Energy efficiency can come from the most unexpected sources. The Titan Supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is the world’s most powerful supercomputer – and one of the most energy-efficient ones too – owing to its array of GPU processors found in video game consoles. Chinese builders are also urged to break from the conventional by increasing the energy efficiency of buildings. The Chinese government has set a target for 95% of new buildings to meet energy savings of 65% over 2005 figures. Read more

Energy efficient video game technology in Titan supercomputer

2 January 2013:

Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Titan Supercomputer – the world’s most powerful supercomputer – is operating with improved energy efficiency due in part to the same upgraded technology in your child’s video games.

“They do a lot of the same physics and on processors that are much more energy efficient than the ones we were using for scientific computation,” said Jeff Nichols, ORNL’s associate laboratory director for computing and computational sciences. “We took advantage of the gaming industry to give us 10 times more powerful processors and we only increased energy costs by half of what we were spending on specific systems today.”

Titan is able to perform more than 17 quadrillion calculations per second.

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov <science.energy.gov/>.

Provided by Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Source: www.phys.org/

New Construction in China Must Be More Energy Efficient

By Energy Manager Today Staff (4 January 2013):

Chinese builders are becoming more interested in energy efficiency, and that will have two benefits: energy savings for buildings and a boon for thermal envelope manufacturers.

Based on market demand from both new buildings and retrofit projects, the demand for building thermal envelope materials from 2012 to 2015 will be 5.6 billion, according to Lux Research’s report “Go North: The Path to Performance-Driven Profits in China’s Construction Materials Market.”

Through modeling existing building stock, new construction rates, energy efficiency targets, temperature profiles, energy costs, green building momentum, regulatory enforcement and retrofit targets, Lux Research analysts derived the opportunities for different building thermal envelope solutions.

A key driver for more energy efficient buildings is Chinese government policy. According to the 12th Five Year Plan, China will require 95 percent of new buildings to meet a mandatory energy savings target of 65 percent over the 2005 figure. The requirement is issued by the central government and provincial and municipal governments and varies depending on the specific functions of buildings. The Chinese government also plans energy saving retrofit projects for at least 60 million square meters of commercial and municipal buildings.

Manufacturers of building thermal envelope products should focus on the climate of different regions, says Lux. Low-cost, low-performance materials will dominate the temperate south, but developers of high-performance materials need to focus on China’s cooler north, where these solutions save money on high heating/cooling needs.

Developers of phase-change materials, vacuum insulation panels, and low-emissivity insulating glass are poised for growth. Lux’s research finds the largest markets aren’t the obvious one. The big cities of Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing and Tianjin aren’t at the top of the list, as they have less floor area of buildings.

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