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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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DOE OSTI2022

Compensation for Long-Duration Energy Storage

Rapidly changing power system conditions, driven by decarbonization goals, are leading to significant growth in renewable energy sources, which can be both variable and uncertain. This has been accompanied with increased reliance on and rapid growth in deployment of energy storage technologies. Currently, approximately 90% of installed, utility-scale energy storage capacity in the United States comes from pumped storage hydropower (PSH). However, development of new PSH has been limited and all recent growth in energy storage has come from batteries, , especially as technology costs have decreased over the years. Most of the current deployment still remains in the form of short-duration (<6 hours) energy storage technologies; the average duration of new storage was 3.7 hours for projects deployed in the first half of 2021 (Wood Mackenzie and Energy Storage Association 2021).

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Carbonate Composite Sorbents: A Novel Technology for Biogas Upgrading

With no signs of slowing, global warming and resource consumption continue to rise. Biogas has been shown to be a reliable renewable energy source in tandem to natural gas. Biogas is naturally sourced as a byproduct from dairy and food waste plants and can be upgraded to biomethane as an alternative to natural gas. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has developed carbonate composite sorbents which yield pipeline quality biomethane and cost less than traditional biogas upgrading technologies (e.g., water/chemical scrubbing, pressure swing adsorption). Laboratory-scale experiments using biogas and the composite sorbents resulted in absorption of 0.62 mol of CO 2 per kilogram of material, methane purity of >99% and an energy demand of <0.1 MJ/Nm 3 . The team is currently working on scaling up the production of the composite sorbent to kilogram quantities and to operate a small-scale pilot at a partnered test facility. To ensure market competitiveness, the team is currently working on improving the CO 2 loading capacity of the composite sorbent by optimizing the powder to polymer ratio and developing a confined coaxial powder extrusion method.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Pumped Storage Hydropower Augmented with Pressurized Air: The Ground-Level Integrated Diverse Energy Storage (GLIDES) System — GLIDES System Configurations and Use Cases

Energy storage is essential for cost-effective integration of variable renewable energy sources to support a low-carbon grid. It is also a key enabler of a modern grid infrastructure for demand management. However, several main challenges remain for different kind of energy storage technologies in grid scale deployment. Currently, the largest source of utility-scale storage and long-duration storage in the US is pumped storage hydropower (PSH). Prospect of growth in conventional PSH faces challenges that have limited its deployment over the last three decades, including high capital costs and long deployment timelines. Batteries have high energy densities and are the primary technology of choice for small-scale energy storage. Compressed air energy storage (CAES) is another large-scale energy storage technology, but there are few plants deployed worldwide. They suffer from their low round trip efficiency (RTE) due to the use of high-pressure air compressors. To address some of the challenges associated with these various storage technologies, the Ground-Level Integrated Diverse Energy Storage (GLIDES) is a modular PSH technology that was invented in 2015 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It utilizes gas compression to store electric energy. GLIDES stores energy by compressing gas using a liquid piston in high-pressure vessels. In doing so the vessels act as the upper reservoir in conventional PSH. Initially, the vessels are filled with gas to a prescribed pressure. To store energy, GLIDES uses a hydraulic piston pump to pump water into the pressurized vessels. As the water volume increases inside the vessels, water acts as a hydraulic piston compressing the gas on top of it. This process can be thought of as pumping water from the lower reservoir to the higher reservoir in PSH, increasing the water head. To dispatch the stored energy, the high-head water in the vessel is discharge through a high head Pelton hydraulic turbine that is connected to an electric generator. Employing high-pressure vessels enables GLIDES to reach water heads ~10-80 times higher than conventional PSH, achieving ~40 times higher energy densities, and overcomes the geographic limitation of conventional PSH. Although its energy density is much lower than that of batteries, GLIDES holds the potential advantages of having long service life, ease of system integration and being less hazardous over batteries. GLIDES prospective scalability could make it suitable for wide range of applications from behind the meter storage in buildings to grid-scale storage. It also makes it suitable for installations in densely populated urban areas where energy storage is most needed and real estate is limited. Over the last 5 years, work has focused on increasing GLIDES’ energy density, decreasing its initial capital cost of the system, and increasing its revenue potential. Several designs were developed and prototyped to verify and demonstrate the improvement in energy density. The latest prototype achieved energy density of 1.21 kWh/m 3 . Our analysis showed that it could achieve up to 1.7 kWh/m 3 with a mixture of air and carbon dioxide as the gas being compressed.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

FORCE-DISPATCHES Integration - Initial Demonstration

Integrated energy systems (IES) combine, in mutually beneficial ways, power from variable renewable energy sources and nuclear power plants (NPP) to improve economic viability under uncertain market and weather conditions. The open-source Framework for Optimization of Resources and Economics (FORCE) tool suite, developed at Idaho National Laboratory (INL), has enabled comprehensive modeling and simulation of IES. The capabilities within FORCE include grid portfolio optimization through the Holistic Energy Resource Optimization Network (HERON) and the transient process model analysis library HYBRID, among others. Continuous efforts and investments from the IES programs have been made to expand and improve the versatility of the FORCE toolset in fiscal year 2022. Code-coupling and cross-tool communication have been important methods for improving this versatility. This report focuses on an additional workflow in the HERON tool for capacity and dispatch stochastic optimization through integration with the external tool Design Integration and Synthesis Platform to Advance Tightly Coupled Hybrid Energy Systems (DISPATCHES). DISPATCHES was primarily developed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory, in collaboration with other national laboratories, which included INL, universities, and industry partners. It is coupled to a library of algebraic models for specific plant components, and to a framework for stochastic optimization different from that provided in the current Risk Analysis Virtual Environment (RAVEN)-running-RAVEN algorithm in HERON. HERON currently conducts stochastic optimization via an outer-inner loop: it optimizes over variable capacity on the outer loop, and at each step within the capacity parameter space, conducts an inner optimization over scenarios (of market signals, demand, and/or weather patterns) and hourly dispatch throughout a user-specified number of years. On the other hand, DISPATCHES conducts stochastic optimization via an “all-at-once” strategy in which capacity variables are optimized at the same level as dispatch variables, as all scenarios are considered at once. The latter method works especially well for projects of limited size and project length, as the necessary computational power and memory increases with the number of variables and scenarios. The new capability to use the DISPATCHES workflow in HERON enhances standalone simulations by leveraging FORCE tools—namely, the economic metrics from the Tool for Economic Analysis (TEAL) and reduced-order model (ROM) sampling from RAVEN. The initial demonstration of the DISPATCHES workflow simulates an existing nuclear-case flowsheet within the DISPATCHES repository—this models a NPP with a secondary revenue stream for hydrogen production. Electrical output from the plant is converted to hydrogen via a proton-exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer, hydrogen tanks are used for storage, and an additional turbine is added for hydrogen combustion. Continued work regarding this FORCE-DISPATCHES integration will include automatic generation of DISPATCHES models from HERON inputs, offering analysts the option of using either the RAVEN-runsRAVEN or DISPATCHES workflow to solve technoeconomic optimization problems.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Providencia Island White Papers: Hawaii, USA: A Grid Planning Case Study for Providencia Island, Colombia

Special considerations exist for island grids seeking to smoothly integrate distributed energy resources (DERs), such as rooftop photovoltaics (PV), with an existing fossil fuel-based grid without compromising system stability and reliability. Hawaii, having successfully integrated nonconventional renewable energy sources for a hybrid electricity grid, may serve as a guide for technical specifications and interconnection policy. Island grid planners may seek to follow Hawaii's example by standardizing technical specifications of generators, particularly for advanced inverter components.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Robust Real-Time Modeling of Distribution Systems with Data-Driven Grid-Wise Observability (Final Technical Report)

The overall objective of this project is to leverage existing and emerging sensor measurements to develop data-driven observability enhancement algorithms as well as robust state estimation and parameter identification techniques to enable real-time grid-wise monitoring and modeling of loads and distributed energy resources (DERs). The project resulted in a holistic framework with the following key components: 1) data-driven and machine learning-based grid-edge visibility enhancement, 2) robust branch-current-based state estimation (BCSE), and 3) robust real-time steady-state and dynamic-state modeling of loads and DERs. The research outcomes have provided utility companies better network visibility, higher-fidelity load/DER models, and more accurate assessment of DERs’ impacts, thus, facilitating the integration of renewable energy sources. The synergistic collaborative project among Iowa State University (ISU), Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Electric Power Research Center (EPRC), SIEMENS Industry, Alliant Energy, Cedar Falls Utilities (CFU), and Maquoketa Valley Electric Cooperative (MVEC) to leverage the team’s extensive expertise and experience in power distribution systems, state estimation, online modeling and identification, and DER integrations. The proposed frameworks have been verified with industry adopted software and attempted integrated with existing tool wherever possible

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2020

CRADA Number NFE-17-06866 with Active Energy Systems, Inc. (CRADA Final Report)

Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) NFE-17-06866 between Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Active Energy Systems Inc. (AES) focused on studying and modeling a low cost, high efficiency energy storage technology. The successful development of low-cost, high-efficiency energy storage is a significant bottleneck in the implementation of intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. AES is a startup company developing a heat exchange technology to utilize a low-temperature phase change material (PCM). The work done under this CRADA explored this technology’s ability to augment a heat pump/heat engine device to convert electricity into thermal energy and vice versa, operating to complement the needs of the electric grid. Modeling, design and development of a prototype to prove the technology was successful, but current production economics and market demand make further exploration undesirable.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Modular SOEC System for Efficient H 2 Production at High Current Density

The overall objective of the project was to demonstrate the potential of Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell (SOEC) systems to produce hydrogen at a cost of $\$$2.00/kg H 2 or less (excluding delivery, compression, storage, and dispensing). An additional objective of the project was to enhance Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell (SOEC) stack endurance and impart subsystem robustness for operation on load profiles compatible with intermittent renewable energy sources. The project was designed to achieve the overall objectives through a multi-disciplinary approach that included SOEC stack and materials development, systems development and optimization, techno-economic analyses, and ultimately the demonstration of a > 4 kg H 2 /day SOEC system. The scope of work included research and development efforts to develop an advanced, high temperature, water splitting (HTWS) system with superior performance and durability relative to the current state-of-the-art. In support of the aforementioned goals, the project activities included: 1) Develop and test cell materials with improved endurance at high current densities; 2) Design and fabricate a >4 kg H 2 /day SOEC stack optimized for high efficiency operation in the range of 1 - 2 A/cm 2 ; 3) Perform stack testing under simulated system conditions; 4) Perform systems analysis including configuration and parametric studies, to maximize SOEC system efficiency and minimize H 2 production costs; 5) Develop the conceptual design of a >4 kg H 2 /day thermally self-sustaining SOEC demonstration system including stack module and balance of plant (BoP).

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2023

Component level modeling of materials degradation for insights into operational flexibility of Existing Coal Power Plants

Increasingly, coal-fired power plants are required to balance power grids by compensating for the variable electricity supply from renewable energy sources. Fossil-fueled power plants, originally designed to be base loaded, will increasingly need to operate on a load following or cyclic basis. This demanding requirement for operational flexibility needs insights into accelerated material degradation arising due to the harsh operating conditions (e.g., fatigue, early oxide exfoliation due to stresses) along with current damage mechanisms (fireside corrosion, creep and erosion) observed in service. Our research objective is to develop component level modeling toolkit for materials-based degradation for two key mechanisms that can accelerate with cyclic operations. In more detail, this includes the fireside corrosion/steam oxidation/erosion/creep/fatigue of superheaters/reheaters and steam pipework and also the water droplet erosion/ fatigue of last stage steam turbine blades degradation mechanisms, that demand routine and sometimes unplanned maintenance and repair. The innovation is in developing a computational fluid dynamics/finite element (CFD/FE) modeling toolkit for the component level models of the boilers and low-pressure steam turbines in coal power plants that can tackle multidisciplinary failure mechanisms occurring concurrently for extreme environment materials. Lifetime assessment in such environments also needs to account for the unit-specific analyses, operational history and fuel feedstock; this can only be obtained by destructive analysis of components. This, in turn, enables validation of the model toolkits utilizing service feedback data, improving the probability of time/temperature dependent life prediction.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Embedded sensors integrated into critical components for in situ health monitoring of steam turbines

Operational flexibility is desired in today’s coal-fired power plants to balance power grids by compensating for the variable electricity supply from renewable energy sources and distributed gensets. This demanding requirement accelerates materials degradation and makes in-situ health monitoring essential. Life monitoring of components and subsystems is thus seen as essential in assessing material and mechanical behavior to estimate system reliability, move to a conditionbased maintenance strategy and determine time to failure of the units in their actual operating conditions. Vibration monitoring can be exploited for blade tip timing to measure blade vibration amplitude and tip clearance to detect any deterioration taking place in the condition of steam turbine blades. A failure of a rotating blade can lead to severe turbine damage followed by extensive repairs and loss of power production. A blade vibration monitoring system can help early detection of abnormal blade vibration behavior. In conjunction with a health monitoring system, the vibration characteristics can be analyzed to support a pro-active maintenance and inspection schedule. While the feasibility of this inspection technique has been amply demonstrated, there is a need to install induction probes to magnetize the blade for signal output. Siemens, in partnership with Raytheon Technologies Research Corporation (RTRC), proposes a holistic approach to develop embedded sensors to utilize radio frequency for not only coupling to sensors, but as the sensing modality. The goal of this project is to “embed” the novel sensing approach by using either additively manufactured or extruded waveguides on rotating blades for recording, evaluation and monitoring of blade vibrations in Low Pressure turbines, with applications extending to aero engines

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2023

Analysis of Nuclear Fuel Cycle Data

Electricity generated using nuclear power accounted for 18.9% of all electricity consumed in the United States in 2021, putting it in third place behind natural gas (38%) and coal (22%) power plants. Nuclear power plants boast a significantly higher uptime or capacity factor—90% and above—compared to 49.1% for coal fired power plants and 56.6% for natural gas power plants. Renewable energy sources, such as solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind electricity, have lower capacity factors: 24.9% and 36.3%, respectively. In addition, nuclear power is cleaner than both coal and natural gas fired power plants. With the passing of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, significant tax credits will be claimed by producers of hydrogen with well-to-gate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions below 0.45 kg CO 2e /kg H 2 . This has sparked interest in using clean sources of electricity, including nuclear power, to generate H 2 via water electrolysis. As uranium is a primary fuel for modern nuclear power plants, the upstream emissions from nuclear fuel production greatly impact the GHG emissions related to all nuclear power end use. Therefore, it is important to accurately determine the upstream emissions associated with the nuclear fuel cycle of nuclear power production in the United States. In this analysis, the nuclear fuel cycle was separated into distinct steps to allow better understanding of the chemical and energy inputs at each step of the fuel cycle. This also provides details of the GHG emissions at each step in the nuclear fuel cycle. The transportation distance for each step of the fuel cycle was updated to account for the locations of uranium processing facilities along the supply chain of the current U.S. nuclear power plants. Finally, all the updated values were incorporated into Argonne National Laboratory’s Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Technologies (GREET) model.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Techno-Economic Optimization of Advanced Energy Plants with Integrated Thermal, Mechanical, and Electro-Chemical Storage (Final Report)

The increasing use of renewable energy sources is leading to increased cycling of fossil-fueled power plants (FFPP) that are designed to operate at base-loaded conditions. Integrating energy storage facilities with the FFPPs can be helpful in reducing load-following operation of FFPPs. Decentralized deployment of energy storage facilities at the FFPP level has considerable advantages due to possibilities of smaller storage capacities, immediate benefits realized by the host power plant due to the increase in the efficiency, cleaner emission and higher plant life to name a few. Most importantly, deployment at the FFPP level can exploit the existing equipment items and facilities at the host power plant, thus reducing the CAPEX and reducing the storage capacity. However, realization of these benefits will critically depend on novel configuration/integration strategies with the least impact on the power plant operation and its configuration. Furthermore, dynamics of the entire integrated system including both the FFPP and the storage technologies must be taken into account to obtain the cost-optimal solution. With these motivations, the objective of this project was to complete a focused evaluation of decentralized deployments of energy storage facilities at the FFPP level. Promising thermal, chemical, mechanical, and electro-chemical storage technologies were evaluated with due consideration of their transient response to obtain various optimal system concepts that can minimize the levelized cost of storage. For thermal storage, cryogenic energy storage along with high temperature heat storage in molten salt as well as phase change material were evaluated. For mechanical storage, cryogenic air storage and pumped hydro storages were evaluated. For chemical storage, hydrogen storage was evaluated. For electrochemical storage, the team evaluated sodium sulfur, vanadium redox flow battery as well as Li-ion batteries. Integration of these storage technologies with the natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) and supercritical pulverized coal (SCPC) plants was considered. Six technologies, namely molten salt, cryogenics, compressed air, pumped hydro, H2 storage and Li-ion battery storage, were downselected based on their levelized cost of storage. It was observed that the ranking of the optimal storage technology can differ based on the host power plant technology even when same demand/supply/price profile for electricity are considered. It was also observed that as the variability in power demand varies, the ranking of the optimal storage technologies vary. However, for the same demand and LMP profile, top six optimal storage technologies for NGCC vs SCPC plants did not differ much even though LCOS for the same technology and optimal size of a given storage technology did differ. Detailed techno-economic assessment of these six technologies was undertaken.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2022

Designing Hydropower Flows to Balance Energy and Environmental Needs (HydroWIRES Topic A Final Project Report)

Hydropower is expected to play a new role in the US electricity grid as more variable renewable energy sources like wind and solar come online. Wind and solar generation increase fluctuations in electrical supply increasing the value of flexible generation sources that can quickly ramp generation up and down. The flexible generation hydropower can provide as well as the ancillary services (e.g., frequency and voltage regulation and reserves, black start capability) it provides for balancing and stabilizing the power grid are predicted to be of increased value in these future grid scenarios. Yet, the flexibility of hydropower may come with environmental costs due to up- and down-ramping of hydropower plants (i.e., quickly increasing or decreasing generation flows, respectively) which may strand fish, dewater or scour fish nests, alter habitat, or create unsafe recreational conditions that may be unacceptable to participants in the hydropower regulatory process. These types of environmental impacts are often mitigated through environmental flow requirements that specify minimum or maximum flow releases, or ramp-rates changes allowed at a hydropower facility. While it is not currently known to what degree electrical grid reliability could be affected by environmental flow requirements, gaining a better understanding of these interactions before the grid becomes more deeply decarbonized can help define what policy, regulation, or infrastructure may be needed to support the clean energy transition. As the future grid will rely on hydropower to provide both flexibility and robust environmental protections, the analyses and tools described in this report are centered on making mechanistic linkages between energy and the environment in hydropower systems. This understanding of energy-environment linkages can provide the foundational understanding needed to quantitatively assess the trade-offs between the increased generation flexibility that hydropower will be expected to provide and the environmental impacts of this flexibility. This report seeks to provide an objective foundation for building future science and tools that can be used by a broad spectrum of the hydropower community that is involved in licensing or environmental regulatory proceedings tasked with balancing energy and environmental objectives through flow management.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

FORCE Integration with DRAFT and IDAES

Integrated energy systems (IES) combine, in mutually beneficial ways, power from variable renewable energy sources and nuclear power plants (NPP) to produce multiple commodities and improve economic viability under uncertain market conditions. Technical and economic analysis of IES requires modeling of complex processes with software models having enough fidelity to capture real-world dynamics while still being capable of running using reasonable computing resources. The open-source Framework for Optimization of Resources and Economics (FORCE) tool suite, developed at Idaho National Laboratory (INL), has enabled comprehensive modeling and simulation of IES. The capabilities within FORCE include grid portfolio optimization through the Holistic Energy Resource Optimization Network (HERON) and the transient process model analysis library HYBRID, among others. Recent developments for the FORCE toolset have centered on strengthening the flexibility and modularity to link with external models and other available software to enhance IES simulations. Adding versatility to the FORCE toolset improves capability resulting in better techno-economic simulation of nuclear and IES components (both in potential higher fidelity and accuracy to expected performance after deployment). It also helps leverage existing work in the IES field and improve efficiency in national code development. This report focuses on two such endeavors: integration of the Dynamic Reliability Analysis Framework Tool (DRAFT) and the Design Integration and Synthesis Platform to Advance Tightly Coupled Hybrid Energy Systems (DISPATCHES) software packages into FORCE.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2023

TCF Project - Printable low-cost catalyst for Industrial decarbonization (LLNL/MilliporeSigma)

This proposal centers in catalysts for the generation of hydrogen as a renewable energy source and other value- added carbon utilization. The goal of this project is to commercialize an LLNL-developed, low-cost 3D printable graphene oxide/MoS 2 ink tailored for DIW fabrication of a 3D catalyst electrode for hydrogen evolution. LLNL and MS will scale up and field test the catalyst inks for hydrogen evolution, benchmark them against non-3D printed electrodes, and adjust the compositions based on feedback to improve the technology's market potential and customer/user demands.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Ultra-Fast Resonant DC Breaker

This project’s focus was to create an ultra-fast resonant hybrid dc circuit breaker for medium voltage electric systems. Medium voltage DC systems offer higher efficiency, additional resiliency, more controllability, and greater flexibility over comparable AC systems. Although technically, medium voltage DC systems are more attractive than their AC counterparts, no solution exists for the protection of medium voltage DC systems, and thus one cannot build a reliable MVDC system. This research will fill the technology gap, providing a MVDC protection solution, allowing mass adoption and proliferation of MVDC systems. MVDC systems will allow greater integration of renewable energy sources, higher efficiency of transmission and distribution, reduced losses in transmission lines, reduce carbon emissions, and higher electric power reliability.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2023

2023 FORCE Development Status Update

Technical and economic analysis of integrated energy systems (IES) using software models is a complex process requiring multiple commodity market decision analysis, optimal control, process modeling, and stochastic analysis. Many assumptions used in traditional energy analysis tools do not hold in future energy markets with significant storage and variable renewable energy sources (VRE), let alone with multiple commodity markets. Capturing these intricate elements for accurate techno-economic analysis of IES led to the development of the Framework for Optimization of ResourCes and Economics (FORCE) tool suite under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Integrated Energy Systems crosscutting technology program. With the aim of a full framework release in 2025, many improvements to the FORCE tool suite were developed in fiscal year 2023 (FY23). These improvements broadly fit into three focuses for development of FORCE: capability, accessibility, and reliability. Capability refers to the ability of FORCE to accurately model the technical and economic viability of various IES. Accessibility refers to ease-of-use for new and existing IES analysts to efficiently set up, analyze, and produce results using FORCE. Reliability refers to the consistency of the software, allowing consistency to analysis regardless of erstwhile changes to the software. In addition to many smaller changes, there are three major capability improvements in FORCE in FY23. In summary, FORCE developments in FY23 have moved us close to all the capability requirements for FORCE 1.0 to be delivered in FY25. Inclusion of Bayesian optimization, resilience metrics, and levelized cost analysis expand the capability, accessibility, and reliability of FORCE.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2024

The Role of Biofuels and Biomass Feedstocks for Decarbonizing the U.S. Economy by 2050 - (DECARB) Decarbonizing Energy Through Collaborative Analysis of Routes and Benefits

Utilizing biomass resources, such as cellulosic biomass and waste, can greatly contribute to decarbonization efforts in the U.S. economy. The U.S. bioenergy sector includes corn ethanol production, biodiesel, renewable diesel production, and the utilization of biomass wastes for electricity generation being the primary applications. Within the electricity sector, biopower can play a crucial role as a stable low-carbon resource. Enhancing the electricity mix's diversity could enhance grid reliability. If the issues regarding hot gas cleanup can be resolved, flexible biopower resources like biomass gasification facilities could complement the integration of variable renewable energy sources due to their quick ramp-up and ramp-down times. The criticality of bioenergy deployment lies in its ability to decarbonize hard-to-electrify sectors, such as aviation, where alternative decarbonization options may not be viable in the short term. Moreover, bioenergy has the potential to be converted into process heating, building materials, and plastics, which are not considered in this study. A set of pathways was carefully chosen to represent viable options for converting ample herbaceous and woody cellulosic feedstocks into fuels, chemicals, and electricity in this study. In conclusion, biomass pathways provide flexibility by generating various types of bioenergy and bioproducts, including electricity, hydrogen, liquid fuels, biochemicals, and bioplastics. When paired with carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS), specific bioenergy approaches can effectively extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thus providing an effective decarbonization option for the transportation sector.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗