The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis
The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis
Authors: Detlef Hohl (Shell), Guy Gueritz (NVIDIA Corporation), Elizabeth L'Heureux (BP plc, BP Center For High Performance Computing), Mauricio Araya (Total E&P Research and Technology US LLC)
Abstract: The energy sector is expected to aggressively adopt renewable energy and decarbonization in the next two decades. Multiple large multinational energy companies are already reducing their oil and gas exploration programs and investing in clean energy. Next to astronomy and particle physics, geophysical seismic exploration is one of the largest consumers of HPC resources worldwide. In this BoF, representatives from energy industry, national laboratories, academia, HPC and cloud vendors will chart the “quo vadis” of HPC in energy in a hybrid presentation-discussion forum. The desired outcome is a white paper titled “The role of HPC in the Energy Transition”.
Long Description: The Oil and Gas industry is one of the largest consumers of High-Performance Computing resources. Currently three large integrated energy companies list their HPC systems in the top 25 of the Top 500 list. Multiple others, including energy service companies, are known to operate unlisted HPC systems at equivalent rank. These are dedicated on-premise or private cloud systems designed for high data throughput. Geophysical seismic imaging on petabyte-size data sets for oil and gas exploration is the dominant application, followed by porous-media and reservoir flow simulations as distant seconds. Massive-scale exploration and development planning for new oil and gas resources is expected to be outpaced in the coming decade as the world transitions to a lower-carbon energy system. Will the energy industry exit the HPC realm, or will the increased complexity in distributed energy sources, types of energy sources, and energy storage and distribution change the HPC application portfolio? Scenarios like Shell’s (https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/the-energy-future/scenarios/the-energy-transformation-scenarios.html ) or the IEA’s (https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050 ) already provide indications of emerging HPC-reliant portfolio elements in energy generation, conversion, storage, trading, transport and consumption.
In this BOF we are soliciting visionary, forward-looking contributions from energy sector companies, governmental organizations, and academia from across the globe to share their view of the role of HPC in the energy transition. Examples of possible topics are i) computational chemistry and materials design for improved solar energy capture, conversion and storage systems, ii) design, development and operation of a complex interacting and interdependent low-carbon energy systems, iii) generation, transport, and trading of low-carbon energy vectors such as biofuels, hydrogen and ammonia, iv) design, operation, and auditable monitoring of carbon removal technologies such as carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), and land management (aka. “nature based solutions”, NBS). We expect high-fidelity simulation and, increasingly, AI models to generate micro-weather forecasts, solar and wind energy production, and consumption profiles at various time scales (hourly to years) to optimize customer and trading transactions. All energy transition scenarios state the need for increased system electrification, and we want to hear about needed systems modeling and optimization resources from experts in hard-to-abate industry sectors such as agriculture, aviation, refining, steel, cement or heavy transport, and the future expectations for HPC in their sector. Decades-long pilot plant construction and testing will be replaced by compute-intensive simulations in “digital twins”. Lastly, renewable and recyclable fuels (e.g. power-to-liquids) and plastics are expected to play a significant role in decarbonizing both industry and retail. The underlying systems and processes are already complex and extremely computationally demanding to model today.
Climate modeling is specifically out-of-scope for this BOF as it is already a well-established HPC domain.
The expected outcome of the BOF is a white paper titled “The role of HPC in the Energy Transition” to be prepared by a volunteer subgroup of the participants. This white paper can serve to prepare a ½ day workshop at SC22.
URL: https://github.com/total-sa/BoF21
Back to Birds of a Feather Archive Listing