DC Green Scene

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 
10-11 a.m. (Golden, Colo..); RSF Room 344 (San Juan A) 
Noon-1 p.m. (Washington, D.C.)

There is an increasing realization that a transition from the current petroleum-dependent U.S. society to one fueled by alternative energy sources may contribute to a sustainable future. With a goal to reduce U.S. oil dependence, environmental impacts, and congestion, a number of alternative energy supply, distribution, and end-use transportation systems, technologies and policies are being explored. However, it is still uncertain when and what combination of these sources and technologies will emerge as possible alternatives. Given the nonlinear nature of such systems across geographic scales, assessing the effectiveness of possible planning strategies and discovering their unanticipated consequences require modeling and simulation that use the finest local-level data, processes, and societal response and observe the behavior of the system over large spatial and temporal scales. Increasing abundance of geographic data and the emergence of volunteered geographic information — coupled with leading capabilities in high performance geospatial computing — provide a unique opportunity to design, develop, and test such simulation-based experimental frameworks. This capability enables evaluation of alternative energy strategies through scenario-based analysis and visualization of the consequences.Budhendra Bhaduri, of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will highlight such geographic data-driven modeling, analysis, and discovery that is part of ongoing activities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Budhendra Bhaduri is the leader of the Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIST) group at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and a founding member of the U.S. Department of Energy's Geospatial Sciences Steering Committee. His primary responsibilities include conceiving, designing, and implementing innovative geocomputational methods to solve a variety of national and global problems involving population dynamics modeling, natural resource studies, transportation modeling, critical infrastructure protection, and disaster management. He is a principal member of the LandScan Global and LandScan USA population modeling programs at ORNL, which, in 2006 won a prestigious R&D 100 award as one of the top 100 global technologies serving society. Bhaduri received his Ph.D. in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences from Purdue University. He has a master's degree from Kent State University, and a M.Sc. and a B.Sc. from University of Calcutta, India.