Inspiration is great, but sometimes a researcher needs raw computing power--the digital equivalent of a three-stage rocket engine blasting into the sky--to achieve a scientific breakthrough. But booking time on the world's fastest computers isn't easy. That's why the U.S. Department of Energy, owner of two of the world's top 10 fastest computers, is giving away time on seven machines at several of their sites, including the ranking supercomputers at Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California and Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee.
The DOE recently awarded 265 million processor-hours to 55 scientific projects ranging from climate change to fusion power. For a sense of scale, a project receiving 1 million hours could run on 1000 processors for 1000 hours, taking about 41 days. Running the same million-hour project on a dual-processor desktop computer would take more than 57 years. This is the fifth year the DOE has opened its supercomputers to the scientific community. And the program is expanding; this year's processor-hours triple last year's awards. "Access to supercomputers speeds up innovation," says Barbara Helland, the manager of the program. "One team doing climate research was able to run a 100-year model in three days instead of many months."
Here are five hot projects that will get a boost this year from the DOE's supercomputers:
Seeking Fusion Energy
Principal investigator: Jeff Candy, General Atomics
Title: "Gyrokinetic Steady State Transport Simulations"
Processor hours: 1.5 million
Candy will be conducting a multiscale simulation of a burning plasma core for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a large-scale, long-term fusion-power project launched in 2006. The simulation will be used to predict the performance of superheated plasma at various temperatures and densities.
Finding a Cure for Parkinson's
Principal Investigator: Igor Tsigelny, University of California--San Diego
Title: "Simulation and Modeling of Synuclein-Based `Protofibril Structures' as a Means of Understanding the Molecular Basis of Parkinson's Disease"
Processor Hours: 1.2 million
This study will combine high-end computation with biochemical and other experiments to model the molecular basis for Parkinson's disease. By guiding experiments with complex computer simulations, Tsigelny's team hopes to identify key amino acid interactions and to use this information to create new therapeutic drugs.
Predicting Climate Change
Principal Investigator: Warren Washington, National Center for Atmospheric Research
Title: "Climate-Science Computational End Station Development and Grand Challenge Team"
Processor Hours: 18.04 million
Washington will be pushing the envelope on future climate modeling, hoping to better predict the pace of climate change by modeling the global carbon cycle, including the many variables associated with the way oceans and land masses regulate carbon.
Cleaner Fuels for New Engines
Principal Investigator: Jacqueline Chen, Sandia National Laboratories
Title: "High-Fidelity Simulations for Clean and Efficient Combustion of Alternative Fuels"
Processor Hours: 18 million
Next-generation engines using alternative fuels may feature higher pressure and lower temperature engines. This project will use new, novel simulations to study the possible interactions of advanced engines with newly created fuels.
Harnessing Molecular Machines
Principal Investigator: Benoit Roux, Argonne National Lab & The University of Chicago
Title: "Gating Mechanism of Membrane Proteins"
Processor Hours: 5 million
Cell membranes are the boundary between living organisms and their environment, and proteins in the membranes determine what comes in and out. Roux will attempt to uncover the secrets of these cellular gatekeepers for biotechnology uses, including methods of removing toxins from organic waste and improving the way enzymes and bacteria convert organic compounds to potential biofuels.
The array of BlueGene/L supercomputers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will house just a fraction of the 265 million processor-hours recently awarded by the Department of Energy. (Photograph by Joseph Martinez)