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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 253 records · Page 14
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

A Comparison of the Environmental Effects of Open-Loop and Closed-Loop Pumped Storage Hydropower

Pumped storage hydropower (PSH) capabilities are generally characterized as either open-loop or closed-loop. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) defines open-loop PSH as “continuously connected to a naturally flowing water feature,” and closed-loop PSH as “not continuously connected to a naturally flowing water feature.” All the PSH projects constructed in the United States to date are open-loop, so the potential environmental effects of closed-loop systems are not as well documented as the effects of open-loop systems. To address this knowledge gap, the DOE Water Power Technologies Office, under its HydroWIRES Initiative, has prepared this report to: (1) compare the potential environmental effects of open-loop PSH projects with those of closed-loop PSH projects; (2) describe how these effects are being avoided, minimized, or mitigated at existing projects in other countries and proposed projects in the United States; and (3) discuss the relative significance of the environmental issues. The report begins with a brief introduction on the current status of PSH development in the United States. Next, the report describes the current Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) hydropower licensing process, emphasizing some recent regulatory changes that affect closed-loop PSH development. The report then provides a summary comparison of the environmental effects of constructing and operating open-loop and closed-loop PSH systems and discusses the relative significance of those issues. This comparison and discussion are based on the results of a literature review and a review of FERC licensing records. The literature review includes journal articles, technical reports, and presentations on the environmental effects of PSH systems. It includes literature from the United States as well as countries where closed-loop PSH projects have been constructed. The FERC records review examines the FERC licensing record (e.g., National Environmental Policy Act documents and license orders) to identify the environmental effects anticipated and mitigation measures proposed for six of the closed-loop PSH projects currently licensed or permitted in the United States. For comparison, the FERC records review also discusses the environmental effects and mitigation measures for four open-loop PSH projects proposed or currently operating in the United States. The comparison of effects between open-loop and closed-loop projects is relative; that is, it characterizes the impacts of each project type as generally lower or higher than another project type. The comparison reflects general trends among project types because there are sometimes exceptions to the examples cited. The comparison is based on both spatial (location) and temporal (duration) factors and reflects both the severity and likelihood of effects. The report concludes that the environmental effects of closed-loop PSH projects are generally lower (i.e., more localized and of shorter duration) than those of open-loop PSH projects because they are located “off-stream,” minimizing aquatic and terrestrial impacts, and often have greater siting flexibility than open-loop PSH projects. For certain closed-loop project designs, however, impacts to groundwater may be higher relative to open-loop projects and should be considered in any environmental review.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Distributed Wind Market Report: 2021 Edition

The U.S. Department of Energy’s annual Distributed Wind Market Report provides stakeholders with market statistics and analysis along with insights into market trends and characteristics. By providing a comprehensive overview of the distributed wind market, this report can help guide future investments and decisions by industry, utilities, federal and state agencies, and other interested parties. This report provides key information to help stakeholders understand and access market opportunities and inform distributed wind industry research and development needs.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Estimating Fresh Water Needs to Meet Future Thermoelectric Generation Requirements and Program Water Saving Benefits (2022 Update)

Freshwater availability is operationally critical for thermoelectric power plants. Trends indicating a growing population, along with increasing threats stemming from the changing climate could possibly set off water scarcity issues for U.S. thermoelectric generation in scarcity-prone regions in the country. This report is an update to a previous water needs analysis which was conducted in 2020 by the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE/NETL).

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Distributed Wind Market Report: 2022 Edition

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) annual Distributed Wind Market Report analyzes distributed wind projects of all sizes to provide stakeholders with market statistics and analysis along with insights into market trends and characteristics. By providing a comprehensive overview of the distributed wind market, this report can help guide future investments and decisions by industry, utilities, federal and state agencies, and other interested parties. This report provides key information to help stakeholders understand and access market opportunities and inform distributed wind industry research and development needs.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Response to “how robust are reductions in modeled estimates from GTAP-BIO of the indirect land use change induced by conventional biofuels?”

Malins et al. (2020) recently published "How robust are reductions in modeled estimates from GTAP-BIO of the indirect land use change induced by conventional biofuels?", provided their narrative from the model improvements in GTAP-BIO over time, made several critical points regarding this model, and argued that the implemented improvements in this model tended to decrease Induce Land Use Changes (ILUC) emissions. Furthermore, they also provided several critical points regarding the Carbon Calculator for Land Use Change from Biofuels Production (CCLUB) emissions model. In this response to Malins et al. we address these critiques point-by-point by providing our detailed responses to key issues: 1) the GTAP-BIO model and its improvements over time; 2) the inclusion of cropland pasture in the model; 3) the observed land use changes in the US that have been the bases for improvements in GTAP-BIO model, 4) the time trends in corn price and yield to challenge the concept of the yield to price response; 5) some sources of land intensification in crop production; 6) the FAO notifications with respect to the comparison between harvested area and arable land; and 7) the GTAP-BIO results for multiple cropping. We also provided responses to Malins et al. critical points regarding the CCLUB emissions model. We hope that this response letter will open more constructive discussion among the LUC modeling community to remain focused on the big picture regarding agriculture's role as a very effective GHG mitigation tool that can shape the new policies to govern the production and consumption of biofuels.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Quantifying the Uncertainty of the Future Hydrological Impacts of Climate Change: Comparative Analysis of an Advanced Hierarchical Sensitivity in Humid and Semiarid Basins

Comparison and quantification of different uncertainties of future climate change involved in the modeling of a hydrological system are highly important for both hydrological modelers and policy-makers. However, few studies have accurately estimated the relative importance of different sources of uncertainty at different spatiotemporal scales. Here, a hierarchical sensitivity analysis framework (HSAF) incorporated with a variance-based global sensitivity analysis is developed to quantify the spatiotemporal contributions of different uncertainties in hydrological impacts of climate change in two different climatic (humid and semiarid) basins in China. The uncertainty sources include three emission scenarios (ESs), 20 global climate models (GCs), three hydrological models (HMs), and the associated sensitive hydrological parameters (PAs) screened and sampled by the Morris and Latin hypercube sampling methods, respectively. Further, the results indicate that the overall trend of uncertainty is PA > HM > GC > ES, but their uncertainties have discrepancies in projections of different hydrological variables. The HM uncertainty in annual and monthly discharge projections is generally larger than the PA uncertainty in the humid basin than semiarid basin. The PA has greater uncertainty in extreme hydrological event (annual peak discharge) projections than in annual discharge projections for both basins (particularly for the humid basin), but contributes larger uncertainty to annual and monthly discharge projections in the semiarid basin than humid basin. The GC contributes larger uncertainty in all the hydrological variables projections in the humid basin than semiarid basin, while the ES uncertainty is rather limited in both basins. Overall, our results suggest there is greater spatiotemporal variability of hydrological uncertainty in more arid regions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

U.S. Hydropower Market Report 2023

This is the fourth complete edition of the U.S. Hydropower Market Report (the previous editions, published in 2015, 2018, and 2021, are available here). In intervening years between publishing the full report, updated data are also summarized and released and can be found at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory HydroSource website. This report combines data from public and commercial sources and research findings from other U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) R&D projects to provide a comprehensive picture of developments in the U.S. hydropower and pumped storage hydropower (PSH) fleet and industry trends. Prior to the first Hydropower Market Report being published, there was a noted lack of publicly available and easily accessible information about hydropower in the United States and other important trends affecting this important sector of the energy industry. New and valuable types of information are constantly being developed as part of DOE research activities and, in a rapidly evolving energy industry, it is important that these data be made available in a predictable and consistent manner for use by all different types of stakeholders and decision-makers.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Bridging the Gap on Data, Metrics, and Analyses for Grid Resilience to Weather Events: Information that utilities can provide regulators, state energy offices, and other stakeholders

A growing number of states require regulated utilities to file resilience plans to improve the electric grid’s ability to anticipate, withstand, adapt to and recover from increasingly severe weather events. This report aims to help state regulators identify and request data, metrics, and analyses from utilities and use it in decisions on utility resilience plans and investments. The report reviews state requirements and utility plans focused on overall grid resilience, climate change resilience and vulnerabilities, infrastructure modernization, storm protection, and wildfire mitigation. It details types of data, metrics, and analyses across five categories--and provides examples of each from the utility plans. The first category is vulnerability assessments, or evaluations of the susceptibility of systems, communities, or assets to potential harm from identified hazards. The second is data on hazards and the exposure of utility assets and customers to these hazards. The third is attribute metrics, or system characteristics that contribute to or describe the resilience of a system. The fourth is performance metrics, which are impacts of resilience investments on system performance--typically a reduction of negative impacts from hazard events. Finally, evaluation and prioritization are analyses that utilities conduct to estimate impacts from resilience measures (evaluation) and prioritize measures based on costs and estimated impacts (prioritization). The report concludes with examples of key trends and emerging best practices for states and utilities, and identifies areas for further research.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Just Transition Principles: Prepared for the APEC Energy Working Group Workshop on Promoting a Just Energy Transition

A global energy transition from fossil energy to clean energy is unfolding. Just transition is an iterative, continuous process of moving from a fossil-fuel economy to a green economy that provides decent, productive, and ecologically sustainable livelihoods; nurtures social dialogue; and equitably distributes costs and benefits of the energy system. It is aimed at supporting affected workers and communities and affirms that the transition is towards a more equitable energy system. Though the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) region as a whole is largely representative of global energy transition trends, APEC’s member economies – and communities within them – will have their own transition nuances. Approaches to just transition must therefore recognize both the global and the local transition dynamics. The report offers eight just transition principles that can help inform work that assures the current energy transition, and its future iterations, are fair and equitable.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Retail Electricity Price and Cost Trends: 2024 Update [Slides]

Berkeley Lab’s "Retail Electricity Price and Cost Trends" summarizes recent trends in retail electricity price levels and price drivers in the United States. This report is intended to serve as a reference document for the diverse set of decision-makers impacted by changes in retail electricity prices and to provide a factual basis for assessing recent changes in retail electricity prices and key underlying drivers. National, regional, and state trends are reported for 2019 through 2023 using publicly-available data for: -Average retail electricity prices, retail sales, and utility revenues -Utility capital expenditures, operations and maintenance costs, and fuel and purchased power costs -Retail electricity sales impacts from behind-the-meter resources The report also includes qualitative case studies highlighting recent and/or regionally-specific issues contributing significantly to retail electricity price trends

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Lessons Learned for Transmission Cost Allocation in U.S. Regional Markets

Expanding electric transmission can facilitate generator interconnection and improve grid reliability. Assigning costs for new transmission infrastructure is highly contentious because these costs can have a direct impact on energy prices and ratepayer bills. In this report, we evaluate what factors influence successful transmission cost allocation agreements. Through a review of legal disputes, existing cost allocation practices, and regional case studies, we identify potential strategies to minimize cost allocation disputes for future projects. The report also highlights the processes by which regions can update their cost allocation methods. While we do not consider cost allocation methods currently under development for compliance with FERC Order 1920, the trends and lessons learned identified in this report can inform discussions on effective cost allocation methods to reduce barriers for transmission development.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2021

A Circularity Assessment for Silicon Solar Panels Based on Dynamic Material Flow Analysis: Preprint

Solar photovoltaics (PV) are the fastest growing renewable energy technology for clean, inexpensive, and sustainable electricity generation. Along with numerous technical roadmaps to improve system cost, performance and reliability, the PV industry should also plan to handle large volumes of silicon panel waste, which is initially estimated to be ~13 million metric tons (MT) by 2050 in the U.S. alone. Understanding the magnitude of material needs and how material flows throughout the PV panel life cycle could respond to design, operational and different end-of-life (EOL) circular pathways will help transition into a circular, resource-conserving economy. Herein, we introduce a dynamic material flow analysis (DMFA) framework based on electricity generation to quantify time-series stocks and flows of bulk PV materials (e.g., solar glass and aluminum frames) throughout the life cycles of utility-scale silicon PV systems in the U.S. in the period 2000-2100. We apply the model to a range of scenarios to understand how material demands depend on selected PV-related parameters, different material circularity strategies, and recent module design trends (e.g., bifacial, frameless). We found that float glass and aluminum in PV installations would likely reach 100 million MT and 12 million MT by 2100, respectively, in the baseline scenario. The most influential parameters for PV installation and subsequent waste reduction are found to be module lifetime, module efficiency, annual degradation, and material reduction. Module recycling and component remanufacturing were found to be the most effective material circularity strategies for waste minimization. Panel reuse has negligible savings on waste under current module efficiencies compared to replacements with newer generations with higher efficiency. Ongoing trends to produce larger power frameless modules could save 10 million MT of glass and ~9 million MT of aluminum. Our results enable advanced planning for future materials needs and provide insight into potential opportunities to minimize waste.

circular economy↗
DOE OSTI2023

Energy Transition: Challenges and Opportunities for the Oil & Gas Industry

The energy sector has been experiencing a massive but gradual shift in recent years toward renewable and low-carbon energy sources. The future of fossil fuels lies in the ability of the industry to adapt to the market, environment, and social trends within the energy transition framework. In this chapter, we review the challenges that the oil and gas industry will be facing in the coming years. We then explore opportunities and growth areas that this transition provides to the industry. This chapter focuses on three areas of digitization and modernization, developing innovative low-carbon fuels, and harnessing underground and offshore facilities and expertise.

blockchain technology↗
DOE OSTI2020

Dynamics of virtual water networks: Role of national socio-economic indicators across the world

Intensified water usage due to rapid industrialization is often dictated by economic policies based on monetary growth rather than sustainable use of environmental resources. In addition, interdependence within economic sectors further interweaves water usage through product transactions, which further makes it difficult to quantify the dynamics of hydro-economic systems at regional, national and global scale. In this study, we investigated the dynamics of domestic virtual water networks (VWN) of 189 countries based on concept of information theory by quantifying network metrics that describes VWN flow capacity, robustness, efficiency and flexibility. These networks represent virtual water interconnected through economic sectors within a specified country built based on environmentally extended multi region input output (EE-MRIO) approach. We further estimated trends associated with network metrics, as well as coupling intensity between metrics with respect to socio-economic indicators, such as, population, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross National Income (GNI). It was observed that capacity and flexibility of VWNs are strongly and positively correlated indicating that a high capacity VWN can be more flexible. Our results also indicate that, in general a higher percentage of developing countries (i.e. both least developing and developing nations) have exhibited increasing trends in capacity, robustness, efficiency and flexibility of VWN compared to developed nations. It was revealed that the dynamics of VWNs are positively coupled with socio-economic growth for few countries, which indicates the sustainable behavior of VWN with socio-economic growth. Our results argue that the information theory-based metrics by embedding water footprints can holistically capture sustainability aspect of the VWN dynamics.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Data-driven modeling of municipal water system responses to hydroclimate extremes

Sustainable western US municipal water system (MWS) management depends on quantifying the impacts of supply and demand dynamics on system infrastructure reliability and vulnerability. Systems modeling can replicate the interactions but extensive parameterization, high complexity, and long development cycles present barriers to widespread adoption. To address these challenges, we develop the Machine Learning Water Systems Model (ML-WSM) – a novel application of data-driven modeling for MWS management. We apply the ML-WSM framework to the Salt Lake City, Utah water system, where we benchmark prediction performance on the seasonal response of reservoir levels, groundwater withdrawal, and imported water requests to climate anomalies at a daily resolution against an existing systems model. The ML-WSM accurately predicts the seasonal dynamics of all components; especially during supply-limiting conditions (KGE > 0.88, PBias < ±3%). Extreme wet conditions challenged model skill but the ML-WSM communicated the appropriate seasonal trends and relationships to component thresholds (e.g., reservoir dead pool). The model correctly classified nearly all instances of vulnerability (83%) and peak severity (100%), encouraging its use as a guidance tool that complements systems models for evaluating the influences of climate on MWS performance.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Trends, Insights, and Considerations for Agrivoltaics in the Northeast: Applying National Lessons Learned to the Case of Pennsylvania

There are unique challenges and opportunities at the nexus of agriculture and energy. This presentation will feature a social science overview of agrivoltaics, which is the practice of combining solar energy and agricultural production on the same land. Centering on recent research and commercial insights, this presentation will discuss the implications of lessons learned in the Northeast and highlight key considerations for future agrivoltaic R&D in Pennsylvania.

agriculture↗
DOE OSTI2021

A dynamic price model based on supply and demand with application to techno-economic assessments of rare earth element recovery technologies

Rare Earth Elements (REEs) are essential for sustainable energy technologies. Techno-economic Assessments (TEAs) have been conducted to evaluate innovative approaches to recover REEs from waste streams. However, most TEA studies do not consider the price volatility of REEs, which raises concern over the reliability of the analysis in an unpredictable dynamic market. To address this shortcoming, a dynamic price model is proposed that adjusts REE price based upon supply-demand conditions. The dynamic market behavior is simulated and its effect on a TEA is examined via a case study. The results of the dynamic simulation indicate a growing trend of the market price for REE materials/products. Compared to a conventional TEA that does not consider price dynamics, a significant difference in economic performance metrics is identified from the dynamic TEA results. Finally, the proposed dynamic TEA method is not limited to a specific application and can provide insights for evaluating a broad range of technologies.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Using National-Scale Data to Inform Coal Power Plant Redevelopment and Coal Community Revitalization Planning

In the United States, individual coal plants have high variation in their construction and operation. Coal plants commonly have multiple units, with different commissioning ages, operational position, and maintenance conditions – even multiple fuels. These units may be in changing states of utilization, with variation in productivity depending on economic contexts. Coal plants themselves may be temporarily offline, mothballed, retired, or decommissioned due to owner/operator portfolios or market conditions, and the current posture of the plant may be difficult to ascertain without local news sources (Tarekegne et al. 2021). Anticipated dates of plant closures are prospectively represented to regulators and to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), but may also experience uncertainty due to the engineering, environmental, economic and social complexity of closing a very large power plant. As noted in this report, closure of the first unit to the last within a single plant may span more than 20 years. Yet tracking and predicting the position of our nation’s coal fleets on a national scale is deeply important. In developing a case for federal datasets and an approach to building and curating these data, this report identified that data must have high fidelity at the plant-level to be meaningful in aggregate. Plant-scale detail is also a match for its application: national priorities in federal investment range from economic revitalization for coal plant communities to maintaining reliable electric grid operations. This document is organized into a statistical review of coal plant retirements, past and prospective, in the United States; trends in the relationship between closures and existing federal investment programs for community revitalization; and potential methods for accelerating site redevelopment through advanced geospatial analysis based on federal data.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗