State Energy Price System: 1982 update

The State Energy Price System (STEPS) contains estimates of energy prices for ten major fuels (electricity, natural gas, metallurgical coal, steam coal, distillate, motor gasoline, diesel, kerosene/jet fuel, residual fuel, and liquefied petroleum gas), by major end-use sectors (residential, commercial, industrial, transportation, and electric utility), and by state through 1982. Both physical unit prices and prices per million Btu are included in STEPS. Major changes in STEPS data base for 1981 and 1982 are described. The most significant changes in procedures for the updates occur in the residential sector distillate series and the residential sector kerosene series. All physical unit and Btu prices are shown with three significant digits instead of with four significant digits as shown in the original documentation. Details of these and other changes are contained in this report, along with the updated data files. 31 references, 65 tables

State Energy Price System: 1983 update overview and documentation

This report documents the update of the State Energy Price System (STEPS) for the 1970-1983 period. The STEPS data base, developed by the Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) under contract to the Office of Energy Markets and End Use, Energy Information Administration, contains national and state-level energy price data for ten fuels and five end-use sectors. STEPS is intended to provide energy price information for Federal, state, and local government and private sector applications. The primary objective of this study is to document the update of the price series to include data for 1983. Concurrent with the 1983 update, PNL also began verifying the reproducibility of individual prices in the data base for the 1970 to 1982 period. While the reproducibility check work is completed for six of the ten fuels and is integrated in the documentation for those fuels, the findings from this task are not discussed

Electric energy savings from new technologies. Revision 1

Purpose of the report is to provide information about the electricity-saving potential of new technologies to OCEP that it can use in developing alternative long-term projections of US electricity consumption. Low-, base-, and high-case scenarios of the electricity savings for 10 technologies were prepared. The total projected annual savings for the year 2000 for all 10 technologies were 137 billion kilowatt hours (BkWh), 279 BkWh, and 470 BkWh, respectively, for the three cases. The magnitude of these savings projections can be gauged by comparing them to the Department's reference case projection for the 1985 National Energy Policy Plan. In the Department's reference case, total consumption in 2000 is projected to be 3319 BkWh. Because approximately 75% of the base-case estimate of savings are already incorporated into the reference projection, only 25% of the savings estimated here should be subtracted from the reference projection for analysis purposes

Retrospective analysis of energy use and conservation trends: 1972-1982. Appendix

This appendix contains the detailed documentation corresponding to the end-use sectoral analyses presented in the main report. The data and methods used to calculate alternative scenarios for estimating energy savings in four economic sectors are provided in this volume. Appendix A contains the detailed documentation for the residential sector analysis. The methodology used to prepare estimates of building energy savings in the commercial sector is provided in Appendix B. Finally, Appendices C and D discuss the data and explain the analytical techniques used to derive estimates of energy savings in the industrial and transportation sectors, respectively. 9 refs., 14 figs., 86 tabs

Retrospective analysis of energy use and conservation trends: 1972-1982

The primary objective of the research reported here is to analyze energy use trends for the entire economy and by end-use sector (residential, commercial, and industrial, and transportation). In particular, an examination of energy trends was undertaken for the period 1972 through 1982 to determine the magnitude of ''energy savings'' attributable to: (1) changes in economic activity; (2) efficiency improvements relative to the 1972 stock (including structures and capital equipment); and (3) efficiency improvements relative to 1960 to 1972 trends. In addition to identifying the measures of energy savings described above, the causes of efficiency improvement relative to 1972 are explored. For example, energy savings due to efficiency improvements in the residential sector are explained by such activities as changes in household size, migration, improved shell and appliance efficiencies, and increased wood use. For this research, Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) developed a consistent methodology for analyzing energy use trends by end-use sector. Alternative measures of energy use trends (i.e., alternative base cases) were developed for the purpose of measuring energy savings. The energy use trends were calculated as the product of economic activity levels (number of households in the residential sector, square feet of floor space in the commercial sector, output in the industrial sector, and person-miles/ton-miles traveled in the transportation sector) and energy use intensities (energy use per household, energy use per square foot of commercial floor space, energy use per unit of industrial output, and energy use per mile traveled). Energy savings were then defined as differences between alternative estimates of energy use. Data and methods used to derive the alternative estimates are contained in a separate volume of this report (PNL-5026-App.)

Integrating JERS-1 imaging radar and elevation models for mapping tropical rainforest communities in far North Queensland, Australia

The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area in Far North Queens- land, Australia consists predominantly of tropical rainforest and wet sclerophyll forest in areas of variable relief. Previous maps of vegetation communities in the area were produced by a labor-intensive combination of field survey and air-photo interpretation. Thus,. the aim of this work was to develop a new vegetation mapping method based on imaging radar that incorporates topographical corrections, which could be repeated frequently, and which would reduce the need for detailed field assessments and associated costs. The method employed G topographic correction and mapping procedure that was developed to enable vegetation structural classes to be mapped from satellite imaging radar. Eight JERS-1 scenes covering the Wet Tropics area for 1996 were acquired from NASDA under the auspices of the Global Rainforest Mapping Project. JERS scenes were geometrically corrected for topographic distortion using an 80 m DEM and a combination of polynomial warping and radar viewing geometry modeling. An image mosaic was created to cover the Wet Tropics region, and a new technique for image smoothing was applied to the JERS texture bonds and DEM before a Maximum Likelihood classification was applied to identify major land-cover and vegetation communities. Despite these efforts, dominant vegetation community classes could only be classified to low levels of accuracy (57.5 percent) which were partly explained by the significantly larger pixel size of the DEM in comparison to the JERS image (12.5 m). In addition, the spatial and floristic detail contained in the classes of the original validation maps were much finer than the JERS classification product was able to distinguish. In comparison to field and aerial photo-based approaches for mapping the vegetation of the Wet Tropics, appropriately corrected SAR data provides a more regional scale, all-weather mapping technique for broader vegetation classes. Further work is required to establish an appropriate combination of imaging radar with elevation data and other environmental surrogates to accurately map vegetation communities across the entire Wet Tropics

Soil bulk density and biomass partitioning of Brachiaria decumbens in a silvopastoral system Densidade do solo e partição de biomassa de Brachiaria decumbens em um sistema silvopastoril

Shade in silvopastoral systems improves the thermal comfort of animals, but it may also affect the pasture productivity and can contribute to soil compaction in the shaded areas due to the increase in the number of animals looking for comfort. The effect of grazing at various distances from tree rows (under the tree canopy, at 6 and at 12 m away from the trees) on the soil bulk density and on the aerial and root biomass of Brachiaria decumbens was evaluated in both the dry and the rainy seasons. The study was carried out on an Orthic Ferralsol in a randomized block design with two replications. Tree rows were composed of Eucalyptus grandis and Acacia mangium species, and the paddocks were submitted to a rotational stocking management, using Holstein (Bos taurus) × Zebu (Bos indicus) heifers. The shade intensity in the pasture decreased with an increasing distance from the tree row. Soil bulk density did not vary with the distance from the tree row, but varied seasonally, being greater in the rainy season (1.47 g cm-3) than in the dry season (1.28 g cm-3). Green forage and root mass, expressed as dry matter, were lower under the tree canopy and were greater in the rainy season. There were decreases of 22.3 and 41.4% in the aerial and root biomasses, respectively, in the tree rows. The greatest shoot/root ratio for B. decumbens under moderate and intensive shading indicates a modification in the forage biomass allocation pattern that favours the aerial development in detriment of the root system.<br>O sombreamento em sistemas silvipastoris concorre para o conforto térmico dos animais; no entanto pode afetar a produção do pasto e contribuir para a compactação do solo, pelo aumento da concentração de animais nas áreas sombreadas. Avaliou-se o efeito da distância do renque de árvores (sob a copa das árvores, 6 e 12 m de distancia das árvores) na densidade do solo e na biomassa aérea e de raízes de Brachiaria decumbens, nas épocas seca e chuvosa. O estudo foi conduzido num Latossolo Vermelho-Amarelo no delineamento em blocos casualizados, com duas repetições. A faixa de árvores foi composta pelas espécies Eucalyptus grandis e Acacia mangium, e os piquetes foram manejados com novilhas Holandês (Bos taurus) × Zebu (Bos indicus) , sob lotação rotativa. A intensidade de sombreamento foi decrescente com o distanciamento do renque de árvores. A densidade do solo não variou com a distância do renque de árvores, mas sim com a época do ano, tendo sido maior na época chuvosa (1,47 g dm-3) do que na seca (1,28 g dm-3). As massas secas de forragem verde e de raízes foram menores sob a copa das árvores e maiores na época chuvosa do que na seca. Na faixa arborizada houve reduções de 22,3 e 41,4% na biomassa aérea e de raízes, respectivamente. A maior relação parte aérea/raiz da B. decumbens à sombra expressa uma modificação no padrão de alocação de biomassa na forrageira, que prioriza a formação da parte aérea, em detrimento do sistema radicular