Tools & Data
Tools and Data
We actively maintain a number of tools, many of which are publicly available for download. These modeling tools help industry, governments and researchers understand a range of economic and environmental impacts of energy technologies and strategies.
Below are the software tools available:
Providing quantitative estimates of California GHG emissions from anthropogenic activities and natural environments using a combination of existing emissions inventories and process models, atmospheric measurements and inverse model analysis.
Purpose
CALGEM provides estimates of multi-species GHG emissions to update California's official state-annual total GHG inventory, identify opportunities for mitigation activities and plan future measurement networks.
Status
Actively Maintained
Availability
The CALGEM webpage contains links to request measured data and model output including gridded emission maps of statewide methane emissions by emission sector (e.g., livestock, landfills, oil and gas, wastewater, etc.), tower, aircraft, and mobile ground measurements, and numerical predictions of atmospheric transport.
Audience
Climate change policy, regulatory and research communities
Development Team
SES PI(s) / Contact: Marc Fischer
Additional Developer(s): CALGEM Group at LBNL
Send questions to: mlfischer@lbl.gov
Sponsors
Bay Area Air Quality Management District, California Energy Commission, California Air Resources Board, NASA, U.S. Department of Energy
More Information
California Greenhouse Gas Emissions Measurement (CALGEM): calgem.lbl.gov
Lifecycle Industry GHgas Technology and Energy through the Use Phase (LIGHTnUP) is used to forecast both the manufacturing sector and product life-cycle energy consumption implications of manufactured products across the U.S. economy.
Purpose
Lifecycle Industry GHgas Technology and Energy through the Use Phase (LIGHTnUP) model aims to provide policymakers with insights for manufacturing sector measures that can have a high impact in reducing energy consumption and emissions across a broad range of the U.S. economy.
Status
Actively Maintained
Availability
The LIGHTnUP tool is constantly being updated. Please contact the development team regarding current availability.
Audience
Policymakers and energy research communities
Development Team
SES PI(s): William Morrow
Additional Developer(s): Arman Shehabi
Send questions to: wrmorrow@lbl.gov
Sponsor
U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO)
Purpose
USEtox™ is a model based on scientific consensus for characterizing human and ecotoxicological impacts of chemicals in life cycle impact assessment. The main output includes a database of recommended and interim characterization factors including environmental fate, exposure, and effect parameters for human toxicity and ecotoxicity. LBNL EAEI scientists were part of the USEtox development team.
Status
Actively Maintained
Availability
Download and more information at www.usetox.org
Audience
Broad range of regulatory agencies, policymakers, environmental health scientists, life-cycle assessors
Development Team
SES PI(s): Tom McKone
Send questions to:
Peter Fantke, Ph.D.
Associate Professor | USEtox® Manager
Quantitative Sustainability Assessment (QSA)
Technical University of Denmark (DTU-MAN)
Bygningstorvet 116B/106A, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, DK
+45 4525 4452 | pefan@dtu.dk | qsa.man.dtu.dk
Sponsors
United Nations Environment Program, U.S. EPA
The Manufacturing Cost Levelization Model is a cost-performance techno-economic model that estimates total large-scale manufacturing costs necessary to produce a given product.
Purpose
The Manufacturing Cost Levelization Model is designed to provide production cost estimates for technology researchers to help guide technology research and development towards an eventual cost-effective product.
Status
In Development
Availability
The model presented here for download is generic and can be tailored to the manufacturing of any product, including the generation of electricity (as a product). This flexibility, however, requires the user to develop the processes and process efficiencies that represents a full-scale manufacturing facility.
Audience
Developers of emerging technologies, technology startups, policy makers, and research communities
Development Team
SES PI(s): William R. Morrow, III; Arman Shehabi
Send questions to: wrmorrow@lbl.gov
Sponsor
U.S. ARPA-E
Agile Cradle-to-Grave (AgileC2G) is a flexible life-cycle assessment (LCA) and scenario analysis tool, capable of efficiently and accurately quantifying the life-cycle energy, environmental, economic, and employment impacts of any biofuel/bioproduct production system. The hybrid (process/input-output) methods-based model will also allow users to select from versions that use input data/assumptions consistent with models such as GREET, and CA-GREET to facilitate side-by-side comparisons with other published results. Monte Carlo simulations will be used to quantify uncertainty in both models. The goal is to expand this tool to applications beyond biofuels and bioproducts as well. It is in active development, and is not currently available to the public.
Purpose
AgileC2G is a hybrid process-based/input-output model written in R that allows for users to customize their analysis to specific regions, and to harmonize their model runs with popular existing LCA models. It is currently under development, and is used internally for work at the Joint BioEnergy Institute and work in the Energy Technologies Area at LBNL. We encourage prospective collaborators to contact us about model uses and further development.
Status
In Active Development
Availability
Available for qualified collaborations but no public release currently. Contact Corinne Scown for more details.
Audience
Researchers biofuel/bioproduct/bio-electricity research, as well as startup companies looking for simple, transparent LCA tools.
Development Team
SES PI(s): Corinne Scown
Additional Developer(s): Binod Neupane
Send questions to: cdscown@lbl.gov
Sponsors
Joint BioEnergy Institute, Energy Biosciences Institute, California Energy Commission
Legacy Software:
The BErkeley-TRent Continental-Scale Pollutant Fate and Transport Model (North America) (BETR North America) model captures the observation that contaminants such as dioxin, DDT, and mercury not only move with prevailing winds but are also absorbed by the soil, water and vegetation because of a natural tendency to maintain chemical equilibrium with the environment.
Purpose
The model improves on traditional atmospheric models by more completely reflecting how persistent organic pollutants move and accumulate throughout North America.
Status
Legacy
Availability
By request to:
Matthew MacLeod
Stockholm University
Matthew.MacLeod@aces.su.se
Audience
Broad range of regulatory agencies, policymakers, environmental health scientists, life-cycle assessors
Development Team
SES PI(s): Tom McKone
Additional Developer(s):
Matthew MacLeod, Donald Mackay
Send questions to: Matthew.MacLeod@aces.su.se
Sponsors
Canadian Environmental Modeling Center, U.S. EPA
Purpose
The BErkeley-TRent Global-Scale Pollutant Fate and Transport Model (BETR Global) is a geographically explicit global-scale multimedia contaminant fate model based on expansion of BETR North America. The available version of the model is coded in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and runs within Microsoft Excel with a graphical user interface. BETR Global has been developed and tested on 32-bit versions of Excel 2007 and Excel 2010.
Status
Legacy
Availability
By request to:
Matthew MacLeod
Stockholm University
Matthew.MacLeod@aces.su.se
Audience
Broad range of regulatory agencies, policymakers, environmental health scientists, life-cycle assessors
More Information
BETR Global: sites.google.com/site/betrglobal/home
Development Team
SES PI(s): Tom McKone
Additional Developer(s):
Matthew MacLeod, Donald Mackay
Send questions to: Matthew.MacLeod@aces.su.se
Sponsors
Canadian Environmental Modeling Center, U.S. EPA
Purpose
CalTOX is a set of spreadsheet models and spreadsheet data sets to assist in assessing human exposures from continuous releases to multiple environmental media, i.e. air, soil, and water. The modeling components of CalTOX include a multimedia transport and transformation model, multi-pathway exposure scenario models, and add-ins to quantify and evaluate uncertainty and variability. All parameter values used as inputs to CalTOX are distributions, described in terms of mean values and a coefficient of variation, rather than as point estimates or plausible upper values such as most other models employ. This probabilistic approach allows both sensitivity and uncertainty analyses to be directly incorporated into the model operation.
Status
Legacy
Availability
By request to:
Thomas E McKone
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
temckone@lbl.gov
Audience
Broad range of regulatory agencies, policymakers, environmental health scientists, life-cycle assessors
Development Team
SES PI(s): Tom McKone
Additional Developer(s): Randy Maddalena (LBNL)
Send questions to: temckone@lbl.gov
Sponsors
California Environmental Protection Agency, US EPA
More Information
CalTOX Tool: www.dtsc.ca.gov/AssessingRisk/caltox.cfm
The Cloud Energy and Emissions Research (CLEER) Model is a system-wide infrastructure analysis tool and a comprehensive user-friendly open-access model for assessing the net energy and emissions implications of cloud services in different regions and at different levels of market adoption.
Purpose
The model provides a framework for assessing the net energy and emissions implications of cloud services and aims to provide full transparency on calculations and input value assumptions so that its results can be replicated and its data and methods can be easily refined and improved by the research community. The overarching purpose of the CLEER Model is to encourage and enable open scientific research on the positive and negative impacts of cloud services.
Status
Legacy
Availability
A public use version of the model is available here.
Audience
Data center and Information Communication Technology (ICT) businesses, policymakers, and research communities
More Information
CLEER Model: cleermodel.lbl.gov
Development Team
SES PI(s): Arman Shehabi
Additional Developer(s):
Lavanya Ramakrishnan at CRD,
Eric Masanet (formerly SES PI, now faculty at Northwestern University)
Send questions to: ashehabi@lbl.gov
Sponsor
Purpose
Berkeley Lab has contributed to CONTAM, the whole-building airflow and pollutant transport tool developed at NIST. CONTAM couples a multizone network airflow model to a well-mixed pollutant transport model to predict the transport and fate of airborne materials. It includes deposition, filtration, source terms and other transport models. CONTAM also can be coupled to either EnergyPlus or TRNSYS, for whole-building energy analysis.
Status
Legacy
Availability
For more information, or to download CONTAM, please visit the NIST website at www.nist.gov/services-resources/software/contam.
Audience
Broad range of users, scientists, and regulators.
Development Team
SES PI(s): Michael Sohn
Additional Developer(s):
David Lorenzetti
Send questions to: mdsohn@lbl.gov
Sponsor
U.S. Department of Defense
Purpose
VTAG is a Python-based model for applying sales-based alternative vehicle consumer adoption curves to baseline U.S. Annual Energy Outlook vehicle sales projections in order to model the resulting automobile-related energy use and greenhouse gas emissions through 2050. The model is implemented on a county level and accounts for population growth, regional differences in driving behavior and changes to fuel availability and vehicle fuel economy.
Status
Legacy. Working additional funded work to update underlying data and assumptions. Two versions exist: one written in Python for national-level analysis, another written in R for California analysis.
Availability
Available for qualified collaborations but no public release. Contact Corinne Scown for more details.
Audience
Researchers in transportation life-cycle assessment and alternative fuel production scenarios
Development Team
SES PI(s): Corinne Scown
Additional Developer(s): Thomas McKone, Arpad Horvath, Michael Taptich
Send questions to: cdscown@lbl.gov
Sponsors
Energy Biosciences Institute
California Energy Commission PIER
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Energy Biosciences Institute
California Energy Commission
Purpose
CALGAPS provides statewide estimates of historical and projected greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors of the California economy. It separately models the greenhouse gas impacts of almost 50 existing and potential policies through 2050, and has the ability to turn “on” or “off” individual or groups of policies and explore the effects on multiple sectors. CALGAPS models multiple greenhouse gases and is also configured to model criteria air pollutants (NOx, SOx and PM2.5) for two sub-state regions (San Joaquin Valley and South Coast Air Basin) as well as statewide, though emissions are not currently estimated from all sectors.
Status
Last published version December 2014; Bay Area version completed in 2017.
Availability
If interested in downloading data or spreadsheet for the statewide model version, please send a request to jbgreenblatt@lbl.gov.
Audience
Climate change policy, regulatory, and research communities.
Development Team
SES PI: Jeffery Greenblatt
Send questions to: jbgreenblatt@lbl.gov
Sponsors
California Air Resources Board
Bay Area Air Quality Management District
More Information
Modeling California policy impacts on greenhouse gas emissions
Modeling California policy impacts on greenhouse gas emissions in Energy Policy