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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 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Satellite-Based Assessment of Rocket Launch and Coastal Change Impacts on Cape Canaveral Barrier Island, Florida, USA

The Cape Canaveral Barrier Island, home to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Kennedy Space Center and the United States (U.S.) Space Force’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, is situated in a unique ecological transition zone that supports diverse wildlife. This study evaluates the recent changes in vegetation cover (2016–2023) and dune elevation (2007–2017) within the Cape Canaveral Barrier Island using high-resolution optical satellite and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data. The study period was chosen to depict the time period of a recent increase in rocket launches. The study objectives include assessing changes in vegetation communities, identifying detectable impacts of liquid propellant launches on nearby vegetation, and evaluating dune elevation and tide level shifts near launchpads. The results indicate vegetation cover changes, including mangrove expansion in wetland areas and the conversion of coastal strands to denser scrubs and hardwood forests, which were likely influenced by mild winters and fire management. While detectable impacts of rocket launches on nearby vegetation were observed, they were less severe than those caused by solid rocket motors. Compounding challenges, such as rising tide levels, beach erosion, and wetland loss, potentially threaten the resilience of launch operations and the surrounding habitats. The volume and scale of launches continue to increase, and a balance between space exploration and ecological conservation is required in this biodiverse region. This study focuses on the assessment of barrier islands’ shorelines.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Eucalyptus Are Unlikely to Escape Plantations and Invade Surrounding Forests Managed with Prescribed Fire in Southeastern US

Woody biomass production can increase through establishment of non-native tree species exhibiting greater growth potential than traditional native species. Interest in growing Eucalyptus in the southeastern US has raised concern over its potential spread and invasion, which could impact ecosystem properties and functions. Within the matrix of land use where Eucalyptus establishment is being considered in the southeastern US, surrounding pine forests managed with fire represent a likely pathway for invasion. We used greenhouse and field experiments to evaluate the potential invasion risk of Eucalyptus benthamii. We were specifically interested in determining if seeds could successfully germinate in fire-maintained pine forests and if fire-return intervals influenced germination through impacts on litter accumulation and light availability. The greenhouse experiment investigated the influence of light availability on germination success, whereas the field study investigated the influence of time since fire, and thus litter accumulation and light availability, on germination success. Percent germination was similar under non-shaded controls and moderate shade, but complete shade resulted in low germination rates. Germination was lower in the field compared to the greenhouse and was influenced by litter and light availability, which varied according to fire-return intervals. Litter increased, and light availability decreased, with time since burn. Germination was negatively related to litter depth and positively related to light availability, thereby decreasing with time since fire. Germination increased with litter removal but remained positively related to light availability after litter removal. Higher germination with litter removal suggests germination is influenced by litter, but higher germination with increased light availability, regardless of raking, suggests germination is also influenced by light availability. Despite these relationships, no seedlings persisted through the growing season. The low germination rates under a variety of field conditions coupled with the lack of persistence suggests establishment may be unlikely, regardless of the surrounding land matrix.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Rapid Spaceborne Mapping of Wildfire Retardant Drops for Active Wildfire Management

Aerial application of fire retardant is a critical tool for managing wildland fire spread. Retardant applications are carefully planned to maximize fire line effectiveness, improve firefighter safety, protect high-value resources and assets, and limit environmental impact. However, topography, wind, visibility, and aircraft orientation can lead to differences between planned drop locations and the actual placement of the retardant. Information on the precise placement and areal extent of the dropped retardant can provide wildland fire managers with key information to (1) adaptively manage event resources, (2) assess the effectiveness of retardant slowing or stopping fire spread, (3) document location in relation to ecologically sensitive areas; and perform or validate cost-accounting for drop services. This study uses Sentinel-2 satellite data and commonly used machine learning classifiers to test an automated approach for detecting and mapping retardant application. We show that a multiclass model (retardant, burned, unburned, and cloud artifact classes) outperforms a single-class retardant model and that image differencing (post-application minus pre-application) outperforms single-image models. Compared to the random forest and support vector machine, the gradient boosting model performed the best with an overall accuracy of 0.88 and an F1 Score of 0.76 for fire retardant, though results were comparable for all three models. Our approach maps the full areal extent of the dropped retardant within minutes of image availability, rather than linear representations currently mapped by aerial GPS surveys. The development of this capability allows for the rapid assessment of retardant effectiveness and documentation of placement in relation to sensitive environments.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Enzymatic Biocontrol of Fire Blight ( Erwinia amylovora ) Using an Engineered Glycosyl Hydrolase

Current management of fire blight, caused by Erwinia amylovora , relies heavily on streptomycin a practice that has contributed to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains and raised environmental and regulatory concerns. Enzyme-based biocontrol agents offer a promising antibiotic-free approach that combines target specificity with environmental compatibility. This study evaluates CAase, a bacteriophage-derived glycosyl hydrolase, for its ability to disrupt E. amylovora biofilms and reduce disease severity. Biochemical assays and scanning electron microscopy confirmed that CAase efficiently degraded the extracellular polysaccharide (EPS) matrix, releasing cells from biofilms. Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) linkage analysis of EPS isolated from two Erwinia amylovora strains demonstrated that CAase preferentially cleaves galactan-rich amylovoran produced by strain EA273, while exhibiting only limited activity toward the levan-rich EPS from strain EA1430. Functional assays revealed that CAase reduced bacterial viability by nearly 2 orders of magnitude at higher enzyme concentrations, strongly suppressed surface motility, and induced ultrastructural damage visible by transmission electron microscopy. Importantly, field trials showed that CAase significantly lowered blossom and shoot blight incidence under orchard conditions. These results highlight CAase as a potent enzyme-based strategy for reducing the virulence of E. amylovora and demonstrate its potential as a sustainable alternative to antibiotics in fire blight management.

antibiotic resistance↗
DOE OSTI2024

Electric Vehicle Fire Primer for Fleet Managers

The U.S. Department of Energy's Vehicle Technologies Office provides project assistance through Clean Cities, technical expertise, and funding to help stake-holders implement alternative fuels and electric vehicles (EVs). Fleet managers considering EVs can learn about the potential for EV fires and measures to help reduce fire risk.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Monitoring and Documentation of Forest Management Activities at Los Alamos National Laboratory

Forest management treatments at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) are administered by the Emergency Management Division (EMD-DO) Wildland Fire Program within the Wildland Fire and Forest Management Program (WFFM Program or the Program). Open space forest inventory monitoring is conducted by Forest Health Program staff and students within the Environmental Stewardship Group (EPC-ES). The goals of the integrated Wildland Fire and Forest Management Program are to reduce impacts to Laboratory operations from climate driven events by implementing forest management and healthy forest initiatives such as forest thinning and erosion control. The LANL Wildland Fire Mitigation and Forest Health Plan (EMD PLAN-200, LA-UR-19-25122; LANL 2019) presents treatment standards for LANL property to meet the following goals: 1) Restore and maintain landscapes: LANL landscapes are resilient to disturbances; 2) Develop a fire-adapted community: LANL workforce, neighbors, and infrastructure can withstand a wildland fire without loss of life and property; 3) Ensure wildland fire mitigation implementation: All wildland fire mitigation working group organizations participate in making and implementing safe, effective, efficient risk-based wildland fire management decisions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Energy Efficient Waste Heat Coupled Forward Osmosis for Effluent Water Management at Coal-Fired Power Plants

This project sought to evaluate the technical and economic viability of the Aquapod©, a transformational low energy (<200 kJ/kg water) waste heat coupled forward osmosis (FO) technology, to manage effluents, meet cooling water demands, and achieve water conservation in a coal-fired power plant environment. The Aquapod© process is innovative because it is heat-driven, avoids the evaporation of water, and uses no toxic chemicals such as ammonia or amines. The Aquapod© process accomplishes this using an aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) coupled FO process. The evaluation revealed that the Aquapod© process offers a pathway to exploit waste heat resources within a power plant to achieve flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) wastewater volume reduction and water recovery with minimal pretreatment. Water recovery of 80% from FGD wastewater was achieved with minimal pretreatment, exceeding the project target of 50%. The estimated electrical energy of 2.16 kWh/m 3 of water produced for the Aquapod© process met the project target of < 3.6 kWh/m 3 . The heat required for the process operation was approximately 186 kJ/kg of produced water, which was slightly lower than the project target of 200 kJ/kg. The estimated treatment cost for installing and operating the Aquapod© process in conjunction with a spray dryer evaporator to achieve zero-liquid discharge (ZLD) of the 100 gpm FGD wastewater was $13.24/m 3 over a 30-year lifetime. As a point of reference, this study’s host power plant currently incurs a cost of $3.70/m 3 – $8.87/m3 on a discharged volume basis to discharge its wastewater into the publicly owned treatment works (POTW) after physical-chemical treatment. Therefore, the Illinois power plant would incur an incremental cost increase of $4.37/m 3 – 9.54/m 3 to achieve ZLD using the Aquapod© and spray dryer combination. Ample opportunities exist to further lower the ZLD capital and operating costs in the next design iteration to attain pipe parity at the higher end of the site treatment costs.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2020

Carbon starvation is absent regardless of season of burn in Liquidambar styraciflua L.

In the Southeastern United States, the function and stability of pine ecosystems depends on frequent low intensity fires. One of the critical effects of frequent fire is the inhibition of hardwood competition by removing above-ground stems (top-kill). Previous long-term studies have correlated early growing season burns with higher understory mortality when compared to dormant season burns. Seasonal differences in mortality from insufficient carbon reserves in roots after leaf flush were posited as the mechanism but this was never explicitly tested. In this experiment, we burned two-year-old pot-grown sweetgums (Liquidambar styraciflua L.) in the dormant season (February), growing season (May), and compared their physiological responses to plants that were unburned. By the end of the first post-burn growing season, mortality was higher after the dormant season burn than the growing season burn and unburned trees had nearly twice the mass of either the burned treatments. Tissue starch concentrations were similar across all treatments highlighting the resiliency of sweetgum carbon stocks to recover from above-ground stem removal regardless of season. We showed the critical importance of top-killing stems regardless of season of burn. Our findings further suggest that dormant season fires can be more lethal to young sweetgum, possibly due to susceptibility of tender new shoots to freezing damage.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Cascadia Burning: The historic, but not historically unprecedented, 2020 wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, USA

Abstract Wildfires devastated communities in Oregon and Washington in September 2020, burning almost as much forest west of the Cascade Mountain crest (“the westside”) in 2 weeks (~340,000 ha) as in the previous five decades (~406,00 ha). Unlike dry forests of the interior western United States, temperate rain forests of the Pacific Northwest have experienced limited recent fire activity, and debates surrounding what drove the 2020 fires, and management strategies to adapt to similar future events, necessitate a scientific evaluation of the fires. We evaluate five questions regarding the 2020 Labor Day fires: (1) How do the 2020 fires compare with historical fires? (2) How did the roles of weather and antecedent climate differ geographically and from the recent past (1979–2019)? (3) How do fire size and severity compare to other recent fires (1985–2019), and how did forest management and prefire forest structure influence burn severity? (4) What impact will these fires have on westside landscapes? and (5) How can we adapt to similar fires in the future? Although 5 of the 2020 fires were much larger than any others in the recent past and burned ~10 times the area in high‐severity patches >10,000 ha, the 2020 fires were remarkably consistent with historical fires. Reports from the early 1900s, along with paleo‐ and dendro‐ecological records, indicate similar and potentially even larger wildfires over the past millennium, many of which shared similar seasonality (late August/early September), weather conditions, and even geographic locations. Consistent with the largest historical fires, strong east winds and anomalously dry conditions drove the rapid spread of high‐severity wildfire in 2020. We found minimal difference in burn severity among stand structural types related to previous management in the 2020 fires. Adaptation strategies for similar fires in the future could benefit by focusing on ignition prevention, fire suppression, and community preparedness, as opposed to fuel treatments that are unlikely to mitigate fire severity during extreme weather. While scientific uncertainties remain regarding the nature of infrequent, high‐severity fires in westside forests, particularly under climate change, adapting to their future occurrence will require different strategies than those in interior, dry forests.

Reilly, Matthew J.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Hanford Site Post-Fire Vegetation Monitoring Report for Calendar Year 2023

The Hanford Site is comprised of an expanse of shrub-steppe habitats that provide exceptional value to plants and animals located on the Hanford Site and in the surrounding greater Columbia Basin. The greatest threat to this habitat is fire-related conversion to a cheatgrass-dominated monoculture. To decrease future fire risk and to disrupt the positive feedback cycle between cheatgrass and fire, land managers can make efforts to restore native vegetation following a fire. The goal of this report is to summarize fires and fire monitoring efforts that occurred in 2023 and analyze vegetation recovery post-fire in both restored and unrestored areas to inform future post-fire response actions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Hanford Site Post-Fire Vegetation Monitoring Report for Calendar Year 2022

The Hanford Site is comprised of an expanse of shrub-steppe habitats that provide exceptional value to plants and animals located on the Site and in the surrounding greater Columbia Basin. The greatest threat to this habitat is fire-related conversion to a cheatgrass-dominated monoculture. In order to decrease future fire risk and to disrupt the positive feedback cycle between cheatgrass and fire, land managers can make efforts to restore native vegetation following a fire. The goal of this report is to analyze vegetation recovery post-fire in both restored and unrestored areas to inform future post-fire response actions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Hanford Site Post-Fire Vegetation Monitoring Report for Calendar Year 2021

The Hanford Site presents an expanse of shrub-steppe habitat that provides exceptional value to plants and animals located on the Site and in the surrounding greater Columbia Basin. The greatest threat to this habitat is fire-related conversion to a cheatgrass-dominated monoculture. In order to decrease future fire risk and to disrupt the positive feedback cycle between cheatgrass and fire, land managers can make efforts to restore native vegetation following a fire. The goal of this report is to analyze vegetation recovery post-fire in both restored and unrestored areas to inform future post-fire response actions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Idaho National Laboratory Site Natural Resources: Wildland Fire Recovery Framework

As pressures from invasive species, climate change, and anthropogenic impacts increase across the landscape in the western U.S., managing wildland fire recovery to promote healthy sagebrush steppe becomes an increasingly important stewardship responsibility. The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has developed and implemented wildland fire recovery plans to hasten desirable vegetation re-establishment on several individual fires, but lacks an overarching wildland fire recovery strategy, or framework. The intent of this document is to develop the technical approach and scientific basis for wildland fire recovery at the INL Site and to evaluate the tools available to support it in a comprehensive and broadly applicable format. This wildland fire recovery framework will outline the process of assessing the potential impacts of wildland fire on natural resources, present a range of post-fire recovery options, outline an approach for post-fire monitoring, and provide a template for post-fire recovery plans designed to addresses the specific conditions of each wildland fire. There are numerous benefits to developing a wildland fire recovery framework for the INL Site. The first is streamlining the development of post-fire recovery plans for individual fires. A second benefit is more closely aligning INL’s post-fire planning processes with those of other federal agencies. The development of an INL Site fire recovery framework will also allow resource professionals to consider a broader set of recovery tools than they have before because all proposed tools included in the framework were vetted through the process of scoping and stakeholder review. Finally, this framework is a publicly available document that can be used as a basis for communicating and discussing post-fire natural resource recovery objectives with agency collaborators, conservation partners, and other stakeholders. Through the proactive land stewardship principles outlined in this framework, current INL sustainability initiatives can be enhanced, and future INL mission flexibility will be maintained.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2024

How will future climate change impact prescribed fire across the contiguous United States?

As of 2023, the use of prescribed fire to manage ecosystems accounts for more than 50% of area burned annually across the United States. Prescribed fire is carried out when meteorological conditions, including temperature, humidity, and wind speed are appropriate for its safe and effective application. However, changes in these meteorological variables associated with future climate change may impact future opportunities to conduct prescribed fire. In this study, we combine climate projections with information on prescribed burning windows for ecoregions across the contiguous United States (CONUS) to compute the number of days when meteorological conditions allow for the safe and effective application of prescribed fire under present-day (2006–2015) and future climate (2051–2060) conditions. The resulting projections, which cover 57% of all vegetated area across the CONUS, indicate fewer days with conditions suitable for prescribed burning across ecoregions of the eastern United States due to rising maximum daily temperatures, but opportunities increase in the northern and northwestern United States, driven primarily by rising minimum temperatures and declining wind speeds.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

New Predictive Capabilities for Nuclear Weapons in Composite Fires

The prevalence of flammable carbon-based composite airframe materials and their use in high-temperature nuclear weapon re-entry systems requires analysts to address the abnormal thermal environment hazards associated with composite material fires. These fires tend to burn very differently than conventional fuel fires, usually burning less intensely, but much longer. This could lead to challenges in understanding margins in classic safety themes. The technical challenges in modeling the phenomena associated with these new types of fires are considerable, but new models have been developed. Their predictions have been compared with well-documented measurements of a vertical porous burner fire, known as a "wall fire" (a "wall-fire" validation simulation is reflected in the figures below). These measurements were conducted at FMGlobal, a mutual insurance company with a strong fire risk management program, as part of an ongoing collaboration between Sandia and FMGlobal. To date, the "wall-fire" scenario has been set up and initial model assessments with grid refinement studies have been conducted focusing on mesh resolutions suitable for full weapon system simulations. This work will continue with further verification and validation tasks assessing the predictions of the new model. Future work will address specific aspects of the wall models that are lacking in their predictive ability.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2023

Performance of Fire Danger Indices and Their Utility in Predicting Future Wildfire Danger Over the Conterminous United States

Abstract Predicting current and future wildfire frequency and size is central to wildfire control and management. Multiple fire danger indices (FDIs) that incorporate weather and fuel conditions have been developed and utilized to support wildfire predictions and risk assessment. However, the scale‐dependent performance of individual FDIs remains poorly understood, which leads to large uncertainty in the estimated fire sizes under climate change. Here, we calculate four commonly used FDIs over the conterminous United States using high‐resolution (4 km) climate and fuel data sets for the 1984–2019 period. The relationships of these four FDIs to the observed wildfire sizes show that higher values of FDIs correlate to larger total fire sizes; this correlation is more robust at larger spatial scales. Sensitivity analysis indicates that the daily minimum relative humidity and precipitation are the most important drivers of the annual mean fire danger. In the instances of extreme fire danger, wind speed becomes a critical factor and should be considered in the calculation of the FDI. To assess the impact of climate change on future fire size, we calculate the present‐day and end‐of‐century FDIs using the 12 km regional climate model simulations. The four FDIs generally predict consistent changes in future fire potential, suggesting an overall higher fire potential in conjunction with a prolonged wildfire season in future climate. Regionally, the four FDIs also reveal similar seasonal patterns as the enhancement arises mostly in spring and summer over the southwest US while in summer and fall over the northern and eastern US.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Global burned area increasingly explained by climate change

Fire behaviour is changing in many regions worldwide. However, nonlinear interactions between fire weather, fuel, land use, management and ignitions have impeded formal attribution of global burned area changes. Here, in this work, we demonstrate that climate change increasingly explains regional burned area patterns, using an ensemble of global fire models. The simulations show that climate change increased global burned area by 15.8% (95% confidence interval (CI) [13.1–18.7]) for 2003–2019 and increased the probability of experiencing months with above-average global burned area by 22% (95% CI [18–26]). In contrast, other human forcings contributed to lowering burned area by 19.1% (95% CI [21.9–15.8]) over the same period. Moreover, the contribution of climate change to burned area increased by 0.22% (95% CI [0.22–0.24]) per year globally, with the largest increase in central Australia. Our results highlight the importance of immediate, drastic and sustained GHG emission reductions along with landscape and fire management strategies to stabilize fire impacts on lives, livelihoods and ecosystems.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗