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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 235 records · Page 13
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic module toxicity and waste are slowing decarbonization

Unsubstantiated claims that fuel growing public concern over the toxicity of photovoltaic modules and their waste are slowing their deployment. Clarifying these issues will help to facilitate the decarbonization that our world depends on. Harnessing the potential of photovoltaic (PV) electricity generation is a key part of the transition to less carbon-intensive energy sources. The most recent energy production forecasts call for a massive 75 TW of global PV capacity by 2050 to have a chance of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 °C and minimizing the impacts of climate change. This is more than a tenfold increase in the current manufacturing and deployment rate in less than 15 years. PV modules are new to many people, so increasing PV deployment has led to growing concerns about the quantity of waste that may arise from decommissioning them (if they are not recycled), and their potential to leach toxic metals. In conclusion, debunking misinformation about PV modules and PV module waste is the first step in addressing these concerns that are unnecessarily slowing PV deployment.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Review of the U.S. Policies, Codes, and Standards of Zero-Carbon Buildings

The global issue of climate change has accelerated the international commitment to net-zero carbon emission development. Decarbonizing the building sector has been put on several governments’ sustainable development agendas. To provide a reference for decarbonizing the building sector, this paper summarizes the U.S. experience in zero-carbon buildings (ZCBs) from the aspects of policies, codes, and standards at the federal and local levels and those of professional societies. Based on the definition and boundaries of ZCBs, this paper introduces policies on building energy efficiency, electrification, on-site renewable energy deployment, and “buy clean”, illustrating highlights in building phases, energy systems, materials production, and fiscal incentives. The synergic efforts and coordination between federal and local levels and with professional societies are also introduced. Successful experiences in policy and standard implementation are summarized, including the systemic work of multilevel governance, clearly defined goals and stringent policies, constant upgrades of codes and standards, transparency in reporting and information sharing, and increased financial and investment opportunities. This paper provides concrete recommendations for developing zero-carbon building policies.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2024

Case study on climate change effects and food security in Southeast Asia

Agriculture, a cornerstone of human civilization, faces rising challenges from climate change, resource limitations, and stagnating yields. Precise crop production forecasts are crucial for shaping trade policies, development strategies, and humanitarian initiatives. This study introduces a comprehensive machine learning framework designed to predict crop production. We leverage CMIP5 climate projections under a moderate carbon emission scenario to evaluate the future suitability of agricultural lands and incorporate climatic data, historical agricultural trends, and fertilizer usage to project yield changes. Our integrated approach forecasts significant regional variations in crop production across Southeast Asia by 2028, identifying potential cropland utilization. Specifically, the cropland area in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Viet Nam is projected to decline by more than 10% if no action is taken, and there is potential to mitigate that loss. Moreover, rice production is projected to decline by 19% in Viet Nam and 7% in Thailand, while the Philippines may see a 5% increase compared to 2021 levels. Our findings underscore the critical impacts of climate change and human activities on agricultural productivity, offering essential insights for policy-making and fostering international cooperation.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Advancing representations of equity and justice in climate mitigation futures

THIS PAPER WAS PRIMARILY COMPLETED PRIOR TO THE AUTHOR JOINING PNNL AND NO DOE FUNDING WAS USED FOR THIS PAPER. In this work, we review how equity and justice issues in global climate mitigation scenarios are addressed within Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) and propose a new research agenda to strengthen their integration in model development and application. We begin by examining prominent concerns at the science-policy interface. We introduce a typology of equity and justice limitations in climate mitigation scenarios, distinguishing among structural, methodological, and epistemological biases that shape what integrated assessment models can reveal at policy-relevant scales. Reflecting on these concerns, we propose a research agenda that describes new avenues of work and draws together distinct emerging initiatives. This agenda is based on the feasibility and depth of required interventions, from incremental improvements to structural reforms and alternative participatory approaches. Drawing on reflexive insights from integrated assessment practitioners, it addresses the operational challenges of translating justice concepts into metrics, including risks of reductionism, tokenism, and narrow definitions. Underlying this research agenda is a recognition that modeling communities must engage more critically with implicit assumptions in model design and use that have equity and justice implications. Achieving equitable climate futures will require transformative actions that integrate diverse justice concerns, advance sustainable development goals, and confront systemic inequities across both human and ecological dimensions. Although models will never capture all these aspects, they can be significantly enhanced to support more informed discussion and practical application. Our contribution proposes a way forward to achieving this goal.

Pachauri, Shonali↗
DOE OSTI2022

Adapting Technology Learning Curves for Prospective Techno-Economic and Life Cycle Assessments of Emerging Carbon Capture and Utilization Pathways

Comparisons of emerging carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies with equivalent incumbent technologies are necessary to support technology developers and to help policy-makers design appropriate long-term incentives to mitigate climate change through the deployment of CCU. In particular, early-stage CCU technologies must prove their economic viability and environmental reduction potential compared to already-deployed technologies. These comparisons can be misleading, as emerging technologies typically experience a drastic increase in performance and decrease in cost and greenhouse gas emissions as they develop from research to mass-market deployment due to various forms of learning. These changes complicate the interpretation of early techno-economic assessments (TEAs) and life cycle assessments (LCAs) of emerging CCU technologies. The effects of learning over time or cumulative production themselves can be quantitatively described using technology learning curves (TLCs). While learning curve approaches have been developed for various technologies, a harmonized methodology for using TLCs in TEA and LCA for CCU in particular is required. To address this, we describe a methodology that incorporates TLCs into TEA and LCA to forecast the environmental and economic performance of emerging CCU technologies. This methodology is based on both an evaluation of the state of the art of learning curve assessment and a literature review of TLC approaches developed in various manufacturing and energy generation sectors. Additionally, we demonstrate how to implement this methodology using a case study on a CO 2 mineralization pathway. Finally, commentary is provided on how researchers, technology developers, and LCA and TEA practitioners can advance the use of TLCs to allow for consistent, high-resolution modeling of technological learning for CCU going forward and enable holistic assessments and fairer comparisons with other climate technologies.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Chapter 9.12 - Weather, Climatic and Ecological Impacts of Onshore Wind Farms

Wind power is an environmentally sustainable technology that is likely to be part of the solution to the climate change, air pollution, and energy security problems. Despite many positive benefits, the rapid development of wind power has raised concerns about some potential adverse environmental impacts. While converting wind?s kinetic energy into electricity, wind turbines (WTs) modify properties of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) including the vertical profiles and surface-atmosphere exchanges of energy, momentum, mass, moisture, and trace gases. Given the current installed capacity and the projected installation worldwide, wind farms (WFs) are likely becoming a major driver of manmade land use change on Earth. Hence, understanding WT-atmosphere-surface interactions and assessing potential environmental impacts of WFs are of significant scientific, societal and economic importance. Here we review our progress in assessing potential impacts of onshore wind power on weather, climate and vegetation activity. A consensus is emerging based on observations and modeling studies that WFs cause a local to regional warming effect, particularly at nighttime, while the impacts on precipitation, wind patterns, crop yields and vegetation activity are uncertain. The warming effect results simply from vertical heat redistribution within the ABL due to turbine-enhanced vertical turbulent mixing in the wakes. At the global scale, with a substantial installation of WFs, mesoscale and climate models predicted large regional changes but small global impacts on temperature, while the impacts on precipitation, clouds, wind patterns and large-scale circulation have large uncertainties and are region specific and scale dependent. Despite increasing number of research efforts, our assessment of potential WF impacts is still very limited. Although the WF impacts are mostly local and limited to the near-surface ABL, this is the layer where we live and plants grow. Hence, more studies are needed to improve our understanding of WT-atmosphere-surface interactions and our capability to model and project the weather, climatic and ecological impacts of large WFs.

atmospheric boundary layer↗
DOE OSTI2023

Deep decarbonization and U.S. biofuels production: a coordinated analysis with a detailed structural model and an integrated multisectoral model

Scenarios for deep decarbonization involve biomass for biofuels, biopower, and bioproducts, and they often include negative emissions via carbon capture and storage or utilization. However, critical questions remain about the feasibility of rapid growth to high levels of biomass utilization, given biomass and land availability as well as historical growth rates of the biofuel industry. We address these questions through a unique coordinated analysis and comparison of carbon pricing effects on biomass utilization growth in the United States using a multisectoral integrated assessment model, the Global Change Analysis Model (GCAM), and a biomass-to-biofuels system dynamics model, the Bioenergy Scenario Model (BSM). We harmonized and varied key factors—such as carbon prices, vehicle electrification, and arable land availability—in the two models. We varied the rate of biorefinery construction, the fungibility of feedstock types across conversion processes, and policy incentives in BSM. The rate of growth in biomass deployment under a carbon price in both models is within the range of current literature. However, the reallocation of land to biomass feedstocks would need to overcome bottlenecks to achieve growth consistent with deep decarbonization scenarios. Investments as a result of near-term policy incentives can develop technology and expand capacity—reducing costs, enabling flexibility in feedstock use, and improving stability—but if biomass demand is high, these investments might not overcome land reallocation bottlenecks. Biomass utilization for deep decarbonization relies on extraordinary growth in biomass availability and industrial capacity. In this paper, we quantify and describe the potential challenges of this rapid change.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Getting Hydrogen to the Gigaton Scale

Due to its ability to perform clean, efficient processes, hydrogen has long been promoted as the energy carrier of the future, but recent activity and advances suggest a tipping point has been reached as hydrogen is now being recognized by much of the world for its unique capabilities to strongly support global efforts in achieving climate neutrality. The coming decades will require a massive increase in the amount of hydrogen used in the energy system as well as a transition from largely thermochemical to predominantly electrochemical processes involving hydrogen. For this to happen, hydrogen will need to globally approach the gigaton-scale on an annual basis. Thus, before hydrogen can fully achieve its potential, challenges that need to be addressed include achieving scale and further research and development (R&D) advances.

climate neutrality↗
DOE OSTI2023

Impact of Wildfires on Solar Resource Availability in California in a Changing Climate

Wildfires can emit large amounts of atmospheric particulate matters and influence not only air quality but also availability of photovoltaic (PV) generation due to scattering and absorption of solar radiation. Under anthropogenic changing climate, wildfire activity is projected to increase over western North America due to drier and warmer climate, implying increasing impact on solar resource and larger uncertainty in solar generation especially in regions with faster PV penetration. This study focuses on quantifying the impact of wildfires on aerosol optical depth (AOD) and thus solar resource over California using National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB), developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). This assessment includes historical analysis and estimation of solar resource under wildfire scenarios (2020 wildfire and an enhanced wildfire scenario based on 2020 wildfires). Historical analysis for the period of July-October 2019/2020 (low/high fire activity period) shows that the averaged global horizontal irradiance (GHI) and direct normal irradiance (DNI) are reduced by about 30 and 90 W m-2 (5.6 and 15.3%), respectively, during high fire activity period. To create AOD dataset for enhanced fire scenario, 165% increase in burn area (in around 2050) is selected based on comprehensive literature review, which is further applied to the Fire INventory from NCAR (FINN) fire emission. WRF-Chem model with the enhanced FINN emissions is used to simulate and represent a preserving spatial distribution of burned areas and wildfire-emitted aerosols. Our initial analysis suggests that the"enhanced 2020 wildfire" AOD can increase by a factor of 1.3 - 2, which can significantly reduce solar irradiance and increase uncertainty in generation and reliability of power system in extreme wildfire events under a high solar penetration scenario. Overall, this study provides an estimate of the impacts of wildfires on solar resource to make informed decisions on reserve planning, generation scheduling, and reliability investments.

aerosol optical depth↗
DOE OSTI2023

The Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis

This fact sheet provides an overview of the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis, including its approach, exploratory areas, notable successes, and ways to partner.

agricultural decarbonization↗
DOE OSTI2023

2023 JISEA Annual Meeting: JISEA Catalyzer Spotlight - Energy and Atmospheric Systems Catalyzer

The Energy and Atmospheric Systems Catalyzer has been running for 1.5 years, with many successes to report. This presentation reviews the goals and scope of the dual catalyzer themes of climate systems and air quality, summarizes new and ongoing projects, and looks into the future of how catalyzer-enabled capabilities can synergize across NREL and partners. Technical outcomes of catalyzer-supported analysis include (1) quantification of air quality, health, and equity (environmental justice) benefits of H2 substitution for fossil process heat in three industries (steelmaking, petroleum refining, and cement making) and (2) a roadmap for understanding renewable energy feedbacks into climate.

air quality↗
DOE OSTI2024

2024 JISEA Annual Meeting: Session 3

This is the presentation for the 2024 JISEA Annual Meeting Session 3: Climate Adaptation and Clean Energy, which took place on February 27, 2024. The presentation includes slides from Grant Buster, NREL researcher, on NREL's climate adaptation-based research.

clean energy↗
DOE OSTI2024

Evaluation of Global Climate Models for Use in Energy Analysis

The interplay between energy, climate, and weather is becoming more complex due to increasing contributions of renewable energy generation, energy storage, electrified end uses, and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events. Energy system analyses commonly rely on meteorological inputs to estimate renewable energy generation and energy demand; however, these inputs rarely represent the estimated impacts of future climate change. Climate models and publicly available climate change datasets can be used for this purpose, but the selection of inputs from the myriad of available models and datasets is a nuanced and subjective process. In this work, we assess datasets from various global climate models (GCMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). We present evaluations of their skills with respect to the historical climate and comparisons of their future projections of climate change for two climate change scenarios. We present the results for different climatic and energy system regions and include interactive figures in the accompanying software repository. Previous work has presented similar GCM evaluations, but none have presented variables and metrics specifically intended for comprehensive energy systems analysis including impacts on energy demand, thermal cooling, hydropower, water availability, solar energy generation, and wind energy generation. We focus on GCM output meteorological variables that directly affect these energy system components including the representation of extreme values that can drive grid resilience events. The objective of this work is not to recommend the best climate model and dataset for a given analysis, but instead to provide a reference to facilitate the selection of climate models and scenarios in subsequent work.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

CBECS Climate Zones 2003

County mapping of climate zones from the 2003 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS). The package contains the raw data, the mapped data, and plots of the output.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗