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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Available Drawdowns for Each Oil Storage Cavern in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (2022 Annual Report)

The Department of Energy maintains an up-to-date documentation of the number of available full drawdowns of each of the caverns owned by the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). This information is important for assessing the SPR's ability to deliver oil to domestic oil companies expeditiously if national or world events dictate a rapid sale and deployment of the oil reserves. Sandia was directed to develop and implement a process to continuously assess and report the evolution of drawdown capacity, the subject of this report. A cavern has an available drawdown if after that drawdown, the long-term stability of the cavern, the cavern field, or the oil quality are not compromised. Thus, determining the number of a vailable drawdowns requires the consideration of several factors regarding cavern and wellbore integrity and stability, including stress states caused by cavern geometry and operations, salt damage caused by dilatant and tensile stresses, the effect of enhanced creep on wellbore integrity, and the sympathetic stress effect of operations on neighboring caverns. A consensus has now been built regarding the assessment of drawdown capabilities and risks for the SPR caverns (Sobolik et al., 2014; Sobolik 2016). The process involves an initial assessment of the pillar-to-diameter (P/D) ratio for each cavern with respect to neighboring caverns. A large pillar thickness between adjacent caverns should be strong enough to withstand the stresses induced by closure of the caverns due to salt creep. The first evaluation of P/D includes a calculation of the evolution of P/D after a number of full cavern drawdowns. The most common storage industry standard is to keep this value greater than 1.0, which should ensure a pillar thick enough to prevent loss of fluids to the surrounding rock mass. However, many of the SPR caverns currently have a P/D less than 1.0 or will likely have a low P/D after one or two full drawdowns. For these caverns, it is important to examine the s tructural integrity with more detail using geomechanical models. Finite - element geomechanical models have been used to determine the stress states in the pillars following successive drawdowns. By computing the tensile and dilatant stresses in the salt, areas of potential structural instability can be identified that may represent "red flags" for additional drawdowns. These analyses have found that many caverns will maintain structural integrity even when grown via drawdowns to dimensions resulting in a P/D of less than 1.0. The analyses have also confirmed that certain caverns should only be completely drawn down one time. As the SPR caverns are utilized and partial drawdowns are performed to remove oil from the caverns (e.g., for occasional oil sales , purchases, or exchanges authorized by the Congress or the President), the changes to the cavern caused by these procedures must be tracked and accounted for so that an ongoing assessment of the cavern's drawdown capacity may be continued. A proposed methodology for assessing and tracking the available drawdowns for each cavern was presented in Sobolik et al. (2018). This report is the latest in a series of annual reports, and it includes the baseline available drawdowns for each cavern, and the most recent assessment of the evolution of drawdown expenditure for several caverns.

02 PETROLEUM↗
DOE OSTI2023

Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) for Site Wide Landscaping Project

Kier + Wright, as Qualified SWPPP Developer (QSD), puts forth this Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) for the SNL/CA Site Landscaping Project at Sandia National Laboratories/California (SNL/CA), 7011 East Avenue, Livermore, California (SNL/CA). The property is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy, and managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia (NTESS), LLC. The project proposes landscape improvements throughout SNL/CA. Per the California State Water Resources Control Board’s (California State Water Board) Construction General Permit (CGP), a SWPPP is required when 1 acre or more of land is disturbed. The project site area exceeds the minimum acreage threshold of 1 acre and therefore requires SWPPP implementation. QSD has determined the sediment risk for this project, based on soil type at the site and starting and ending dates of construction, to be low (Section 3.4.1 and Appendix B). Receiving water for this project is the Arroyo Seco. QSD has determined the Arroyo Seco to be a high-risk receiving water because it has the three beneficial uses of “spawn”, “cold”, and “migratory” (Sections 3.3 and 3.4.2 and Appendix B). QSD has determined the overall risk level for the site to be Risk Level 2, based on a combination of low sediment risk and high receiving water risk (Appendix B). As such, QSD has delineated a variety of Best Management Practices (BMPs) to be employed during project construction to reduce or eliminate pollutants in stormwater runoff or any other discharges from the Project site. In addition to site-specific BMPs, this SWPPP report provides instruction for on site monitoring. Electronic copies of required documentation such as inspection reports, REAPs, annual report documentation, etc. shall be submitted to NTESS Sandia Delegated Representative via Newforma.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2020

Amphiphilic Block Copolymers for Flocculation and Hydrophobization of Legacy Waste Suspensions in Flotation Driven Dewatering Operations - 20162

Flotation has been effectively demonstrated as a low footprint, high efficiency separation process when utilising simple anionic surface modifying agents such as sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS). These agents increase hydrophobicity to remove suspended cationic surface charged particulates such as Mg(OH){sub 2} from waste suspensions similar to those at British nuclear fuel management sites- where corrosion processes have degraded fuel cladding. The technology is advantageous as it could effectively be retrofitted into existing waste management facilities at nuclear waste management sites such Sellafield and Hanford as the simplicity (no moving parts) and size of this technology coupled with low cost of construction could be rapidly deployed to aid in risk and hazard reduction decommissioning operations with minimum impact to secondary waste generation. Previously, sodium dodecyl sulphate has been deployed as a collector agent to increase the hydrophobicity of Mg(OH){sub 2} suspended particles, achieving a maximum particulate extraction percentage of 93%. To achieve further particulate extraction, flotation performance has been determined to be a function of the hydrodynamic limitations extracting fine material (>20 μm). Fine particulates have been shown in the minerals industry to have an inability to overcome slipstreams created from rising bubbles in flotation cells, likely due to the low mass and thus momentum of the colloidal material, preventing interaction between the hydrophobized particles and air-water interfaces (bubbles). To combat this mass transfer resistance poly(acrylic acid)-block-poly(n-butyl acrylate) amphiphilic diblock copolymers were synthesised via reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer (RAFT) polymerisation. The anticipated mode of action of these polymers involves the hydrophilic poly(acrylic acid) block polymer acting as a flocculation agent to increase the mass of the aggregates, and the hydrophobic poly(n-butyl acrylate) modifies the hydrophobicity of the resulting flocs. The concentration of this polymer (termed a macro-collector) was varied and the change in particle size distribution of the particulate suspension was analysed using static light scattering. The flotation performance was then characterised by several methods including percentage particulate recovery, volume reduction factor and residual bulk particulate concentration. This was then benchmarked against the traditional surfactant collector agent SDS. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2020

Development of a Regulatory Strategy for Post Operational Clean Out Activities at Sellafield Limited Nuclear Licensed Site - 20273

The Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) at the Sellafield nuclear licensed site carried out its final commercial shear of spent nuclear fuel in November 2018, since when the facility has undergone rundown prior to cessation of operations. The Magnox Reprocessing Facility (MRF) is also due to cease operating, around the end of 2020. Following the cessation of spent fuel reprocessing, the facilities and supporting infrastructure will transition into Post Operational Clean Out (POCO), which will become an increasingly significant portion of Sellafield Limited's (SL) activities. POCO is defined as the set of activities undertaken directly after a nuclear facility comes to the end of its operational life, in order to place the plant in a suitable state for the subsequent decommissioning steps. The decommissioning strategy at SL is for deferred dismantling of these facilities, which will be subject to a period of Surveillance and Maintenance (S and M) following completion of POCO. This paper outlines the development and implementation of a regulatory strategy for POCO activities at the Sellafield site by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), the independent nuclear safety, transport and security regulator in the United Kingdom. The paper also describes how this regulatory strategy is applied to nuclear installations undergoing transition into POCO and subsequent decommissioning. ONR works jointly with the Environment Agency, as the environmental regulators in England, to ensure that matters relevant to them have been duly considered. In developing a regulatory strategy, ONR has taken a site-wide approach, moving away from regulation on a facility-by-facility basis, to promote consistency, as well as maximising efficiency and effectiveness. The aim of this integrated approach was to prevent complications during future decommissioning and dismantling that have been experienced previously at similar facilities in France. The strategy recognised that once reprocessing operations are concluded, the hazard present will be reduced significantly, which provides the opportunity for ONR to consider how best to deliver a proportionate approach to regulatory interventions. Once POCO has been completed and the facility has transitioned into a period of S and M, the scale and frequency of ONR's interventions will reduce, commensurate with the safety case covering the remaining hazard and activities associated with maintaining the facility prior to final decommissioning. This approach allows ONR to consider risks holistically, considering the full life cycle of the facility and by taking due account of the interdependencies between facilities across the site. The strategy also aligns with existing regulation of high hazard and risk reduction activities, which remain ONR's top priority. As SL progresses with POCO activities in THORP and across the rest of the site, ONR will review its regulatory strategy to ensure that the intended safety benefits are realised. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2021

National variability in Americans’ COVID-19 protective behaviors: Implications for vaccine roll-out

Protective behaviors such as mask wearing and physical distancing are critical to slow the spread of COVID-19, even in the context of vaccine scale-up. Understanding the variation in self-reported COVID-19 protective behaviors is critical to developing public health messaging. The purpose of the study is to provide nationally representative estimates of five self-reported COVID-19 protective behaviors and correlates of such behaviors. In this cross-sectional survey study of US adults, surveys were administered via internet and telephone. Adults were surveyed from April 30-May 4, 2020, a time of peaking COVID-19 incidence within the US. Participants were recruited from the probability-based AmeriSpeak® national panel. Brief surveys were completed by 994 adults, with 73.0% of respondents reported mask wearing, 82.7% reported physical distancing, 75.1% reported crowd avoidance, 89.8% reported increased hand-washing, and 7.7% reported having prior COVID-19 testing. Multivariate analysis (p critical value .05) indicates that women were more likely to report protective behaviors than men, as were those over age 60. Respondents who self-identified as having low incomes, histories of criminal justice involvement, and Republican Party affiliation, were less likely to report four protective behaviors, though Republicans and individuals with criminal justice histories were more likely to report having received COVID-19 testing. The majority of Americans engaged in COVID-19 protective behaviors, with low-income Americans, those with histories of criminal justice involvement, and self-identified Republicans less likely to engage in these preventive behaviors. Culturally competent public health messaging and interventions might focus on these latter groups to prevent future infections. These findings will remain highly relevant even with vaccines widely available, given the complementarities between vaccines and protective behaviors, as well as the many challenges in delivering vaccines.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Invasive Plant Species Management Plan for Los Alamos National Laboratory (Rev.3)

Native species are plants and animals that continually occupy a natural range without direct or indirect introduction and/or care by humans. They are adapted to the environmental conditions and processes of the ecosystem in which they reside. A species introduced into a novel ecosystem can either exploit that ecosystem and thrive or be unable to survive in that ecosystem (Hobbs et al. 2006). Alien or non-native species are species that are intentionally or accidentally introduced into a novel ecosystem and are capable of living and propagating within the physical parameters of that ecosystem. Invasive species is a species that is non-native (or alien) to the ecosystem under consideration and a noxious species are those whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm. The term invasive species is applicable to plants and animals alike; however, this invasive species management plan currently focuses on invasive vegetation. Invasive plant species are usually capable of rapid colonization of disturbed ground, such as after a change in wildfire regime intensity and frequency (Reilly et al. 2020) or anthropogenic ground disturbance (Burke and Grime 1996; Hobbs and Huenneke 1992). Climate change facilitates the spread and establishment of many alien species and creates new opportunities for them to become invasive (Turbelin and Catford 2021). As climate change impacts increase in the coming decades, we may see in an increase in invasive species establishment. See a list of definitions of terms pertinent to this document in Appendix A: Definitions. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) hosts populations of non-native and invasive species all typical of the northern New Mexico region (Martin 2004; NMDA 2020). By implementing an invasive species management plan, LANL will have readily accessible management strategies for invasive species that are found on-site. The benefits of managing invasive species include a decrease in wildland fire risks, an increase in soil productivity, an increase in (productive or beneficial) wildlife habitat, an increase in water quantity and quality, and the restoration of impacted areas (Burke and Grime 1996; Hobbs and Huenneke 1992; D’Antonio and Hobbie 2005; MacDougall et al. 2013; Reilly et al. 2020). The aforementioned benefits from invasive species management directly enable the LANL mission by ensuring compliance requirements are met and site-wide programs, such as the Vulnerability Assessment and Resilience Plan, are supported for a mutually beneficial outcome. An example for the LANL site specifically, controlling non-native annual plant species, for example, could reduce the costs associated with stabilizing soils during the stormwater pollution prevention compliance process. Roadway and utility right-of-way areas are another place where an integrated vegetation management strategy would promote low growing perennial plants in a way that is mutually beneficial to habitat and the institution through lowered maintenance costs. There is also an economic benefit to managing invasive species. In one nationwide study, invasive plants had an estimated impact cost of $190.45 billion (Fantel-Lepczyk et al. 2022). Investing in preventative measures and surveillance could help to offset future control and management costs of invasive species that have the potential to become established. The State of New Mexico has developed plant species lists and recommendations through the New Mexico Department of Agriculture’s Noxious Weeds Management Act, Article 7D (NM Statute § 76-7D-4 2021); however, effective invasive species management must rely on local knowledge of the site and region. Los Alamos County (LAC) has already compiled a target invasive plant species list and species-specific management objectives (Martin 2004). Therefore, the New Mexico Noxious Weed List and the LAC invasive plant species list, as well as management objectives from those documents, are integrated into LANL’s invasive plant species management plan.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Understanding local plant extinctions before it is too late: bridging evolutionary genomics with global ecology

Understanding evolutionary genomic and population processes within a species range is key to anticipating the extinction of plant species before it is too late. However, most models of biodiversity risk under global change do not account for the genetic variation and local adaptation of different populations. Population diversity is critical to understanding extinction because different populations may be more or less susceptible to global change and, if lost, would reduce the total diversity within a species. Here, two new modeling frameworks advance our understanding of extinction from a population and evolutionary angle: Rapid climate change-driven disruptions in population adaptation are predicted from associations between genomes and local climates. Furthermore, losses of population diversity from global land-use transformations are estimated by scaling relationships of species' genomic diversity with habitat area. Overall, these global eco-evolutionary methods advance the predictability – and possibly the preventability – of the ongoing extinction of plant species.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Development of Enabling Technologies for Chemical Looping Combustion and Chemical Looping with Oxygen Uncoupling (Final Report)

This report summarizes results from the project, “Development of Enabling Technologies for Chemical Looping Combustion and Chemical Looping with Oxygen Uncoupling,” which evaluated several aspects of dual fluidized bed chemical looping combustion and chemical looping with oxygen uncoupling (CLOU). The objective was to provide tools and enabling technologies to help advance fluidized bed chemical looping technology to pilot, demonstration and commercial scale. One focus area is oxygen carriers, which are key to chemical looping combustion. The copper oxygen carrier-coal ash system was systematically evaluated through a combination of thermodynamic modeling and lab-scale experiments, taking into consideration different oxygen carrier support materials and coal types. A method of mapping “safe” and “risk” zones for different combinations was established, and recommendations for target conditions are provided. In addition, a simple solution for limiting negative influence of some coal ashes, namely adding small amounts of calcium to the system, is proposed. In addition, a novel process for recovering and recycling copper from spent oxygen carriers is proposed. A new approach for design and operation of loop seals in a CLOU system was developed, and involves distinct gas injection points and a short horizontal section to help control the fate of the fluidizing gases. For the air-to-fuel reactor loop seal, the upstream side is fluidized with air, ideally input into the side rather than into the bottom, which prevents uncoupling (reduction) of the oxygen carrier before entering the fuel reactor. Also, alternative for separating oxygen carrier particles and gas in circulating fluidized bed-based chemical looping system is proposed. A new reduced reaction scheme for conversion of coal in copper-based CLOU was developed and implemented into CPFD Software’s Barracuda VR package. The resulting model provides higher fidelity than the baseline, especially when it comes to minor reactions that are part of the overall combustion environment. For in-reactor heat extraction, it was determined in this project that the best way to do that in a dual circulating fluidized-bed system is through heat exchange low in the air reactor. The air reactor is the hotter of the two and for a fast-fluidized circulating bed, the lower, more dense section has a higher heat transfer coefficient and offers more consistent particle-wall contact since it doesn’t have the splashing behavior the top of the bed does. It was determined that just the wall surface area in the lower quarter to third of the air reactor is sufficient to control temperatures in both reactors. Finally, consideration was given to a new concept for CLC, which involves a staged fuel reactor with a different type of oxygen carrier in each stage.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2022

Application of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Techniques for Informing Select Agent Designation and Decision Making

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Select Agent Program establishes a list of biological agents and toxins that potentially threaten public health and safety, the procedures governing the possession, utilization, and transfer of those agents, and training requirements for entities working with them. Every 2 years the Program reviews the select agent list, utilizing subject matter expert (SME) assessments to rank the agents. In this study, we explore the applicability of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) techniques and logic tree analysis to support the CDC Select Agent Program biennial review process, applying the approach broadly to include non-select agents to evaluate its generality. We conducted a literature search for over 70 pathogens against 15 criteria for assessing public health and bioterrorism risk and documented the findings for archiving. The most prominent data gaps were found for aerosol stability and human infectious dose by inhalation and ingestion routes. Technical review of published data and associated scoring recommendations by pathogen-specific SMEs was found to be critical for accuracy, particularly for pathogens with very few known cases, or where proxy data (e.g., from animal models or similar organisms) were used to address data gaps. Analysis of results obtained from a two-dimensional plot of weighted scores for difficulty of attack (i.e., exposure and production criteria) vs. consequences of an attack (i.e., consequence and mitigation criteria) provided greater fidelity for understanding agent placement compared to a 1-to-n ranking and was used to define a region in the upper right-hand quadrant for identifying pathogens for consideration as select agents. A sensitivity analysis varied the numerical weights attributed to various properties of the pathogens to identify potential quantitative (x and y) thresholds for classifying select agents. The results indicate while there is some clustering of agent scores to suggest thresholds, there are still pathogens that score close to any threshold, suggesting that thresholding “by eye” may not be sufficient. The sensitivity analysis indicates quantitative thresholds are plausible, and there is good agreement of the analytical results with select agent designations. A second analytical approach that applied the data using a logic tree format to rule out pathogens for consideration as select agents arrived at similar conclusions.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Tools and Incentives for Implementing Codes of Ethics to Help Prevent the Reemergence of Chemical Weapons

Since the entry into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the establishment of the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in 1997, 96% of the world’s declared stockpile, comprising 72,305 metric tons of chemical warfare agents have been destroyed. Despite this notable progress, the convergence of chemistry and biology brings new challenges to preventing chemical weapons production, as the technical capability to manipulate the chemistry of microorganisms has diffused beyond the chemical industry and academic research communities. The development and voluntary adoption by chemical practitioners around the world of ethical codes or guidelines, such as The Hague Ethical Guidelines and the Global Chemists’ Code of Ethics (GCCE) , are important steps in strengthening international nonproliferation efforts through their potential to impact the intent of the individual by normalizing ethical behavior. However, the simple act of adopting a code does not guarantee ethical behavior. Care must be taken to ensure those adopting the code understand specifically the behavior being asked of them, and they must be given ample opportunities to practice exercising those behaviors in low-risk situations and encouragement to keep trying when they fail. Furthermore, in small-to-medium chemical companies, concerns that adopting such measures could negatively impact profit margins may dissuade some business owners from voluntarily adopting ethical codes, while a country’s decision makers may not prioritize establishment of new regulatory mechanisms that could address some of these concerns. In this paper, factors that may positively influence a chemical company’s decision to adopt ethical guidelines, such as integration of social sustainability elements into frameworks and approaches to maintain social legitimacy in the eyes of the broader community, are explored. Voluntary adoption of ethical codes gives teeth to arms control regimes. By encouraging chemical companies to become engaged in the community around them and providing easy-to-use tools like scenario-based E-learning to enable remote engagement and facilitate understanding of the principles undergirding the GCCE, they actively participate in making the world a better place and minimizing the potential for reemergence of chemical weapons.

Small Chemical Companies, Codes of Ethics, E-learn↗
DOE OSTI2026

Evidence for a cytokine-sensitive network of iron-associated genes that protects pancreatic islets against ferroptosis

Background/Objectives: The micronutrient iron is closely connected to inflammation and is among the complex factors contributing to beta-cell failure in diabetes. High levels of dietary iron increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and excessive iron uptake by beta-cells can cause oxidative stress and inhibit function. Elevated levels of proinflammatory cytokines in obese individuals, such as interleukin (IL)-1beta and IL-6, increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and there is evidence that these low levels of circulating cytokines can lead to islet dysfunction. Methods: In this study, gene microarray and other data were analyzed for expression differences in islets treated for 48 h with 10 pg/mL IL-1beta + 20 pg/mL IL-6 as a model of low-grade inflammation versus untreated. Results: Three iron-associated genes were among the most cytokine-sensitive in the mouse genome: Hamp, Steap4, and Lcn2. These proteins are all involved with increasing/retaining cellular iron. We hypothesized that increased cellular iron would lead to increased susceptibility to ferroptosis. Surprisingly, 24 h pre-exposure to low-grade inflammation, which upregulates this iron-gene network, prevented subsequent erastin-induced ferroptosis. We also found that Steap4 overexpression reduced islet dysfunction caused by high-dose proinflammatory cytokines (10× low-dose), suggesting an overall protective effect. Steap4 overexpression also upregulated Hamp and Lcn2, suggesting Steap4 regulates these cytokine-sensitive iron genes.; in contrast, ferritin and ferroportin gene expression, which are not sensitive to cytokines, were unchanged. Conclusions: These data suggest an inflammation-induced network of genes involved in cellular iron uptake and retention plays a protective role in islets against oxidative stress and ferroptosis.

IL-1β↗
DOE OSTI2021

Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) for the Limited Area, Multi-Purpose (LAMP) High Bay Laboratory

Kier + Wright, as Qualified SWPPP Developer (QSD), puts forth this Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) for the Limited Area, Multi-Purpose (LAMP) High Bay Laboratory facility (Project) located at Sandia National Laboratories, 7011 East Avenue, CA. The property is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy, and managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC. The project proposes converting an asphalt parking lot into a new high bay machine shop building and a low bay office building. Per the California State Water Resources Control Board’s (California State Water Board) Construction General Permit (CGP), a SWPPP is required when 1 acre or more of land is disturbed. The project site area of 1.6 acres exceeds the minimum acreage threshold of 1 acre and therefore requires SWPPP implementation. QSD has determined the sediment risk for this project, based on soil type at the site and starting and ending dates of construction, to be low (Section 3.4.1 and Appendix B). Receiving water for this project is the Arroyo Seco. QSD has determined the Arroyo Seco to be a high-risk receiving water because it has the three beneficial uses of “spawn”, “cold”, and “migratory” (Sections 3.3 and 3.4.2 and Appendix B). QSD has determined the overall risk level for the site to be Risk Level 2, based on a combination of low sediment risk and high receiving water risk (Appendix B). As such, QSD has delineated a variety of Best Management Practices (BMPs) to be employed during project construction to reduce or eliminate pollutants in stormwater runoff or any other discharges from the Project site. In addition to site-specific BMPs, this SWPPP report provides instruction for on site monitoring. Electronic copies of required documentation such as inspection reports, REAPs, annual report documentation, etc. shall be submitted to NTESS Sandia Delegated Representative via Newforma.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Scale-up Unlearnable Examples Learning with High-performance Computing

Recent advancements in AI models, like ChatGPT, are structured to retain user interactions, which could inadvertently include sensitive healthcare data. In the healthcare field, particularly when radiologists use AI-driven diagnostic tools hosted on online platforms, there is a risk that medical imaging data may be repurposed for future AI training without explicit consent, spotlighting critical privacy and intellectual property concerns around healthcare data usage. Addressing these privacy challenges, a novel approach known as Unlearnable Examples (UEs) has been introduced, aiming to make data unlearnable to deep learning models. A prominent method within this area, called Unlearnable Clustering (UC), has shown improved UE performance with larger batch sizes but was previously limited by computational resources (e.g., a single workstation). To push the boundaries of UE performance with theoretically unlimited resources, we scaled up UC learning across various datasets using Distributed Data Parallel (DDP) training on the Summit supercomputer. Our goal was to examine UE efficacy at high-performance computing (HPC) levels to prevent unauthorized learning and enhance data security, particularly exploring the impact of batch size on UE’s unlearnability. Utilizing the robust computational capabilities of the Summit, extensive experiments were conducted on diverse datasets such as Pets, MedMNist, Flowers, and Flowers102. Our findings reveal that both overly large and overly small batch sizes can lead to performance instability and affect accuracy. However, the relationship between batch size and unlearnability varied across datasets, highlighting the necessity for tailored batch size strategies to achieve optimal data protection. The use of Summit’s high-performance GPUs, along with the efficiency of the DDP framework, facilitated rapid updates of model parameters and consistent training across nodes. Our results underscore the critical role of selecting appropriate batch sizes based on the specific characteristics of each dataset to prevent learning and ensure data security in deep learning applications. The source code is publicly available at https: // github. com/ hrlblab/ UE_ HPC .

Zhu, Yanfan [Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN,↗
DOE OSTI2024

Modeling injection-induced fault slip using long short-term memory networks

Stress changes due to changes in fluid pressure and temperature in a faulted formation may lead to the opening/shearing of the fault. This can be due to subsurface (geo)engineering activities such as fluid injections and geologic disposal of nuclear waste. Such activities are expected to rise in the future making it necessary to assess their short- and long-term safety. Here, a new machine learning (ML) approach to model pore pressure and fault displacements in response to high-pressure fluid injection cycles is developed. The focus is on fault behavior near the injection borehole. To capture the temporal dependencies in the data, long short-term memory (LSTM) networks are utilized. To prevent error accumulation within the forecast window, four critical measures to train a robust LSTM model for predicting fault response are highlighted: (i) setting an appropriate value of LSTM lag, (ii) calibrating the LSTM cell dimension, (iii) learning rate reduction during weight optimization, and (iv) not adopting an independent injection cycle as a validation set. Several numerical experiments were conducted, which demonstrated that the ML model can capture peaks in pressure and associated fault displacement that accompany an increase in fluid injection. The model also captured the decay in pressure and displacement during the injection shut-in period. Further, the ability of an ML model to highlight key changes in fault hydromechanical activation processes was investigated, which shows that ML can be used to monitor risk of fault activation and leakage during high pressure fluid injections.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Public Safety: Fighting Crime and Terrorism; Border Security

This chapter discusses risks from unintentional or illicit movement of nuclear and radioactive material out of regulatory control through international border crossing points, summarizes international efforts to build capacity and support border security, and discusses how detection equipment can be used to screen for penetrating radiation at traditional border crossing points.

border security↗
DOE OSTI2024

Dataset of mechanically induced thermal runaway measurement and severity level on Li-ion batteries

The deployment of Li-ion batteries covers a wide range of energy storage applications, from mobile phones, e-bikes, electric vehicles (EV) and stationary energy storage systems. However, safety issue such as thermal runaway is always one of the most important concerns to prevent Li-ion batteries from further market penetration. A standardized single-side indentation test protocol was developed to mechanically induce an internal short-circuit. The cell voltage, compressive load, indenter stroke, and temperature at the indentation point are measured in time series. The test data of each cell, along with cell parameters such as dimensions, mass, chemistry, state of charge (SOC), capacity, are integrated together to calculate a thermal runaway severity score from 0 to100. Complete data collection process including the original measured record, test method, severity score calculation scheme is presented in this article. The thermal runaway severity analysis and the more than 100 tested Li-ion battery records provide a good data source for further comparison and ranking of thermal runaway risks.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Porous condensers can double the efficiency of membrane distillation

Among membrane distillation (MD) configurations, air gap MD (AGMD) has superior energy efficiency at high salinity. However, flooding of the gap prevents optimal thin gap depths as water removal is a challenge. To address these challenges, this work provides the first analysis of efficiency enhancement via porous wicking conductive condensers in MD. To do so, we examined performance with experiments and comprehensive thermo-fluid numerical models; we find that the porous wick condenser significantly improves thermal efficiency, gain output ratio (GOR), and flux. MD experiments show that the porous copper foam improves the thermal efficiency of air gap membrane distillation up to 40 % and water flux up to 144 %. Numerical modeling shows the porous copper foam improves the GOR of membrane distillation in high salinity by 98.7 %, outperforming air gap MD, permeate gap MD, and conductive gap MD. Furthermore, the optimized thickness and permeability of porous condensers significantly help eliminate the risk of flooding in AGMD.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2024

Reducing Pb and Cl Mobility in Waste-to-Energy Fly Ashes via Chlorellestadite Formation

Sustainably sourced development minerals are vital to meeting the demand for low-carbon construction materials. A potential waste material that can be a low-carbon construction material for cementitious systems is waste-to-energy fly ash (WTE ash), a by-product of waste incineration. WTE ash contains chloride-bearing species and heavy metals, which can promote steel reinforcement corrosion and present long-term leaching risks. Here, we present a new multi-step ash treatment protocol involving dissolution and heating to transform the non-readily removable chlorides in WTE ash to Chlorellestadite (Ca 10 (SiO 4 ) 3 (SO 4 ) 3 Cl 2 ). Our results suggest that this transformation significantly reduces chloride release from WTE ash in an alkaline cement-like environment by over two orders of magnitude, from 1500 mg/l to less than 10 mg/l. This transformation also significantly reduces Pb mobility after treatment (from > 5 mg/l to < 0.5 mg/l), likely caused by the crystallo-chemical incorporation of Pb in Chlorellestadite. In contrast to the existing ash treatment methods, the proposed ash treatment protocol minimizes heavy metals volatilization while simultaneously reducing Pb mobility and chloride release through Chlorellestadite formation. Furthermore, these findings overcome limitations preventing the commercial use of WTE ash and thus opening up pathways towards a circular economy.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗