Energy and Climate Cluster Telecons

< Back to Energy and Climate Home

4th Thursday Each Month
Time: 3 pm EDT
Dial-In Information:

Phone Number: 1-877-668-4493

Meeting Code: 231 338 97

Chair: Shailendra Kumar shailendra.kumar@ngc.com

March 29, 2012

• Energy/Climate Cluster WhitePaper

DRAFT OF MINUTES

Attendance: Shailendra Kumar (co-chair), Richard Eckman (co-chair), Yasmin Zaerpoor (ESIP Student Fellow), Laurie Allen (USGS), Carol Meyer (ESIP), Robert Bectel (DOE), Ben Wheeler (USGS).

Discussion on White Paper:

• Excellent feedback from everyone that commented on the paper.
• What agencies would be interested?: add to current list - USDA, NOVA, Forest Service, REC (reclamations), EPA.

Discussion Points:

• Rob: Document (page 4) only mentions wind and solar – will have impact on geothermal so we shouldn’t just limit to wind and solar. Expand it (water, thermal, biomass) to increase chances of funding. If you make it more direct, then make it clear in the document that you are starting with one subsector but that you are interested in expanding it if the interest/support exists.
• Laurie: If we expand the scope, it may seem too broad – too general for specific buy-in from different agencies.
• Kumar: The thought was to capture essence of what was needed (wider scope) but then start with a manageable subset. We’ll make it a broader paper, where we’ve listed tools will be examples of tools that we know of to illustrate the existing gaps.
• Kumar: Point of clarification, this document is about needs assessment, not tools assessments.
• Kumar: (page 8-9) Will need to take Rahul’s description (page 10) and insert it on the semantic web description to clarify why we need that technology. We could also add a reference to a tutorial (for semantic web) in the document in case anyone wants to learn more about the technology. May also help to add a brief summary/overview on semantic web in the appendix.
• ESRI tools: It would be helpful to explain why ESRI tools is mentioned in the document. Will ask Christine to elaborate on that some more.
• Rob: Get cross-cutting analysis group engaged – may want to do another phone call between now and July to get them engaged.
• ESIP Summer Meeting: July 17-20 in Madison, Wisconsin.
• Kumar: Rough agenda for the summer meeting (July 17-20) Will have a read-out from the agencies on what their thoughts are on the white process and then plan out strategy for how ESIP can play a role. Ultimately, we want to draft a plan for how we can move forward on this – through agency support and ESIP membership involvement.

Action Points:

• Kumar: Will bring introduction to the start to explain the needs and what the gaps are.
• Rob: Made edits to the DOE document. Will send them to Kumar after the call. Will send more edits later after he meets with his cross-cutting analysis group counterpart.
• Kumar: Will have a clean draft by April call – Thursday, April 26. Will release a draft a week from tomorrow with the changes discussed today. Will look for comments from everyone within the next 10 days.
• Kumar: Will send out a calendar invite for the ‘’April 26th ESIP call at 3:00 EST’’.

February 23, 2012

Attendance: Shailendra Kumar (co-chair), Richard Eckman (co-chair), Yasmin Zaerpoor (ESIP Student Fellow), Laurie Allen (USGS), Carol Meyer (ESIP), Erin Robinson (ESIP), Brand Neimann (Semantic Community Cluster), Stefan Falke (NGC)

Quick overview of White Paper:

• Received comments from several people. Document has been updated and uploaded to the ESIP website. Kept track changes so that you can see changes from the first draft. Goal is to send the white paper out to agencies by mid April.

Discussion Points:

• Kumar: Would appreciate any ESIP support that might better enable the group to at least start to define the requirements. Current paper describes the need for a tool but we should also start to describe the requirements for a tool of this kind: 1) wiki page getting community feedback about relevant requirements, 2) ESIP volunteer to start building out requirements of this tool.
• Brand: Recently worked with the Open Energy information and did analysis of the data. Write-up of work found here: http://semanticommunity.info/AOL_Government/Open_Energy_Information_%28OpenEI%29_Innovations.
• Stefan: We should think about how the group can make use of the ESIP wiki to capture some of the information that has been compiled in the document in a different form.
• Erin: You could submit proposal to Products and Services testbed projects and identify students (with the technical expertise) that are interested in doing this work. That may be faster if you’re looking for technical support. This may also be the best way to get agency sponsorship if you have a testbed prototype that agencies can then play with.
• Kumar: Rahul suggested creating a prototype that uses semantic based aggregation approach (?). He’s looking for additional funding to do more serious work on it going forward.

Action Points:

• Kumar: Will integrate examples and a ‘Next Steps and Future Plans’ section into the paper. Will send out an updated draft of the white paper once everyone has responded. Once finalized, the paper will be sent out officially to different agencies (DOE, USGS, EPA, NOAA, Fish and Wildlife, Park Service).
• Brand: Suggested that integrating examples (using data from the target agencies) into the white paper may be much more effective in gaining support from the different agencies. Offered his examples to use in the white paper. Offered to write examples based on any other data. Also mentioned competition by NSF to use their data.
• Laurie: Will try to touch base to see who might support this project. Can also help draft a list of agencies to send the paper/prototype to.
• Kumar will look into asking committees to sponsor the Energy and Climate Change cluster for financial support. Will also follow-up with Products and Services Testbed Services and Rahul to determine what’s needed to build a prototype of the tool.

October 13, 2011

Recorded Call
Attendance: Shailendra Kumar (co-chair), Richard Eckman (co-chair), Sky Bristol (USGS), Erin Robinson (ESIP), Alison LaBonte (OSTP), Rahul Ramachandran (UAH), Natalie Sexton ?? (USGS), Robert Bectel(DOE)

• Alison gave a recap of the wiki/drupal proposal - Idea behind it was to create a single tool that could be used by renewable energy developers to find sites with lowest environmental impact. Should be an inventory of decision support tools that provide context for users to make decisions about which tool is best for which application. The inventory would support users looking to build cases for permits and for the government to evaluate permits. Wind and Wildlife is a good start, but the architecture should be generic for reuse for other applications. This has the potential to be an exemplar of an application built on top of Data.gov
• Rob - emphasized the importance that the application Alison described not be a phonebook, but provide value-add. Also need to find ways to link to OpenEI.org and other projects similar in scope.
• Sky suggested clarifying the problem more. Data.gov is a metadata repository not a data repository. Emphasized the need for contextualization of tools like Alison and Rob. The most unique contribution this project will have is that it will create an opinion network- opinions from experts and other users to help refine the tool.
• Kumar- the opinion network is part of it but the other part is the specificity. We should start with a specific tool, capture the value that's added and expand scope of tools from there.

• Panel discussion on User/Agency needs ideas
  • ESRI Geoportal
  • Debbie Brodt-Giles (NREL)- openei.org
  • Lee Alison/Steve Richard - NDDS effort
  • Kevin Gallagher, USGS
  • Madeleine West, Western Governor's Association
  • Lori Allen, USGS
  • Sean Finn, Landscape Conservation Cooperative, USGS
  • Patrick Gilman - DOE, Wind Tech

• Rahul thought simple first step at implementation would be a structured opinion collector using a collaborative platform

• Next steps would be to create a plan and then individuals will write proposals for pieces of the effort.

August 25, 2011

Attendance: Shailendra Kumar (co-chair), Richard Eckman (co-chair), Brian We, Carol Meyer (ESIP), Yasmin Zaerpoor (ESIP Student Fellow), Alison LaBonte (OSTP)

News:

• NSF Earth Cube Workshop has dates set (Nov 1-4, Washington DC) but October/November time frame will be too soon for our workshop. Let’s hold the Energy-Climate workshop during the ESIP Winter Conference.
• ESIP Winter Conference meeting is Jan 4-6. Workshop targets are afternoons of Jan. 4 and 5. Two panels: government panel and developers’ panel. Hoping to also do a working session so that a concrete plan comes out of the workshop.

Meeting Discussion:

• Alison: Will be easier to get feedback from government agencies if the project is broadened from the wind/energy guideline tools since the Fish and Wildlife/ Wind Power Guidelines won’t be out until early next year. Anyone working on the guidelines will be wrapped up in that until early next year and it may be difficult to get them involved until after the guidelines are out. American Wind & Wildlife Institute will have tools up in mid-January. This project may also be overlapping efforts more with USGS and Core Sights Systems efforts and the EPA.
• Kumar: We will need some sort of funding from external organizations to support this effort. Getting different agencies’ feedback will help secure their interest in the project. Individuals will be writing proposals and they will need to be funded directly by the agencies but the proposals can be coordinated through ESIP.

Action Items:

• Kumar will speak to Stefan Falke about the cost (based on their experience with Air Quality work).
• Need to identify who we want at the January meeting as part of the panel. Should target the following agencies to have on the panel: USGS, DOE, Bureau of Land Management, Western Governors’ Association, Fish and Wildlife (more on the user needs).
• Sky Bristol (USGS) expressed interest in this project- should follow up with Sky.
• Contact Rahul Ramachandran, Peter Fox and Stefan Falke to provide insight on how to shape the developers’ session.
• Contact Madelene West (Western Governors’ Association) and Abby Arnold (Fish and Wildlife)- doing a joint workshop on GIS decision tools and improving the tools that are out there.
• Richard will check within the NASA Earth Sciences Division to see where there might be interest for this type of project.
• Carol will also talk to people at NOAA and NCDC to see what other individuals may be interested in this project.

July 28, 2011

Attendance: Shailendra Kumar (co-chair), Dr. Richard Eckman (co-chair), Carol Meyer (ESIP), Yasmin Zaerpoor (ESIP Student Fellow), Tom, Alison LaBonte (OSTP), Betsy Weatherhead (NASA), Rahul Ramachandran (Univ of Alabama) News:

• Review of seminars during the Summer session. How can we move forward on the wind energy siting tool catalogue project?

Meeting Discussion

• Kumar: Gvt agencies, developers, and research community are interested in this type of tool catalogue. ESIP could facilitate a partnership in tool development, applications, etc.
• Alison: My role is to state some of the challenges the Federal agency faces when it’s reviewing an application for a wind energy project, methods needed to determine risk assessments of a project. There are a number of tools that can be used but they don’t have the transparency in terms of the model, the data that goes behind the tool, etc. I look forward to ESIP’s collaborative kick in bringing in universities. My role is to see what the focus of this group becomes and keep that information communicated to agencies I work with so that they can provide contribution to the effort. Agencies that are interested in this project or doing similar types of initiatives: Fish and Wildlife Service, USGS, DoE, NREL, Bureau of Land Management.
• Kumar: ESIP can’t take this on by itself- it will need to be funded by other agencies. It can play a coordination role but the bulk of the funding has to come from various agencies. I spoke with Stefan (from Air Quality) and he told me that individuals get funding from different agencies but the projects are coordinated through ESIP. We can get individuals and groups to request funding across different agencies- we can have a coordinated approach where we determine which agencies we can submit proposals to.
• Kumar: Would help to get people to provide input on how this project might link to current programs in different agencies.
• Rahul: Depending on how complicated you want this tool, it will require customization of Drupal. It would be nice to have some funding (~$5-10,000) to build the basic infrastructure. There is some infrastructure that we’re planning to build for ESIP; we may be able to roll this project into that.
• Alison: What are the options for hosting the catalogue?
• Rahul: ESIP uses commercial hosting; so we would put this tool on ESIP server to make sure it’s institutionally controlled.

Upcoming workshop

• Workshop (tentatively in Nov) – bring developers, researchers and gvt agencies together to identify what the needs are and describe the approach we would take (as a group participating within ESIP) to address this problem and could be used to then create individual proposals.
• Trying to time it to be the same time as the NSF Earth Cube workshop in late Oct/early Nov so that the people planning to go to the NSF workshop could also attend the workshop for this tool if they’re interested. Will try to hold it in DC so that it’s easier for interested people from gvt agencies to attend. May want to invite the Western Governors’ Association.
• There are 4-5 groups that have expressed at least initial interest in this project. So this could be the core group that finds the funding.
• Alison: It would help to bring audiences together: 1) tool developers- universities, agencies, etc; 2) field officers that make determinations based on the tools that provide these risk evaluations; 3) the wind power developers. This type of tool is adaptable to any type of environmental tool that would inform siting so we can expand the scope of stakeholders.
• If we get more traction from the Western Governors’ Association, we could consider holding the meeting on the west coast. Otherwise it will more likely be in DC.

Action Items:

• Richard is planning to talk to people at NASA to see what programs might be appropriate to submit proposals for this project and to see if anyone will be interested in the upcoming workshop.
• Alison will send Kumar a couple contacts of people from Western Governors’ Association that would be interested in this tool and will check with USDA and USGS to see if they’ll be interested in this workshop.
• Kumar will contact Debbie (Brodt-Giles, NREL) to see if anyone at NREL is also interested.
• Kumar will talk to Scott (Crowder, NREL) to see who, of the climate modelers, might be interested.

May 26, 2011

Attendance: Kumar, Erin Robinson (ESIP Staff), Yasmin Zaerpoor (ESIP Fellow), Allison Labonte (from Office of S&T Policy), Carol Meyer (ESIP Staff)

News:

• Summer Conference (July 12-15, 2011) Related: Only one break-out session scheduled on morning of July 13. Confirmation from 5 speakers, still waiting for a 6th.
• Richard Eckman has agreed to serve in the co-chair role.

Meeting Discussion:

• Erin hasn’t heard back from Carl Benedict. Back up would be to talk about a potential project (picking a topic that is relevant to the current membership- data, data quality, and how ESIP membership can benefit). Idea is to develop a white paper that includes all the information collected so far and areas where users need help and can be used as a guide for the next set of meetings. Identify needs, requirements, issues users are facing and how to provide the information (gap analysis).
• Allison: Nature Conservancy has all types of data on habitats and species. Lawrence Martin (?) from Dept of Energy is trying to make this available in one place for the renewable energy community so that they can choose places for renewable energy that will have the least impact on these species. How do we overlay information that is impt to sitings/renewable energy projects with low impact?
• Kumar: Overlaying information for where the wind farms are and energy sources are is a large undertaking. NREL has the best available data up to date.
• Allison will try to find out who the key people from AWWI (American Wind Wildlife Institute) are to see if they could come together for a topic. Could potentially be the 6th speaker. Allison will send Erin/Kumar an abstract and title for a possible talk within the next week. (Half hour slot) Will be more or less a discussion but Allison will provide the initial guidance for that.
• Kumar will have abstracts ready before the next meeting.

March 24, 2011

Attendance: Scott Crowder, Chris? , Kumar, Erin

Summer Meeting - July 12-15, 2011

what data is out there and where are they?

• NREL has OpenEI
• Internal initiative data.nrel.gov - registry of all data streams
• Scott will follow-up with efforts: Ryan McKeil or Debby B. Giles

Wind power - (Scott)

• In negotiations with wind people - have wind data, resource and performance information

Follow-up with Karl (Erin/Kumar)

• gov't state/local users
• Professor

Generate a white paper that addresses the issues and id's different data sources; provide gap analysis - Funding

• Los Alamos - follow-up/Chris Lendhardt
• Users - local in N.M.?
• Military - Army Science Board (Scott?)/ Navy contact

Housekeeping:

• Meeting files from last meeting (Kumar)
• Climate and Energy - fix on the website (Erin)

February 24, 2011

Energy Cluster Telecon - February , 2011

Attendance - Rob Raskin, Stefan Falke, Shailendra Kumar, Erin Robinson

Stefan/Kumar - Joint session Recap:

1. background on AQ Work Group - cluster -> Work group.
2. Common project could tie groups together

EPA interested in using cluster to broaden connections to other orgs.

Project that works with EPA/NOAA

• Terry to introduce group to new initiative

DOE - send list (Alison)
Kumar follow-up with DOE

Will have session at summer meeting.

• GEOSS session remote participation
• Get specifications what range of energy quality needs are.
• Need for climatelogical data for solar/wind that may come from members.
  
• NREL - What data do they have? How can we take initiative
  

Users/Participants:

• State of New Mexico?
• Erin - Karl contacts with the State - User needs for energy/climate in NM
• Organizations working with end users already - (AQ example was AirNow) - KDF
• Military - white sands? (Karl)
• University programs - User groups that they work with that may be?

Los Alamos

• Kumar will follow-up
• Sante Fe Institute: http://www.santafe.edu/search/results/?query=energy
  • Brings a lot of summer people and who may be able to tap?
  • Rob will follow-up
• GEOSS AIP - Kumar intro with Lionel
• Lawrence Livermore Lab - Climate/Energy
  

September 23, 2010

Energy Cluster Telecon – September 23, 2010

Present:

• Shailendra Kumar
• Brian Rogan

Energy Cluster contribution to the ESIP 2010 Winter Meeting in Washington D.C

Speaker ideas

It’s important to get a big name. Admiral Titley from the naval task force would be a good speaker on task force energy and how they use energy and their needs. This also includes climate change, energy usage, understanding demand, etc.

It is also worth getting someone from utilities i.e. Duke Energy, Florida Power, etc. There are some good names from this area. Jim Rodgers for example would be a good speaker.

The Visioneers group is looking to solidify the theme based on Making Data Matter. While it would have a subtheme of evaluation, metrics, data measurement, etc., it would be important to get the needs of the cluster addressed.

QDR Project-Amanda Dory was unable to attend the last meeting and this meeting might be more amenable to her schedule. What needs to happen for military bases for the QDR to be implemented?

New York city is another possibility. The city did an intensive study of climate change on the city and they have agreed that the results of the study are that they need to step up and do something immediately. Columbia University was deeply involved in this study. The group will push for someone from the mayor’s office to come speak as part of a session.

William Goran, the director of sustainability at the Army Corps of Engineers. Their charge is energy supply and demand. His area is carbon footprint. EERE-Energy Efficiency Renewable Energy, is a DOE organization that does a lot of things.

Two potential people at the organization are Kathy Zoie, Assistant Secretary for Energy and Kathleen Hogan .

Poster Session

Is it possible to have “categories”?

Action items

• Kumar will call into the next visioneers telecon on October 4th.
• Kumar will look into soliciting someone from EERE
• Kumar will work on soliciting possible submissions for posters that would reflect the energy theme.

Update on current cluster activities

It is important to define the objectives for the cluster. Tight succinct rules for the cluster; what do we want to achieve? The Air Quality Group is the model for what the Energy Cluster would like to achieve. They seem to capture the essence of what we are trying to do. The group should draft something along the same lines.

Collaborative project

There was a conversation in the last telecon with Melinda about a collaborative project. She can discuss this at the next meeting and talk about areas of action that the federation can be part of and look at funding opportunities. There has been significant funding through NOAA but by bringing it to ESIP. It gives another way for NOAA to interface with End Users. It is a high visibility project. It would be worth working on user requirements. That way there can be multiple users so that the information can be fed to NOAA. Brian discussed the possibility of the cluster getting some funds. While Clusters are not budget eligible if a proposal is created ahead of time, it might be considered by the finance committee. However, it would need to be discussed with Carol.

Action Item

• Kumar will work with Carol to determine the ability of getting funding for the project.

Aug 26, 2010

Agenda

1. Recap of the Summer 2010 ESIP Meeting
2. Plans for the Winter 2011 ESIP meeting

April 22, 2010

Agenda

1. Overview and origins of the objectives for the Energy Cluster (Wilson, 10 min)
2. Open discussion of the needs and stakeholders (including IT/Data management)
3. Plans for the Summer 2010 ESIP meeting Draft meeting agenda
4. What happens after the Summer 2010 ESIP Meeting?

Telecon Notes

Notes for the telecon are being captured here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AQduKLUfYU-uZGRndnN4MzhfMmd0M3JyZ2Nr&hl=en

This link is available for global edit, so you can contribute during the conference.

Telecon Action Items

• Bruce: Confirm Tom Boden or other from CDIAC to talk about emissions data
• Bruce: Confirm Arjun Shankar or other to talk about VERDE for energy planning.