Global Investment In Clean Energy
3:30 pm
The World Energy Supply
3:00 pm
How is Wind Power Harvested?
12:30 pm
The role of Visual Simulations in Renewable Energy
1:00 pm
Everyone seems to support renewable energy (solar farms, wind turbines) on the surface, but as soon as you ask them if they would mind a 50-foot Wind Turbine in their backyard, NIMBY kicks in full-force. New-Zealand company Truescape has found that visual simulations, conceptual animations combining actual simulated or measured data with site data, can go a long way to allaying these fears.
Measures to combat such objections have been developed and successfully implemented by a New Zealand-based company, Truescape. One method, time-lapse simulations, using actual site data (wind speed, wind angle, sun beams, turbine dimensions and rotational speed) can accurately depict how a wind farm would appear under the climatic conditions experienced during the course of a day,from dawn to darkness.
Infographic: Saving Energy, Every Home is Unique
12:30 pm
No homeowner wants unnecessary energy consumption in their home. Of course, it’s bad for the environment for energy to be wasted, but more importantly to most it’s bad for the wallet.
A new infographic from WattBot.com analyzes 4 home across the US and offers various options for improving energy efficiency, depending on the regions. The takeaway: There is no 1-part magic solution that applies to everyone.
See the full graphic after the break.
Explore Your Neighborhood – Clean Energy Maps – Wattbot.com.
Thoughts On The 2010 ESRI PUG Conference
1:57 pm
Last month, I attended the annual meeting of the ESRI Petroleum User Group (PUG) in Houston, Texas. This is the conference where oil and gas companies’ GIS professionals learn the latest applications of ArcGIS and geospatial technology to the exploration and production workflow.
It was my first time at ESRI PUG, having worked as a geologist and geophysical interpreter, i.e. the end customer, until 2009. Viewing the world of petroleum data management and analysis from the technology vendor/contractor side is a fresh, challenging flip on the same question all of us in the geo-industry ask: How can we push the limits of data access, analysis, visualization and scientific understanding using tech solutions, in this case GIS? This requires technological innovation, but, most crucially, a strong focus on the customer’s problem and closing the interpretation-GIS gap. This last theme came up over and over again, even if not explicitly stated always, during the three days of the conference.
I’ll put the concept in context as I run down key conference proceedings.
PLENARY
1. Keynote Address given by ESRI’s Clint Brown, Product Director, and Damian Spangrud, ArcGIS Platform Manager. After a few obligatory minutes on the hydrocarbon exploration and production (expro) lifecycle, Brown and Spangrud tag-teamed an hour-long talk and demo of the ArcGIS Explorer operational dashboard. Two items of note: a) Bing Maps as part of basemap library, which means viewing well location in birds’ eye view along with well and company-specific lease information, and b) ESRI in the cloud (I hate that word “cloud” – all we need is more marketing-speak) – more specifically ArcGIS Server on Amazon to use geoprocessing tools directly, presented by Lawrie Sims, ERDAS founder and ESRI’s current director of imagery enterprise solutions.Tom Bell, Shell’s head of GIS services, talked briefly about CAD integration into ArcGIS (more on this later).
Mapping the Energy Usage Distribution in New Zealand
9:00 am
The National Energy Research Institute has gathered data on energy usage in the country and mapped in in a nice interactive visualization called “Energy in NZ“. It’s a flash-based visualization that lets you view energy produced and consumed in NZ, and it’s separation amongst transportation, industry, commercial, and residential areas.
via Mapping the Energy Usage Distribution in New Zealand – information aesthetics.
VizWorld.com 
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