by Anthony Watts
WUWT readers of course have heard about the Met Office and their giant new supercomputer called “deep black” that they use for climate simulation and short term forecasts.
Not to be outdone, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO has commissioned a new supercomputer project of their own: The NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC) shown in artist rendering below.
In the initial press release they state the location and purpose:
January 23, 2007
BOULDER—The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and its managing organization, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), announced today that they will form a partnership with the University of Wyoming, the State of Wyoming, and the University of Colorado at Boulder to build a new supercomputing data center for scientific research in Cheyenne. The center will house some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers in order to advance understanding of climate, weather, and other Earth and atmospheric processes.
…
The center’s supercomputers, which will be upgraded regularly, will initially achieve speeds of hundreds of teraflops (trillion floating-point operations per second).
The Met Office wrote in their initial press release:
By 2011, the total system is anticipated to have a total peak performance approaching 1 PetaFlop — equivalent to over 100,000 PCs and over 30 times more powerful than what is in place today.
We found out later that the Met Office supercomputer would have an electrical power consumption of 1.2 megawatts.
So with that it mind, we’d expect the new NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC) to have some similar sort of power consumption. Right?
On the masthead of the NWSC page they say they are all about energy efficiency.
The NWSC project encompasses the design and construction of a world class center for high performance scientific computing in the atmospheric and related geosciences. Consistent with its mission, the facility will be a leader in energy efficiency, incorporating the newest and most efficient designs and technologies available. The center will provide new space to enable the advancement of scientific knowledge, education, and service through high-performance computing.
And on the right sidebar:
Focus on Sustainability
Maximum energy efficiency, LEED certification, and achievement of the smallest possible carbon footprint are all goals of the NWSC project. In the coming weeks and months, check this section of the site for updates on project sustainability efforts and outcomes.
That’s great, I’m all for sustainability and energy efficiency, even the “smallest possible carbon footprint” doesn’t sound too bad. Surely it will be more energy efficient and “greener” than the Met Office Supercomputer, right?
There’s an interesting unanswered question though. Why put this new facility in Wyoming rather than “green” Colorado? Isn’t Boulder, where NCAR is headquartered, the greenest of Colorado cities, and in the US top five too?
In the initial press release announcing the project, there’s this bit of political feel good prose:
“Having an NCAR supercomputing facility in Wyoming will be transformative for the University of Wyoming, will represent a significant step forward in the state’s economic development, and will provide exceptional opportunities for NCAR to make positive contributions to the educational infrastructure of an entire state,” says William Gern, the university’s vice president for research and economic development.
Gosh, what an opportunity for Wyoming. But why give the opportunity away? Colorado doesn’t want this opportunity? None of the politicians in Colorado want to be able to say to their constituents that they brought “economic development” and “positive contributions to the educational infrastructure of an entire state”? That doesn’t seem right.
The answer may very well lie in economics, but not the kind they mention in feel good press releases.
You see as we know from supercomputers, they need a lot of energy to operate. And because they operate in enclosed spaces, a lot of energy to keep them cooled so they don’t burn up from the waste heat they generate.
For all their sophistication, without power for operation and cooling, a supercomputer is just dead weight and space.
Electricity is king.
Interestingly, in the press releases and web pages, NCAR provides no answers (at least none that were easy to find) to how much electricity the new supercomputer might use for operation and cooling. They also provide no explanation as to why Colorado let this opportunity go to another state. I had to dig into NCAR’s interoffice staff notes to find the answer.
The answer is: electricity.
Measuring 108,000 square feet in total with 15,000-20,000 square feet of raised floor, it will be built for 8 megawatts of power, with 4-5 megawatts for computing and 3-4 for cooling.
8 megawatts! Yowza.
It’s really about economics. Electricity is getting expensive, and likely to be more expensive in the future. Candidate Obama said that under his leadership, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket“. Clearly NCAR is planning for a more expensive energy future.
In the interoffice staff notes, NCAR outlines its decision logic.
NCAR considered partnerships for the data center with a number of organizations along the Front Range, giving CU-Boulder and the University of Wyoming particularly close scrutiny. NCAR also looked into leasing space and retrofitting an existing data center.
With support from NSF and the UCAR Board of Trustees, NCAR chose to locate the center in Wyoming after a rigorous evaluation, concluding that this partnership would facilitate getting the greatest computing capability for the regional and national scientific community at the earliest possible time.
“The Wyoming offer provides more computing power, sooner, and at lower cost,” Tim explained during an all-staff town hall meeting on January 31. “We’ve secured the future of NCAR’s role in leadership computing.”
The Wyoming offer consists of a 24-acre “shovel-ready” site for construction in the North Range Business Park in Cheyenne near the intersection of I-80 and I-25, along with physical infra- structure for fiber optics and guaranteed power transmission of 24 megawatts. The University of Wyoming will provide $20 million in endowment funds for construction, as well as $1 million annually for operations. NCAR will utilize the State of Wyoming’s bond program to fund construction, with the state treasurer purchasing bonds that will be paid off by NCAR.
Although CU-Boulder’s offer would have given the new center greater proximity to other NCAR facilities, it would have left NCAR with a mortgage of $50 million rather than $40 million and less long-term financial savings. The Cheyenne site offers cheaper construction costs and lends itself to future expansion. It also brings a transformative partnership to a state that has traditionally lacked opportunities in technology and research.
Indeed according to the latest figures from the Energy Information Adminsitration and Department of Energy (EIA/DOE) electricity is significantly cheaper in Wyoming.
So besides the fact that NCAR abandoned “green” Colorado for it’s cheaper electricity rates and bond program, what’s the “dirty little secret?
Coal, the “dirtiest of fuels”, some say.
According to Sourcewatch, Wyoming is quite something when it comes to coal. Emphasis mine.
Wyoming is the nation’s highest coal producer, with over 400 million tons of coal produced in the state each year. In 2006, Wyoming’s coal production accounted for almost 40% of the nation’s coal.[1] Currently Wyoming coal comes from four of the State’s ten major coal fields. The Powder River Coal Field has the largest production in the world – in 2007, it produced over 436 million short tons.[2]
Wyoming coal is shipped to 35 other states. The coal is highly desirable because of its low sulfur levels.[3] On average Wyoming coal contains 0.35 percent sulfur by weight, compared with 1.59 percent for Kentucky coal and 3 to 5 percent for other eastern coals. Although Wyoming coal may have less sulfur, it also a lower “heat rate” or fewer Btu’s of energy. On average Wyoming coal has 8600 Btu’s of energy per pound, while Eastern coal has heat rates of over 12,000 Btu’s per pound, meaning that plants have to burn 50 percent more Wyoming coal to equal the power output from Eastern coal.[4]
Coal-fired power plants produce almost 95% of the electricity generated in Wyoming. Wyoming’s average retail price of electricity is 5.27 cents per kilowatt hour, the 2nd lowest rate in the nation[5]
It’s so bad, that Wyoming’s coal plants earned the coveted “Coal Swarm” badge on that page.
Gosh.
But not to worry, NCAR has a plan to “clean up” that dirty coal use to power their supercomputer climate modeling system.
Again from the interoffice staff notes
The new center will be the first NCAR facility to earn LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for its design, construction, and operation. Measuring 108,000 square feet in total with 15,000-20,000 square feet of raised floor, it will be built for 8 megawatts of power, with 4-5 megawatts for computing and 3-4 for cooling. The power will be generated primarily from “clean” coal (coal that has been chemically scrubbed to reduce emissions of harmful pollutants) via Cheyenne Light Fuel and Power. NCAR is also aggressively working to secure the provision of alternative energy (wind and solar) for the facility, hoping to attain an initial level of 10%.
“We’re going to push for environmentally friendly solutions,” Tim says.
Clean Coal? Hmmm. NASA GISS’ Dr. Jim Hansen says Clean Coal is a decade away:
James Hansen, one of the world’s best-known global warming researchers and a recent vocal advocate of proposed coal plants, says clean coal technology used on a full-scale coal-fired plant could be at least a decade away. He expressed the sentiment in a media briefing organized by clean energy group RE-AMP, arguing against a proposed coal plant in Marshalltown, Iowa.
Hansen also said that:
“The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death. When I testified against the proposed Kingsnorth power plant, I estimated that in its lifetime it would be responsible for the extermination of about 400 species – its proportionate contribution to the number that would be committed to extinction if carbon dioxide rose another 100 ppm.”
Don’t worry, the University of Wyoming in Cheyenne, where the new NCAR supercomputing center will be, is already on top of the situation. This is from their press release May 26th, 2008:
The University of Wyoming is ready to research clean coal and wants proposals from both academic and industry organizations. With the help of the Wyoming state government, they’ve arranged for up to $4.5 million in research funds — which can be matched by non-state funds.
And, Wyoming already has their hand out to Presdient Obama:
Colorado, Utah, Wyoming Seek Clean Coal Funding
DENVER (AP) ―
The governors of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming are asking President Barack Obama to fund the development of clean-coal technologies in the West.
Yup, clean coal will power that new NCAR supercomputer any day now, and we’ll be paying for it.
In the meantime:
I’m sure NCAR will let us know how those wind turbines work out for that other 10% of the power.
h/t to Steve Goddard in comments
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The clever bit is that they can put a temperature station next to it to help the models get the right answer.
Given that the evidence from Piers Corbyn’s Pc and the Met Office deep black is that the forecast accuracy is inversely proportional to the computer power, then extrapolating to the NCAR supercomputers suggests that the forecasts will be truly awesomely bad.
“Why have they not yet found a way to reclaim the unwanted heat to generate electricity or heat greenhouses or something else productive?”
Have you ever spent a summer in Laurel, MD? There is plenty of heat available from other sources … day and night. I suppose there would be a possibility of using it for greenhouses but installations like that tend to be on a very secure compound. Who is going to work the greenhouses? This isn’t like a commercial building. This place will likely be in an area that regular people can’t just go in and out of.
They’ll probably need the 4MW to keep the white elephant warm when the big freeze comes… Or is it a white mammoth? Doesn’t matter – it won’t work either way…
Maybe they will locate a temperature sensor on the roof next to the airconditioners, surrounded by black asphalt and use this sensor for all of Wyoming to show how much the state has warmed…
BTW, the Met Office justifies the carbon footprint of their IBM machine with the enormous fuel savings airlines can make using the Met’s very very good wind forecasts.
“For example, the Met’s global aviation forecasts allow airlines to save fuel by using the wind to aid their flight to their destination. The Met Office has estimated that this alone helps save approximately 20 million tonnes of CO2 each year through increased efficiency.”
That makes sense (if you buy into the CO2 religion). Maybe they even get this type of forecast right sometimes. The quote is from this article – it’s so full of bravado it’s funny:
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/10/27/238307/case-study-how-the-met-office-supercomputer-offsets-its-carbon.htm
It’s fun to examine the wicked ways these people choose to justify or condemn things – like a tribe with bizarre rituals.
what to makes of this piece, which the Times puts in their arts and entertainment section?
17 Jan: UK Times: Steven Swinford: BBC forecast for Met Office: changeable
BUFFETED by complaints about its inaccurate weather forecasts, the Met Office now faces being dumped by the BBC after almost 90 years.
The Met Office contract with the BBC expires in April and the broadcaster has begun talks with Metra, the national forecaster for New Zealand, as a possible alternative…
By contrast, many commercial rivals got their predictions for winter right. They benefit from weather forecasts produced by a panel of six different data providers, including the Met Office.
Despite criticism, staff at the Met Office are still in line to share a bonus pot of more than £1m. Seasonal forecasts, such as the one made in September, are not included in its performance targets…
Metra already produces graphics for the BBC, including its 3-D weather map which made some viewers feel sick.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article6991064.ece
just found the debate on bbc uk . what a load of crap they think we are stupid. i live in the uk and due to tax im in bed where i can keep warm. we have been taxed for everthing. we are forced to drive small cars forced to pay .£5.50 for a gallon of gas. road tax. heating fuel tax. food tax .house tax. there is a tax for every thing we do or buy we are told how to live . how to bring up our childen we are told that immigrants should be put before english. 60% of london is non white we are being wiped out there will be a war on our steets if we keep being lied to. its not just climate change we are no longer free to live our life here. and i hear the usa is going to be just like us told how to live our parliament is a joke lisbon treaty where we asked no we could not be trusted as we are so stupid to understand why we needed to be in the eu i know why so they can take our money and spend it on destoying life and freedom as we know it. i wish i never had kids what have i done, what sort of life will they have? i tell you what they will have tax tax taxed till you die from being cold or no food to eat you know why they put all the cameras on all our road network so they can tax by the mile sory for the rant just had to work up a sweat to keep warm here is the link to the bbc http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/629/629/7074601.stm
Could you calculate the number of coal cars per year it will take to run that supercomputer?
This whole thing reminded me of my unhappy involvement years ago in development of a radically new power turbine. After several miserable performance failures, one of the bright boys from the lab blurted out in a technical review meeting, “Maybe a really, really big one would work!”
CH
A crystal ball is much more energy efficient and just as reliable at forecasting the weather years in advance.
Crosspatch –
…
Places like Wyoming have more days that are below the data center temperature than above. The average high temperature in Cheyenne is above optimum data center temperatures for only 3 months out of 12 and average nighttime lows are low enough year-round to use outside air. If the center is designed well, this can be leveraged to greatly reduce the amount of power overhead required to cool the data center.
very good point
I was thinking the same thing, Nick:
“Costly energy makes jobs fly away to places with reasonably priced energy. QED.”
This story proves that even the government isn’t too dense to realize that energy costs make a huge difference in decisions like this. At least when their own budget is involved.
Yet, when President Obama blithely announces that he intends to make the cost of electricity skyrocket, he seems clueless about the same concept. Where does he think that industry, and their factories, and their JOBS, are going to go? To the state next door?
What if the state next door isn’t a state but another country, because all the states inside our borders have become prohibitively expensive? So the incentive to relocate to China will be made infinitely larger because they’re not so foolish. How is that going to help us or anyone in the world really? All it does is shift prosperity somewhere else while aiding the environment not a whit.
Replacing a system they don’t understand with models they can’t understand – see http://bill.srnr.arizona.edu/classes/182h/On%20Exactitude%20in%20Science.pdf. Oink!
Anthony, you’ve got to cover this:
BBC to consider dropping the Met Office for weather forecasts. The funny thing is, the story is posted in the Entertainment section of The Times ;).
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had endless entertainment viewing the forecasts and predictions of the UK Met Office!
If they can’t walk the walk, why should they expect me to? I value my electric reliability just as much as they value theirs, which I’m sure is why they are locating in Wyoming. What a bunch of hypocrites.
Is the BBC going to dump the Met Office and its supercomputer?
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article6991064.ece
Luke Lea (14:17:22) :
Could you calculate the number of coal cars per year it will take to run that supercomputer?
Well without showing my work but that’s OK since this is related to climate science, I get
66 per year just for that data center. Estimating coal at 2.0 KW-H/Kg and 120 tons/car
Dr. Hansen surely must be aware of the relationship between fossil fuels, CO2 and atmospheric temperature. If not, he should consider the following:
a) The atmosphere contains 750 Gt of carbon.
b) There are about 4,000 Gt of known fossil fuel reserves.
c) If every Gt of fossil fuel reserves were burned, atmospheric CO2 would increase from the present 390 to 2,470 ppm.
d) This would result in a logarithmic temperature increase of about 1.4C.
e) For the last 600 million years the temperature has varied from 12C to 22C
26% of the time at 22C and 6% of the time at 12C. We are presently at 14.5C.
(Scotese)
f) After burning all the fossil fuel, the temperature would increase to 15.9C, about 39% off the bottom of the historical range.
g) We are much closer to the “tipping point” of 90 ppm wherein photosynthesis would cease and turn the Earth into a plantless snowball.
h) 550 million years ago CO2 was 7,000 ppm, when there were no coal-fired power plants (Berner).
Has the IPCC’s “science” begun melting/retreating faster than the glaciers?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991177.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1
This article appeared in the Rockhampton (Queensland Australia) morning Bulletin on 22.12.09.
The Editor
The Morning Bulletin.
I have sat by for a number of years frustrated at the rubbish being put forth about carbon dioxide emissions, thermal coal fired power stations and renewable energy and the ridiculous Emissions Trading Scheme.
Frustration at the lies told (particularly during the election) about global pollution. Using Power Station cooling towers for an example. The condensation coming from those cooling towers is as pure as that that comes out of any kettle.
Frustration about the so called incorrectly named man made ‘carbon emissions’ which of course is Carbon Dioxide emissions and what it is supposedly doing to our planet.
Frustration about the lies told about renewable energy and the deliberate distortion of renewable energy and its ability to replace fossil fuel energy generation. And frustration at the ridiculous carbon credit programme which is beyond comprehension.
And further frustration at some members of the public who have not got a clue about thermal Power Stations or Renewable Energy. Quoting ridiculous figures about something they clearly have little or no knowledge of.
First coal fired power stations do NOT send 60 to 70% of the energy up the chimney. The boilers of modern power station are 96% efficient and the exhaust heat is captured by the economisers and reheaters and heat the air and water before entering the boilers.
The very slight amount exiting the stack is moist as in condensation and CO2. There is virtually no fly ash because this is removed by the precipitators or bagging plant that are 99.98% efficient. The 4% lost is heat through boiler wall convection.
Coal fired Power Stations are highly efficient with very little heat loss and can generate massive amount of energy for our needs. They can generate power at efficiency of less than 10,000 b.t.u. per kilowatt and cost wise that is very low.
The percentage cost of mining and freight is very low. The total cost of fuel is 8% of total generation cost and does NOT constitute a major production cost.
As for being laughed out of the country, China is building multitudes of coal fired power stations because they are the most efficient for bulk power generation.
We have, like, the USA, coal fired power stations because we HAVE the raw materials and are VERY fortunate to have them. Believe me no one is laughing at Australia – exactly the reverse, they are very envious of our raw materials and independence.
The major percentage of power in Europe and U.K. is nuclear because they don’t have the coal supply for the future.
Yes it would be very nice to have clean, quiet, cheap energy in bulk supply. Everyone agrees that it would be ideal. You don’t have to be a genius to work that out. But there is only one problem—It doesn’t exist.
Yes – there are wind and solar generators being built all over the world but they only add a small amount to the overall power demand.
The maximum size wind generator is 3 Megawatts, which can rarely be attained on a continuous basis because it requires substantial forces of wind. And for the same reason only generate when there is sufficient wind to drive them. This of course depends where they are located but usually they only run for 45% -65% of the time, mostly well below maximum capacity. They cannot be relied for a ‘base load’ because they are too variable. And they certainly could not be used for load control.
The peak load demand for electricity in Australia is approximately 50,000 Megawatts and only small part of this comes from the Snowy Hydro Electric System (The ultimate power Generation) because it is only available when water is there from snow melt or rain. And yes they can pump it back but it cost to do that. (Long Story).
Tasmania is very fortunate in that they have mostly hydro electric generation because of their high amounts of snow and rainfall. They also have wind generators (located in the roaring forties) but that is only a small amount of total power generated.
Based on a average generating output of 1.5 megawatts (of unreliable power) you would require over 33,300 wind generators.
As for solar power generation much research has been done over the decades and there are two types. Solar thermal generation and Solar Electric generation but in each case they cannot generate large amounts of electricity.
Any clean, cheap energy is obviously welcomed but they would NEVER have the capability of replacing Thermal power generation. So get your heads out of the clouds, do some basic mathematics and look at the facts not going off with the fairies (or some would say the extreme greenies.)
We are all greenies in one form or another and care very much about our planet. The difference is most of us are realistic. Not in some idyllic utopia where everything can be made perfect by standing around holding a banner and being a general pain in the backside.
Here are some facts that will show how ridiculous this financial madness the government is following. Do the simple maths and see for yourselves.
According to the ‘believers’ the CO2 in air has risen from .034% to .038% in air over the last 50 years.
To put the percentage of Carbon Dioxide in air in a clearer perspective;
If you had a room 12 ft x 12 ft x 7 ft or 3.7 mtrs x 3.7 mtrs x 2.1 mtrs, the area carbon dioxide would occupy in that room would be .25m x .25m x .17m or the size of a large packet of cereal.
Australia emits 1 percent of the world’s total carbon Dioxide and the government wants to reduce this by twenty percent or reduce emissions by .2 percent of the world’s total CO2 emissions.
What effect will this have on existing CO2 levels?
By their own figures they state the CO2 in air has risen from .034% to .038% in 50 years.
Assuming this is correct, the world CO2 has increased in 50 years by .004 percent.
Per year that is .004 divided by 50 = .00008 percent. (Getting confusing -but stay with me).
Of that because we only contribute 1% our emissions would cause CO2 to rise .00008 divided by 100 = .0000008 percent.
Of that 1%, we supposedly emit, the governments wants to reduce it by 20% which is 1/5th of .0000008 = .00000016 percent effect per year they would have on the world CO2 emissions based on their own figures.
That would equate to a area in the same room, as the size of a small pin.!!!
For that they have gone crazy with the ridiculous trading schemes, Solar and roofing installations, Clean coal technology. Renewable energy, etc, etc.
How ridiculous is that.
The cost to the general public and industry will be enormous. Cripple and even closing some smaller business.
T.L. Cardwell
To the Editor I thought I should clarify. I spent 25 years in the Electricity Commission of NSW working, commissioning and operating the various power units. My last was the 4 X 350 MW Munmorah Power Station near Newcastle. I would be pleased to supply you any information you may require.
maybe they’ve chosen Cheyenne because it will be protected by 150 Minuteman III intercontinental missiles at the nearby Warren Air Force Base! 🙂
IMO this is the best part
Sorry but I think a far far more important event is this
http://www.rockyhigh66.org/stu…..isions.htm and so on and on this is so self evident etc should be mainlining by now!
What sort of weather/climate “rethink” by the UK Met Office might this turn out to be?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8462890.stm