ASME Standards and Certification, has been awarded the Astin-Polk International Standards Medal by the American National Standards Institute. The medal honors distinguished service in promoting trade and understanding among nations through the advancement, development, or administration of international standardization, measurements, or certification. /// Ansys Inc. of Canonsburg, Pa., has made available an Immersed Boundary module for its Ansys Fluent 12.0 software. The module allows users to move easily between a computer-aided design and an analysis program. /// The California Energy Commission has awarded Electric Transportation Engineering Corp., a subsidiary of ECOtality of Scottsdale, Ariz., an estimated $8 million to support the deployment of charge infrastructure and electric vehicles in the San Diego region. Earlier, the company had been awarded nearly $100 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to deploy some 2,500 vehicle charging stations in and around San Diego. /// Babcock Power Inc. of Danvers, Mass., has acquired Gainesville, Ga.-based Welding Technologies Inc., which will become a division of BPI’s Babcock Power Services subsidiary.