An integrated, multi-model capability for regional climate change simulation is needed to perform original analyses to understand and prepare for the impacts of climate change on the time and space scales that are critical to California's future environmental quality and economic prosperity. Our intent was to develop a very high resolution regional simulation capability to address consequences of climate change in California to complement the global modeling capability that is supported by DOE at LLNL and other institutions to inform national and international energy policies. The California state government, through the California Energy Commission (CEC), institutionalized the State's climate change assessment process through its biennial climate change reports. The bases for these reports, however, are global climate change simulations for future scenarios designed to inform international policy negotiations, and are primarily focused on the global to continental scale impacts of increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. These simulations do not meet the needs of California public and private officials who will make major decisions in the next decade that require an understanding of climate change in California for the next thirty to fifty years and its effects on energy use, water utilization, air quality, agriculture and natural ecosystems. With the additional development of regional dynamical climate modeling capability, LLNL will be able to design and execute global simulations specifically for scenarios important to the state, then use those results to drive regional simulations of the impacts of the simulated climate change for regions as small as individual cities or watersheds. Through this project, we systematically studied the strengths and weaknesses of downscaling global model results with a regional mesoscale model to guide others, particularly university researchers, who are using the technique based on models with less complete parameterizations or coarser spatial resolution. Further, LLNL has now built a capability in state-of-the-science mesoscale climate modeling that complements that which it has in global climate simulation, providing potential sponsors with an end-to-end simulation and analysis program.

The MRS Symposium Proceeding series is an internationally recognised reference suitable for researchers and practitioners.

This is an introduction to Central Utility Systems concepts, theories, components and some operations practices. In addition to introducing plant operators to the very basic level of knowledge needed to understand the plant, the best fit for this book may be for those who have some duties in and around the plant and could benefit from some of the basic terms and definitions supplied here. The book focuses on District Energy Systems, but applies to virtually any boiler or steam plant and the systems they use to operate safely and efficiently. The strongest value that this book will bring is a common language as every reader will have the ability to understand the terms and phrases used in and about the plant.