In this video interview, Dona Crawford, Associate Director of Computation at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, presents the basics of partnering with a national laboratory.

Crawford explains that a Sector Specialist will be the first point of contact. They can answer questions related to five energy sectors and will begin to craft a plan of action for a specific business challenge. The private sector team will then work with computer scientists, mathematicians, and experts in algorithms to design the appropriate HPC strategy.

Some companies worry about the cost, but Crawford breaks down how affordable it can be. She explains that LLNL’s Vulcan system will be available for private sector use at a full cost recovery rate of one half cent per CPU hour, which is equivalent to $3,600 per teraFLOP year. Impressively, this rate covers computer access, infrastructure, storage, vizualization, networking and access to experts.

If your company is interested in HPC and you want to learn more, CLICK HERE to connect with a Sector Specialist.

• Events: “To connect the computing resources at national laboratories, the Lawrence Livermore and the Howard Baker Forum have been hosting events around the country to showcase the promise of HPC.”

• HPC for Energy website: “The HPC for Energy site is a repository of stories about the successful application of HPC to energy challenges. It’s also a place where industry users can engage directly with national laboratory Sector Specialists.”

• hpc4energy Incubator: “This pilot allows six companies to identify key problems that will very quickly–through the use of HPC–make progress on key issues relevant to energy in their companies.”

To clarify the value of HPC, Crawford cites the example of LLNL’s collaboration with Navistar, which saved years in testing, generated a 25% improvement in fuel efficiency, and saved billions of dollars in fuel costs.

We encourage you to “Engage an Expert” and keep an eye out for upcoming events.

We intend this HPC for Energy website to be a resource for every size business —  from the entrepreneurial small business to a Fortune 100 corporation. The site will showcase the computing capabilities resident at our national laboratories and chronicle ongoing partnerships between national laboratories and the private sector in energy technology. In addition, the site lays out a national roadmap for advancing energy technologies through a series of events, conferences and symposia around the country focusing on energy technology and the role high performance computing can play in making our energy future cleaner and more efficient. We will follow the activities of energy sector specialists from our national laboratories as they travel around the country engaging public and private-sector experts in the pursuit of advanced energy technology through high-performance computing.

From oil, natural gas and coal to nuclear, wind and solar, we are a nation of rich and diverse energy resources. High-performance computing modeling and simulation can help us maximize those resources in an environmentally responsible manner and make the United States more competitive in the 21st-century economy.

About the Author:

Tomás Díaz de la Rubia is the Deputy Director for Science and Technology at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where he is responsible for the continued long-term health of science, technology, and engineering at the lab. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles focused on the application of high-performance computing to materials properties in extreme environments. Dr. Díaz de la Rubia was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2002 and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007.

For anybody that follows energy, North Dakota is known for its vast resources in oil, gas, and wind. What may not be quite as obvious is the role that supercomputing plays in offering these resources to the marketplace.

The Bakken Formation: Strengthening Domestic Oil
A key component of North Dakota’s energy industry is the Bakken Formation, a geologic feature estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey to hold more than 3 billion barrels of potentially recoverable oil. While the oil in the Bakken is “tight” compared to conventional petroleum resources, it can be produced using alternative techniques — all of which depend on the physical and chemical nature of the underlying rock. The structure of the Bakken is not only compelling for petroleum engineers and geologists, but also places a premium on computational modeling and simulation. Lynn Helms, Director of the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, noted that while each topic — geology, engineering, environment, resource extraction and delivery – is important, the omnibus challenge is to integrate and optimize these elements into a single functional system.

Wind Energy: Fuel-Free Power
Wind power requires an understanding of the atmosphere and the ability to engineer devices to tap into that potential. It involves a detailed understanding of the local terrain and topography. Supercomputing can span this interface between the natural and built worlds, enabling everything from better turbine blades to wind forecasting, all while optimizing for regional conditions. By linking together an understanding of aero-acoustics, aerodynamics and planetary boundary layer flow, it is possible to lower the real-world cost of wind energy. These advances, in turn, provide a competitive advantage to the companies that adopt them. This is enhanced by the flexible, talented workforce found in North Dakota, as shared by Bill Burga, Director of LM Wind Power’s Blade Business Unit. The LM Wind Power Blade factory in Grand Forks — headed by Burga — is one of LM Wind Power’s most-productive plants in the world.

Electrical Transmission: Making the Connection
North Dakota’s proximity to the major Midwest electricity markets presents the state with an opportunity to export a high-value energy service. For both fossil and renewable electricity, transmission is the link that makes this export possible. Moreover, the intricacy of grid operations necessitates a detailed understanding of power flows, pricing and supply for transmission to be economically successful. Dr. Richard O’Neill, Chief Economic Advisor for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Division of Policy, reminded the audience that most of the analytical tools for the grid were built using techniques from 30 or more years ago, and that these tools cold be dramatically improved using modern computation.  Tapping into the processing power of today’s fastest computers opens the door to analyzing these features quantitatively. This not only makes grid management more viable, but it also improves the economics of the entire supply chain — from generation to end use. As such, accurate simulations of the grid help both North Dakota and its neighbors.

Computing: The Final Link
The complexity of applied computing solutions demands an eco-system of partners, from subject-matter experts and code developers to factories and supercomputing facilities. Each element is required to create simulations that enable market-ready products. The roles of industry and government in that network are as clear as they are important. In the middle ground between technology commercialization and effective regulation is the computing offered by academia and research laboratories. For their parts, North Dakota State University’s Center for Computationally Assisted Science and Technology and the Computation program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory offer capabilities that make this connection.

This interconnection between partners — from industry to government — offers a blueprint for increased competitiveness, improved U.S. energy security and technological innovation.

About the Author:

Nalu manages the Laboratory’s low-carbon energy portfolio and is responsible for energy-related program development and strategic planning. The low-carbon portfolio emphasizes energy technologies—including combustion and engine research—and techno-economic analysis in support of both government and industrial sponsors. Prior to joining LLNL, Nalu was the Deputy Director of the Advanced Energy Systems Laboratory at Stanford University. Read full bio.

This one-year pilot program, called the hpc4energy incubator, aims to accelerate the development of energy technology and boost U.S. competitiveness in the global marketplace by teaming industry with the scientific and computing resources at national laboratories. Companies with the winning proposals will collaborate with LLNL scientists and use LLNL’s HPC systems to find solutions to urgent problems and learn how to employ HPC as a powerful tool for innovation.

“HPC lets companies collapse the time and expense of designing and prototyping new products and processes. That’s important for advanced industrial countries, such as the United States, that can’t compete on wages and need to be at the frontier of discovery,” says Deborah Wince-Smith, president of the Council on Competitiveness.

“In an era of fierce global competition in the clean energy sector, high-performance computing can stimulate the rapid advancement of U.S. clean energy technologies,” says Tomas Diaz de la Rubia, LLNL Deputy Director for Science & Technology, who announced the pilot program at a Technology Leadership and Strategy Initiative (TLSI) workshop, sponsored by the Council on Competitiveness and hosted by the U.S. Naval Academy in Washington, D.C.

The hpc4energy incubator emerged from the National Summit on Advancing Clean Energy Technologies held in Washington, D.C. in May, sponsored by the Howard Baker Forum, the Bipartisan Policy Center, LLNL and other partners who focused on exploring how HPC can catalyze rapid advancement of U.S. clean energy technologies. This program also addresses the needs and benefits identified earlier in studies by the Council on Competitiveness in strengthening the U.S. manufacturing sector and competitiveness as a whole.

Specifically, LLNL is seeking proposals that address one of the critical clean energy areas outlined in the National Summit report: Building Energy Efficiency; Carbon Capture; Utilization and Sequestration; Liquid Fuels Combustion; Nuclear Energy; and Smart Grid, Power Storage, and Renewable Energy Integration. To be considered, proposals must address a compelling, critical problem  to which the solution would advance energy through a combination of HPC resources and collaborative teams of industry, energy and computer scientists.

The first step for potential collaborators is to submit a one-page letter of intent providing a high-level overview of the proposal. Letters of intent should be sent to proposals@hpc4energy.org before 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (PST) on Dec. 16, 2011.

For more information, see www.hpc4energy.org.

About Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Founded in 1952, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (www.llnl.gov) provides solutions to our nation’s most important national security challenges through innovative science, engineering and technology. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is managed by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration.

Resident at our national laboratories, these supercomputers can provide American businesses a competitive advantage by substantially reducing product development time and cost. The United States is a world leader in HPC, and our national laboratory system can provide computing expertise and capabilities at a level found few places in the world.

We invite you to explore this website to discover the potential of how high-performance computing can impact American entrepreneurship and innovation.

Companies such as Boeing, Goodyear and Siemens have all used HPC modeling and simulation to develop new and innovative products. Boeing used high-performance computing to reduce the number of wing prototypes from 77 in previous aircraft models to just 7 for the 787 Dreamliner. Goodyear partnered with Sandia National Laboratory to reduce development time and cost for their all-season tire TripleTred Technology. Siemens is partnering with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to create detailed wind forecasting models to improve the efficiency of individual wind turbines and the performance of entire wind farms.

Our national laboratory system can provide HPC modeling and simulation expertise and capabilities found few places in the world. Whether creating detailed theoretical equations or writing the millions of lines of code that allow these supercomputers to make increasingly precise predictions on product performance, the scientists and engineers at these laboratories can help spur American innovation, entrepreneurship and competitiveness.