Engineering Policy and Leadership Institute


National Energy and Transportation: Investment Strategies through 2050

SAVE THE DATE: Monday, November 30, 2009

2050 ChallengeThis symposium, "National Energy and Transportation: Investment Strategies through 2050," addresses the "first half" of what is arguably the greatest 2050 challenge of our time in that it initiates dual-sector, national, long-term investment planning for the infrastructure, which is responsible for consuming 69% of total U.S. energy and emitting 74% of total U.S. greenhouse gases:

  • Electric infrastructure sector
  • Transportation infrastructure sector

(The "second half" is what emissions do to the climate.) The symposium brings modelers from both electric and transportation sectors together under the assumptions that (a) the right solutions to the nation's energy and emissions problems will be found only by considering the two sectors together, and (b) computational tools (computer models) must be and can be enhanced to address the need in a systematic, engineering-based fashion. It is significant that we are not aware of an earlier event of this nature.

The ultimate objectives of the symposium stem from the desire to guide and inform the ongoing heavy public discourse on how the nation should focus investments in terms of what kinds of technologies, how much of each, when, and where. Guiding public dialogue in this fashion is exactly what is being done with respect to the discourse on the effect of emissions on global surface warming. In this report, climatologists from around the globe have come together to compare and contrast the results of many different computer models applied to many different scenarios. Our view is that this is the "second half" of the problem–what emissions do to the climate. We intend that our symposium will address the "first half"–what investments do to emissions–in a similar fashion, comparing and contrasting the results of many different computer models applied to many different scenarios. This symposium will initiate this work.

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Sponsored by

Iowa State University's Engineering Policy and Leadership Institute
Iowa State University's Electric Power Research Center
Iowa State University's Institute for Transportation (InTrans)
Midwest Transportation Consortium (MTC)
Power Systems Engineering Research Center (PSERC)
National Science Foundation


Symposium Agenda:

7:30 a.m.

Registration and Contributors’ Continental Breakfast (Speakers Only)

8:00 a.m.

Welcome, Introductions, and EPLI Background

8:10 a.m.

Main Keynote: Tom Aller, Senior Vice President, Energy Resource Development at Alliant Energy and President of Interstate Power and Light

9:00 a.m.

Part A: National modeling for electric energy and fuel systems

  • Presenter 1: Thomas Veselka, Argonne National Laboratory (Energy Systems modeling and planning, developers of WASP, GTMAX, GREET, and others)
  • Presenter 2: Jay Ratafia-Brown, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) (National Energy Modeling System [NEMS]; expert on IGCC and has been involved in CO2 legislation)
  • Presenter 3: John Lawhorn, Midwest ISO (MISO) (MISO has the most advanced planning methods in the nation and has been leading the effort in responding to DOE’s call to develop a multi-regional planning process for the U.S. Eastern Interconnection)
  • Presenter 4: Jim McCalley, Harpole Professor in Electrical Engineering, Iowa State University

9:45 a.m.

Part A: Roundtable discussion between above electric energy systems presenters and
below industry experts, moderated by James McCalley.

  • Wah Sing Ng, President Ng Planning, Expert in use of the Electric Generation Expansion Analysis System (EGEAS)
  • Eric Toolson, CEO, PLEXOS Solutions

10:30 a.m.

Break

10:45 a.m.

Part B: National modeling for transportation systems

11:30 a.m.

Part B: Roundtable discussion between transportation systems presenters, moderated by Nadia Gkritza

12:15 p.m.

Future Steps

12:30 p.m.

Contributors’ Lunch (Speakers only)

1:15 p.m.

Working Group Meeting

Iowa State University map (pdf file)