September 14, 2017
The Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory increased their national footprint in April when several delegates attended the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Big Ideas Summit April 21-22, 2016 in Washington, DC to discuss important future problems in the field of energy.
The Big Ideas Summit is an annual DOE event that invites colleagues at DOE National Laboratories to present and discuss a collaborative set of “Big Ideas” that could result in transformational change to the Nation’s energy landscape. The two-day Summit, now in its third year, included presentations of and breakout sessions on the Big Ideas, updates from DOE “tech teams” leading crosscutting technical efforts across the Department, and other complementary talks intended to spur discussions of new and/or bold ideas that can advance the Department’s energy priories.
Nine Big Ideas were presented, including: Enhancing the Global Carbon Sink, Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting & Analysis System (GHG-ERAS), H2@Scale: Deeply Decarbonizing our Energy System, Solving Big Problems with Small Accelerators, Transportation as a System, Solving the Information Technology Energy Challenge Beyond Moore's Law, Advancing Biofoundry: The SynBio Foundry, Energy Everywhere: Clean Energy through Modular Chemical Conversions and Metropolitan Energy Initiative.
Nine Big Ideas were presented, including: Enhancing the Global Carbon Sink, Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting & Analysis System (GHG-ERAS), H2@Scale: Deeply Decarbonizing our Energy System, Solving Big Problems with Small Accelerators, Transportation as a System, Solving the Information Technology Energy Challenge Beyond Moore's Law, Advancing Biofoundry: The SynBio Foundry, Energy Everywhere: Clean Energy through Modular Chemical Conversions and Metropolitan Energy Initiative.
The summit culminated with remarks from US Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz on the initiatives the DOE is pursuing in various fields, which include transportation. The ITS-LBNL team was represented by Professor Alexandre Bayen, ITS Director and Director of the Transportation Research Group at LBNL, who presented "Transportation as a System" — a new initiative co-led by five of the National labs: LBNL, Argonne National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory. A significant delegation from LBNL also attended, including Deputy Director Horst Simon, as well as several Associate Lab Directors, including Professor Ramesh Ramamoorthy, who oversees the Transportation Research Group at LBNL.