The Vulcan Project

THE VULCAN PROJECT

The Vulcan Project is a NASA/DOE funded effort under the North American Carbon Program (NACP) to quantify North American fossil fuel carbon dioxide (FFCO2) emissions at space and time scales much finer than has been achieved in the past. The purpose is to aid in quantification of the North American carbon budget, to support inverse estimation of carbon sources and sinks, and to provide decisionmakers and stakeholders a detailed quantiyative understanding of the FFCO2-emitting landscape. The detail and scope of the Vulcan FFCO2 emissions data product has already made it a valuable tool for atmospheric scientists, biogeochemists, policymakers, demographers, social scientists and the public at large.

Vulcan v2.2 has achieved the quantification of the 2002 U.S. fossil fuel FFCO2 emissions at the scale of individual factories, powerplants, roadways and neighborhoods on an hourly basis. We have placed the emissions on a common 10 km x 10 km grid to facilitate atmospheric modeling. In addition to improvement in space and time resolution, Vulcan provides detailed information with emitting entities such as fuel type, economic sub-sector, and combustion process.

A new version, version 3.0 will be released in the first-half of 2019 and improves the input data and methods in addition to extending the estimation time period to 2010-2015. It will be made available at 1 km x 1 km spatial resolution and hourly temporal resolution. To be notified up the Vulcan v3.0 release, email Dr. Kevin Robert Gurney to be added to the Vulcan listserve.

The Vulcan Project is led by Dr. Kevin Robert Gurney and a team of researchers at Northern Arizona University. 

THE VULCAN TEAM
Kevin Robert Gurney
Professor
School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, NAU

Jianming Liang
Postdoctoral Researcher
School of Life Sciences, ASU

Terry Song
Graduate Student
School of Life Sciences, ASU

Geoffrey Roest
Postdoctoral Researcher
School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems; NAU

PAST TEAM MEMBERS (our Vulcan graduates!)

Jianhua Huang
Graduate student
School of Life Science, ASU

Chris Miller
GIS research librarian
Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Purdue Univ.

Bedrich Benes
Associate Professor
Computer Graphics and Technology, Purdue Univ.

Vandhana Chandrasekaran
Chief Scientific Programmer
CERIAS, Purdue Univ.

Daniel Mendoza
Graduate Student
Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Purdue Univ.

Advait Godbole
Graduate Student
Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Purdue Univ.

Xia Zhang
Postdoctoral Researcher
School of Life Sciences, ASU

Sullivan Peraino
Undergraduate Student

Nathan Andrysco
Graduate Student
Computer Science (partial support from Envision Center)

Jonghun Kam
Summer DURI Undergraduate Student
Purdue University

Sarath Geethakumar
Scientific Programmer
CERIAS graduate, Purdue Univ.

Mithun Vaidhyanathan
Scientific Programmer
CERIAS graduate, Purdue Univ.

Nalin Sahni
Graduate Student
Civil Engineering graduate, Purdue Univ.

Xueyao Chen
Undergraduate Student, Purdue Univ.

Jaymee Binion
Undergraduate Student, Purdue Univ.

Rachel Huber
Undergraduate Student, Purdue Univ.

Vulcan includes the following collaborators:

Google
Simon Ilyushchenko

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Marc Fischer
Scott Murtishaw
Stephane de la Rue du Can

Colorado State University
Scott Denning
Kathy Corbin
Dennis Ojima
Steve Knox