Vision 21: A Quest for the Ultimate Energy Facility

What is Vision 21?

In the following paragraphs Patricia Fry Godley of the Department of Energy answers this question:

"Vision 21" is more than a name. It is a strategic concept that will tie together, and guide, much of our current and future R&D program.
It basically challenges the coal R&D community with the question "Can you develop the ultimate coal facility?" Not simply the "next generation" facility?....but the ULTIMATE facility. And not just the ultimate "POWER plant"...but the ultimate ENERGY facility -- where every useable BTU in coal or biomass, or perhaps a fuel mix, is extracted and used: for electricity, process heat, fuels, chemicals, or combinations. That's why we add the term "EnergyPlex."
"Vision 21" is not so much a "new start" as it is a new way of thinking about our existing technologies....and working to tie them together in the most flexible way in the future.
As we develop the "Vision 21" way-of-thinking, we are asking the technical community, "is a zero-discharge energy facility possible?" Virtually no SOx or NOx pollutants. No particulates. No wastewater. No solid waste. And the potential for no net emissions of CO2. In other words, no impact on the environment outside of the plant's basic footprint. Is that possible?

With the combined Government-industry efforts, and the work of the best and brightest scientists in the Nation -- we think it is. We think we can develop a coal-based energy facility that's 60% efficient or, with cogeneration, perhaps 80 or 90% efficient.


DoE Vision21 Reference Configuration


Reaction Engineering's Vision21 Project

In our DOE Vision 21 project, Reaction Engineering International (REI) is developing a computational workbench that will provide a framework for integrating the range of models and visualization methods that will be required to perform simulations to predict energyplex performance and emissions. The workbench is being developed as a tightly integrated problem solving environment, with plug and play functionality, that contains an array of tools and models that communicate in a seamless manner. The workbench is designed for use by the non-specialist and provides the capability to interrogate a simulation at multiple levels of detail. The models contained in the workbench can range in complexity from simple heat/mass balance models to sophisticated CFD based models. Through the course of this program, models have been created for simulating key energy plant components, including boilers, gasifiers, fluidized beds, combustors, fuel cells and clean-up process components. Some of these models tax the limits of the computer power readily available to most engineers.

Problem Solving Environment

The workbench is being constructed using the SCIRun software system. SCIRun is a continuously evolving product of the Scientific and Computational Imaging group, headed by Prof. Chris Johnson, in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Utah (UU/SCI). From inception, SCIRun has been designed in an object-oriented manner with the intent of supporting interdisciplinary projects in which High Performance Computing (HPC) models are needed. SCIRun places no inherent limitations on the physics, numerical technique or programming language used within a model. SCIRun supports component-based software techniques and allows for distributed computing. In addition to these capabilities, SCIRun also includes sophisticated scientific visualization functionality.


Vision 21 Workbench in action. (Large)

Scientific Visualization

For the comprehensive models included in the workbench which calculate three-dimensional scalar and vector fields, the workbench provides a number of options to visualize these data sets. First, the data can be visualized using the inherent capabilities of SCIRun. Second, the data can be viewed using OpenDX, which we have coupled directly to the workbench. Third, the data can be viewed using a VTK-based toolset, which again has been tightly integrated with the workbench. For Virtual Reality visualization on a range of display hardware, we are currently integrating the capabilities of Iowa State University's VRAC Explorer. Additional information on these various visualization techniques and packages can be found here.

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the Department of Energy for their support. DoE contract number DE-FC26-00FNT41047