Some OLOs

Tuesday January 17, 2012 12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
"Watershed Immersion"
Outing Club Resource Room, Elrod Commons #114

Environmental Studies students, Liz George, Kelly Cossey, and Kerri Ann Laubach, will present their summer internships in the Connecticut River Valley, Oregon Natural Desert Association and the Chesapeake Bay. Opportunities for this summer will be discussed. Lunch will be provided. Please RSVP to Lorie Holter (lholter at wlu dot edu)
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012 4:40pm Science Center A114 (refreshments at 4:15 in the Great Hall) "FlyAsh, "Green" Concrete, and the future of the U.S. Infrastructure" by Dr. Andrei Ramniceanu
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Monday January 30, 2012 11:15 AM - 12:10 PM
Andrew Danner - "Computer Science and GIS"
Parmly 307


Andrew Danner, Ph.D., of Swarthmore College will talk about his work on developing efficient techniques to process large GIS data sets–a topic of interest to both computer scientists and geologists. Monday, January 30 at 11:15 a.m. Parmly 307 in the Science Center “TerraStream: From Elevation Data to Watershed Hierarchies” Abstract: Modern remote sensing and mapping technologies generate Geographic Information Systems (GIS) that often exceed several Gigabytes or Terrabytes in size. Processing such huge data sets poses a number of computational challenges. Portions of the data must reside on large but slow hard disks, while computation can only occur in the smaller but faster internal memory of modern computers. In these cases the transfer of data between disk and main memory becomes the primary bottleneck rather than internal CPU computation. This talk will describe the I/O model of computation in which we can develop scalable algorithms for processing large data sets. I will also present TerraStream–an implementation of several I/O-efficient algorithms for processing large point clouds of elevation data, creating digital surface models, extracting river networks, and constructing watershed hierarchies. TerraStream performance scales efficiently to input data sets containing over 300 million points and over 20GB in size.
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Energy Conservation in Buildings
January 30, 2012
6:30 PM
Old Courthouse

The local chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council will hold a meeting to teach participants how to analyze thermal images of buildings for heat loss and ways to conserve that heat (and energy).
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Geology Department Seminar
Thursday February 2, 5:30pm
Room A228

How Unconventional are Unconventional Plays?

Bryant Fulk ‘08
Geologist from Chesapeake Energy

Ever wonder how unconventional plays are evaluated and discovered? The geology certainly hasn’t changed. So what has?

The economic climate, global energy supply/demand dynamics and most importantly the understanding of what’s possible at increasingly smaller scales in the reservoir is what has sparked this new supply of energy. This talk will focus on how the conventional Petroleum System Elements are still applicable to resource plays and how evaluation of these plays isn’t as unconventional as you might think.

There will also be a brief review of what makes these plays unique- the massive scale of development and what the most influential drivers of that development are.
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Monday, February 6: Geology Seminar Speaker. Denise Levitan, graduate student at Virginia Tech, will give a talk entitled "Baseline Environmental Characterization of Ore Deposits" at 5:30pm.
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Johnson Lecture Series Presents:
“The Global Energy Transition”
Dr. Scott Tinker
5:30 Wednesday February 15th Stackhouse Theater
Dr.  Tinker is the Director of the Bureau of Economic Geology, State Geologist of Texas, and Professor at the University of Texas, Austin

Synopsis: Energy is the most important commodity in the world and affects every aspect of our lives.  The energy industry is in vast transition from using oil and coal resources to new alternatives. But not much is known or understood by the public about what the alternative resources are or what it will take to make the transition.  To make smarter decisions about energy, about our global future, we must be better informed.

Dr. Scott Tinker explores the future of energy, showing segments from his soon-to-be-released documentary, "Switch."  Dr. Tinker goes inside the world’s premiere energy sites for all resources, most of them highly restricted, and talks to leaders in government, industry and academia, exploring the world of energy with a balanced, non-political perspective.

He also answers these vital questions: If coal is dirty, why do we keep using it? Can we really clean it up? Will oil get too expensive? Will it run out? How quickly will we adopt alternatives? Which ones? How risky is hydraulic fracturing? How dangerous is nuclear energy? What are the biggest challenges, and best solutions, to our energy transition? What can each of us do?

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Symposium 2012: Reclaiming Environmental Federalism
Moot Court Room, Sydney Lewis Hall (W&L School of Law)
Friday, February 17th

Panel 1 (9:15-11:30) Federalism Theory: Arguments for Enhancing State & Local Environmental Action
Theoretical bases for state & local experimentation in energy and environmental law
Topics include: climate adaptation, nuisance, siting electricity infrastructure, & more.

Panel 2  (12:00-2:15) Electric Utility Regulation: Environmental Benefits, Costs, and the Public Interest
Ratemaking & public-interest values
Least-Cost Planning (Integrated Resource Planning)
Valuation of environmental benefits, energy efficiency, and the public interest
Energy efficiency, demand-side management, and greenhouse gas emissions
Ratepayer Intervention
Judicial review of PUC decisions

Panel 3 (2:15-3:30) Production & Underground Injection of Gases
Overview of recent legislation on shale gas production (“fracking”) in West Virginia
Coal Bed Methane
Remedies for citizens under state and federal law

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Monday, February 27: Geology Seminar Speaker. Jim Reynolds of Brevard College will speak about paleomag.
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Engineers Without Borders in Pampoyo, Bolivia
Date: 2/28/2012
Time: 12:15 PM-1:15 PM
Location: Outing Club Resource Room, Elrod Commons #114

Alexandra Prather, a Sophomore Economics and Global Politics double major, and Dana Fredericks, a Senior Chemistry-Engineering major, are a part of the W&L Engineers Without Borders club established last February. Phase 1 of our project is to bypass water contaminated by mine waste to bring clean water to the community of Pampoyo, Bolivia. This clean water source will increase crop production by 400%, while also increasing the health of both the people and the animals of Pampoyo.
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"Fresh" documentary screening with panel discussion Wednesday, February 29, 2012 5-7pm Stackhouse

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Tuesday, March 6: 2012 W&L Sustainability Film Series: Flow.
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Thursday, March 8: Karen Lanning, geophysicist who lives in Lexington, at 12:20.
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WS2: Women Scientists and Women in Science Speaker Series Presents: Dr. Katherine Crowley
Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Washington and Lee University and
AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the US Department of Energy

From MoonShot to SunShot: Making Solar Energy Cost Competitive by 2020

7:30 pm on Monday March 12 in Stackhouse

Katherine Crowley is a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow working for the SunShot Initiative at the Department of Energy. The SunShot Initiative goal is to make solar energy cost competitive with other forms of energy by 2020. Within SunShot, Katherine works on the Systems Integration team, which strives to overcome barriers to large-scale deployment of solar such as grid integration challenges and "soft costs" like as permitting and inspection. She also works on technology validation of photovoltaic modules, which is critical to increasing the bankability of solar projects.
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WGS luncheon discussion at 12:20 pm Monday March 12: Dr. Katherine Crowley

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Week of March 12: Professor Paul Low?
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Week of March 19: Geology Seminar Speaker. Karl Wegmann of North Carolina State University will speak about fluvial geomorph.
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Tuesday, March 20: 2012 W&L Sustainability Film Series: Green Fire.
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Friday, March 30: Geology Honors students of the Class of 2012 will defend their theses, 3:30 in A114.
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Monday, April 2: 2012 W&L Sustainability Film Series: Waste Land.
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