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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 433 records · Page 24

Advancing Electrolytes Towards Stable Organic Batteries

Organic electrode materials offer virtually infinite resource availability, cost advantages, and some of the highest specific energy for batteries to satisfy the demand for large-scale energy storage. Among the biggest challenges for the practical applications of batteries based on organic electrodes is the dissolution of organic active materials into the electrolyte, which leads to underwhelming cycling stability. Here, this minireview provides an overview of electrolyte advancements to improve the stability of organic batteries. Research efforts on the control of solvent polarity, electrolyte mobility, and exploration of novel electrolyte systems are highlighted.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Application of Sequential Design of Experiments (SDoE) to Large Pilot-Scale Solvent-Based CO2 Capture Process at Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM)

The United States Department of Energy’s Carbon Capture Simulation for Industry Impact (CCSI2) program has developed a framework for sequential design of experiments (SDoE) that aims to maximize knowledge gained from budget- and schedule-limited pilot scale testing. SDoE was applied to the planning and execution of campaigns for testing CO2 capture systems at pilot-scale in order to optimally allocate resources available for the testing. In this methodology, a stochastic process model is developed by quantifying the parametric uncertainty in submodels of interest; for a solvent-based CO2 capture system, these may include physical properties and equipment performance submodels (e.g., mass transfer, interfacial area). This uncertainty is propagated through the full process model, over variable operating conditions, for estimating the resulting uncertainty in key model outputs (e.g., percentage of CO2 capture, solvent regeneration energy requirement). In developing a data collection plan, the predicted output uncertainty is incorporated into an algorithm that seeks simultaneously to select process operating conditions for which the predicted uncertainty is relatively high and to ensure that the entire space of operation is well represented. This test plan is then used to guide operation of the pilot plant at varying steady-state conditions, with resulting process data incorporated into the existing model using Bayesian inference to refine parameter distributions. The updated stochastic model, with reduced parametric uncertainty from data collected, is then used to guide additional data collection, thus the sequential nature of the experimental design. The SDoE process was implemented at the pilot test unit (12 MWe in scale) at Norway’s Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM) in a summer 2018 test campaign with aqueous monoethanolamine (MEA). During the test campaign, the varied operating conditions included the flowrates of circulated solvent, flue gas, and reboiler steam and the CO2 concentration in the flue gas. The process data were used to update probability distributions of mass transfer and interfacial area parameters of a stochastic process model developed by the CCSI2 team. Two iterations of the SDoE process were executed, resulting in the uncertainty in model predicted CO2 capture percentage decreasing by an average of 58.0 ± 4.7% over the full input space of interest. This work demonstrates the potential of the SDoE process for model refinement through reduction in process model parametric uncertainty, and ultimately risk in scale-up, in CO2 capture technology performance.

carbon capture↗

Communication Pathways in the Light Water Reactor Sustainability Online Monitoring Project

Implementation of online monitoring and prognostics in existing U.S. nuclear power plants will involve coordinating the efforts of national laboratories, utilities, universities, and private companies. Large amounts of operational data, including failure data, are necessary for the development and calibration of diagnostic and prognostic algorithms. The ability to use data from all available resources will provide the most expeditious avenue to implementation of online monitoring in existing NPPs; however, operational plant data are often considered proprietary. Secure methods for transferring and storing data are discussed, along with a potential technology for implementation of online monitoring.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Multicore Architecture-aware Scientific Applications

Modern high performance systems are becoming increasingly complex and powerful due to advancements in processor and memory architecture. In order to keep up with this increasing complexity, applications have to be augmented with certain capabilities to fully exploit such systems. These may be at the application level, such as static or dynamic adaptations or at the system level, like having strategies in place to override some of the default operating system polices, the main objective being to improve computational performance of the application. The current work proposes two such capabilites with respect to multi-threaded scientific applications, in particular a large scale physics application computing ab-initio nuclear structure. The first involves using a middleware tool to invoke dynamic adaptations in the application, so as to be able to adjust to the changing computational resource availability at run-time. The second involves a strategy for effective placement of data in main memory, to optimize memory access latencies and bandwidth. These capabilties when included were found to have a significant impact on the application performance, resulting in average speedups of as much as two to four times.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Renewable Energy Finance Tracking Initiative (REFTI) Solar Trend Analysis

This report is a summary of the finance trends for small-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) projects (PV <1 MW), large-scale PV projects (PV greater than or equal to 1 MW), and concentrated solar power projects as reported in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Renewable Energy Finance Tracking Initiative (REFTI). The report presents REFTI data during the five quarterly periods from the fourthquarter of 2009 to the first half of 2011. The REFTI project relies exclusively on the voluntary participation of industry stakeholders for its data; therefore, it does not offer a comprehensive view of the technologies it tracks. Despite this limitation, REFTI is the only publicly available resource for renewable energy project financial terms. REFTI analysis offers usable inputs into theproject economic evaluations of developers and investors, as well as the policy assessments of public utility commissions and others in the renewable energy industry.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Using Third-Party Inspectors in Building Energy Codes Enforcement in India

India is experiencing fast income growth and urbanization, and this leads to unprecedented increases in demand for building energy services and resulting energy consumption. In response to rapid growth in building energy use, the Government of India issued the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) in 2007, which is consistent with and based on the 2001 Energy Conservation Act. ECBC implementation has been voluntary since its enactment and a few states have started to make progress towards mandatory implementation. Rajasthan is the first state in India to adopt ECBC as a mandatory code. The State adopted ECBC with minor additions on March 28, 2011 through a stakeholder process; it became mandatory in Rajasthan on September 28, 2011. Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh have started to draft an implementation roadmap and build capacity for its implementation. The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) plans to encourage more states to adopt ECBC in the near future, including Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Delhi. Since its inception, India has applied the code on a voluntary basis, but the Government of India is developing a strategy to mandate compliance. Implementing ECBC requires coordination between the Ministry of Power and the Ministry of Urban Development at the national level as well as interdepartmental coordination at the state level. One challenge is that the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), the enforcement entities of building by-laws, lack capacity to implement ECBC effectively. For example, ULBs in some states might find the building permitting procedures to be too complex; in other cases, lack of awareness and technical knowledge on ECBC slows down the amendment of local building by-laws as well as ECBC implementation. The intent of this white paper is to share with Indian decision-makers code enforcement approaches: through code officials, third-party inspectors, or a hybrid approach. Given the limited capacity and human resources available in the state and local governments, involving third-party inspectors could rapidly expand the capacity for plan reviews and broad implementation. However, the procedures of involving third-parties need to be carefully designed in order to guarantee a fair process. For example, there should be multiple checks and certification requirements for third-party inspectors, and the government should have the final approval when third-party inspectors are used in a project. This paper discusses different approaches of involving third-parties in ECBC enforcement; the Indian states may choose the approaches that work best in their given circumstances.

Yu, Sha↗

Integrated Warm Gas Multicontaminant Cleanup Technologies for Coal-Derived Syngas

One of the key obstacles for the introduction of commercial gasification technology for the production of power with Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plants or the production of value added chemicals, transportation fuels, and hydrogen has been the cost of these systems. This situation is particularly challenging because the United States has ample coal resources available as raw materials and effective use of these raw materials could help us meet our energy and transportation fuel needs while significantly reducing our need to import oil. One component of the cost of these systems that faces strong challenges for continuous improvement is removing the undesirable components present in the syngas. The need to limit the increase in cost of electricity to < 35% for new coal-based power plants which include CO 2 capture and sequestration addresses both the growing social concern for global climate change resulting from the emission of greenhouse gas and in particular CO 2 and the need to control cost increases to power production necessary to meet this social objective. Similar improvements to technologies for trace contaminants are getting similar pressure to reduce environmental emissions and reduce production costs for the syngas to enable production of chemicals from coal that is cost competitive with oil and natural gas. RTI, with DOE/NETL support, has been developing sorbent technologies that enable capture of trace contaminants and CO 2 at temperatures above 400 °F that achieve better capture performance, lower costs and higher thermal efficiency. This report describes the specific work of sorbent development for mercury (Hg), arsenic (As), selenium (Se), cadmium (Cd), and phosphorous (P) and CO 2 removal. Because the typical concentrations of Hg, As, Se, Cd, and P are less than 10 ppmv, the focus has been on single-use sorbents with sufficient capacity to ensure replacement costs are cost effective. The research in this report describes the development efforts which expand this sorbent development effort to include Se, Cd, and P as well as Hg and As. Additional research has focused on improving removal performance with the goal of achieving effluent concentrations that are suitable for chemical production applications. By contrast, sorbent development for CO 2 capture has focused on regenerable sorbents that capture the CO 2 byproduct at higher CO 2 pressures. Previous research on CO 2 sorbents has demonstrated that the most challenging aspect of developing CO 2 sorbents is regeneration. The research documented in this report investigates options to improve regeneration of the CO 2 capture sorbents. This research includes effort on addressing existing regeneration limitations for sorbents previously developed and new approaches that focus initially on the regeneration performance of the sorbent.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

Virtualized Network Control (VNC)

The focus of this project was on the development of a "Network Service Plane" as an abstraction model for the control and provisioning of multi-layer networks. The primary motivation for this work were the requirements of next generation networked applications which will need to access advanced networking as a first class resource at the same level as compute and storage resources. A new class of "Intelligent Network Services" were defined in order to facilitate the integration of advanced network services into application specific workflows. This new class of network services are intended to enable real-time interaction between the application co-scheduling algorithms and the network for the purposes of workflow planning, real-time resource availability identification, scheduling, and provisioning actions.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Lorenz: Using the Web to Make HPC Easier

Users of High Performance Computing (HPC) centers such as Livermore Computing have historically required expert knowledge of nearly every aspect of the computer center operation in order to take full advantage of the immense resources available. This knowledge takes months or more to develop and can make entering the world of HPC intimidating for new users.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Y-12 Groundwater Protection Program Monitoring Optimization Plan For Groundwater Monitoring Wells At The U.S. Department Of Energy Y-12 National Security Complex, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

This document is the monitoring optimization plan for groundwater monitoring wells associated with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The plan describes the technical approach that is implemented under the Y-12 Groundwater Protection Program (GWPP) to focus available resources on the monitoring wells at Y-12 that provide the most useful hydrologic and groundwater quality monitoring data. The technical approach is based on the GWPP status designation for each well. Under this approach, wells granted "active" status are used by the GWPP for hydrologic monitoring and/or groundwater quality sampling, whereas wells granted "inactive" status are not used for either purpose. The status designation also defines the frequency at which the GWPP will inspect applicable wells, the scope of these well inspections, and extent of any maintenance actions initiated by the GWPP. Details regarding the ancillary activities associated with implementation of this plan (e.g., well inspection) are deferred to the referenced GWPP plans. This plan applies to groundwater wells associated with Y-12 and related waste management areas and facilities located within three hydrogeologic regimes.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Site Suitability and Hazard Assessment Guide for Small Modular Reactors

Commercial nuclear reactor projects in the U.S. have traditionally employed large light water reactors (LWR) to generate regional supplies of electricity. Although large LWRs have consistently dominated commercial nuclear markets both domestically and abroad, the concept of small modular reactors (SMRs) capable of producing between 30 MW(t) and 900 MW(t) to generating steam for electricity is not new. Nor is the idea of locating small nuclear reactors in close proximity to and in physical connection with industrial processes to provide a long-term source of thermal energy. Growing problems associated continued use of fossil fuels and enhancements in efficiency and safety because of recent advancements in reactor technology suggest that the likelihood of near-term SMR technology(s) deployment at multiple locations within the United States is growing. Many different types of SMR technology are viable for siting in the domestic commercial energy market. However, the potential application of a particular proprietary SMR design will vary according to the target heat end-use application and the site upon which it is proposed to be located. Reactor heat applications most commonly referenced in connection with the SMR market include electric power production, district heating, desalinization, and the supply of thermal energy to various processes that require high temperature over long time periods, or a combination thereof. Indeed, the modular construction, reliability and long operational life purported to be associated with some SMR concepts now being discussed may offer flexibility and benefits no other technology can offer. Effective siting is one of the many early challenges that face a proposed SMR installation project. Site-specific factors dealing with support to facility construction and operation, risks to the plant and the surrounding area, and the consequences subsequent to those risks must be fully identified, analyzed, and possibly mitigated before a license will be granted to construct and operate a nuclear facility. Examples of significant site-related concerns include area geotechnical and geological hazard properties, local climatology and meteorology, water resource availability, the vulnerability of surrounding populations and the environmental to adverse effects in the unlikely event of radionuclide release, the socioeconomic impacts of SMR plant installation and the effects it has on aesthetics, proximity to energy use customers, the topography and area infrastructure that affect plant constructability and security, and concerns related to the transport, installation, operation and decommissioning of major plant components.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Smart Grid Interoperability Maturity Model Beta Version

The GridWise Architecture Council was formed by the U.S. Department of Energy to promote and enable interoperability among the many entities that interact with the electric power system. This balanced team of industry representatives proposes principles for the development of interoperability concepts and standards. The Council provides industry guidance and tools that make it an available resource for smart grid implementations. In the spirit of advancing interoperability of an ecosystem of smart grid devices and systems, this document presents a model for evaluating the maturity of the artifacts and processes that specify the agreement of parties to collaborate across an information exchange interface. You are expected to have a solid understanding of large, complex system integration concepts and experience in dealing with software component interoperation. Those without this technical background should read the Executive Summary for a description of the purpose and contents of the document. Other documents, such as checklists, guides, and whitepapers, exist for targeted purposes and audiences. Please see the www.gridwiseac.org website for more products of the Council that may be of interest to you.

Beta Version↗

Development of Novel Sorbents for Uranium Extraction from Seawater

As the uranium resource in terrestrial ores is limited, it is difficult to ensure a long-term sustainable nuclear energy technology. The oceans contain approximately 4.5 billion tons of uranium, which is one thousand times the amount of uranium in terrestrial ores. Development of technologies to recover the uranium from seawater would greatly improve the uranium resource availability, sustaining the fuel supply for nuclear energy. Several methods have been previously evaluated including solvent extraction, ion exchange, flotation, biomass collection, and adsorption; however, none have been found to be suitable for reasons such as cost effectiveness, long term stability, and selectivity. Recent research has focused on the amidoxime functional group as a promising candidate for uranium sorption. Polymer beads and fibers have been functionalized with amidoxime functional groups, and uranium adsorption capacities as high as 1.5 g U/kg adsorbent have recently been reported with these types of materials. As uranium concentration in seawater is only ~3 ppb, great improvements to uranium collection systems must be made in order to make uranium extraction from seawater economically feasible. This proposed research intends to develop transformative technologies for economic uranium extraction from seawater. The Lin group will design advanced porous supports by taking advantage of recent breakthroughs in nanoscience and nanotechnology and incorporate high densities of well-designed chelators into such nanoporous supports to allow selective and efficient binding of uranyl ions from seawater. Several classes of nanoporous materials, including mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs), mesoporous carbon nanoparticles (MCNs), meta-organic frameworks (MOFs), and covalent-organic frameworks (COFs), will be synthesized. Selective uranium-binding liagnds such as amidoxime will be incorporated into the nanoporous materials to afford a new generation of sorbent materials that will be evaluated for their uranium extraction efficiency. The initial testing of these materials for uranium binding will be carried out in the Lin group, but more detailed sorption studies will be carried out by Dr. Taylor-Pashow of Savannah River National Laboratory in order to obtain quantitative uranyl sorption selectivity and kinetics data for the proposed materials. The proposed nanostructured sorbent materials are expected to have higher binding capacities, enhanced extraction kinetics, optimal stripping efficiency for uranyl ions, and enhanced mechanical and chemical stabilities. This transformative research will significantly impact uranium extraction from seawater as well as benefit DOE’s efforts on environmental remediation by developing new materials and providing knowledge for enriching and sequestering ultralow concentrations of other metals.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

HPC4Energy Final Report : GE Energy

Power System planning tools are being used today to simulate systems that are far larger and more complex than just a few years ago. Advances in renewable technologies and more pervasive control technology are driving planning engineers to analyze an increasing number of scenarios and system models with much more detailed network representations. Although the speed of individual CPU’s has increased roughly according to Moore’s Law, the requirements for advanced models, increased system sizes, and larger sensitivities have outstripped CPU performance. This computational dilemma has reached a critical point and the industry needs to develop the technology to accurately model the power system of the future. The hpc4energy incubator program provided a unique opportunity to leverage the HPC resources available to LLNL and the power systems domain expertise of GE Energy to enhance the GE Concorda PSLF software. Well over 500 users worldwide, including all of the major California electric utilities, rely on Concorda PSLF software for their power flow and dynamics. This pilot project demonstrated that the GE Concorda PSLF software can perform contingency analysis in a massively parallel environment to significantly reduce the time to results. An analysis with 4,127 contingencies that would take 24 days on a single core was reduced to 24 minutes when run on 4,217 cores. A secondary goal of this project was to develop and test modeling techniques that will expand the computational capability of PSLF to efficiently deal with systems sizes greater than 150,000 buses. Toward this goal the matrix reordering implementation time was sped up 9.5 times by optimizing the code and introducing threading.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Pre-Feasibility Analysis of Pellet Manufacturing on the Former Loring Air Force Base Site

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, in accordance with the RE-Powering America's Lands initiative, engaged the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to conduct feasibility studies to assess the viability of developing renewable energy generating facilities on contaminated sites. This site, in Limestone, Maine—formerly the location of the Loring Air Force Base but now owned by the Aroostook Band of Micmac—was selected for the potential to produce heating pellets from woody feedstock. Biomass was chosen as the renewable energy resource to evaluate based on abundant woody-biomass resources available in the area. NREL also evaluates potential savings from converting existing Micmac property from oil-fired heating to pellet heating.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Los Alamos National Laboratory Ten-Year Site Plan FY 2016

The Los Alamos National Laboratory will continue to face a significant challenge over the next 25 years in balancing near-term needs while transforming the infrastructure to ensure long-term viability. The 2014 Los Alamos National Laboratory Strategic Plan emphasized that infrastructure must be modernized and maintained to fulfill diverse, complex, and evolving missions in a period of fl at or decreasing budgets. The large number of existing facilities will continue to age while safety, security, sustainability and compliance requirements will likely increase. The Laboratory must also continue to act as an environmental steward, reduce environmental risk, and improve sustainability. This plan identifies strategies that will enable the Laboratory to provide a flexible, responsive infrastructure within available resources. At the end of the 25 year period, the Laboratory will have achieved the following: New facilities construction and enduring facilities reinvestment to support critical capabilities; Improved energy efficiency and long-term sustainability practices; Modernized utility infrastructure to support future programmatic needs; Legacy cleanup and long-term environmental stewardship goals; Footprint reduction and nuclear infrastructure consolidation. Even in the face of new and significant pressures, the Laboratory will continue to take substantial steps to streamline operations, modernize the infrastructure, and fulfill its vision of being the premier national security science laboratory. The fiscal year (FY) 2016 Ten-Year Site Plan (TYSP) is consistent with previous TYSPs and incorporates updated information in accordance with National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) guidance. The TYSP is a vital planning component to meet the NNSA commitment to ensure the U.S. has a safe, secure, and reliable nuclear deterrent. The Laboratory also uses the TYSP as an integrated planning tool to guide development of an efficient and responsive infrastructure that effectively supports the Laboratory’s missions and workforce. Emphasizing the Laboratory’s core capabilities, this TYSP reflects the Laboratory’s role as a prominent contributor to NNSA missions through its programs and campaigns.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Arctic Climate Systems Analysis

This study began with a challenge from program area managers at Sandia National Laboratories to technical staff in the energy, climate, and infrastructure security areas: apply a systems-level perspective to existing science and technology program areas in order to determine technology gaps, identify new technical capabilities at Sandia that could be applied to these areas, and identify opportunities for innovation. The Arctic was selected as one of these areas for systems level analyses, and this report documents the results. In this study, an emphasis was placed on the arctic atmosphere since Sandia has been active in atmospheric research in the Arctic since 1997. This study begins with a discussion of the challenges and benefits of analyzing the Arctic as a system. It goes on to discuss current and future needs of the defense, scientific, energy, and intelligence communities for more comprehensive data products related to the Arctic; assess the current state of atmospheric measurement resources available for the Arctic; and explain how the capabilities at Sandia National Laboratories can be used to address the identified technological, data, and modeling needs of the defense, scientific, energy, and intelligence communities for Arctic support.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Assessment of Cable Aging Equipment, Status of Acquired Materials, and Experimental Matrix at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

The need for increased understanding of the aging and degradation behavior for polymer components of nuclear power plant electrical cables is described in this report. The highest priority materials for study and the resources available at PNNL for these studies are also described. The anticipated outcomes of the PNNL work described are : improved understanding of appropriate accelerated aging conditions, improved knowledge of correlation between observable aging indicators and cable condition in support of advanced non-destructive evaluation methods, and practical knowledge of condition-based cable lifetime prediction.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗