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Advanced Fuels Campaign Execution Plan

The Advanced Fuels Campaign (AFC) Execution Plan details the strategy, mission, scope, and goals—both near-term and long-term—along with the structure and organization of nuclear fuels and materials research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) activities within the Fuel Cycle Technologies (FCT) program. The FCT program, tasked by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), employs a science-based approach to advance fuel technologies. This approach integrates theory, experiments, and multi-scale modeling and simulation (M&S) to develop a predictive understanding of fuel fabrication processes and fuel/cladding performance under irradiation, moving beyond traditional empirical methods. The long-term goals of the AFC are guided by the AFC Strategic Plan and align with the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) Roadmap [1], which outlines a multi-decade vision for demonstrating and qualifying advanced fuel forms to support diverse fuel cycle options. Near-term goals focus on enhancing accident tolerant fuels (ATF) for Light Water Reactors (LWR), a significant challenge that demands balancing immediate objectives with ongoing progress toward advanced reactor missions. Accelerating the traditional fuel qualification process to meet ATF objectives is another critical challenge. A detailed set of 5-year goals, summarized below, has been developed in line with the overarching science-based fuel development approach: • Advanced LWR Fuel Technologies: By 2027, support the development of advanced LWR fuel technologies with improved performance and enhanced accident tolerance. This includes high burnup (HBu), low enriched uranium (LEU)+, coated cladding, and doped fuel, aimed at complementing industry-led significant LWR uprates and plant refurbishments. • Tristructural Isotropic (TRISO) Fuel: Achieve qualification by 2028 and develop improved designs for emerging markets. • Metal Fuel: Achieve qualification by 2028 and develop improved designs for emerging markets. • Molten Salt Fuel: By 2027, deploy a robust program that enables fuel salt qualification technologies needed to support fuel salt research and development (R&D), focusing on emergent needs to derisk fuel salt production and utilization in advanced reactors. • Long-Term ATF: Develop fuel technologies that enable significant power uprates (~50%) in refurbished or new LWRs while optimizing fissile material utilization and waste disposal. The 5-year milestones in the AFC Execution Plan are contingent on an assumed budget. This Execution Plan will be updated annually to reflect actual funding profiles as budget guidance becomes available, ensuring milestones are adjusted accordingly. In summary, the AFC Execution Plan presents a comprehensive strategy to advance nuclear fuel technologies through a science-based approach, addressing both near-term and long-term goals while adapting to funding realities.

11 - NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Resources for E-Mobility Program Implementation [Slides]

The Energy to Communities (E2C) peer-learning cohort program provides technical assistance to groups of 15 community entities around a common energy topic over the course of 6 months. Every month, participants join a virtual meeting where they hear from experts and exchange strategies and best practices with their peers. This cohort, "Successful Energy Project Implementation" will explore common challenges in implementing energy projects and learn strategies to turn project plans into reality. Each participant will focus on a local energy project or priority as a cornerstone for their learning throughout the series.This presentation overviews the basics of developing electric mobility projects with emphasis on leveraging the right tools to advance technical scoping and program design.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Williston Basin CORE-CM Initiative Final Report

The University of North Dakota Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) is leading the Williston Basin Carbon Ore, Rare Earth, and Critical Minerals (CORE-CM) Initiative to drive the expansion and transformation of coal and coal-based resource usage within the Williston Basin to produce rare-earth elements (REEs), CMs, and nonfuel carbon-based products (CBPs). This project is the first phase in a long-term program and set the stage for future work by assessing resource, market, technology, and infrastructure knowledge; identifying knowledge gaps; developing a series of plans to be carried out in future work; and initiating stakeholder engagement. Composed of several tasks, the project sought to identify, characterize, and assess several necessary aspects vital to make this future work a reality. The project’s fundamental task was to characterize the Williston Basin CORE-CM resources. Over 2500 samples from multiple sources were utilized to begin the assessment. Several locations were identified in western North Dakota where sample analysis identified the total REE (TREE) concentration as being over 500 parts per million (ppm), which is at a concentration level that would be suitable to consider for mining and extraction. Current operating coal mines have sufficient concentrations of TREEs for consideration. However, the current data across the basin are still not adequate to fully characterize REE and CM content nor give reliable estimates of the total resource potential. Waste stream reuse was also considered, and several streams were identified which ranged from potential energy sources to chemicals to material wastes. This includes streams that result from oil and gas production. These streams are not fully characterized, and further data are needed before they can be accurately assessed. Infrastructure within the Williston Basin is suitable for expansion of a new industry to mine, extract, and concentrate REEs and CMs. The development of this industry will not only preserve many existing jobs in the coal-mining industry but produce many new jobs. The supply chain for REEs and CMs is currently controlled outside of the United States in nations such as China, but the potential to develop the supply chain within the basin is considered possible. Processing of the mined materials for REEs and CMs needs further research. The technology and knowhow exist outside of the United States, and within the country much of the knowledge has been lost and must be regained. To develop the supply chain and regain lost processing technology, the creation of technology innovation centers (TICs) is crucial. The Williston Basin contains several similar centers and entrepreneurial assistance for other industries that can be applied in the development of REE and CM innovation centers. Education to develop the new skill sets required is also needed. Outreach is important for the development of the REE and CM industry within the basin. Understanding throughout federal and state governments, state agencies, industry, and resource end users is vital for the industry to form and grow. Through this project these groups have been contacted through bulletins, presentations, webinars, and annual symposiums. The report is a summary of the work conducted and throughout refers to a series of appendixes which contain more thorough and specific information about each section.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

Batteries (2023 Annual Progress Report)

This document summarizes the progress of VTO battery R&D projects supported during the fiscal year 2023. Its R&D focus was on the development of high-energy batteries for PEVs. The electrochemical energy storage roadmap describes ongoing and planned efforts to develop electrochemical storage technologies for EVs. To advance battery technology, which can in turn improve market penetration of PEVs, the program investigates various battery chemistries to overcome specific technical barriers, e.g., battery cost, performance, life (both the calendar life and the cycle life), its tolerance to abusive conditions, and its recyclability/sustainability.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Lessons Learned from the Clean Energy to Communities (C2C) Peer-Learning Cohort Enhancing Resilience at Critical Facilities through Solar, Storage, and Microgrids

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), with support from World Resources Institute (WRI), designed and led a six-month peer-learning cohort from January through July 2024 on "Enhancing Resilience at Critical Facilities through Solar, Storage, and Microgrids" as part of the U.S Department of Energy's Clean Energy to Communities (nrel.gov/c2c) (C2C) program. Representatives from 15 municipalities, municipal utilities, colleges, and Tribes from across the United States participated in monthly workshops covering best practices for planning and deploying local resilience projects. This document shares key takeaways, lessons learned, and resources from the cohort including considerations for planning, proposing, designing, procuring, and funding microgrid projects for resilience.

C2C↗

Lessons Learned from the Clean Energy to Communities (C2C) Peer-Learning Cohort Evaluating and Prioritizing Municipal Buildings for Energy Efficiency and Decarbonization Investment

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), with support from World Resources Institute (WRI), designed and led a six-month peer-learning cohort from January through July 2024 on "Enhancing Resilience at Critical Facilities through Solar, Storage, and Microgrids" as part of the U.S Department of Energy's Clean Energy to Communities (nrel.gov/c2c) (C2C) program. Representatives from 15 municipalities, municipal utilities, colleges, and Tribes from across the United States participated in monthly workshops covering best practices for planning and deploying local resilience projects. This document shares key takeaways, lessons learned, and resources from the cohort.

buildings↗

Northwest Combined Heat and Power Technical Assistance Partnership: Final Scientific/Technical Report

During the years of 2018 through 2023, The Washington State University Energy Program (WSU EP) operated the Northwest Combined Heat and Power Technical Assistance Partnership under contract to the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO), a part of DOE’s larger Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. This contract provided direction and funding for providing technical outreach, information and technical/economic analysis services in support of expanding development of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) over a four state region in the Pacific Northwest. The states served included Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. During the duration of this contract, the WSU EP delivered performed specific assigned tasks and provided services of various generally prescribed types, with the overall goal of increasing adoption of CHP as an efficient heat and power supply in the region. Indications – though not formally evaluated to our knowledge – are that this goal was achieved. Over many years, the WSU team has provided support for CHP developments in these states under similar previous Department of Energy contracts, and many such projects have been built. While the early-phase outreach, education and techno-economic assessments that the NW CHP TAP provides rarely immediately result in project construction, there is no doubt that the WSU EP team has had substantial influence in the construction of a number of important CHP projects in the region. Examples of projects implemented directly under the current team’s guidance and services during this contract cycle include an 875 kilowatt biomass fueled CHP system installed at the University of Idaho, and 5 megawatt natural gas fueled CHP system at the University of Montana ( UM Breaks Ground on New Power Facility, Slashes Emissions 30% (umt.edu) ). Many other CHP systems recently installed are also either directly or at least partially the result of information and technical services provided by the team. Finally, though much more difficult to quantify and less glamorous, the team has helped countless organizations to understand CHP and determine whether and how CHP may be a fit for them, before they consider paying for engineering services. Whether the ultimate outcome has been to include CHP or not, the expert skills provided by the NW CHP TAP team have provided real value to these organizations considering this relatively complex technology. Over the duration of the contract our team provided 71 Initial Technical Assessments and 17 Advanced Technical Assessments; 53 End-User Engagements and 33 Stakeholder Engagements of various types; 42 Technical Profiles (Project Profiles, Program Profiles and Policy Profiles), and produced 14 technical articles for the Department of Energy. Unfortunately, these quantities provide no measure of the value that the team has provided. Only our clients can judge that, and we are confident that they are pleased with the benefits we have offered them.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Nodal capacity expansion planning with flexible large-scale load siting

We propose explicitly incorporating large-scale load siting into a stochastic nodal power system capacity expansion planning model that concurrently co-optimizes generation, transmission, and storage expansion. The potential operational flexibility of some of these large loads is also taken into account by considering them as consisting of a set of tranches with different reliability requirements, which are modeled as a constraint on expected served energy across operational scenarios. We implement our model as a two-stage stochastic mixed-integer optimization problem with cross-scenario expectation constraints. To overcome the challenge of scalability, we build upon existing work to implement this model on a high performance computing platform and exploit scenario parallelization using an augmented Progressive Hedging Algorithm. The algorithm is implemented using the bounding features of mpisppy, which have shown to provide satisfactory provable optimality gaps despite the absence of theoretical guarantees of convergence. We test our approach and assess the value of this proactive planning framework on total system cost and reliability metrics using realistic testcases geographically assigned to San Diego and South Carolina, with datacenter and direct air capture facilities as large loads.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Clear Sky Tampa Bay: Tampa Bay Regional Policy Landscape Analysis (Florida Energy Resilience Policy Landscape) [Slides]

This deck focuses on policies and programs that may enable, constrain, or inform the deployment of solar and storage for resilience in the Tampa Bay Region. This deck also reviews planning approaches within the Tampa Bay Region to ensure that resources developed under the Clear Sky Tampa Bay project are consistent with established practice and relevant to regional practitioners.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

US-UK fusion energy collaborations in the digital space

The US and UK share the vision for fusion as a vital part of the clean energy future. This vision is reflected in the respective national plans in the form of the Bold Decadal Vision for Commercial Fusion (BDV) in the US and the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) program in the UK. Digital tools such as simulation and control frameworks, design tools, AI/ML, high performance computing (HPC), and virtual reality (VR) will play an important role in developing, diagnosing, operating, and further improving burning-plasma-class fusion power plants. Therefore, a collaborative approach, involving both the public and private sectors, to developing these digital tools can accelerate the path to fusion energy commercialization. In this report we discuss previous and ongoing collaborations and opportunities to expand these collaborations into new areas. We conclude this report with near term actions and a vision of the collaboration to the Joint Coordinating Committee.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

CESER I-Corps (Final Report)

Energy I-Corps is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored entrepreneurial training program for laboratory researchers aimed at accelerating the commercialization of lab-developed technologies. The program, developed and managed by DOE's Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC) in partnership with the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), uses a customized curriculum built on the Lean Launch Methodology and delivers a rigorous 10- to 12-week training program to selected laboratory-based teams. The Energy I-Corps team at NLR worked with the DOE's OTC and Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) to develop and implement commercialization programming for awardees of the CESER Cybersecurity for Distributed Energy Resources Research, Development, and Demonstration Research Call, funded under Provision 40125(b) of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). 40125(b) Projects were overseen by a technical monitor at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). The CESER Energy I-Corps Program is considered an Energy I-Corps "lite" or "mini" program, with a lighter lift to accommodate scheduling and funding per participant. This final report describes the CESER I-Corps program and provides recommendations on behalf of OTC to CESER to consider if CESER were to run an I-Corps program in future.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Mock-Up Waveguide Loop Development toward a Half-Meter Scale Traveling-Wave SRF Cavity

Mock-up waveguide loop development toward a half-meter scale traveling-wave SRF cavity ABSTRACT = Traveling-Wave (TW) technology can push the accelerator field gradient of niobium SRF cavity to 70MV/m or higher beyond the fundamental limit of 50~60MV/m in Standing-Wave regime. The success of TW resonance excitation in a proof-of-principle 3-cell SRF cavity in 2K liquid helium encouraged to advance TW technologies necessary more for future accelerator-scale one. Fermilab has proposed a preliminary RF design of a half-meter scale TW cavity by considering the physical dimensions of existing SRF facilities and the lessons learned from the 3-cell. It consists of a 7-cell structure and a power feedback waveguide (WG) loop with new TW excitation and control schemes such as, double directional coupler and two WG tuners. Mock-up waveguide loop development was launched under Fermilab LDRD program to demonstrate those new RF schemes at a room temperature. Fabrication drawings of a mock-up loop were completed. More details and plans of the development will be presented.

Furuta, Fumio [Fermilab]↗

Phase II Field Demonstration at Lansing Smith Generating Plant, Southport, Florida (Final Report)

The Final Technical Report: Field Test Design and Pressure Management Strategies for Phase II Field Demonstration of Optimal Pressure Control, Plume Management, and Produced Water Strategies presents the culmination of multi-year efforts under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brine Extraction and Storage Test (BEST) program, led by EPRI in partnership with Gulf Power at the Plant Smith site near Panama City, Florida. The project was designed to evaluate and demonstrate the technical feasibility of managing subsurface pressures and fluid movement associated with large-scale CO₂ injection, using low-salinity water as a proxy fluid. Through a combination of field injection testing, reservoir modeling, and optimization studies, the research team developed and refined active and passive brine extraction strategies aimed at controlling injection-induced pressure buildup, mitigating risks of fault activation, and managing plume migration. The field demonstration incorporated a new injection well (TIW-2), a new monitoring/extraction well (TEMW-A), and an existing well (TIW-1) repurposed for passive pressure relief. Complementary geophysical monitoring was designed to track plume development and evaluate the effectiveness of pressure management strategies. The report details the integrated workflow encompassing wellfield development, regulatory permitting, model calibration, and survey design. It includes a comprehensive electromagnetic (EM) modeling and inversion study used to develop a cost-effective, time-lapse geophysical monitoring plan capable of imaging the evolving low-salinity plume within the highly saline Lower Tuscaloosa formation. Reservoir simulation results guided the design of the 17-month injection program and the timing of active extraction to maintain formation pressures below a hypothetical fault reactivation threshold. Supporting analyses evaluated potential injectivity risks related to clay fines migration and geochemical incompatibility, identifying practical mitigation measures such as salinity and pH control. The final design recommends a series of crosswell EM surveys—conducted before, during, and after injection—as the most effective and economical approach for plume imaging, supplemented by continuous downhole pressure and flow monitoring. Collectively, the study provides a field-ready framework for cost-effective pressure management and monitoring in support of future CO₂ storage projects.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

Report on Preliminary Detailed Experimental Plan for Neutron Irradiation of A709 at ATR and HFIR

Advanced nuclear power technologies will use higher temperatures as a means to extract energy at a higher efficiency than current plants and therefore put a larger demand on the structural materials. Improved performance of structural materials could enable greater safety margins, longer plant lifetimes, and reduce maintenance costs. Alloy 709 is championed as the next generation of austenitic alloys for advanced nuclear reactors. In parallel to the ASME code case pursued, the AMMT program is initiating a neutron irradiation campaign to provide first-of-a-kind engineering data to establish operational design parameters and how the mechanical response is modified by environmental factors. This document refines the AMMT neutron irradiation campaign to a 4 year program to support the generation of creep knockdown factors for Alloy 709 and welded Alloy 709. The campaign is divided among two national laboratories, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory, to use the strengths of each laboratory. Through a cooperative plan, time-independent properties and time-dependent properties will be obtained across a large temperature window, nominally 300°C to 800°C, damage levels up to 10 dpa, and with and without the impacts of transmutation produced helium.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Report on Preliminary Detailed Experimental Plan for Neutron Irradiation of A709 at ATR and HFIR

Advanced nuclear power technologies will use higher temperatures as a means to extract energy at a higher efficiency than current plants and therefore put a larger demand on the structural materials. Improved performance of structural materials could enable greater safety margins, longer plant lifetimes, and reduce maintenance costs. Alloy 709 is championed as the next generation of austenitic alloys for advanced nuclear reactors. In parallel to the ASME code case pursued, the AMMT program is initiating a neutron irradiation campaign to provide first-of-a-kind engineering data to establish operational design parameters and how the mechanical response is modified by environmental factors. This document refines the AMMT neutron irradiation campaign to a 4 year program to support the generation of creep knockdown factors for Alloy 709 and welded Alloy 709. The campaign is divided among two national laboratories, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory, to use the strengths of each laboratory. Through a cooperative plan, time-independent properties and time-dependent properties will be obtained across a large temperature window, nominally 300°C to 800°C, damage levels up to 10 dpa, and with and without the impacts of transmutation produced helium.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Fiscal Year 2024 Software Quality Assurance Activities for the ARC Software

The continued goal of the ARC SQA project in the Advanced Reactor Technologies program of DOE is to resolve the QA gaps for the ARC software that limit, or prevent, commercialization of the software for industry users. This project started in earnest in fiscal year 2023 which saw the entire code system moved from a SVN repository to a GitLab repository and an associated software quality assurance plan (SQAP) developed and ratified. Most of the QA gaps in the ARC software were identified in collaboration with industry partners and work begin in fiscal year 2023 and continued in 2024. The primary documentation that is missing includes user manuals, user guides, software verification reports, and code coverage assessments. The SUMMAR manual was completed this fiscal year and work was started on creating manuals for SE2ANL, SE2RCT, and DASSH. Software verification work was carried out for DIF3D and REBUS in a previous program and the current fiscal year saw the completion of software verification reports for GAMSOR, GAMSRC, VARPOW, EvaluateFlux, and SUMMAR. The goal for the next fiscal year is to complete the PERSENT software verification work and begin planning the software verification work for DASSH, SE2ANL, and SE2RCT. The code coverage reports for DIF3D and MC2-3 were completed in the previous fiscal year and the goal is to generate code coverage reports for REBUS, GAMSOR, PERSENT, and DASSH in the coming fiscal year. A considerable amount of effort was spent in the current fiscal year working on the continuous integration capability for automated regression testing in GitLab. The first version of the testing was created in the previous fiscal year and applied to DIF3D and its utility programs. That testing was extended this year to cover GAMSOR, REBUS, and PERSENT. To accomplish this, the first version of the new testing methodology had to be updated to make a single output checking methodology viable for all of the ARC software. This will result in a single document to detail the automated regression testing methodology and minor documents to detail the tolerance settings that have been applied to the output for each ARC code. The previous methodology put into place with SVN would have required a separate document for each ARC code to detail the output checking methodology and the tolerance settings for the output from each code. Because some of our industry partners are providing funds to add new capabilities to the ARC software to meet their needs, all of which must be reviewed and approved by the SQA program funded by this project, a summary of that development work is detailed in this report. Overall progress on resolving the QA gaps has been good this year with the most impactful improvement for our industry partners in capability being the creation of a threaded version of DIF3D-VARIANT that allows the DIF3D, REBUS, and GAMSOR run times to be reduced by a factor of 4-6. The most impactful QA gap that was resolved was the software verification of GAMSRC and VARPOW.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Marine energy supported multi-energy system planning and operation optimization for sustainable coastal community

The growing need for sustainable energy solutions in coastal areas necessitates the development of integrated systems that leverage abundant marine resources. In this study, a standalone Marine Energy Supported Multi-Energy System (MRE-MES) is designed for sustainable coastal community development, utilizing renewable marine resources, including offshore wind, wave, and solar energy, to address the energy needs of electricity, heat, freshwater, and hydrogen. The proposed MRE-MES incorporates a co-optimization model that simultaneously balances capacity planning and operational efficiency to minimize costs and environmental impacts. The system is tested under different renewable energy penetration levels and demand uncertainties, using a two-stage stochastic programming to account for variability in renewable resources and consumption needs. The experimental results indicate that in the optimal system capacity configuration, the percentage of total renewable energy generation is around 80 %, with or without capacity limitation constraints on PV, water tank, and hydrogen storage. Compared to the worst-case scenario in Monte Carlo experiments, two-stage stochastic optimization results in a more robust decision that effectively mitigates the risks posed by future uncertain demand conditions. In conclusion, the findings highlight the viability of marine energy for providing a resilient, comprehensive energy solution to coastal communities.

Capacity planning↗

The US effort towards a muon collider

A multi-TeV muon collider has the unique potential to provide both precision measurements and the highest energy reach in one machine that cannot be paralleled by any currently available technology. There has been significant physics interest on Muon Colliders recently as indicated by the number of publications, relevant workshops, Snowmass activities but also the P5 report. This study describes a possible set of R&D and deliverables of the muon collider accelerator R&D program in the U.S. We describe high-priority studies to be performed in the first phase that will address critical questions for deciding the future plan for a muon collider design. The goal of these studies is to firm up choices for the most challenging components of a muon collider design, and to propose and begin testing and prototyping of components and systems that are needed to have confidence in and inform our specification choices. Key areas wherein the US can provide critical contributions to the newly formed international muon collider collaboration will be discussed as well.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗