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DOE OSTI2023

Basic Research Needs in The Science of Scientific Software Development and Use: Investment in Software is Investment in Science

Increasingly powerful and affordable computing has revolutionized scientific and scholarly discovery across a broad range of fields. Computing relies on software, which has been rapidly growing in scope, diversity, and complexity. At the same time, the methods, processes, and tools used to produce and utilize this essential software are often ad hoc, and the study and improvement of them are often done without the benefit of direct funding or prioritization. Consequently, concerns are growing about the productivity of the developers and users of scientific software, its sustainability, and the trustworthiness of the results that it produces. Increased investment, especially in the characterization and improvement of how scientific software is developed and used, is important for sustaining and improving the impact of software as the scope and complexity of scientific efforts expand. Without this investment, we face the risk of diminishing returns on our software investments because the demands for increased functionality, usability, reliability, and more will not be sufficiently met. The US Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE/SC) is at the forefront of modern software-enabled scientific discovery across numerous areas of computational, experimental, and observational science, including major investments in national user facilities that support these activities. For many years, DOE/SC software investments have provided tremendous value to the scientific community. We want to continue and further improve the value of DOE/SC software efforts by using a scientific approach to understanding and improving how scientific software is developed and used. In December 2021, the DOE/SC Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) convened a workshop on basic research needs for the Science of Scientific-Software Development and Use (SSSDU). Through keynote presentations, lightning talks, and breakout groups, which built on insights from 124 pre-workshop position papers, participants discussed the current practice of software development, maintenance, evolution, and use, and considered how the scientific method could be used to examine these practices and develop more evidence-based approaches to enhance the impact of software and computing on all areas of science. Workshop participants identified three priority research directions (PRDs) and three important crosscutting themes that center on the following overarching insight: Software has become an essential part of modern science, impacting discoveries, policy, and technological development. To maintain and improve confidence in science delivered via software, we must improve the processes and tools that help us create and use software, and this enhancement requires a deep understanding of the diverse array of teams and individuals doing the work.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Preparing Precollege Students for the Second Quantum Revolution with Core Concepts in Quantum Information Science

After the passage of the U.S. National Quantum Initiative Act in December 2018, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) recently assembled an interagency working group and conducted a workshop titled “Key Concepts for Future Quantum Information Science Learners” that focused on identifying core concepts for future curricular and educator activities to help precollege students engage with quantum information science (QIS). Helping precollege students learn these key concepts in QIS is an effective approach to introducing them to the second quantum revolution and inspiring them to become future contributors in the growing field of quantum information science and technology as leaders in areas related to quantum computing, communication, and sensing. This paper is a call to precollege educators to contemplate including QIS concepts into their existing courses at appropriate levels and get involved in the development of curricular materials suitable for their students. Also, research shows that compare-and-contrast activities can provide an effective approach to helping students learn. Therefore, we illustrate a pedagogical approach that contrasts the classical and quantum concepts so that educators can adapt them for their students in their lesson plans to help them learn the differences between key concepts in quantum and classical contexts.

Education & Educational Research↗
DOE OSTI2024

PCAST: Report to the President on Improving Groundwater Security in the United States

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) is the sole body of advisors from outside the federal government charged with making science, technology, and innovation policy recommendations to the President and the White House. Established by Executive Order, it is an independent Federal Advisory Committee comprised of distinguished individuals from industry, academia, and non-profit organizations with a range of perspectives and expertise. On December 14, 2024, PCAST sent a report to the President with recommendations to enhance groundwater stewardship and resilience.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

PCAST: Report to the President Review of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) is the sole body of advisors from outside the federal government charged with making science, technology, and innovation policy recommendations to the President and the White House. Established by Executive Order, it is an independent Federal Advisory Committee comprised of distinguished individuals from industry, academia, and non-profit organizations with a range of perspectives and expertise. On December 5, 2024, PCAST sent a report to the President with recommendations to strengthen and improve the NITRD program and its activities to provide an even greater positive impact for the Nation.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Editorial: Achieving Water-Energy-Food Nexus Sustainability: A Science and Data Need or a Need for Integrated Public Policy?

The benefits of addressing the water, energy, and food sectors in an integrated manner is gaining significant recognition. An integrated approach can provide improved resource use efficiencies, more coherent environmental policies, and an overall strategy for achieving sustainability in the three sectors, as outlined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2 (Food), 6 (Water), and 7 (Energy). Societies are concerned with ensuring food security, avoiding wars over water, and creating opportunity by ensuring access to energy. To be effective, however, this approach needs to be adopted at all levels of societies including government, private and civil society and reinforced by management and planning methods. This special issue identifies different approaches that are either being conceptualized or tested to support the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus approach. The articles contribute to answering the question, “Is achieving Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus Sustainability a science and data need or an integrated public policy need?” In either case, both natural and social sciences will need to combine to support science issues or integrated policy issues. The papers explore the ways in which science, data, and policy development could help to define integrative principles and policies for the three sectors. This approach could expand beyond the water, energy, and food sectors to include health, environment, trade, commerce, and international assistance thereby providing broad support to the SDGs. Moreover, this issue demonstrates that data combined with new technologies (tools and models) can support better decision-making when adopted by governments and the sectors.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2020

The role of peer review and science for advancing public understanding

We live in a time of rapid change. The Covid-19 pandemic has united the world to understand and develop solutions to protect the health and wellbeing of society. At the same time, access to information on the internet and social media has exploded. People are exposed to information with many claims. Some of the information is relevant and accurate. A significant fraction may be inaccurate, biased, and potentially dangerous. With Covid-19, the information might point to cures that are toxic or risks that are not relevant. The scientific community has developed a process to develop and convey knowledge. The validation of results and their interpretation is critical to advancing knowledge. The core of the scientific process is based on developing a hypothesis-driven concept, designing and executing an experimental approach to prove or disprove the hypothesis, conducting a statistical analysis of the results to confirm their validity, and interpreting their meaning and impact. When their work is completed the scientist prepares to publish the work. Publication requires peer review. Hypotheses, experimental approaches, results, and interpretation of results are independently and anonymously reviewed by a scientific peer. The reviewers are selected based on their expertise in the field. The peer review process is essential for the integrity of the scientific process. Without a robust scientific process, society cannot discriminate between validated results and interpretations and biased, inaccurate, and potentially dangerous conjecture. With inaccurate science society and policy makers may make poor decisions that could hurt people and the world around them. While scientists should not censor information available to the public, scientists have a responsibility to inform the public. We must articulate what the scientific process is and why it is essential when considering the validity of information. Scientist are responsible for pointing out when public information has not been vetted through a scientific process and therefore cannot be considered conclusive. Scientists are responsible for highlighting information that has been generated and vetted with the scientific process. Over time, our goal is for the public to value the scientific process based on peer review. The public could become enlightened to the necessity for peer review to support decisions and action. Scientists need to contribute to advancing public knowledge. When invited to serve as a peer reviewer, scientists have a responsibility to contribute to the process. We all are extremely busy making peer review a distraction. While peer review does not directly benefit our own work and career, it benefits our chosen field of science. This is very important for the research area that our journal, Water-Energy Nexus, is focusing on. We cover the convergence of science and technology integrating across large spatial ranges (micro to global) in environmental pollution and the balance of remediation issues with energy use. Water-Energy Nexus wants to provide scientists with a platform for scientific debate and discussion on this rich and complicated topic. With the manuscripts submitted to WEN cover integrated research topics across a broad range of subjects from environment sciences through energy engineering, the role of peer review is essential. Peer review on a new submission to WEN should not be biased towards a specific science field. It should be done considering the complex nature of issues in the water-energy nexus. Scientists need to contribute to the public dialog. To accomplish these goals, we need to be honest, accurate, articulate, and use understandable language. The impact of WEN is very diverse affecting society in many ways. The scientific audience for WEN is diverse and readers may not fully understand the content of the papers outside their research expertise. Therefore, scientists, especially those who want to contribute to WEN, should work with communications specialists to convey message to benefit society. The audience includes the general public and researchers outside the author’s core specialty. While the peer-reviewed journal article is the cornerstone of our careers and critical for advancing scientific knowledge, a general interest story could benefit society even more. The author cannot lose sight that our work has two audiences, the science community, and more importantly, our family, friends, neighbors, and policy makers.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Sunsetting coal power in China

Reducing CO 2 emissions from coal-fired electricity generation in China is critical to limit global warming. Long-term projections of China's electricity supply tend to assume that coal generation will be a mainstay of China's electricity system through 2050, due to limitations in the scalability of hydropower, nuclear, and natural gas generation and the commercial availability of carbon capture and storage. This paper examines the resource, economic, and institutional implications of reducing and replacing coal generation in China with mostly renewable energy and energy storage by 2040. We find that the scale of solar, wind, and storage resources needed to do so is on the order of 100–150 GW/year of solar and wind capacity and 15 GW/year of energy storage from 2020 to 2025, growing to 250 GW/year and 90 GW/year, respectively, from 2025 to 2040. We then also evaluate the sensitivities if coal plants are retired by 2050.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2024

2023 Southeast Decarbonization Workshop

Decarbonization refers to a large-scale shift away from fossil fuel sources for energy production and toward energy sources, energy end-use practices, and land management approaches that do not result in a net increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Decarbonization in the Southeastern United States is distinguished from that of other regions in the country by its potential impact on historically underserved populations and the ways this region’s human–environmental systems are predicted to fare in a climate-altered world. In parallel, ensuring a clean energy transition requires the ability to engage entire communities that are motivated to learn, build, and encourage the spread of so-called clean tech. In contrast to other technology trends from the past century, the foundation of clean tech is a shared sense of purpose—a collective strategy to mitigate the threats of climate change and support a better environment for everyone. As seen in the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s (OSTP’s) Net-Zero Technology Action Plan (2023), decarbonization is best accelerated by simultaneous investments in Innovation, Demonstration, and Deployment of technology in tandem with intentional policy and community-based solutions. The 2023 Southeast Decarbonization Workshop, hosted by the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), aimed to bring together members of our communities and a group of regional experts to strategize about opportunities in this important area, as well as to incorporate the important pillar of System Interactions to bridge the gap between clean tech’s intent and its impact.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

University Data Management Pilot Utilizing the Nuclear Research Data System

Background In 2022, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memo that significantly reshaped the landscape of access to federally funded research. The memo mandated that all taxpayer-funded research be made available to the public without delay upon publication, without an embargo period, superseding the 2013 OSTP public access policy. This public access policy promotes transparency and the democratization of knowledge, ensuring that the fruits of scientific endeavors funded by federal agencies could be immediately accessed and built upon by scientists, educators, students, and the public at large. To implement the requirements of the OSTP guidance and DOE Public Access Plan, the Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) has implemented public access plan guidance and has identified several areas where better data management practices would further expand public access to important nuclear energy related scientific data, reports, and other technical products. Significant NE supported efforts are already underway for data management and public access to important nuclear energy related data.1 2 To address gaps in data management practices, and improve retention and accessibility of data, NE is actively exploring enhanced data management options utilizing its high-performance computing resources administered by its Nuclear Scientific User Facility Program. A newly piloted system, the Nuclear Research Data System (NRDS) acts as a portal for data collection and dissemination. Nuclear Energy University Program Research and Development Portfolio According to Web of Science, NEUP has produced 2,345 journal publication that have been cited more than 61,000 times3 and countless conference proceedings. These publications are publicly available through OSTI.gov and in the open literature. Additional scientific and technical products including project milestones that are not publications and NEUP project final reports are vetted through OSTI.gov and released once reviewed and approved by DOE. Since 2009, NEUP has awarded close to 1,000 different R&D projects in technical areas across the NE research programs. As of June 2023, 512 NEUP reports are publicly available on OSTI. The underlying data for projects is still held at universities, and data transfer, co-location, and dissemination has not occurred in a systematic way. NEUP data is currently accessible through myriad university-based data repositories, or through direct requests to PIs. The program identified this patchwork of repositories, or often lack of publicly available data, as a significant barrier to an organized, accessible, and comprehensive solution to sharing data with the larger nuclear energy community. Approach The goal of this pilot project is to establish a pathway to a consolidated long-term repository for NEUP project data. To accomplish this goal, the pilot strives to accomplish the following objectives: Establish data collection standards, including a standard set of required supplementary information to contextualize and support raw data files. Work with the HPC group collect and upload information and to modify the NRDS system, as needed, to support a standardized approach. Resolve potential barriers to successful roll out of an expanded data collection strategy, including modifying data management plan guidelines and establishing a document and data release process that accounts for potential intellectual property and/or export control concerns. Results Overall, the pilot was successful in collecting 8,982 raw and processes data files, 220 reports, 56 calibration files, and 5,931 other supplementary documents. Supplementary documents included experimental plans, methods, journal publications and conference proceedings, milestone reports, and final reports. Figure 2 shows the number of data sets and supplementary project information provided by each project. Projects has significantly different input, depending on experimental data produced and completeness of the datasets provided.

Data collection↗
DOE OSTI2020

Bioenergy Technologies in Long-Run Climate Change Mitigation: Results from the EMF-33 Study

Bioenergy is expected to play an important role in long-run climate change mitigation strategies as highlighted by many integrated assessment model (IAM) scenarios. These scenarios, however, also show a very wide range of results, with uncertainty about bioenergy conversion technology deployment and biomass feedstock supply. To date, the underlying differences in model assumptions and parameters for the range of results have not been conveyed. Here we explore the models and results of the 33rd study of the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum to elucidate and explore bioenergy technology specifications and constraints that underlie projected bioenergy outcomes. We first develop and report consistent bioenergy technology characterizations and modeling details. We evaluate the bioenergy technology specifications through a series of analyses—comparison with the literature, model intercomparison, and an assessment of bioenergy technology projected deployments. We find that bioenergy technology coverage and characterization varies substantially across models, spanning different conversion routes, carbon capture and storage opportunities, and technology deployment constraints. Still, the range of technology specification assumptions is largely in line with bottom-up engineering estimates. We then find that variation in bioenergy deployment across models cannot be understood from technology costs alone. Important additional determinants include biomass feedstock costs, the availability and costs of alternative mitigation options in and across end-uses, the availability of carbon dioxide removal possibilities, the speed with which large scale changes in the makeup of energy conversion facilities and integration can take place, and the relative demand for different energy services.

bioenergy↗
DOE OSTI2021

Intervening alcohol marketing to reduce harmful alcohol use and lessons learned from the theory of changes: Case studies in Thailand

Objectives Globally, the burden of disease caused by alcohol use has been steadily increasing, including in Thailand. In this study, we aim to test the effectiveness of Anderson et al.‘s suggested three approaches to change the collective social norms, which comprise of: (1) providing information and an understanding about alcohol use behaviour, its causes and distribution; (2) focusing strategies on groups rather than individuals; and (3) strengthening supportive laws, regulations and approaches. Study design We employed a mixed-methods approach. Evidence was gathered from literature review and in-depth interviews with key individuals who are responsible for community-based interventions to alcohol marketing strategies in Thailand. Methods We chose to focus on two case studies in Nan and Surin provinces, where hospital-based longitudinal data (8 years) were available. Changes in casualties related to the harmful use of alcohol, resulting from interactions between community-based interventions and alcohol marketing during the time of annual festivals were investigated. We employed the theory of change (ToC) defined by Vogel to guide the data collection and analysis. We reviewed literature from online databases and grey literature to generate causal-loop diagrams. Results We created a causal-loop diagram to describe the complexity of harmful alcohol use, its related factors, context, interventions and outcomes. Over the decade between 2006 and 2015, community-based strategies led to a substantial reduction of casualties (initially a 50% reduction, rising to an 80–90% reduction by the end of the study period) during the time of the festivals. Conclusions The reduction in injuries and fatalities could be a result of the concerted actions, including legal sanctions of alcohol beverage sales and advertisement, and public education to raise awareness and impart knowledge of the harmful use of alcohol. The actions were organised by a coalition of civil society, health professionals, public authorities and community leaders using hospital-based data on the adverse effects of harmful alcohol use to mobilise political support at the provincial level. The availability of long-term financial support as a catalytic source of funds and the presence of a comprehensive alcohol control act enabled framing and mobilisation of local resources and political support.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

The Science of Scientific Software Development and Use

Increasingly powerful and affordable computing has revolutionized scientific and scholarly discovery across a broad range of fields. Computing relies on software, which has been rapidly growing in scope, diversity, and complexity. At the same time, the methods, processes, and tools used to produce and utilize this essential software are often ad hoc, and the study and improvement of them is often done without the benefit of direct funding or prioritization. Consequently, concerns are growing about the productivity of the developers and users of scientific software, its sustainability, and the trustworthiness of the results that it produces. The US Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC) is at the forefront of modern software-enabled scientific discovery across numerous areas of computational, experimental, and observational science, including major investments in national user facilities that support these activities. In December 2021, the DOE-SC Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) convened a workshop on basic research needs for the Science of Scientific Software Development and Use (SSSDU). Through keynote presentations, lightning talks, and breakout groups, participants discussed the current practice of software development, maintenance, evolution, and use, and considered how the scientific method could be used to examine these practices and develop more evidence-based approaches to enhance the impact of software and computing on all areas of science. Workshop participants identified three priority research directions (PRDs) and three important crosscutting themes that center on the following overarching insight: software has become an essential part of modern science that impacts new discovery, policy, and technological development. To have full confidence in science delivered via software, we must improve the processes and tools that help us create and use it, and this enhancement requires a deep understanding of the diverse array of teams and individuals doing the work. The full workshop report will be available at https://doi.org/10.2172/1846009.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Report to the President: Extreme Weather Rik in a Changing Climate: Enhancing prediction and protecting communities

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) is the sole body of advisors from outside the federal government charged with making science, technology, and innovation policy recommendations to the President and the White House. Established by Executive Order, it is an independent Federal Advisory Committee comprised of distinguished individuals from industry, academia, and non-profit organizations with a range of perspectives and expertise. On April 24, 2023, PCAST sent a report to the President with recommendations on how science and technology can help inform and empower communities, businesses, and government agencies to prepare, respond, and adapt to extreme weather.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Tree-level carbon stock estimations across diverse species using multi-source remote sensing integration

Forests are critical carbon sinks, and remote sensing has been increasingly widely used for forest monitoring and biomass estimations. However, species-specific tree-level studies remain limited. In this study, we demonstrated the feasibility of integrating UAV-based LiDAR with high-resolution optical satellite imagery (0.5 m) to estimate biomass for individual trees across different species. The proposed method accurately estimated biomass for 53 trees (R² = 0.82, rRMSE = 0.44), with species-specific datasets, showing an average 25.2% increase in R² and a 14.8% reduction in rRMSE. A novel vegetation index combining forest structure parameters with vegetation indices (VIs) was developed using high-resolution multispectral satellite data (3 m) to explore its relationship with individual tree biomass. Combining forest structural parameters with VIs further improved estimation accuracy, achieving an R²of 0.89 and an rRMSE of 0.34. Species-specific datasets show an 11.6% increase in R²compared to methods without VIs, and a 22.2% improvement over methods using only VIs. SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) analysis shows that the volume feature played a key role in model performance and remained stable throughout the training process. Altogether, the proposed approach enhances individual tree biomass and carbon sink estimations, showing great potential for large-scale precise forest carbon monitoring using multi-source remote sensing data.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

PCAST: Joint Statement to Leaders from the United States' President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and United Kingdom's Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) is the sole body of advisors from outside the federal government charged with making science, technology, and innovation policy recommendations to the President and the White House. Established by Executive Order, it is an independent Federal Advisory Committee comprised of distinguished individuals from industry, academia, and non-profit organizations with a range of perspectives and expertise. On March 14, 2024, PCAST and the UK Council for Science and Technology sent a joint letter to President Biden and Prime Minister Sunak outlining shared priorities for ongoing collaboration and the sharing of expertise between the two Councils.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2024

PCAST: Letter to the President on Expanding STEM Talent in the Federal Workforce

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) is the sole body of advisors from outside the federal government charged with making science, technology, and innovation policy recommendations to the President and the White House. Established by Executive Order, it is an independent Federal Advisory Committee comprised of distinguished individuals from industry, academia, and non-profit organizations with a range of perspectives and expertise. On October 23, 2024, PCAST sent a letter to the President with recommendations to strengthen the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce in the federal government.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2024

PCAST: Report to the President on a Vision for Advancing Nutrition Science in the United States

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) is the sole body of advisors from outside the federal government charged with making science, technology, and innovation policy recommendations to the President and the White House. Established by Executive Order, it is an independent Federal Advisory Committee comprised of distinguished individuals from industry, academia, and non-profit organizations with a range of perspectives and expertise. On September 20, 2024, PCAST sent a report to the President with recommendations to advance nutrition science and to enable equitable access to the benefits of nutrition research.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

PCAST: Letter to the President on Future Opportunities for Science and Technology to Impact the Nation

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) is the sole body of advisors from outside the federal government charged with making science, technology, and innovation policy recommendations to the President and the White House. Established by Executive Order, it is an independent Federal Advisory Committee comprised of distinguished individuals from industry, academia, and non-profit organizations with a range of perspectives and expertise. On January 15, 2025, PCAST sent a letter to the President on the crucial role that science and technology plays in empowering our nation.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗