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Improving Subsurface Stress Characterization for Carbon Dioxide Storage Projects
Researchers at New Mexico Tech, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Sandia National Laboratory (SNL), and other collaborators are developing a methodology to improve characterization of stress in the subsurface by means of a model-based inversion of reservoir engineering data, time lapse seismic measurements, and microseismicity. Historically, various geophysical techniques have been used in efforts to understand the state of stress in the subsurface through direct and indirect imaging of stress sensitive features (faults and fractures) and observations of transient stress related observations (time variant elastic moduli and microseismicity). Standard direct and indirect techniques for seismic fault and fracture imaging suffer from detectability limits due to reliance on high data quality and multiplicity. Variations in effective elastic properties from inversion of high quality seismic (Vertical Seismic Profile (VSP)) data may be used to infer stress near the wellbore through integration with independent experimental characterization of the stress-velocity relationship. Given a sufficiently robust observation network, microseismic emissions may be inverted to characterize focal mechanisms which, together with supporting assumptions and constraints, inform estimates of in-situ stress. While each of these techniques contributes in part to the characterization of stress within limited spatial and temporal domains, no one method provides an unambiguous stress measurement or a predictive capability over a site scale spatial extent. Challenges associated with solution non-uniqueness, measurement ambiguity, and irregular sampling may be greatly minimized through combination of one or more of independent measurements within a common framework in which realistic geological, hydrodynamic, geomechanical, and seismological constituent process models may act as constraints.
Decision Insight into Stakeholder Conflict for ERN
Participatory modeling has become an important tool in facilitating resource decision making and dispute resolution. Approaches to modeling that are commonly used in this context often do not adequately account for important human factors. Current techniques provide insights into how certain human activities and variables affect resource outcomes; however, they do not directly simulate the complex variables that shape how, why, and under what conditions different human agents behave in ways that affect resources and human interactions related to them. Current approaches also do not adequately reveal how the effects of individual decisions scale up to have systemic level effects in complex resource systems. This lack of integration prevents the development of more robust models to support decision making and dispute resolution processes. Development of integrated tools is further hampered by the fact that collection of primary data for decision-making modeling is costly and time consuming. This project seeks to develop a new approach to resource modeling that incorporates both technical and behavioral modeling techniques into a single decision-making architecture. The modeling platform is enhanced by use of traditional and advanced processes and tools for expedited data capture. Specific objectives of the project are: (1) Develop a proof of concept for a new technical approach to resource modeling that combines the computational techniques of system dynamics and agent based modeling, (2) Develop an iterative, participatory modeling process supported with traditional and advance data capture techniques that may be utilized to facilitate decision making, dispute resolution, and collaborative learning processes, and (3) Examine potential applications of this technology and process. The development of this decision support architecture included both the engineering of the technology and the development of a participatory method to build and apply the technology. Stakeholder interaction with the model and associated data capture was facilitated through two very different modes of engagement, one a standard interface involving radio buttons, slider bars, graphs and plots, while the other utilized an immersive serious gaming interface. The decision support architecture developed through this project was piloted in the Middle Rio Grande Basin to examine how these tools might be utilized to promote enhanced understanding and decision-making in the context of complex water resource management issues. Potential applications of this architecture and its capacity to lead to enhanced understanding and decision-making was assessed through qualitative interviews with study participants who represented key stakeholders in the basin.
10 MWE CDCL Large Pilot Plant – pre-FEED Study
Coal Direct Chemical Looping (CDCL) is an advanced oxy-combustion technology that has the potential to substantially reduce the energy penalty and the cost of electricity (COE) for coal-fired power generation with CO₂ capture. The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W) and The Ohio State University (OSU) have been collaborating on the development of an iron oxide oxygen-carrier based chemical looping technology for clean power generation with inherent carbon capture. In this process, coal is dried and pulverized prior to being transported into a moving-bed reducer. In the reducer, coal reacts with the oxygen-carrier particles, forming combustion byproducts, predominantly CO₂ and H₂O, while reducing the iron oxide oxidation state from Fe₂O₃ to a mixture of FeO and Fe. The reduced state particles are then transported to a combustor reactor and re-oxidized with air. Following the oxidation, the oxygen-carrier particles are regenerated, and a large amount of heat is released for steam production. The produced steam is sent to a turbine for electricity generation. Meanwhile, the CO₂–rich stream leaving the reducer is cooled, cleaned, and compressed for subsequent pipeline transportation and sequestration. By combining air separation and fuel conversion into a single system, the CDCL technology enables the intensification of oxy-combustion processes by eliminating the energy and cost intensive cryogenic air separation unit and thereby results in higher overall plant efficiencies and lower COE’s. The use of a moving-bed reducer results in high conversions of volatile hydrocarbons and high CO₂ purity, which reduces the cost of downstream CO₂ purification for sequestration or utilization. The Babcock & Wilcox Company in collaboration with The Ohio State University, Johnson & Matthey, The Electric Power Research Institute, and Dover Light & Power completed a Preliminary Front-End Engineering and Design (Pre-FEED) study of a 10 MWe coal-direct chemical looping (CDCL) pilot plant. The planned system is a modular 10 MWe CDCL large pilot facility consisting in 4 modules of 2.5 MWe each, working in parallel and to be hosted within the current structure at the City of Dover’s Municipal Power Plant. The CDCL system can achieve auto-thermal operation and includes a sub-critical steam cycle for power generation. The pilot system was designed to demonstrate full commercial operation at a reduced scale. The coal distribution per plan area is a representative slice of larger commercial arrangements. The system includes a CO₂ recycle system, but it does not include a compression system. The large pilot includes all the environmental control equipment and oxygen carrier and ash handling systems. As part of the project, the Team performed laboratory testing and carried out multiple pilot test campaigns to obtain design and performance information at the 250 kWth CDCL pilot facility at the Babcock & Wilcox Company’s Research Center. The Team demonstrated sustained operations at designed coal inputs, high coal conversion, high CO₂ purity, heat generation on the combustor, low carbon carryover between reactors and low particle attrition. Emissions generated in the reducer reactor were identified as SO₂ and NO x . The commercial manufacturing cost of oxygen carrier particle was evaluated by JM. A particle manufacturing report was generated and submitted to the DOE. Based on the results from the pilot tests and the pre-FEED design efforts, a techno-economic analysis was performed. The study shows that the CDCL process is a promising carbon-friendly technology capable of producing electricity with high efficiency. The estimated COE of the supercritical CDCL plant is $83.3 / MWh, which meets DOE’s target of less than 30% increase in COE when compared to a supercritical PC plant without CO₂ capture. This is the lowest among the existing carbon capture technologies (post-combustion and oxy-combustion) for fossil fuel power plant. CDCL is evaluated to be the most promising technology for carbon capture from the economic aspect.
Evaluation of Nuclear Spent Fuel Disposal in Clay-Bearing Rock - Process Model Development and Experimental Studies
This report represents the milestone deliverable M2SF-23SN010301072 “Evaluation of Nuclear Spent Fuel Disposal in Clay-Bearing Rock - Process Model Development and Experimental Studies” The report provides a status update of FY23 activities for the work package Argillite Disposal work packages for the DOE-NE Spent Fuel Waste Form Science and Technology (SFWST) Program. Clay-rich geological media (often referred as shale or argillite) are among the most abundant type of sedimentary rock near the Earth’s surface. Argillaceous rock formations have the following advantageous attributes for deep geological nuclear waste disposal: widespread geologic occurrence, found in stable geologic settings, low permeability, self-sealing properties, low effective diffusion coefficient, high sorption capacity, and have the appropriate depth and thickness to host nuclear waste repository concepts. The DOE R&D program under the Spent Fuel Waste Science Technology (SFWST) campaign has made key progress (through experiment, modeling, and testing) in the study of chemical and physical phenomena that could impact the long-term safety assessment of heat-generating nuclear waste disposition in clay/shale/argillaceous rock. International collaboration activities comprising field-scale heater tests, field data monitoring, and laboratory-scale experiments provide key information on changes to the engineered barrier system (EBS) material exposed high thermal loads. Moreover, consideration of direct disposal of large capacity dual-purpose canisters (DPCs) as part of the back-end SNF waste disposition strategy has generated interest in improving our understanding of the effects of elevated temperatures on the engineered barrier system (EBS) design concepts. Chemical and structural analyses of sampled bentonite material from laboratory tests at elevated temperatures are key to the characterization of thermal effects affecting bentonite clay barrier performance. The knowledge provided by these experiments is crucial to constrain the extent of sacrificial zones in the EBS design during the thermal period. Thermal, hydrologic, mechanical, and chemical (THMC) data collected from heater tests and laboratory experiments have been used in the development, validation, and calibration of THMC simulators to model near-field coupled processes. This information leads to the development of simulation approaches to assess issues on coupled processes involving porous media flow, transport, geomechanical phenomena, chemical interactions with barrier/geologic materials, and the development of EBS concepts. These lines of knowledge are central to the design of deep geological backfilled repository concepts where temperature plays a key role in the EBS behavior, potential interactions with host rock, and long-term performance in the safety assessment.
Measuring Critical Fuel Properties for Simulations to Accelerate Fuel Qualification
NREL's sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) research in the area of fuel properties and end use is focused on accelerating SAF development and deployment. This will be achieved by close collaboration with BETO program researchers on fuel property measurement and development of structure-property relationships. Additionally, fuel properties measured at often extreme engine operating conditions will be measured, and will be used as inputs to exascale ready simulations of aviation combustion turbines to reveal impacts of properties on turbine operation. This research will potentially lead to a widening of the allowable fuel property range for SAF, expanding SAF production process options and production volumes.
Involving the new generations in Fermilab endeavors
Since 1984 the Italian groups of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) and Italian Universities, collaborating with the DOE laboratory of Fermilab (US) have been running a two-month summer training program for Italian university students. While in the first year the program involved only four physics students of the University of Pisa, in the following years it was extended to engineering students. This extension was very successful and the engineering students have been since then extremely well accepted by the Fermilab Technical, Accelerator, and Scientific Computing Division groups. Over the many years of its existence, this program has proven to be the most effective way to engage new students in Fermilab endeavors. Many students have extended their collaboration with Fermilab with their Master’s Thesis and PhD. Since 2004 the program has been supported in part by DOE in the frame of an exchange agreement with INFN. Over its almost 40 years of history, the program has grown in scope and size and has involved more than 550 Italian students from more than 20 Italian Universities, Several Institutes of Research, including ASI and INAF in Italy, and the ISSNAF Foundation in the US, have provided additional financial support. Since the program does not exclude appropriately selected non-Italian students, a handful of students from European and non-European Universities were also accepted over the years. Each intern is supervised by a Fermilab Mentor responsible for performing the training program. Training programs spanned from Tevatron, CMS, Muon (g-2), Mu2e, and Short Baseline Neutrino Experiments and DUNE design and experimental data analysis, development of particle detectors (silicon trackers, calorimeters, drift chambers, neutrino and dark matter detectors), design of electronic and accelerator components, development of infrastructures and software for exascale data handling, research on superconductive elements and on accelerating cavities, and theory of particle accelerators. Since 2010, within an extended program supported by the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, a total of 30 students in physics, astrophysics, and engineering have been hosted for two months in the summer at US space science Research Institutes and laboratories. In 2015 the University of Pisa included these programs within its educational programs. Accordingly, Summer School students are enrolled at the University of Pisa for the duration of the internship and are identified and ensured as such. At the end of the internship, the students are required to write summary reports on their achievements. After positive evaluation by a University Examining Board, interns are acknowledged credits for their Diploma Supplement. The program was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic but restarted successfully in 2022. We believe this program can be taken as a model and easily adopted by interested institutions.
Development of Production-Intent Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle Using Advanced Lithium-Ion Battery Packs with Deployment to a Demonstration Fleet
The primary goal of this project was to speed the development of one of the first commercially available, OEM-produced plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV). The performance of the PHEV was expected to double the fuel economy of the conventional hybrid version. This vehicle program incorporated a number of advanced technologies, including advanced lithium-ion battery packs and an E85-capable flex-fuel engine. The project developed, fully integrated, and validated plug-in specific systems and controls by using GM’s Global Vehicle Development Process (GVDP) for production vehicles. Engineering Development related activities included the build of mule vehicles and integration vehicles for Phases I & II of the project. Performance data for these vehicles was shared with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The deployment of many of these vehicles was restricted to internal use at GM sites or restricted to assigned GM drivers. Phase III of the project captured the first half or Alpha phase of the Engineering tasks for the development of a new thermal management design for a second generation battery module. The project spanned five years. It included six on-site technical reviews with representatives from the DOE. One unique aspect of the GM/DOE collaborative project was the involvement of the DOE throughout the OEM vehicle development process. The DOE gained an understanding of how an OEM develops vehicle efficiency and FE performance, while balancing many other vehicle performance attributes to provide customers well balanced and fuel efficient vehicles that are exciting to drive. Many vehicle content and performance trade-offs were encountered throughout the vehicle development process to achieve product cost and performance targets for both the OEM and end customer. The project team completed two sets of PHEV development vehicles with fully integrated PHEV systems. Over 50 development vehicles were built and operated for over 180,000 development miles. The team also completed four GM engineering development Buy-Off rides/milestones. The project included numerous engineering vehicle and systems development trips including extreme hot, cold and altitude exposure. The final fuel economy performance demonstrated met the objectives of the PHEV collaborative GM/DOE project. Charge depletion fuel economy of twice that of the non-PHEV model was demonstrated. The project team also designed, developed and tested a high voltage battery module concept that appears to be feasible from a manufacturability, cost and performance standpoint. The project provided important product development and knowledge as well as technological learnings and advancements that include multiple U.S. patent applications.
RAMSeS: Rapid Analysis of Mission Software Systems
Over the past few decades, software has become ubiquitous as it has been integrated into nearly every aspect of society, including household appliances, consumer electronics, industrial control systems, public utilities, government operations, and military systems. Consequently, many critical national security questions can no longer be answered convincingly without understanding software, including its purpose, its capabilities, its flaws, its communication, or how it processes and stores data. As software continues to become larger, more complex, and more widespread, our ability to answer important mission questions and reason about software in a timely way is falling behind. Today, to achieve such understanding of third-party software, we rely predominantly on the ability of reverse engineering experts to manually answer each particular mission question for every software system of interest. This approach often requires heroic human effort that nevertheless fails to meet current mission needs and will never scale to meet future needs. The result is an emerging crisis: a massive and expanding gap between the national security need to answer mission questions about software and our ability to do so. Sandia National Laboratories has established the Rapid Analysis of Mission Software Systems (RAMSeS) effort, a collaborative long-term effort aimed at dramatically improving our nation’s ability to answer mission questions about third-party software by growing an ecosystem of tools that augment the human reverse engineer through automation, interoperability, and reuse. Focusing on static analysis of binary programs, we are attempting to identify reusable software analysis components that advance our ability to reason about software, to automate useful aspects of the software analysis process, and to integrate new methodologies and capabilities into a working ecosystem of tools and experts. We aim to integrate existing tools where possible, adapt tools when modest modifications will enable them to interoperate, and implement missing capability when necessary. Although we do hope to automate a growing set of analysis tasks, we will approach this goal incrementally by assisting the human in an ever-widening range of tasks.
Guidelines for Implementation of an Advanced Outage Control Center to Improve Outage Coordination, Problem Resolution, and Outage Risk Management
This research effort is a part of the Light-Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program, which is a research and development (R&D) program sponsored by Department of Energy (DOE) and performed in close collaboration with industry R&D programs that provide the technical foundations for licensing and managing the long-term, safe, and economical operation of current nuclear power plants. The LWRS program serves to help the U.S. nuclear industry adopt new technologies and engineering solutions that facilitate the continued safe operation of the plants and extension of the current operating licenses. The purpose of this research is to improve management of nuclear power plant (NPP) outages through the development of an advanced outage control center (AOCC) that is specifically designed to maximize the usefulness of communication and collaboration technologies for outage coordination and problem resolution activities. This technical report for industry implementation outlines methods and considerations for the establishment of an AOCC. This report provides a process for implementation of a change management plan, evaluation of current outage processes, the selection of technology, and guidance for the implementation of the selected technology. Methods are presented for both adoption of technologies within an existing OCC and for a complete OCC replacement, including human factors considerations for OCC design and setup.
ROTOR: Research to Operations and Operations to Research
PNNL’s Research to Operations/Operations to Research (ROTOR) Program fosters a cybersecurity operations to researcher collaboration, identifying hard problems and challenges for cyber defenders and bringing researcher science disciplines to these challenges. ROTOR allows PNNL’s cyber defenders to better protect the laboratory but also fosters innovation and incubation of solutions for our sponsor missions across DOE, DOD, DHS and the intelligence community. Our sponsors and their missions are faced with many of the same cyber defense challenges that PNNL faces. By using our own laboratory security operations environment as an innovation generator and testing ground, allowing research to be tested and tried, our sponsors are directly benefitted. PNNL is in a unique position to combine our world class research organization with enterprise cybersecurity operations. ROTOR is taking advantage of this to bring PNNL cybersecurity research projects into an operational environment within PNNL’s Cyber Security Operations Center. With ROTOR, PNNL researchers gain the advantage of operational experience and expertise and have an avenue for showcasing research in an operational environment. This helps to advance PNNL research, prove operability of PNNL projects to its sponsors, and provide real-world insight to real-world problems for our cybersecurity research agenda. ROTOR is the conduit for PNNL cybersecurity research to find its way to operational use. PNNL researchers and engineers are informed by real-world operations and operations has access to current PNNL research and engineering capabilities. All of this leads to improved reputation for PNNL as a provider of national security solutions that are tried and tested. To date, ROTOR has collaborated with six projects, enabling each to conduct operational work within the CSOC.
Delivering Business Benefit to UK Decommissioning through Collaborative Innovation - Approach and Technologies - 18539
The UK's nuclear energy programme, dating from the post-war years, has left a mixed legacy to the country: numerous prototype reactors, fuel-manufacturing plants, research centres, reprocessing plants and 11 power stations. The Sellafield site in west Cumbria houses more than 200 nuclear facilities and 1,000 buildings, making it one of the world's most complex environmental decommissioning challenges. Many 'never-done-before' projects are under way, which require substantial levels of R and D and innovative engineering approaches. One of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority's (NDA) responsibilities is to ensure that the right level of R and D is carried out to enable progress on delivering the full decommissioning programme. Since 2010, NDA has been collaborating with Innovate UK, the UK government's innovation agency, to engage the supply chain and develop innovative technologies and services to support the NDA's mission and the growing international nuclear decommissioning market. The paper will provide an overview of the approach (e.g. open calls, briefing events, independent assessment, technology showcases) and the associated benefits (e.g. attracting new ideas, end-user engagement, increased supply chain collaboration). The paper also highlights selected technologies developed through the process. (authors)
Collaborative Inference of Missing Smart Electric Meter Data for A Building
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Postdoctoral Program Overview October 2021 [Slides]
The primary institutional role of the Postdoc Program Office is to provide guidance and support to postdocs, mentors, and management regarding the appointment review and selection process, extensions, management of program awards and publication prizes, as well as the offering of Career Development workshops and events. Program participants sustain the Lab’s reputation for scientific excellence and are one of the primary recruitment sources for early career staff scientists and engineers. For those who do not stay at LANL, they move on to very promising careers in academia, industry, and government and continue to collaborate with the Lab, as well as become ambassadors of the Program.
Statement of Work: Toward AI-driven additive manufacturing for metal-ceramic composite structures
The project scope is to investigate the compatibility of various ceramic and metal powder composite feedstock development, implement AI algorithms for in-situ monitoring and parameter optimization of binder jet 3D printing to achieve reliable and robust metal/ceramic and/or ceramic/ceramic composite components, and create a generative design framework for heterogeneous composite structures incorporating metals and ceramic-based materials to achieve specific mechanical properties. Funded is the effort and travel by the faculty advisor at University of California Berkeley in support of the work of their students and the related collaborative research and development effort.
Scintillating Bubble Chambers for Rare Event Searches
The Scintillating Bubble Chamber (SBC) collaboration is developing liquid-noble bubble chambers to detect sub-keV nuclear recoils, allowing the search for low-mass (GeV-scale) dark matter and coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering from low-energy (MeV-scale) neutrinos. The scintillating bubble chamber detectors benefit from the energy reconstruction that the scintillation signal gives in addition to the superior electron-recoil insensitivity that bubble chambers naturally provide. The high level of superheat achievable in noble liquids while being electron-recoil insensitive allows for lower nuclear recoil thresholds than in existing freon-based bubble chambers, potentially reaching the 100 eV threshold desired for reactor CEvNS measurements. To validate this lower threshold, the SBC collaboration is constructing two 10 kg detectors that are functionally identical. The SBC-LAr10, which is being commissioned at Fermilab, is intended for engineering and calibration research and has additional possibilities in assessing coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering in argon. SBC-SNOLAB, the second detector for a low-background dark matter search, will be run at SNOLAB underground.
Recovery and Refining of Rare Earth Elements from Lignite Mine Wastes
The University of North Dakota (UND), in collaboration with a comprehensive team of technical, business and host-site partners, built on prior technology development to complete a front-end engineering and design (FEED) and business planning study to recover and refine rare earth elements (REE) and critical minerals (CM) from North Dakota (ND) lignite mine wastes. The end of project goal was to have an investment quality project and a committed team ready to commercialize the proposed technologies in a future construction and operations phase.
CRADA Number NFE-22-09375 with Vitriform3D, Inc. (CRADA Final Report)
Each year, roughly 8 million tons of glass are landfilled in the United States. Vitriform3D, in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory through the Innovation Crossroads program, is developing an additive manufacturing approach to transform post-consumer glass into engineered stone building materials. A custom UV-curable binder jetting system was commissioned to enable recycled glass printing without energy-intensive oven curing. While this printer is still under development, the team pursued a parallel research track using ORNL equipment and a polyethyleneimine (PEI) binder. Printed parts were thermally post-cured and infiltrated with epoxy, with the resulting material exceeding fiber cement board performance. Silane treatment of the glass particles further improved glass–epoxy adhesion, yielding an additional 24% strength gain over the epoxy-glass composite, achieving nearly 3x the fiber cement benchmark. Ongoing research is focused on reducing epoxy content to improve cost and recycled content while retaining mechanical performance. This work demonstrates a scalable, low-carbon pathway to convert glass waste into high-value, locally produced construction materials.