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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 OSTI2023

Energy storage solutions to decarbonize electricity through enhanced capacity expansion modelling

To meet ambitious global decarbonization goals, electricity system planning and operations will change fundamentally. With increasing reliance on variable renewable energy resources, energy storage is likely to play a critical accompanying role to help balance generation and consumption patterns. As grid planners, non-profit organizations, non-governmental organizations, policy makers, regulators and other key stakeholders commonly use capacity expansion modelling to inform energy policy and investment decisions, it is crucial that these processes capture the value of energy storage in energy-system decarbonization. Here we conduct an extensive review of literature on the representation of energy storage in capacity expansion modelling. We identify challenges related to enhancing modelling capabilities to inform decarbonization policies and electricity system investments, and to improve societal outcomes throughout the clean energy transition. Additionally, we further identify corresponding research activities that can help overcome these challenges and conclude by highlighting tangible real-world outcomes that will result from pursuing these research activities. Capacity expansion modelling (CEM) approaches need to account for the value of energy storage in energy-system decarbonization. A new Review considers the representation of energy storage in the CEM literature and identifies approaches to overcome the challenges such approaches face when it comes to better informing policy and investment decisions.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Carbon nanotube nanofluidics

Fluid flow under extreme spatial confinement exhibits unusual physical behaviors. This nanofluidic transport regime is relevant to a variety of mass transport, separation, and energy production processes in biological and industrial systems. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) offer a nearly ideal platform for exploring nanofluidic transport because of their extremely narrow, smooth, hydrophobic inner pores, which enable very fast molecular flow while providing strong selectivity. In this review, we aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of nanofluidics in CNTs, focusing on the basic physics of mass transport in CNTs, various experimental platforms developed to investigate these phenomena, and key results on the permeation of water, protons, and ions. We focus on the critical factors that influence transport efficiency and selectivity, such as slip flow and charge regulation in CNTs, and the roles of entrance effects, dehydration processes and ion–charge interactions at the CNT entrances. We also explore the confinement effects, highlighting how the unique one-dimensional structure of CNTs imposes distinct constraints on fluid behavior and leads to novel single-file transport phenomena. Finally, we address current challenges and future directions of CNT nanofluidics.

Li, Zhongwu [Lawrence Livermore National Laborator↗
DOE OSTI2025

Geologic hydrogen: a review of resource potential, subsurface dynamics, exploration, production, transportation, and research opportunities

Hydrogen is a versatile resource with critical roles in decarbonization, industrial manufacturing, and energy integration. However, most hydrogen today is produced from fossil fuels, resulting in high emissions and energy consumption. Although low-carbon hydrogen production methods, such as steam methane reforming with carbon capture and renewable-powered electrolysis, are advancing, their high costs hinder large-scale deployment. Identifying alternative pathways for producing low-cost, low-emission hydrogen is therefore essential. Geologic hydrogen, referring to natural and stimulated hydrogen generated in the Earth's subsurface, has attracted growing attention as a potential source of sustainable, economically viable, and environmentally favorable hydrogen. This paper provides a comprehensive review of geologic hydrogen, covering its resource potential, origins, migration and trapping mechanisms, exploration techniques, production strategies, and pipeline transportation. It also identifies key knowledge gaps and proposes a roadmap for future research. The review indicates that geologic hydrogen has vast resource potential and can leverage existing subsurface technologies and geophysical exploration methods. However, major challenges persist, including uncertain hydrogen generation rates, limited understanding and control of serpentinization processes, costly transportation infrastructure, the lack of validated techno-economic analysis, and potential social and environmental issues. As the field is still in its early stages, progress will require interdisciplinary collaboration spanning geoscience, engineering, economics, environmental science, and policy and regulation.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2024

Suppressing metal corrosion through identification of optimal crystallographic plane for Zn batteries

Direct use of metals as battery anodes could significantly boost the energy density, but suffers from limited cycling. To make the batteries more sustainable, one strategy is mitigating the propensity for metals to form random morphology during plating through orientation regulation, e.g., hexagonal Zn platelets locked horizontally by epitaxial electrodeposition or vertically aligned through Zn/electrolyte interface modulation. Current strategies center around obtaining (002) faceted deposition due to its minimum surface energy. Here, benefiting from the capability of preparing a library of faceted monocrystalline Zn anodes and controlling the orientation of Zn platelet deposits, we challenge this conventional belief. We show that while monocrystalline (002) faceted Zn electrode with horizontal epitaxy indeed promises the highest critical current density, the (100) faceted electrode with vertically aligned deposits is the most important one in suppressing Zn metal corrosion and promising the best reversibility. Such uniqueness results from the lowest electrochemical surface area of (100) faceted electrode, which intrinsically builds upon the surface atom diffusion barrier and the orientation of the pallets. These new findings based on monocrystalline anodes advance the fundamental understanding of electrodeposition process for sustainable metal batteries and provide a paradigm to explore the processing–structure–property relationships of metal electrodes.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Impact of collisionality on turbulence in the edge of tokamak plasma using 3D global simulations

Collisionality is one of the key parameters in determining turbulent transport in the plasma edge, regulating phenomena such as 'shoulder formation', separation of scale lengths in the scrape-off layer (SOL), turbulence damping and zonal flow dynamics. Understanding its role is therefore of primary importance for future reactors like ITER. Getting reliable predictions and a better characterization of plasma flow properties when varying collisionality remains, however, a critical challenge for the simulations. This paper focuses on the impact of varying collisionality in a non-isothermal three-dimensional fluid model of the plasma edge. A high field side limited configuration encompassing open and closed magnetic field lines with parameters typical of a medium-sized tokamak is considered. The present model can consistently account for the variations of collisionality and its impact on both the parallel resistivity η ∥ and the ion and electron parallel thermal conductivities χ ∥e,i . Details on mean flow and turbulence properties are given. Changing collisionality leads to significant changes in the flow properties both on the mean and fluctuating quantities. In particular, lowering collisionality decreases the size of coherent structures, the fluctuation levels of turbulence, and steepens the density and temperature equilibrium profiles around the separatrix leading to a global reduction of the turbulent transport. The SOL width is observed to increase with collisionality, eventually resulting in the disappearance of the scale lengths separation between near and far SOL, consistently with previous experimental observations. At low collisionality, where the presence of narrow feature is well-established, a contribution of heat conduction increases up to compete with heat convection.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Enhanced Control, Optimization, and Integration of Distributed Energy Applications (ECO-IDEA)

With support from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) partnered with Xcel Energy, Schneider Electric, Varentec, and Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to meet the goals of the Enabling Extreme Real-Time Grid Integration of Solar Energy (ENERGISE) program. This project developed and validated an innovative data-enhanced hierarchical control architecture that enables the efficient, reliable, resilient, and secure operation of future distribution systems with a high penetration of distributed energy resources like solar energy. The architecture enables a hybrid control approach where a centralized control layer is complemented by distributed control algorithms for solar inverters and autonomous control of grid edge devices. It is fully interoperable and includes all the cybersecurity aspects necessary for reliable and secure system operation. The hybrid approach can seamlessly integrate multiple voltage-regulation technologies, both at central and grid-edge levels, which enables reliable and efficient system operation in the face of unpredictable conditions. The overarching goal of the Eco-Idea project is to develop, validate, and deploy a unique and innovative Data-Enhanced Hierarchical Control (DEHC) architecture that comprehensively addresses the formidable challenges associated with proliferation of high penetration of distributed PV such as reverse power flows, transients from variability of PV systems, feeder load balancing, and voltage stability. These issues are exposing the weaknesses of existing grid operations and controls - including, but not limited to, lack of grid situational awareness, heuristic and slow-acting control actions, latency of control for emergency situations, and points of failure in communications. The proposed architecture will comprehensively resolve the deficiencies of current operational settings - where monitoring and control solutions proposed across industry and academia may not be interoperable and may not coexist in the same system - and will enable an efficient, reliable, resilient, and secure operation of future distribution systems with penetration of solar energy well beyond current limits. The DEHC architecture was developed and validated rigorously through hardware-in-loop simulations in the laboratory environment and deployed on the field.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Stabilizing Zinc Anode Reactions by Polyethylene Oxide Polymer in Mild Aqueous Electrolytes

Abstract Zn dendrites growth and poor cycling stability are significant challenges for rechargeable aqueous Zn batteries. Zn metal deposition‐dissolution in aqueous electrolytes is typically determined by Zn anode–electrolyte interfaces. In this work, the role of a long‐chain polyethylene oxide (PEO) polymer as a multifunctional electrolyte additive in stabilizing Zn metal anodes is reported. PEO molecules suppress Zn 2+ ion transfer kinetics and regulate Zn 2+ ion concentration in the vicinity of Zn anodes through interactions between ether groups of PEO and Zn 2+ ions. The suppressed Zn 2+ ion transfer kinetics and homogeneous Zn 2+ ion distribution at the interface promotes dendrite‐free homogeneous Zn deposition. In addition, electrochemically inert PEO molecules adsorbed onto Zn anodes can protect the anode surfaces from H 2 generation and, thereby, enhance their electrochemical stability. Stable cycling over 3000 h and high reversibility (Coulombic efficiency > 99.5%) of Zn anodes is demonstrated in 1 m ZnSO 4 electrolyte with 0.5 wt% PEO. This finding provides helpful insights into the mechanism of Zn metal anodes stabilization by low‐cost multifunctional polymer electrolyte additives that stabilize interfacial reactions.

Jin, Yan↗
DOE OSTI2022

Causality guided machine learning model on wetland CH 4 emissions across global wetlands

Wetland CH 4 emissions are among the most uncertain components of the global CH 4 budget. The complex nature of wetland CH 4 processes makes it challenging to identify causal relationships for improving our understanding and predictability of CH 4 emissions. In this study, we used the flux measurements of CH 4 from eddy covariance towers (30 sites from 4 wetlands types: bog, fen, marsh, and wet tundra) to construct a causality-constrained machine learning (ML) framework to explain the regulative factors and to capture CH 4 emissions at sub-seasonal scale. We found that soil temperature is the dominant factor for CH 4 emissions in all studied wetland types. Ecosystem respiration (CO 2 ) and gross primary productivity exert controls at bog, fen, and marsh sites with lagged responses of days to weeks. Integrating these asynchronous environmental and biological causal relationships in predictive models significantly improved model performance. More importantly, modeled CH 4 emissions differed by up to a factor of 4 under a +1°C warming scenario when causality constraints were considered. These results highlight the significant role of causality in modeling wetland CH 4 emissions especially under future warming conditions, while traditional data-driven ML models may reproduce observations for the wrong reasons. Our proposed causality-guided model could benefit predictive modeling, large-scale upscaling, data gap-filling, and surrogate modeling of wetland CH 4 emissions within earth system land models.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Modeling and Automation Framework for High IBR Integration in Large-Scale Power Systems

The increasing prevalence of power electronics- interfaced renewable generation sources is leading to a gradual replacement of traditional thermal generation-based synchronous machines. In this context, the modeling of a large-scale power grid that incorporates a significant number of inverter-based resources is crucial for understanding the dynamics and effects of these resources on the power system. This study investigates the positive sequence model of grid-following and grid-forming inverters. Additionally, this work explores the integration of distributed energy resources using population as an indicator of their relative geographic locations. To address challenge to integrate these inverter based resources into a realistic grid of the US Western interconnection, automation scripts are developed to streamline the process of replacing conventional generators with grid-following and grid-forming inverters, as well as allocating distributed energy resources. Different penetration levels of these inverters are considered, and their frequency regulation support following a disturbance is compared through dynamic simulations.

Lyu, Xue↗
DOE OSTI2023

Updated Assessment of Water-Energy Issues for Nuclear Power

There is significant ongoing need for understanding the water-energy nexus issues in the U.S. commercial nuclear energy industry. The water-energy nexus is a dynamic, ever evolving conundrum involving technological changes, regulatory concerns, economic constraints, environmental issues, and political attributes. This report provides a brief update on the water-energy nexus challenges facing the U.S. commercial industry since the 2010 report titled “Cooling Water Issues and Opportunities at the U.S. Nuclear Power Plants”. Since the 2010 report, nuclear power has experienced significant curtailments due to drought, intake and discharge temperatures, and flooding. These events will be exacerbated by global climate and resource competition. Water and energy regulation changes have accelerated and pose a particular risk to the commercial nuclear fleet compliance. The definition of Water of the United States continues to be litigated as water rights are being evaluated for fair and equitable allocation. The ability to maintain compliance with state and federal water regulations offers a substantial risk to the commercial nuclear industry, and therefore understanding the energy-water nexus is necessary for maintaining success of the current fleet.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

A Review on Protection Challenges on Transmission Lines Connected to Inverter Based Resources

The increased penetration of inverter-based resources (IBRs) connected to transmission grids is challenging how traditional electric power systems operate. Such systems were originally designed based on the dominant presence of synchronous generators. Some main challenges include the increased concerns about system stability due to the reduced system inertia caused by IBRs and the reduced protection reliability caused by the non-deterministic fault current response of IBRs. The protection relays’ algorithms have been designed and validated based on well-known fault current characteristics of synchronous generations, while the short-circuit responses of IBRs heavily depend on their vendor-specific control schemes, which are mainly set to protect inverter semiconductor switches and DC components. The magnitude of short current that IBRs contribute is typically between 1.1–1.5 times the rated current that may behave unstably and incoherently with the voltages. The control scheme of the IBRs also controls the active (P) and reactive (Q) support during system voltage sag and swell conditions. These characteristics challenge not only protective relay schemes but also existing short-circuit software tools to correctly model IBRs for fault studies and protection coordination analyses. Utilities, university researchers, research institutes, and relay manufacturers have performed studies to investigate different aspects of high IBR penetration. Almost all studies support 1) creating international and national standards to regulate the IBRs, 2) revising engineering tools to address shortcomings, and 3) adjusting the protective relay settings to resolve protection problems. This paper summarizes the studies and research conducted in recent years to quantify the impact of IBR penetration on transmission line protection and to identify potential solutions to improve the dependability and reliability of grid protection systems.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Silver-carbon interlayers in anode-free solid-state lithium metal batteries: Current development, interfacial issues, and instability challenges

As an interlayer between the anode and the electrolyte of the all-solid-state lithium metal batteries (ASSLMBs), the silver-carbon (Ag-C) nanocomposite has been reported to significantly increase the energy density and cycle rate of solid-state lithium metal batteries. Ag-C interlayers serve as mixed ionic-electronic conductor that conducts both Li+ ions and electrons and lithium storage capacity. Unfortunately, it was unclear how the Ag-C interlayer regulated lithium plating and stripping. Moreover, the structural and chemical instabilities between the interlayer and the electrolyte, within the interlayer, or beneath the interlayer on lithium substrate are likely to cause cell failure. In this review, we discuss interfacial issues and summarize recent progress in solution strategies for ASSLMBs, with a specific focus on the use of a silver-carbon (Ag-C) nanocomposite interlayer in anode-free setups. Based on the Li transport kinetics among the Ag-C interlayers, the interfacial configurations of Ag-C interlayers are classified as either exterior or internal. Furthermore, the review concludes with a discussion of the perspectives and future prospects, allowing for the improvement of interlayer techniques for solid-state batteries.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Digital-Twin-Enabling Technologies for Online Condition Monitoring of Nuclear Power Plant Components

Online condition monitoring is an area of active research that may enable improved scheduling, maintenance, and safety of nuclear power plant components, reducing unnecessary derates while simultaneously improving operational capacity. Digital twins are one avenue to conduct online condition monitoring and are currently being explored by national laboratories and universities alike. Digital twins for online condition monitoring are, in essence, state concurrent models that emulate a physical process which predicts a parameter and compares it against a measured value. However, digital twins may also provide additional insights by combining and interpreting various sources of information. These insights may be used for preventative maintenance scheduling optimization or early fault detection and are projected to be valuable for meeting requirements under 10 CFR 50.55a. However, digital twin technologies are still under significant development; quantifying model uncertainties, improving unique fault identification, and multimodal sensor fusion are some areas under investigation. Therefore, in this work, we discuss and review the various enabling technologies, in the form of advanced sensors, instrumentation, and modelling methods, that may be used to implement and enhance digital twins for online condition monitoring. A potential use case for pump-motors is presented to demonstrate how these various pieces of enabling digital twin technologies may integrated together for online condition monitoring. Challenges and opportunities associated with the pump-motor digital twin enabling technologies are also identified and discussed.

22 - GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Packages of Distributed Energy Technologies Demonstrating Demand Flexibility at Community Scale

The combination of increased electric load growth across all sectors, deferred electrical infrastructure investment, and other factors resulting in variable electric power supply, has created technical challenges to maintaining a resilient and reliable grid. Many federal, regional, and local efforts are in play to modernize the electric grid, including advancing building technologies and distributed energy resources (DERs) that are utilizing smarter controls to become responsive to both occupant and grid needs. This report reviews ten pilot projects demonstrating how groups of buildings combined with behind-the-meter (BTM) DERs such as electric vehicle (EV) charging, battery storage, flexible HVAC and domestic hot water systems, and photovoltaic systems can reliably and cost effectively provide grid services. Each of the ten pilot projects aim to deliver both energy efficiency and demand flexibility (DF) while supporting load growth. The ten demonstration teams are piloting flexible DER packages across diverse communities of residential and commercial buildings to address a variety of regional grid needs. The outcomes of these pilot projects will be used to inform future scaling through utility program development. This paper characterizes the ten teams, showcasing the decision-making process used by each group to develop their packages (Section 2), the grid services they plan to deliver (Section 3), the types of DER packages selected for deployment within building sectors (Section 4) and trends between building sector, DER types, and grid services In order to achieve community scale benefits, the pilot projects must utilize aggregated control mechanisms for coordinating buildings and DERs together. Several types of coordinated control architectures have evolved amongst the teams, influenced by use type, existing market conditions, and integration type. Three coordinated controls architectures have been characterized, highlighting their use cases, benefits, challenges, and tradeoffs in their design. These insights can aid utilities, control vendors, and developers in scaling community-level energy systems (Paul, 2024). Ultimately, the technology packages selected by the ten teams will be coordinated to provide power system services, also known as grid services. Insights from these demonstrations will be useful for grid operators, regulators, aggregators and other stakeholders as they look to deploy demand flexible resources as grid services in the future. The grid services that each team is targeting for demonstration are described in Section 3 and Section 4. Methods for evaluating the grid services have been described in the paper Metrics for Evaluating Grid Service Provision from Communities of Grid-interactive and Efficient Buildings and other DER (MacDonald, 2023). To identify technology packages for demonstration, Section 2 shows that project teams used a range of analysis approaches, including building energy modeling, AMI data analysis, cost-benefit frameworks, and utility pilot data. Some teams emphasized technical modeling to quantify grid impacts and demand reduction potential, while others prioritized economic evaluations, stakeholder input, or exploratory pilots to inform deployment decisions. This diversity reflects the need to tailor selection methods to project goals, available data, and organizational context. Section 5 discusses trends between the DER technologies deployed and the grid service provisions from each team. Residential buildings (multifamily and single family) lean towards technologies that enhance energy efficiency (e.g. weatherization upgrades, smart thermostats) and onsite power generation integration (e.g. solar PV). Commercial building demonstrations prioritize technologies that ensure operational reliability (e.g. battery storage) and centralized energy management systems and optimization solutions. Teams that are deploying controllable storage-based technologies are more likely to provide grid services that require a near real-time response. Teams incorporating load shifting technologies like smart thermostats with HEMs are likely to include energy markets participation and customer bill management offerings. Campus demonstrations are adopting diverse sets of DERs to emphasize renewable generation, paired with centralized control. This section also describes technologies that were considered during project planning but ultimately excluded from final deployment. These demonstrations reveal that effective DER package design should be tailored to building type, customer segment, and construction vintage. Multifamily buildings benefit from centralized HVAC upgrades and supervisory controls, while single-family homes are well-suited for individualized technologies like solar, storage, and smart home energy monitors. Commercial and campus settings prioritize EMIS integration and load optimization. New construction enables cost-effective integration of DER-ready infrastructure, whereas retrofits require deployments aligned with owner and tenant value streams. For utility program planners, early coordination with developers and building owners, paired with segmented and modular program offerings, can improve adoption, scalability, and grid impact.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Valuing Resilience for Microgrids: Challenges, Innovative Approaches, and State Needs

The United States depends on the delivery of reliable, affordable, clean, and safe electricity. Electric utilities invest billions of dollars each year in generation, transmission, and distribution assets to meet this need. However, experiences with recent natural disasters of increasing frequency and duration demonstrate the shortcomings of this approach in the face of modern threats. Further, as customers rely on electricity for a broader range of important needs, such as transportation, as well as critical life-saving services and mission critical facilities such as water treatment, medical care, shelters, telecommunications, and more, the need to minimize the likelihood and impacts of outages grows. Against this backdrop, resilience has emerged as a key consideration to guide electricity spending, whether from utilities, customers, or taxpayers. Although reliability has been defined and measured for decades with broadly accepted metrics that measure how many customers lose power and at what frequency and duration, resilience considers the electricity system’s response to a disruption and its subsequent impacts on customers. Developing tools and methods to accurately assess the costs and benefits of resilience investments is a critical step toward the goal of mitigating the impacts of outages on customers and society. Today, electric system resilience is largely treated as an externality due to challenges estimating the costs of long-duration outages, impacts of outages on society, and increasing reliance on electricity for a growing set of interdependent services. These interdependencies include the water, wastewater, telecommunications, natural gas, and health sectors. Without knowing how much a given resilience investment will benefit customers or society more broadly, investors, policymakers, and regulators are less likely to make or approve such investments, and less able to prioritize those investments. State Energy Offices and public utility commissions (PUCs) lead the development of state-level energy policy and utility regulation, respectively, and each has interests in encouraging appropriate public and private investments in resilience. To this end, the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) and National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE), formed a joint Microgrids State Working Group to explore the costs and benefits of microgrids, barriers to broader deployment of microgrids to meet resilience and other objectives, and policy and regulatory strategies to optimize investments in resilience, including but not limited to microgrids. Although no universally accepted valuation tool for resilience exists, National Laboratories, utilities, researchers, and state and federal agencies have collaborated to develop, apply, and improve a number of approaches to quantify resilience, several of which are still in progress at the time this report is published. This report seeks to share these important advances by discussing current definitions of resilience (Section 1), how microgrids are defined and used to meet resilience objectives (Section 2), new approaches to valuing resilience (Section 3), steps State Energy Offices and PUCs have taken to further resilience valuation efforts (Section 4), and finally, considerations and suggested next steps for State Energy Offices and PUCs (Section 5). Relevant examples of specific microgrid projects and resilience valuation efforts are included throughout the report. While this report is written specifically for NASEO and NARUC members, it may be useful for utilities, local governments, and individual customers interested in improving the way public and private dollars are spent to achieve resilience outcomes.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Design Readiness And Maturity Assessment (DRAMA) Tool for Advanced Reactors

Abstract – This research is developing a formal, repeatable method to assess the readiness and maturity of an advanced nuclear reactor design for licensing and deployment. This design readiness and maturity assessment (DRAMA) tool will be capable of determining the readiness of the design and of all parties needed to bring a particular advanced reactor design to fruition. Beneficiaries and stakeholders include the design team, research organizations (required to collect needed data and develop design tools), standards organizations, research facilities to support gathering of needed data, supply chain and construction organizations, and everyone responsible for legal and regulatory infrastructure (including defining import-export requirements). Recent experience has shown that even the most experienced engineering and construction organizations, with decades of experience in the nuclear power business, have had significant challenges in bringing designs to completion, licensing the designs, and constructing new plants. For new entries into the field, simply understanding the unique environmental and regulatory requirements have been daunting. A significant part of the challenge is that new entries into the market do not know what they don't know. This tool will provide design teams a better understanding of their readiness to proceed to licensing (and other steps in the process), while at the same time providing a valuable metric for other interested organizations, such as funding agencies, national regulators, and international markets. The DRAMA tool will provide an assessment of the likelihood of successfully completing licensing and deployment and will also create the capability to assess the ability of regulatory infrastructure and the supply chain to support the deployment of any design or class of designs. It will also help prioritize research and policy efforts to improve the likelihood of deployment of the next generation of advanced reactors.

Arndt, Steven↗
DOE OSTI2021

Diesel-like Fuels, Combustion, and Emissions

The need to reduce the carbon footprint from medium- and heavy-duty diesel engines is clear; low-carbon biofuels are a powerful means to achieve this. Liquid fuels are rapidly deployed because existing infrastructure can be utilized for their production, transport, and distribution. Their impact is unique as they can decrease the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of existing vehicles and in applications resistant to electrification. However, introducing new diesel-like bio-blends into the market is very challenging. At a minimum, it requires a comprehensive understanding of the life-cycle GHG emissions of the fuels, the implications for refinery optimization and economics, the fuel’s impact on the infrastructure, the effect on the combustion performance of current and future vehicle fleets, and finally the implications for exhaust aftertreatment systems and compliance with emissions regulations. Such understanding is sought within the Co-Optima project.

02 PETROLEUM↗
DOE OSTI2022

Digitalization, Management and Synthesis of Thermal Hydraulic Legacy Data Using Dynamical System Scaling

A unique attribute of the nuclear industry is the extent by which designers, developers, operators, and regulators pay attention to demonstrating the safety case. The safety case for nuclear systems is a written, traceable expression of safety, demonstrating the system’s protective measures against uncontrolled radiological releases. The nuclear installation resiliency or safety takes overriding priority over function and performance. The preparation of the safety case heavily relies on extensive experimental campaigns that challenge the target design under a spectrum of postulated accident scenarios. For safety reasons, these experiments are typically conducted in sub-scale test apparatuses intended to reproduce the postulated accident scenarios and event sequences realistically but subject to proven similarity criteria, often referred to as scaling analyses. Since the dawn of the nuclear industry, significant resources have been committed to the construction and operation of such test facilities and a massive amount of data has been generated. Such test data have been and are still used to validate the fundamental assumptions of nuclear power plant phenomena. As we move into the digital world, capturing this multi-decades worth of information in a transparent, easily accessible, and usable manner for the public and industry stakeholders is of paramount importance. Over the last few years FPoliSolutions has been actively developing an enterprise digital data ontology platform (FPoliDON) intended to do just that. The concept was introduced in a paper at the previous NURETH edition and has been significantly enhanced since. With the vision of helping designers use the data to assess their safety case evaluation models, the platform was designed not only to ontologically organize the experimental data, but also to guide the user in the complex analytics associated with the interpretation and use of such test results. A new feature which has been recently added is the ability for the user to access a library of sophisticated mathematical procedures for performing scaling analyses. For this purpose, the Dynamical System Scaling (DSS) procedure invented by Dr. Jose’ Reyes was formulated as one of the services in the digital platform. These methods have been demonstrated to provide an excelled mathematical apparatus to identify similarity criteria or quantify distortions between measured data and the target prototypical conditions. Moreover, DSS can provide a level of synthesis across SETs and IETs which has the promise to yield efficiency in the evaluation code assessment activities. This is often a daunting and expensive task to set up evaluation models that support the safety case of current and future nuclear power plants.

Reyes, Jose↗