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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 55 records · Page 3

Wind Powering America: The Next Steps in North Carolina

The goal of this project is to apply the WPA’s proactive outreach strategy to the problem of educating the public about the likely transmission infrastructure developments concomitant to the significant development of wind energy resources in North Carolina. Given the lead time to develop significant new transmission infrastructure (5-10 years), it is critical to begin this outreach work today, so that wind resources can be developed to adequately meet the 20% by 2030 goal in the mid- to long-term (10-20 years). The project team planned to develop a transmission infrastructure outreach campaign for North Carolina by: (1) convening a utility interest group (UIG) of the North Carolina Wind Working Group (NC WWG) consisting of electric utilities in the state and the Southeast; and (2) expanding outreach to local and state government officials in North Carolina.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Monitoring Uranium Transformations Determined by the Evolution of Biogeochemical Processes

Our contribution to the larger project (ANL) was the phylogenetic analysis of evolved communities capable of reducing metals including uranium. We previously reported structural shifts in microbial communities of microcosms constructed with inocula from uranium-contaminated sediment from the Field Research Center (FRC). Incubations were for up to eleven months and samples were taken from both the top and bottom of the sediment of duplicate microcosms incubated at room temperature anaerobically. The biological indices of the microcosm bacterial communities revealed that under strong selective force (e.g., sulfate and uranium) some populations became dominant and the community diversity appeared reduced. With the reduction of U(VI), bacterial community diversity appeared to recovere to its T0 level. Our clone library results revealed that some bacterial populations were persistent in the microcosms during the 11 month incubation period, while others became more abundant or less detectable in response to the prevailing environmental factors. According to the Ribosomal Database Project’s (RDP) Classifier tool, beta-Proteobacteria and Acidobacteria (e.g., Gp8) were highly abundant in the microcosms throughout the incubation period, whereas Desulfovibrio, a known sulfate-reducing Genus within which uranium reducing capabilities also reside, was substantially more abundant at early sampling times when sulfate and uranium were abundant, compared to at the end of the incubation period (11 months). We speculate that the decrease in abundance of Desulfovibrio with time was caused by consumption of sulfate and uranium during early stages of incubation. Interestingly, groups identified by the RDP as unclassified bacteria and unclassified Desulfobacteraceae responded to the selective forces differently. These two groups appeared to be more robust at the end of the incubation period when the strong initial selective force of sulfate and uranium was absent or diminished. The statistical community comparison with UniFrac indicated that early and late stage samples were evolved from the original inoculum. The RDP library comparison tool revealed that bacterial community populations shifted at statistically significant amounts according to time and space. For example, as mentioned above, early stage Desulfovibrio and Desulfobacteraceae abundances were significantly different from those where found at late incubation stage (P=0.01). Similarly, iron-oxidizing bacterium Thiobacillus was significantly more abundant at late sampling times. These results, combined with data from our colleagues were submitted to and accepted for publication in Environmental Science & Technology.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Net-Zero Energy Building Operator Training Program (NZEBOT)

The primary objective of the Net-Zero Energy Building Operator Training Program (NZEBOT) was to develop certificate level training programs for commercial building owners, managers and operators, principally in the areas of energy / sustainability management. The expected outcome of the project was a multi-faceted mechanism for developing the skill-based competency of building operators, owners, architects/engineers, construction professionals, tenants, brokers and other interested groups in energy efficient building technologies and best practices. The training program draws heavily on DOE supported and developed materials available in the existing literature, as well as existing, modified, and newly developed curricula from the Department of Engineering Technology & Construction Management (ETCM) at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC-Charlotte).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Report on the 2011 Critical Assessment of Function Annotation (CAFA) meeting

The Critical Assessment of Function Annotation meeting was held July 14-15, 2011 at the Austria Conference Center in Vienna, Austria. There were 73 registered delegates at the meeting. We thank the DOE for this award. It helped us organize and support a scientific meeting AFP 2011 as a special interest group (SIG) meeting associated with the ISMB 2011 conference. The conference was held in Vienna, Austria, in July 2011. The AFP SIG was held on July 15-16, 2011 (immediately preceding the conference). The meeting consisted of two components, the first being a series of talks (invited and contributed) and discussion sections dedicated to protein function research, with an emphasis on the theory and practice of computational methods utilized in functional annotation. The second component provided a large-scale assessment of computational methods through participation in the Critical Assessment of Functional Annotation (CAFA). The meeting was exciting and, based on feedback, quite successful. There were 73 registered participants. The schedule was only slightly different from the one proposed, due to two cancellations. Dr. Olga Troyanskaya has canceled and we invited Dr. David Jones instead. Similarly, instead of Dr. Richard Roberts, Dr. Simon Kasif gave a closing keynote. The remaining invited speakers were Janet Thornton (EBI) and Amos Bairoch (University of Geneva).

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Annual Site Environmental Report for Calendar Year 2020. Final Report

The U.S. Department of Energy requires that all its site facilities develop an annual site environmental report to comply with DOE Order 231.1B, Chg 1, and DOE Order 458.1, Admin Chg 4. This report provides a synopsis of calendar year 2020 information related to environmental management performance and compliance efforts at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. It summarizes site compliance with federal, state, and local environmental laws, regulations, policies, directives, permits, and Orders, and provides environmental management performance benchmarks and their status to the public, regulatory agencies, community officials, Native American tribes, and public interest groups.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

American Homeowner Perceptions and Choices for Energy Efficiency: Summary of Technology Adoption – Census Division Level

In 2020 a nationwide survey of homeowners was conducted to determine what energy efficiency upgrades homeowners had made to their homes and which ones they would make in the near future. The survey also included results on respondent financials about energy efficiency home upgrades/retrofits and perceptions of the value of energy efficiency/who should support improving the energy efficiency of the residential sector. The Department of Energy’s goal for this survey is to inform ongoing work in the residential energy efficiency research portfolio on the human dimensions of residential energy systems transformation. In addition, DOE envisions this work supports efforts by industry, non-profits, and other government partners in informing programming, customer discovery, and policy writ large. This report provides a general summary of the nationwide results as they pertain to the following three issues: (1) how much did respondents indicate spending on energy efficiency-related home upgrades, (2) what upgrades/improvements had they made to their homes, and (3) which upgrades/improvements do they believe have the most significant impact on energy efficiency. The results provided are segmented by census division as specific regions demonstrated unique preferences for energy efficiency and willingness to expend family resources to achieve those goals. As such, the goal of this report is not to analyze the data nor draw cross-cutting conclusions but to serve as a resource for any groups interested in reviewing national trends about residential energy efficiency.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Annual Site Environmental Report for Calendar Year 2018: Final

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) requires that all its site facilities develop an annual site environmental report to comply with DOE Order 231.1B, Chg 1, Environment, Safety and Health Reporting, and DOE Order 458.1, Admin Chg 3, Radiation Protection of the Public and the Environment. This report provides a synopsis of calendar year 2018 information related to environmental management performance and compliance efforts at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. It summarizes site compliance with federal, state, and local environmental laws, regulations, policies, directives, permits, and Orders, and provides environmental management performance benchmarks and their status to the public, regulatory agencies, community officials, Native American tribes, and public interest groups.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Annual Site Environmental Report for Calendar Year 2021 (Final Report)

The U.S. Department of Energy requires that all its site facilities develop an annual site environmental report to comply with DOE Order 231.1B Chg 1 and DOE Order 458.1 Admin Chg 4. This report provides a synopsis of calendar year 2021 information related to environmental management performance and compliance efforts at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. It summarizes site compliance with federal, state, and local environmental laws, regulations, policies, directives, permits, and Orders, and provides environmental management performance benchmarks and their status to the public, regulatory agencies, community officials, Native American tribes, and public interest groups.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Annual Site Environmental Report for Calendar Year 2022 (Final Report)

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), one of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science’s 10 national laboratories, provides innovative science and technology development in the areas of energy and the environment, fundamental and computational science, and national security. There are three DOE offices within the Richland area. Two are responsible for the Hanford Site, whereas the Pacific Northwest Site Office (PNSO) oversees PNNL. PNNL prepares this Annual Site Environmental Report to meet the requirements of DOE Order 231.1B, Environmental, Safety and Health Reporting, and DOE Order 458.1, Radiation Protection of the Public and the Environment, assuring that the public is informed of any PNNL-Richland Campus or PNNL-Sequim Campus event that could adversely affect the health and safety of the public, site staff, or the environment. The report provides a synopsis of ongoing environmental management performance and compliance activities for operations that occur on the PNNL-Richland Campus in Richland, Washington, and at the PNNL-Sequim Campus near Sequim, Washington. It describes the location of and background for each facility; addresses compliance with applicable DOE, federal, state, and local regulations, and site-specific permits; documents environmental monitoring efforts and their status; presents potential radiation doses to staff and the public in the surrounding areas; and describes DOE-required data quality assurance methods used for data verification. The ASER summarizes site compliance with federal, state, and local environmental laws, regulations, policies, directives, permits, and Orders, and provides environmental management performance benchmarks and their status to the public, regulatory agencies, community officials, Native American tribes, and public interest groups.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Going under the hood of MontePy: A python API for MCNP input files [Slides]

MontePy is an open-source python software library for reading, editing, and writing MCNP input files. This presentation was given to a university research group interested in it. MontePy provides an object-oriented interface for working with these MCNP input files. It uses a lexer and parser system in order to create a concrete syntax tree representing the input from the input file.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Multi-Scale 3D Imaging for Machine Learning Property Upscaling: Mt. Simon Sandstone Case Study

Petrographic properties of principal target reservoirs for carbon sequestration, such as the Mt. Simon Sandstone, are relevant to broad interest groups. The Mt. Simon Sandstone is a deep, saline, regionally extensive Cambrian sandstone, overlain by low permeability sealing formations, making it one of the viable geologic carbon storage reservoirs in the Midwestern US. Its thickness (exceeding 2400 ft in some localities), depth, and lateral extent, combined with high porosity and permeability make it a high-priority target of multiple ongoing geologic carbon sequestration efforts in the United States of America. The National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown, West Virginia, has been engaged in characterization efforts of the Mt. Simon for over a decade, with a strong focus on Computed Tomographic data acquisition. Data generated during this period has been hitherto not accessible to the public. This archival effort focused on preservation of historical CT data and associated metadata, and facilitating their accessibility, culminating with the publication of the entire dataset on NETL’s Energy Data eXchange (EDX) and the associated Gill et. al (2024) paper.

Gill, Magdalena K.↗

Viable Economic Frameworks and Regulatory Barriers for Community Microgrids

Community microgrids – microgrids with more than one piece of customer- and utility-owned distribution equipment contained in the isolation boundary – are an option for providing resilience to meet targeted community and utility needs. Because multiple investors, including customers, are involved there is a lack of clarity around viable ownership models, roles and responsibilities, and compensation mechanisms. Together, these aspects describe an economic framework. To be viable, an economic framework not only needs to provide the possibility of all parties agreeing to the microgrid but also needs to meet regulatory guidelines. This report contains learnings from present-day community microgrid tariffs and programs, regulatory filings, and experiences shared within an interest group to highlight regulatory barriers to community microgrids and identify several viable economic frameworks for community microgrids.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Spinning the Facts against Genetically Engineered Foods?

A signaling game is developed in order to derive the equilibrium conditions under which special interest groups (SIGs) involved in the controversial debate over genetically engineered (GE) foods have the incentive to truthfully reveal their information or spin facts regarding the health impact of GE foods. Consumers can choose to inspect information provided by SIGs at a cost. The risk of spinning facts is much higher for pro-GE groups, because if it turns out that a certain GE food is unsafe, the penalty will be severe. However, anti-GE groups can still spin facts at low risk even if consumers choose to inspect. This helps explain why some pro-GE groups, particularly the biotech industry, tend to remain silent. Revealing information regarding the safety of GE foods could be counterproductive given pre-existing public skepticism. Consumers may not make “better” decisions with more information provided because more information increases their inspection costs. When it is costlier for consumers to inspect, it is more likely that anti-GE groups will continue to spin facts about the negative health impact of GE foods.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Natural Gas and Power Production

This presentation was given at the EPRI Winter Meeting, Natural Gas Interest Group in February 2016 and provided the technical details behind and results from the life cycle greenhouse gas analysis of natural gas extraction across the United States and its use in power production relative to coal-fired power.

CH4↗

Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Natural Gas and Power Production

This work was presented at the EPRI Winter Meeting, Natural Gas Interest Group on February 23, 2016. It discusses the growing role of natural gas in the U.S. energy portfolio, NETL's approach to modeling the natural gas supply chain. It shows the value of stratifying upstream natural gas into geographic- and technology-specific scenarios. It shows why the boundaries of methane emission rate should be standardized before natural gas is compared to other energy technologies. Life cycle GHG results are shown for natural gas, coal, nuclear, and renewable energy pathways.

Skone, Timothy J.↗

Nuclear Qualms Intern Poster

A 2022 Reuters poll found that 45% of Americans support nuclear power, 33% oppose it, and 20% are unsure, with opposers primarily concerned about meltdowns and nuclear waste. Establishing trust with the public has historically been a challenge for the nuclear energy development community. Technical jargon, specialized concepts and popular fictional portrayals are among the barriers to reassuring the public of modern reactor designs’ safety. Using ten letters sent in 1993 to Congress by interest groups and other archival sources, we demonstrate how the public’s misguided nuclear qualms contributed to Congress cancelling the promising Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) project at Argonne National Laboratory West’s (later INL) EBR II reactor in 1994. The decision halted the completion of a groundbreaking technology that cost the world 28 years and counting in lost time to validate and commercialize IFR technology.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗