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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Accelerating Ocean-Based Renewable Energy Educational Opportunities to Achieve a Clean Energy Future

The United Nations has named 2021–2030 the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development with goals to 'strengthen the international cooperation needed to develop the scientific research and innovative technologies that can connect ocean science with the needs of society' (IOC 2019 The science we need for the ocean we want: the United Nations decade of ocean science for sustainable development (2021–2030) (Paris) p 24). Important actions that have been identified in support of sustainable development goals include capacity-building, training, and education. This includes educational opportunities for ocean-based renewable energy development in support of a healthy planet and ocean. Offshore wind is experiencing rapid development globally and, while the U.S. offshore wind market is still nascent, it is on the brink of exponential growth based on large cost reductions driven largely by European development and technology advances. Growth is also expected in wave and tidal energy with significant opportunities identified for various distributed markets through the Powering the Blue Economy™ initiative, with longer-term implications for expansion at the utility scale (LiVecchi et al 2019 Powering the blue economy; exploring opportunities for marine renewable energy in maritime markets p 207). In order to expedite progress and maximize benefits to the national, state, and local economies, these development actions will require a broad, diverse, and appropriately trained workforce. The ocean-based renewable energy workforce needs engineers and scientists to develop cost-effective technologies, as well as trade and maritime workers to eventually deploy the technologies at scale. In the United States, educational institutions, state governments, and private developers are taking action to understand job skills and capability requirements and to develop educational and training programs to meet offshore workforce needs; most are focused on offshore wind power, with gaining interest in marine energy. This article explores the workforce requirements of the growing ocean-based renewable energy industry and the current state of education and training programs to meet those requirements in order to identify gaps and make recommendations for further workforce development activities and initiatives. An international view needs to be adopted that incorporates the education and skill needs of early-stage marine energy technologies and evolving offshore wind technologies together with more market-ready offshore renewable energy markets. By accelerating educational development opportunities in ocean-based renewable energy, these growing blue economy markets can deliver significant economic and social benefits.

50 EE - Wind and Water Power Program - Water (EE-4↗
NASA NTRS2018

Public Engagement of Earth Science and Art Using Astronaut Photography

For over fifty years of crewed spaceflight missions, NASA astronauts have taken remarkable photographs of the Earth that offer various perspectives for viewing dynamic Earth processes. The International Space Station (ISS) today provides a unique platform to view and capture imagery of Earth at a variety of viewing angles, seasons, and times of day. Astronaut photos comprise a variable true-color (RGB - Red Green Blue) dataset taken with multiple handheld digital (and historically, film) cameras and lens types that differ from nadir-looking satellite-based remote sensing instruments with fixed temporal and spatial resolutions. The Crew Earth Observations (CEO) Facility within the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA’s Johnson Space Center supports the acquisition, analysis, and curation of astronaut photography of Earth’s surface and atmosphere. CEO’s website, the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (eol.jsc.nasa.gov), provides free public access to view, search, and download over three million images taken by astronauts from Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions to current ISS missions. Handheld images taken by astronauts from the ISS are used for scientific research and public engagement in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields, particularly earth science. While segments of the public are actively interested in STEM fields, there may be groups who are underexposed to and disinterested in earth science or are unaware of astronaut photography from the ISS. A broader public audience can be introduced to earth science, STEM fields, and ISS research through artistic or abstract photos of the Earth. Wide angle pictures taken of Earth have identifiable landforms and bodies of water, however zoomed in, very high resolution photos without obvious geographic reference can attract new viewing audiences on a purely aesthetic basis. The CEO Facility actively curates a collection of exceptional astronaut photos of Earth as art used to reach a wider population through increased digital products and outreach events. This continuously-updated collection feeds development of freely accessible and high-quality downloadable materials including scientific articles, videos, computer wallpapers, and social media content. These materials are presented with science-based information that augments the artistic qualities of the imagery, and facilitate connection between art-engaged or non-STEM audiences to the ISS research platform and the need for future innovative STEM research.

Meado, Andrea L.↗
DOE OSTI2023

S4PST: Sustainability for Programming Systems and Tools: May Workshop Report

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Exascale Computing Project (ECP) has fostered and strengthened the use of modern software engineering practices for developing applications and libraries, and this effort has resulted in the coordinated and interoperable E4S1 and xSDK2 ecosystems. Although this approach is cost-effective, it relies on robust programming systems and tools (PST) as the underlying foundation for our HPC software. At present, our primary PST stack consists of traditional high-performance computing (HPC) languages, namely Fortran, C, C++, and the popular Python language for data analysis and AI workflows. These languages support various programming frameworks and run-time abstractions that enable parallelism and concurrency across multiple node architectures and thousands of nodes through a variety of interconnect systems. However, to accommodate users’ diverse needs, certain aspects of the HPC ecosystem are delegated to vendor-specific or third-party implementations that extend beyond a particular scientific domain. This broader scope results in a multitude of specifications and variations, which leads to a complex orchestration of many-ecosystems. Unfortunately, this complexity in the ecosystem imposes additional overhead costs on consumers during the latter stages of the development cycle. In addition to the software ecosystem challenge, the upcoming conclusion of the ECP by December 2023 has raised significant concerns within the HPC programming systems community, from both the economic and social perspectives. The ECP has implemented a management structure for software development and funding decisions across all ECP participants by following a conventional hierarchical and centralized approach. However, this structure has prompted certain considerations within the community, particularly in anticipation of the Software Sustainability initiative by the DOE’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research Program (ASCR). For the success of this new initiative, it is of utmost importance to secure consistent funding and foster close engagement with researchers and core developers of existing programming-system products. This collaboration is vital to maintaining the critical capabilities of the current software during the transition phase while proactively adapting to future technology and workforce trends. The community recognizes the significance of adapting to emerging trends and is aware of the inherent fragility of the HPC software ecosystem, particularly in relation to programming systems that cater to all users. The ability to adapt and evolve is essential to staying relevant and effectively addressing these technical, economic, and social challenges. The S4PST team, which represents one of the six ASCR Software Sustainability seedling projects, is dedicated to tackling these challenges through community-based approaches that go beyond the scope of the DOE. This involves collaboration between national laboratories with academia, non-DOE institutions, hardware and system vendors, and international partners. By fostering these partnerships, we aim to create a robust and sustainable HPC software ecosystem that can effectively meet the needs of the community. This new community effort, driven by the eight DOE labs, will take on the responsibility of guiding funding decisions for programming-systems development and maintenance with transparency and consistency across all decisions. Additionally, the team will offer common technical services to the programming systems community, irrespective of their funding situations, and facilitate community-wide incubation to proactively nurture the software ecosystem. By actively engaging with stakeholders and employing a collaborative approach, we can collectively shape the future of programming systems and ensure a robust and thriving HPC software landscape. On May 11–12, 2023, the S4PST team conducted its inaugural kick-off workshop at the Innovative Computing Laboratory (ICL) in the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, hosted by Hartwig Anzt. The workshop encompassed various sessions dedicated to presentations and discussions, with the aim of comprehending the team members’ perspectives on the vision of software sustainability. Additionally, the workshop aimed to identify the technical, economic, and social requirements for sustaining the programming-systems community in the field of HPC. This report provides a summary of the S4PST effort by highlighting five major thrust areas discussed during the workshop: (i) community, (ii) technical support, (iii) training and diversity, (iv) verification, validation and correctness, and (v) emerging technologies. It also encompasses an overview of the presentations and discussions held throughout the event, our views and potential synergies with other seedling efforts, along with the outcomes and key takeaways from our initial discussions.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Observation of a Cold Air Outbreak using CrIS on S-NPP and its Comparison with MERRA-2 and ERA-5

A cold air outbreak (CAO) is an extreme weather phenomenon that has significant social and economic impacts over a large region of the midlatitudes. However, the dynamical mechanism governing the occurrence and evolution of CAO events, particularly the role of the stratosphere, is not well understood. Through an analysis of one extreme CAO episode that occurred on 27-31 January 2019 across much of the US Midwest, this presentation examines the thermodynamic structure and impact of stratospheric downward transport using single-field-view (SFOV) satellite products (with a spatial resolution of ~14 km at nadir) from the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) onboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) satellite in conjunction with MERRA-2 and ERA5 reanalysis products. The results show that along the path of cold air transport, particularly near the coldest surface center, there exists a large enhancement of O 3 , deep tropopause folding, and significant downward transport of stratospheric dry air, and a warm center above the tropopause that can be observed directly using the brightness temperature (BT) observations from CrIS stratospheric sounding channels. This study provides some observational evidences from CrIS that confirm the impact of stratosphere on CAO through downward transport, and demonstrates the value of the SFOV retrieval products for CAO dynamic transport study and model evaluation.

Xiaozhen Xiong↗
DOE OSTI2022

Ecological information and approaches needed for risk communication dialogs for acute or chronic environmental crises

Scientists, social scientists, risk communicators, and many others are often thrust into a crisis situation where they need to interact with a range of stakeholders, including governmental personnel (tribal, U.S. federal, state, local), local residents, and other publics, as well as other scientists and other risk communicators in situations where information is incomplete and evolving. This paper provides: (1) an overall framework for thinking about communication during crises, from acute to chronic, and local to widespread, (2) a template for the types of ecological information needed to address public and environmental concerns, and (3) examples to illustrate how this information will aid risk communicators. The main goal is providing an approach to the knowledge needed by communicators to address the challenges of protecting ecological resources during an environmental crisis, or for an on-going, chronic environmental issue. To understand the risk to these ecological resources, it is important to identify the type of event, whether it is acute or chronic (or some combination of these), what receptors are at risk, and what stressors are involved (natural, biological, chemical, radiological). For ecological resources, the key information a communicator needs for a crisis is whether any of the following are present: threatened or endangered species, species of special concern, species groups of concern (e.g., neotropical bird migrants, breeding frogs in vernal ponds, rare plant assemblages), unique or rare habitats, species of commercial and recreational interest, and species/habitats of especial interest for medicinal, cultural, or religious activities. Communication among stakeholders is complicated with respect to risk to ecological receptors because of differences in trust, credibility, empathy, perceptions, world view valuation of the resources, and in many cases, a history of misinformation, disinformation, or no information. Exposure of salmon spawning in the Columbia River to hexavalent chromium from the Hanford Site is used as an example of communication challenges with different stakeholders, including Native Americans with Tribal Treaty rights to the land.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1978

Air cargo: An Integrated Systems View. 1978 Summer Faculty Fellowship Program in Engineering Systems Design

The national air cargo system is analyzed and how it should be in 1990 is prescribed in order to operate successfully through 2015; that is through one equipment cycle. Elements of the system which are largely under control of the airlines and the aircraft manufacturers are discussed. The discussion deals with aircraft, networks, facilities, and procedures. The regulations which govern the movement of air freight are considered. The larger public policy interests which must be served by the kind of system proposed, the air cargo integrated system (ACIS), are addressed. The possible social, economical, political, and environment impacts of the system are considered. Recommendations are also given.

Keaton, A.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Utilization of remote sensing data - The sociological perspective

Remote sensing provides an opportunity to study the ways in which new sources of data enter into decisions related to resource management, the conditions and criteria for acceptance of the new techniques, and the methods by which assessment of their utility is accomplished. This article underscores the social dimensions of technology utilization and assessment, with reliability, specificity, ease of access, and openness among the main desiderata. The point is made that the interface between the technology and the society it is designed to serve is crucial, for upon its nature depend how, whether, when, and by whom the technology will be utilized. The present reliance on quantitative techniques, such as benefit-cost analyses, is reviewed from a sociological view point, and the inadequacy of these techniques is pointed out.

Hoos, I. R.↗
DOE OSTI2023

People are like plutonium

An analogy is drawn between the study of human behavior and the study of plutonium to demonstrate that soft and hard sciences are more similar than different, making the distinction moot and unproductive. The studies of human behavior and plutonium follow a common scientific research cycle that aligns with Thomas Kuhn’s views of scientific change. This common research cycle provides evidence that the thought processes and methodologies required for success are congruent in the soft and hard sciences. The primary implication from this analogy is that scientists in all disciplines should eradicate the distinction between soft and hard sciences. Focusing on similarities rather than differences among researchers from different disciplines is necessary to enhance collective intelligence and the type of transdisciplinary collaboration required to tackle difficult sociotechnical problems. CCS Concepts: • Social and professional topics • User characteristics • Cultural characteristics.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Assessing the technical aspects of ocean-alkalinity-enhancement approaches

Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) is an emerging strategy that aims to mitigate climate change by increasing the alkalinity of seawater. This approach involves increasing the alkalinity of the ocean to enhance its capacity to absorb and store carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) from the atmosphere. This chapter presents an overview of the technical aspects associated with the full range of OAE methods being pursued and discusses implications for undertaking research on these approaches. Various methods have been developed to implement OAE, including the direct injection of alkaline liquid into the surface ocean; dispersal of alkaline particles from ships, platforms, or pipes; the addition of minerals to coastal environments; and the electrochemical removal of acid from seawater. Each method has its advantages and challenges, such as scalability, cost effectiveness, and potential environmental impacts. The choice of technique may depend on factors such as regional oceanographic conditions, alkalinity source availability, and engineering feasibility. This chapter considers electrochemical methods, the accelerated weathering of limestone, ocean liming, the creation of hydrated carbonates, and the addition of minerals to coastal environments. In each case, the technical aspects of the technologies are considered, and implications for best-practice research are drawn. The environmental and social impacts of OAE will likely depend on the specific technology and the local context in which it is deployed. Therefore, it is essential that the technical feasibility of OAE is undertaken in parallel with, and informed by, wider impact assessments. While OAE shows promise as a potential climate change mitigation strategy, it is essential to acknowledge its limitations and uncertainties. Further research and development are needed to understand the long-term effects, optimize techniques, and address potential unintended consequences. OAE should be viewed as complementary to extensive emission reductions, and its feasibility may be improved if it is operated using energy and supply chains with minimal CO 2 emissions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2017

Mining Twitter Data to Augment NASA GPM Validation

The Twitter data stream is an important new source of real-time and historical global information for potentially augmenting the validation program of NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. There have been other similar uses of Twitter, though mostly related to natural hazards monitoring and management. The validation of satellite precipitation estimates is challenging, because many regions lack data or access to data, especially outside of the U.S. and in remote and developing areas. The time-varying set of "precipitation" tweets can be thought of as an organic network of rain gauges, potentially providing a widespread view of precipitation occurrence. Twitter provides a large source of crowd for crowdsourcing. During a 24-hour period in the middle of the snow storm this past March in the U.S. Northeast, we collected more than 13,000 relevant precipitation tweets with exact geolocation. The overall objective of our project is to determine the extent to which processed tweets can provide additional information that improves the validation of GPM data. Though our current effort focuses on tweets and precipitation, our approach is general and applicable to other social media and other geophysical measurements. Specifically, we have developed an operational infrastructure for processing tweets, in a format suitable for analysis with GPM data; engaged with potential participants, both passive and active, to "enrich" the Twitter stream; and inter-compared "precipitation" tweet data, ground station data, and GPM retrievals. In this presentation, we detail the technical capabilities of our tweet processing infrastructure, including data abstraction, feature extraction, search engine, context-awareness, real-time processing, and high volume (big) data processing; various means for "enriching" the Twitter stream; and results of inter-comparisons. Our project should bring a new kind of visibility to Twitter and engender a new kind of appreciation of the value of Twitter by the science research communities.

validatio↗
DOE OSTI2020

A Sparse Tensor Benchmark Suite for CPUs and GPUs

Tensor computations present significant performance chal- lenges that impact a wide spectrum of applications ranging from machine learning, healthcare analytics, social network analysis, data mining to quantum chemistry and signal processing. Efforts to improve the perfor- mance of tensor computations include exploring data layout, execution scheduling, and parallelism in common tensor kernels. This work presents a benchmark suite for arbitrary-order sparse tensor kernels using state- of-the-art tensor formats: coordinate (COO) and hierarchical coordinate (HiCOO) on CPUs and GPUs. It presents a set of reference tensor kernel implementations that are compatible with real-world tensors and power law tensors extended from synthetic graph generation techniques. We also propose Roofline performance models for these kernels to provide insights of computer platforms from sparse tensor view. This benchmark suite along with the synthetic tensor generator is publicly available.

Li, Jiajia↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A Worldwide Celebration: International Observe the Moon Night

International Observe the Moon Night is a worldwide public engagement program that has been held annually since 2010. Every autumn, we ask people to observe the Moon in whatever way makes sense to them (via binoculars, telescopes, unaided eye, images, artwork, songs, stories, etc.). The event occurs when the Moon is in or near a first-quarter phase, which provides excellent viewing opportunities along the terminator (the line between night and day), as long shadows place lunar features into great relief. Hundreds of thousands of individuals all around the globe participate in the event as a collective whole, learning about lunar science and exploration, taking part in celestial observations, and honoring cultural and personal connections to the Moon. People participate in a variety of ways, including hosting or attending virtual or in-person events and observing the Moon from home. Participants also have the opportunity to connect with other lunar observers around the world through our Facebook page (facebook.com/observethemoon/), our Flickr group for images (flickr.com/groups/observethemoon2021/), and through the hashtag #ObserveTheMoon across social media platforms.

S L Tiedeken↗
DOE OSTI2020

Quantifying Graph Uncertainty from Communication Data

Graphs are a widely used abstraction for representing a variety of important real-world problems including emulating cyber networks for situational awareness, or studying social networks to understand human interactions or pandemic spread. Communication data is often converted into graphs to help understand social and technical patterns in the underlying communication data. However, prior to this project, little work had been performed analyzing how best to develop graphs from such data. Thus, many critical, national security problems were being performed against graph representations of questionable quality. Herein, we describe our analyses that were precursors to our final statistically grounded technique for creating static graph snapshots from a stream of communication events. The first analyzes the statistical distribution properties of a variety of real-world communication datasets generally fit best by Pareto, log normal, and extreme value distributions. The second derives graph properties that can be estimated given the expected statistical distribution for communication events and the communication interval to be viewed node observability, edge observability, and expected accuracy of node degree. Unfortunately, as that final process is under review for publication, we can't publish it here at this time.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS2003

Envisioning a 21st Century, National, Spacecraft Servicing and Protection Infrastructure and Demand Potential: A Logical Development of the Earth Orbit Economy

The modern world is extremely dependent on thin strings of several hundred civil, military, and commercial spacecraft/satellites currently stationed in space. They provide a steady stream of commerce, defense, and knowledge data. This dependency will in all likelihood increase significantly during this century. A major disruption of any kind in these essential systems and networks could be socially, economically, and politically catastrophic, on a global scale. The development of a space-based, robotic services economy could be useful in mitigating this growing risk, from an efficiency and security standpoint. This paper attempts to suggest what makes sense to invest in next for the logical, economic development of Earth orbit i.e., after ISS completion. It expands on the results of an advanced market research and analysis study that sampled the opinions of several satellite industry executives and presents these results within a broad policy context. The concept of a spacecraft carrier that serves as the nucleus of a national, space-based or on-orbit, robotic services infrastructure is introduced as the next logical step for United States leadership in space. This is viewed as a reasonable and appropriate followon to the development of ELVs and satellites in the 1950s and 1960s, the Space Shuttle/PRLV in the 1970s and 1980s, and the International Space Station (ISS) in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Large-scale experience in LEO-to-GEO spacecraft/satellite servicing and protection by robotic means is assumed to be an indispensable prerequisite or stepping-stone toward the development and preservation of the large scientific exploration facilities that are envisioned by NASA for operation beyond GEO. A balanced, return on national investment (RONI) strategy for space, focused on the provision of enhanced national/homeland security for increased protection, national economic/industrial expansion for increased revenue, and national scientific exploration for increased knowledge is recommended as the next strong, irrepressible goal toward realizing and achieving the official NASA vision and mission.

Horsham, Gary A.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Framework for Processing Citizens Science Data for Applications to NASA Earth Science Missions

Citizen science (or crowdsourcing) has drawn much high-level recent and ongoing interest and support. It is poised to be applied, beyond the by-now fairly familiar use of, e.g., Twitter for natural hazards monitoring, to science research, such as augmenting the validation of NASA earth science mission data. This interest and support is seen in the 2014 National Plan for Civil Earth Observations, the 2015 White House forum on citizen science and crowdsourcing, the ongoing Senate Bill 2013 (Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act of 2015), the recent (August 2016) Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) call for public participation in its newly-established Citizen Science Domain Working Group, and NASA's initiation of a new Citizen Science for Earth Systems Program (along with its first citizen science-focused solicitation for proposals). Over the past several years, we have been exploring the feasibility of extracting from the Twitter data stream useful information for application to NASA precipitation research, with both "passive" and "active" participation by the twitterers. The Twitter database, which recently passed its tenth anniversary, is potentially a rich source of real-time and historical global information for science applications. The time-varying set of "precipitation" tweets can be thought of as an organic network of rain gauges, potentially providing a widespread view of precipitation occurrence. The validation of satellite precipitation estimates is challenging, because many regions lack data or access to data, especially outside of the U.S. and in remote and developing areas. Mining the Twitter stream could augment these validation programs and, potentially, help tune existing algorithms. Our ongoing work, though exploratory, has resulted in key components for processing and managing tweets, including the capabilities to filter the Twitter stream in real time, to extract location information, to filter for exact phrases, and to plot tweet distributions. The key step is to process the "precipitation" tweets to be compatible with satellite-retrieved precipitation data. These key components for processing and managing "precipitation" tweets (and additional ones to be developed) are not limited to precipitation, nor are they limited to the Twitter social medium. Indeed, to maximize the value of our work for NASA earth science programs, these components should be generalized and be part of an overall framework for processing citizen science data for science research. In this paper, we outline such a framework.

earth science satellite data↗
DOE OSTI2022

Ten questions concerning energy flexibility in buildings

Demand side energy flexibility is increasingly being viewed as an essential enabler for the swift transition to a low-carbon energy system that displaces conventional fossil fuels with renewable energy sources while maintaining, if not improving, the operation of the energy system. Building energy flexibility may address several challenges facing energy systems and electricity consumers as society transitions to a low-carbon energy system characterized by distributed and intermittent energy resources. For example, by changing the timing and amount of building energy consumption through advanced building technologies, electricity demand and supply balance can be improved to enable greater integration of variable renewable energy. Although the benefits of utilizing energy flexibility from the built environment are generally recognized, solutions that reflect diversity in building stocks, customer behavior, and market rules and regulations need to be developed for successful implementation. In this paper, we pose and answer ten questions covering technological, social, commercial, and regulatory aspects to enable the utilization of energy flexibility of buildings in practice. In particular, we provide a critical overview of techniques and methods for quantifying and harnessing energy flexibility. We discuss the concepts of resilience and multi-carrier energy systems and their relation to energy flexibility. We argue the importance of balancing stakeholder engagement and technology deployment. Finally, we highlight the crucial roles of standardization, regulation, and policy in advancing the deployment of energy flexible buildings.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS1975

CARETS: A prototype regional environmental information system. Volume 11: Potential usefulness of CARETS data for environmental impact assessment

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 requires that Federal agencies prepare environmental impact statements (EIS) for all proposed actions that significantly affect the quality of the environment. The EIS builds a predictive model of beneficial or adverse changes resulting from an action. Environmental impact statement preparation requires identification of environmental, social, and economic conditions likely to change and also requires prediction of intensity and spatial dimensions of changes. The Central Atlantic Regional Ecological Test Site (CARETS) project has produced land use data that can be of value for such assessment. To ascertain the types of proposed actions requiring EIS's, all EIS's prepared for proposed actions in the test site between January 1970 and June 1974 were reviewed. The actions were divided into seven categories: (1) construction of transportation and communication facilities; (2) construction of power plant, powerline, and fuel line facilities; (3) urban renewal, new town development projects, and multistory building construction; (4) construction of facilities for watershed protection and development;, (5) construction of waste treatment and disposal facilities (6) maintenance dredging, navigation improvements, and beach erosion control and replenishment projects; and (7) establishing or enhancing land and water conservation areas. Examples of actions from each category were selected for more detailed study. In view of the types of projects being proposed, an approach to environmental impact assessment using land use and water data as central inputs was recommended. The viability of such an approach as well as other approaches depends upon the availability of quantitative data such as those produced by the CARETS project.

Environmental impact assessment↗
DOE OSTI2020

EVALUATING NUCLEAR SECURITY IMPLICATIONS OF THE SPLINTERNET

The internet, which for years has been viewed as a global online commons with standardized protocols but few regulations is, according to some experts, starting to mirror the contentious political and commercial contours of the physical world. Contributing to this is the rise in data breaches, cyber-enabled attacks on critical infrastructure, government surveillance operations, theft of intellectual property, manipulation of electoral processes, and perceived erosion of privacy, all of which are resulting in a growing skepticism that an open internet will naturally serve the best interests of users, communities, countries, and the global economy. In addition, the rapidly emerging and increasingly lucrative power of data has global superpowers scrambling to protect their informational sovereignty as an urgent matter of national security. Underscoring this urgency is the fact that, despite its global reach and cosmopolitan contributor base, internet infrastructure and governance of the World Wide Web remain largely under U.S. corporate auspices, which reinforces the perception of U.S. control. Whether fragmentation is politically, economically, or socially motivated, there appears to be a growing appetite for an internet that is partitioned and controlled at the national level. From “the Great Firewall of China” to the “Halal” internet of Iran, the trend towards a “Splinternet” has courts and governments embarking on what some call a "legal arms race" to impose a maze of national or regional rules, often conflicting, in the digital realm. The paper explores the emerging Splinternet phenomenon, analyses the implications of this trend on nuclear security, and identifies questions that present opportunities for future research.

Internet, Data Security, Cyber Security, Nuclear S↗