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English	Help solving the world's energy crisis with EDGeS@Home
Nederlands	Help mee met EDGeS@Home om de energiecrisis op te lossen
Français	Aidez à résoudre la crise d'énergie, avec EDGeS@Home
Portugese	EDGeS@Home procura resolver a crise energética Mundial
Hungarian	EDGeS@Home a globális energiaproblémák megoldásának szolgálatában
Spanish	Ayuda para solucionar la crisis energética del mundo con EDGeS@Home

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Help solving the world's energy crisis with EDGeS@Home

Almere, 2010-03-15, Producing energy in a sustainable, safe and  environmental friendly way is one of the main challenges of our time. Nuclear Fusion is one of the promising energy sources, but  the technology is difficult to master.  It could provide endless energy - estimated to be sufficient  for  about 2 billion years, there is no CO2  produced and no nuclear waste. Fusion reactors are also inherently safe, because the reaction automatically stops when something goes wrong. Currently Europe, and other countries from all over the world are working together to develop and  build  nuclear fusion reactors. To predict and optimise the behaviour of nuclear fusion reactions in these  machines, a lot of computer calculations are needed.  Everyone can now help with solving this problem by donating unused computing time to the  EDGeS@Home project. The otherwise wasted computing time can then be used by scientists in Europe to run software called ISDEP  designed to do part of these reactor simulations. ISDEP has been ported by the EDGeS project to the EDGeS infrastructure and is used in EDGeS@Home. In this straightforward way, this ‘green’ approach of information technology and computation make the Fusion research itself environmental friendly now.

EDGeS  has announced the launch of EDGES@Home. EDGeS@Home is a voluntary Desktop Grid computing project that allows European citizens, and others, to donate unused computing time to science. EDGeS@Home at home focuses on scientific projects that already use the European Service Grid infrastructure EGEE. Scientists who are already acquainted with EGEE, can without any additional effort, use the additional computational power of the computing time donated through EDGES@Home.
The first scientific project that runs on EDGeS@Home is ISDEP: scientific software that simulates the interior workings of a fusion reactor.  The research area is very promising, and fusion reactors could become a major source of environmental friendly and safe energy in the future.
By donating unused computing time to ISDEP, citizens can help solving the world's energy problem. The only thing they have to do is to download a small  easy-to-install  Desktop Grid programme, that will take care unused computing time is used by ISDEP. Contributing to a Desktop Grid such as EDGeS@Home is secure and safe: the Grid software itself is inherently safe and secure. The scientific programmes have gone through an extensive validation process to be absolutely sure they cannot harm a citizen's computer in any way.
EDGES@Home comes in two flavours. Citizens can choose between downloading either a  so called BOINC Grid client, or an XtremWebHEP-E client. XtremWeb is a “no-thrills” client: doing the job of donating the computing time quietly in the background.  BOINC offers more options for being part of a community: one can earn “credits” and it displays credit rankings on top lists. BOINC also has many message-boards with active discussions.
The EDGeS project has created the Bridge technology that made it possible to seamlessly integrate EGEE type of Grids, based on gLite with BOINC and XtremWebHEP-E  based Desktop Grids. This allowed the creation of one of Europe's largest computational infrastructures with over 100.000 computers connected to Desktop Grids and 150.000 processors  being part of EGEE.

“ISDEP is a fusion application designed to take advantage of distributed computing architectures, so it can run on Service Grids and Desktop Grids, as well as cloud computers,” declared Paco Castejón and Alfonso Tarancón, the ISDEP team leaders. 
"EGEE has been working with the fusion community for a number of years and seen a steady growth in their computing needs," says Bob Jones, EGEE Project Director. "It is vital that fusion applications are designed in a manner that allows them to make use of different types of computer systems."
The Dutch Institute for Plasma Physics Rijnhuizen is the home base for fusion research in the Netherlands. As part of its outreach programme, Rijnhuizen travels the country with the Fusion Road Show, an interactive performance about the future of energy and fusion. "After the show, people often ask us how they can make fusion come to life," says Gieljan de Vries, Rijnhuizen's head of public information. "With the EDGeS@Home-software, anyone can help out in the work on this future energy source. A great initiative and a good way to get people involved in fusion science."
“With EDGeS@Home we want to give European citizens the opportunity to be part of one of Europe's biggest endeavours to support science: the combined EDGeS infrastructure is already 250.000 computer processors large,” said Peter Kacsuk EDGeS project manager, “EDGeS@Home is designed to support applications  that are already running on the European scientific service Grid EGEE. So people at home know it is important science that will be done on EDGeS@Home.”
EDGeS also supports several other Desktop Grids (such as AlmereGrid, SZTAKI Desktop Grid, IberCivis, OurGrid) that run different applications, including medical and mathematical applications. So when people rather want to support an application not available in  EDGeS@Home, they can join one of the other Desktop Grids and donate computing time to help science.
The EDGES@HOME will be  at  website: http://edgesathome.org
EdgeS@Home will be officially launched on March 30 at the AlmereGrid Desktop Grid Experience workshop in Almere.  Other Volunteer computing Grids, including Leiden Classical and ABC@Home, as well will be present there.
More information: http://edges-grid.eu/web/userforum/4thtraining


Note for the Editors
The EDGeS project is a European project with 9 partners and 7 subcontractors led by MTA SZTAKI.  EDGeS is supported by a Grant from the European Commission's  FP7 IST Capacities Programme under grant agreement  RI-211727.

EDGeS Project Coordinator
Prof. Peter Kacsuk
E-mail: kacsuk at sztaki.hu
Phone: +36 1 329 7864

About EGEE
The Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE) project is co-funded by the European Commission. The project aims to provide researchers, in both academia and industry, with access to major computing resources, independent of their geographic locations.
EGEE Press contact:
Neasan O’Neil, EGEE Press and Events Manager,
E-mail: n.oneill at qmul.ac.uk.
Phone: +44 (0)79 6281 8712,
Web: http://www.eu-egee.org

About  the National Fusion Laboratory - CIEMAT
ISDEP project leader
Francisco  Castejón
Phone: +34 913466504
E-mail:  qycastejon@ciemat.es

About Fusie-energie.nl
Head Public Information and Communication
FOM Institute for Plasma Physics
drs. Gieljan de Vries
Phone: +31 (0)30 6096 902
E-mail: g.devries at rijnhuizen.nl

More information on this press release
EDGeS Dissemination Manager
Ad Emmen
E-mail: info at almeregrid.nl
Phone: +31 36 5373 867