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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 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Leveraging NREL's ResStock & ComStock Dataset to Evaluate Building Stock Electrification: Preprint

Residential and commercial buildings accounted for 40% of U.S. energy consumption in 2022 and represent a significant opportunity for decarbonization through energy efficiency and electrification, and for grid planning. Building stock energy modeling is a powerful tool that can evaluate what-if scenarios as utilities, municipalities, policymakers, building owners and others work towards equitable building decarbonization and climate goals. This presentation will highlight several high-impact use cases of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)'s highly granular, bottom-up building stock energy modeling tools, ResStock and ComStock. These use cases cover a wide range of project scale, from neighborhood electrification analysis and municipality long-term energy planning, to state energy code development and national policy evaluation. This presentation will showcase specific real-world applications for which ResStock and ComStock have been utilized across the country, including California codes and standards cost-effectiveness analysis, New York City affordable housing electrification cost gap analysis, and California targeted electrification and gas decommissioning analysis. For each use case, this presentation will illustrate how ResStock and ComStock played a crucial role in accurately characterizing regional building stocks, providing discrete and aggregated end-use load shapes, and calculating lifecycle consumption, emissions, and costs for a variety of building electrification strategies and scenarios. Finally, this presentation will demonstrate how the data provided by ResStock and ComStock can help unlock significant outcomes for these use cases, including but not limited to, customer bill impact, incentive and program design, and energy equity analyses.

building stock modeling↗
DOE OSTI2023

Reinventing CEMENT: Carbonation-Enabled Mineralization to Engender Novel Technology

Cement is the most important building material used in civil infrastructure but it is extremely energy intensive to produce. We developed novel ways to make cements at low temperatures by mimicking the chemistry of the calcium silicate mineral pseudowollastonite. Pseudowollastonite is interesting because when it is exposed to hot (90-150oC), alkaline conditions with CO2 and water it reacts to form mineral phases that are much stronger than commercial cements. The resulting phases are also much more resistant to acid attack and have lower permeability, which will make them last longer. Many of the mineral phases in our cements are similar to those that exist in ancient Roman cements that have lasted thousands of years. Our objective was to understand how waste materials from industrial processes (such as power production, municipal solid waste treatment, or power plants) can be used to replicate the conditions that give pseudowollastonite cement its remarkable properties. We worked to optimize our formulations and incorporate the cements into concrete blends that the industry can test and consider using in different applications. Our cements could be used in pre-cast cement structural elements, which makes up nearly 20% of the total cement market and is growing rapidly. This work supports ARPA-E program objectives to significantly improve the industrial efficiency of materials production.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Municipal Adaptation to Changing Curbside Demands: Findings from Semi-Structured Interviews with Ten U.S. Cities

Emerging mobility services (e.g. ride-hailing, e-commerce, micro-mobility, etc.), are generating novel and rapidly growing demands to use curbside space, with potentially large impacts on mobility, energy consumption, and related outcomes. This presents both opportunities and challenges to municipal agencies responsible for managing this interface between the road network and adjacent land uses, as legacy practices require updating. In this study, we employ a semi-structured interviewing approach to establish how municipalities are adapting to these new pressures on their curbside. We interviewed senior staff responsible for curbside policy of ten large U.S. municipalities, with populations ranging from ~250,000 to ~5,000,000 (and the majority of which are the central city of their metropolitan region). We document a trend of organizational restructuring to more formally include curbside management teams, with the majority of interviewees also reporting increased staffing. Respondents reported that operational failures at their curbside (e.g. demand in excess of capacity) have impacts on safety, capacity, and emergency vehicle mobility, with impacts highly concentrated spatially and temporally (e.g. late evenings in nightlife districts). We document a diversity of data flows between ride-hailing operators (e.g. Uber, Lyft) and municipalities, with some cities reporting obtaining types of data that other cities report not receiving, despite requesting such data. Finally, respondents consistently expressed a desire for new data streams and methodologies to help manage the curbside of the future. It is hoped that establishing the state of practice in this rapidly changing context will be of use to practitioners facing similar pressures as those of our interviewees.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2021

National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI) Municipal Sector Technology Roadmap 2021

The National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI) is a research consortium formed to accelerate transformative research in desalination and treatment to lower the cost and energy required to produce clean water from nontraditional water sources and realize a circular water economy. NAWI's goal is to enable the manufacturing of energy-efficient desalination technologies in the United States at a lower cost with the same (or higher) quality and reduced environmental impact for 90 percent of nontraditional water sources within the next 10 years. The nontraditional source waters of interest include brackish water; seawater; produced and extracted water; power, mining, industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste waters. When these desalination and treatment technologies are fully developed and utilized, they will be able to contribute to the water needs for many existing end-use sectors. NAWI has identified five end-use sectors that are critical to the U.S. economy for further exploration: Power, Resource Extraction, Industry, Municipal, and Agriculture (PRIMA). This Municipal Sector roadmap aims to advance desalination and treatment of nontraditional source waters for beneficial use in public water supplies by identifying research and development (R&D) opportunities that help overcome existing treatment challenges. Under NAWI's vision, the transition from a linear to a circular water economy with nontraditional source waters will be achieved by advancing desalination and reuse technologies in six key areas: Autonomous operations, Precision separations, Resilient treatment and transport, Intensified brine management, Modular membrane systems, and Electrified treatment systems, collectively known as the A-PRIME areas. Technological advances in these different areas will enable nontraditional source waters to achieve pipe parity with traditional supplies.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2025

Hydrogen Production from Polyethylene Pyrolysis

Hydrogen is anticipated to play a pivotal role in the future of clean energy and decarbonization efforts, serving as an energy storage medium, a power generation source, and a clean fuel for transportation. While most hydrogen is produced from carbonaceous fossil feedstocks like natural gas, petroleum, and coal, there is growing interest in using refuse-derived fuels such as waste plastics and municipal solid waste (MSW) as alternative feedstocks. Thermochemical processes such as pyrolysis and catalytic cracking can convert nonrecyclable plastics and organic MSW components to produce hydrogen with lower life cycle greenhouse gas emissions when coupled with CO 2 capture. Such approaches not only address waste-management challenges but also reduce methane emissions from landfills. Furthermore, waste feedstocks are low cost and can support meeting demands for hydrogen across various industries. In this work we examined production of hydrogen from high-density polyethylene (HDPE) as a model polymer using pyrolysis. Analytical studies of pyrolysis utilizing gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC/MS) provide insights into conversion pathways for plastic waste, potentially reducing the environmental footprint of traditional hydrogen production methods. This work generates a baseline methodology for hydrogen production from plastic pyrolysis with and without a catalyst and the necessary product distribution baseline from key single plastics. The effect of pyrolysis temperature on the conversion of HDPE was evaluated both with and without a catalyst(s), and the product distributions measured via GC/MS were identified and hydrogen formation was quantified. These results will help guide future research efforts to optimize catalysts and processes for more efficient hydrogen production and mixed plastic waste management.

Catalysts↗
DOE OSTI2020

Field experimental evidence shows that self-interest attracts more sunlight

This study examines how messaging approaches in a prosocial intervention can influence not only the effectiveness of the intervention but also, contagion afterward. Our investigation focuses on leveraging two motivations for solar adoption: self-interest and prosocial. Using data from a natural field experiment in 29 municipalities containing 684,000 people, we find that self-interest messaging is twice as effective in inducing solar adoption both during and after the intervention. Adoptions under self-interest messaging have 10% higher net present value, but prosocial messaging increases the likelihood that adopters recommend solar to their friends and neighbors. Income moderates the effectiveness of self-interest messaging, performing much better in high-income communities than low- and moderate-income communities. There was no significant difference across income groups for prosocial messaging. These results provide guidance to policy makers aiming to encourage prosocial behavior across all income groups.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Waste-to-Energy Technical Assistance for Local Governments [Slides]

The Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) launched an organic Waste-to-Energy Technical Assistance Program for local governments. Organic waste streams, such as food waste and wastewater sludge, represent significant environmental, economic, and social sustainability challenges for municipalities. BETO has funded analyses assessing these waste streams and various aspects of their management, such as existing uses and costs of disposal. Given that these waste streams require local solutions, this technical assistance program provides municipalities with the most relevant data for their decision-making. BETO will fund up to 40 hours of subject matter assistance to municipalities topics. This presentation was made during an informational webinar for the DOE Bioenergy Technologies Office. The webinar recording is posted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHVvpDw2uQc.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Modified bacterium useful for producing an organic molecule

The present invention provides for a genetically modified host cell or bacterium capable of producing an organic molecule, wherein the bacterium is capable of using hydrogen sulfide as an electron donor, carbon dioxide (CO2) as a carbon source, and/or nitrate as an electron acceptor. The present invention is useful in the wastewater treatment industry, in particular in municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTP).

Beller, Harry R.↗
DOE OSTI2021

National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI) Power Sector Technology Roadmap 2021

The National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI) is a research consortium formed to accelerate transformative research in desalination and treatment to lower the cost and energy required to produce clean water from nontraditional water sources and realize a circular water economy. NAWI’s goal is to enable the manufacturing of energy-efficient desalination technologies in the United States at a lower cost with the same (or higher) quality and reduced environmental impact for 90 percent of nontraditional water sources within the next 10 years. The nontraditional source waters of interest include brackish water; seawater; produced and extracted water; power, mining, industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste waters. When these desalination and treatment technologies are fully developed and utilized, they will be able to contribute to the water needs for many existing end-use sectors. NAWI has identified five end-use sectors that are critical to the U.S. economy for further exploration: Power, Resource Extraction, Industry, Municipal, and Agriculture (PRIMA). This Power Sector roadmap aims to advance desalination and treatment of nontraditional source waters for beneficial use in public water supplies by identifying research and development (R&D) opportunities that help overcome existing treatment challenges. Under NAWI’s vision, the transition from a linear to a circular water economy with nontraditional source waters will be achieved by advancing desalination and reuse technologies in six key areas: Autonomous operations, Precision separations, Resilient treatment and transport, Intensified brine management, Modular membrane systems, and Electrified treatment systems, collectively known as the A-PRIME areas. Technological advances in these different areas will enable nontraditional source waters to achieve pipe parity with traditional supplies.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2021

National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI) Agriculture Sector Technology Roadmap 2021

The National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI) is a research consortium formed to accelerate transformative research in desalination and treatment to lower the cost and energy required to produce clean water from nontraditional water sources and realize a circular water economy. NAWI's goal is to enable the manufacturing of energy-efficient desalination technologies in the United States at a lower cost with the same (or higher) quality and reduced environmental impact for 90 percent of nontraditional water sources within the next 10 years. The nontraditional source waters of interest include brackish water; seawater; produced and extracted water; power, mining, industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste waters. When these desalination and treatment technologies are fully developed and utilized, they will be able to contribute to the water needs for many existing end-use sectors. NAWI has identified five end-use sectors that are critical to the U.S. economy for further exploration: Power, Resource Extraction, Industry, Municipal, and Agriculture (PRIMA). This Agriculture Sector roadmap aims to advance desalination and treatment of nontraditional source waters for beneficial use in public water supplies by identifying research and development (R&D) opportunities that help overcome existing treatment challenges. Under NAWI's vision, the transition from a linear to a circular water economy with nontraditional source waters will be achieved by advancing desalination and reuse technologies in six key areas: Autonomous operations, Precision separations, Resilient treatment and transport, Intensified brine management, Modular membrane systems, and Electrified treatment systems, collectively known as the A-PRIME areas. Technological advances in these different areas will enable nontraditional source waters to achieve pipe parity with traditional supplies.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2021

National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI) Industrial Sector Technology Roadmap 2021

The National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI) is a research consortium formed to accelerate transformative research in desalination and treatment to lower the cost and energy required to produce clean water from nontraditional water sources and realize a circular water economy. NAWI's goal is to enable the manufacturing of energy-efficient desalination technologies in the United States at a lower cost with the same (or higher) quality and reduced environmental impact for 90 percent of nontraditional water sources within the next 10 years. The nontraditional source waters of interest include brackish water; seawater; produced and extracted water; power, mining, industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste waters. When these desalination and treatment technologies are fully developed and utilized, they will be able to contribute to the water needs for many existing end-use sectors. NAWI has identified five end-use sectors that are critical to the U.S. economy for further exploration: Power, Resource Extraction, Industry, Municipal, and Agriculture (PRIMA). This Industrial Sector roadmap aims to advance desalination and treatment of nontraditional source waters for beneficial use in public water supplies by identifying research and development (R&D) opportunities that help overcome existing treatment challenges. Under NAWI's vision, the transition from a linear to a circular water economy with nontraditional source waters will be achieved by advancing desalination and reuse technologies in six key areas: Autonomous operations, Precision separations, Resilient treatment and transport, Intensified brine management, Modular membrane systems, and Electrified treatment systems, collectively known as the A-PRIME areas. Technological advances in these different areas will enable nontraditional source waters to achieve pipe parity with traditional supplies.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2021

National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI) Resource Extraction Sector Technology Roadmap 2021

The National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI) is a research consortium formed to accelerate transformative research in desalination and treatment to lower the cost and energy required to produce clean water from nontraditional water sources and realize a circular water economy. NAWI’s goal is to enable the manufacturing of energy-efficient desalination technologies in the United States at a lower cost with the same (or higher) quality and reduced environmental impact for 90 percent of nontraditional water sources within the next 10 years. The nontraditional source waters of interest include brackish water; seawater; produced and extracted water; power, mining, industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste waters. When these desalination and treatment technologies are fully developed and utilized, they will be able to contribute to the water needs for many existing end-use sectors. NAWI has identified five end-use sectors that are critical to the U.S. economy for further exploration: Power, Resource Extraction, Industry, Municipal, and Agriculture (PRIMA). This Resource Extraction Sector roadmap aims to advance desalination and treatment of nontraditional source waters for beneficial use in public water supplies by identifying research and development (R&D) opportunities that help overcome existing treatment challenges. Under NAWI’s vision, the transition from a linear to a circular water economy with nontraditional source waters will be achieved by advancing desalination and reuse technologies in six key areas: Autonomous operations, Precision separations, Resilient treatment and transport, Intensified brine management, Modular membrane systems, and Electrified treatment systems, collectively known as the A-PRIME areas. Technological advances in these different areas will enable nontraditional source waters to achieve pipe parity with traditional supplies.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2021

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Sustainable Aviation Fuel Logistics and Production Study

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) sustainability commitment is to meet the goals set by the Paris Agreement, with an interim greenhouse gas reduction target of 35% by 2025 and 80% by 2050. PANYNJ is seeking sustainable solutions to reduce carbon emissions for all public forms of transportation, including aviation. Similarly, the global aviation industry adopted the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), which seeks to cap net carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) aviation emissions at 2020 levels through 2035. Industry has also set a goal of reducing CO 2 emissions by 50% compared to 2005 levels by 2050. Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), made from non-petroleum feedstocks, is a near-term alternative fuel that reduces emissions from air transportation. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) conducted a resource assessment and a techno-economic analysis to identify the potential for production in the port district. Although SAF could be sourced from other areas of the United States or imported, an evaluation of local production was conducted due to the potential positive impacts of a circular economy by converting local waste feedstocks into SAF for use at nearby airports. The study found that the highest volumes of feedstock nearby were municipal solid waste and woody biomass. SAF must be blended with Jet A up to certain percent determined by ASTM International fuel quality standards prior to use in aircraft. SAF from a stand-alone facility could be delivered by barge, rail, or truck to a Linden, New Jersey based terminal for blending with Jet A or it could be blended in the Gulf region and shipped via the Colonial pipeline to one of the terminals. The investment will take place at the terminal(s) to accommodate SAF/Jet A blends and it will be business as usual for the airports in how they receive fuel and distribute it to aircraft.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2024

A Model for Optimally Allocating Curbside Space Among Competing Uses

The emergence of various new forms of urban mobility services in recent years is leading to new pressures on curbside space. Municipalities, the entities typically responsible for managing the curbside, are in many instances handling these growing pressures by reallocating portions of the curbside away from traditional uses (such as metered and residential parking) in favor of uses such as ridehailing, scooter and bike-share corrals. As yet, however, such actions are being undertaken on an ad-hoc basis, due to the rapidly growing complexity of the curbside and the lack of standard analytical approaches. This lack of analytical capability is due to the traditional focus of transportation network modeling being focused predominantly on the interaction of supply and demand on links and nodes, with limited focus on link edges (the curbside). In this paper we address this research need by proposing a framework for modeling inter-modal competition for curbside space, inspired by the classical Bid-Rent Model of urban land use, intended to support curb managers to move towards maximizing the aspects of economic welfare that relate to curb access. In the bi-level model, choices made by the curbside manager impact travelers’ mode choices, and vice versa. We then present a simple numerical case study to demonstrate the properties of the proposed model, showing its tractability, flexibility, and intuitive sensitivity to systematic variation in inputs. The framework demonstrates the type of adaptive and evolving approach needed to maximize benefits from increasingly dynamic curb management strategies. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of future research needs to advance this line of inquiry.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Identification of Common Types of Plastics by Vibrational Spectroscopic Techniques

Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE), Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE), Polypropylene (PP), and Polystyrene (PS) account for most plastic use worldwide, with production nearing 380 million tons annually. A considerable portion enters municipal solid waste and landfills, creating long-term environmental concerns. Scaling recycling operations requires automated sorting technologies, with spectroscopy and machine learning offering promising solutions. In this study, a six-class convolutional neural network (CNN) was developed for plastic identification using vibrational spectroscopies. Raman Scattering (RS) spectra collected from recycling samples enabled accurate chemical differentiation while assessing the influence of visible features such as color. A CNN trained on RS data achieved 100% classification accuracy. To strengthen field applicability, Attenuated Total Reflectance–Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy was incorporated, achieving 95% accuracy with a similar CNN model. These findings demonstrate the potential of integrating spectroscopy with deep learning for reliable plastic classification, advancing development of scalable, field-ready recycling technologies.

Garcia Tovar, Maria P.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Organic Waste Resource Assessment for the Detroit Region

This study summarizes major sources of organic wastes in the Detroit region to (1) characterize target feedstock magnitudes and distribution in support of techno-economic analysis (TEA), and (2) guide the design of blended feedstock conversion experiments using hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL). Feedstocks considered in this review include municipal wastewater sludge solids (untreated) and scum; bulk municipal solid waste (MSW); the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OF-MSW); residential food waste, non-residential food waste including institutional, industrial, and commercial (IIC) sources; confined animal manures (i.e., lactating dairy, feedlot beef, and market swine); waste fats, oils and greases (FOG); agricultural residues; forest residues. The scope of the investigation was limited to existing modeled or publicly available reporting datasets. Bulk MSW data were only collected for context and to generate estimates of OF-MSW by waste type and should not be included in total organic waste estimates. Because the TEA analysis boundary was not defined prior to conducting the resource assessment, the data are summarized within six spatial contexts (boundaries), including (1) city of Detroit (census); (2) Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) service area; “Tri-county” urban area (census); “Metro” Detroit-Warren-Dearborn Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) (census); Detroit-Warren-Ann Arbor Combined Statistical Area (CSA) (census); and the Michigan Councils of Government (COG) Region-1. All of the spatial contexts are entirely within the State of Michigan, and some overlap one another. A broader context could be developed to include data from surrounding states or Canada.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Equity-Centered Engagement Through Climate Resilience Policy in Massachusetts

Resilience efforts tend to reinforce injustices. Communities who experience disproportionate climate impacts are often excluded from resilience planning, and those plans do not typically address root causes of social vulnerability. More transformational approaches to resilience would shift decision-making power into communities and affect how people survive and thrive in a climate changing world. The Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) 2.0 program is an attempt to change the status quo in resilience planning by bringing new voices into decision-making power, recognizing their labor, addressing root causes of vulnerability, and investing in social infrastructure. It aims to build capacity for equity-focused community engagement within teams of municipal staff and community liaisons, and ultimately build community cohesion. My mixed methods research investigates implementation of this state grant program in several Massachusetts towns. I am using document review, participant observation, and interviews to understand the MVP 2.0 process as written, how different municipalities navigate it, and how individuals make sense of their experiences in it. I seek to understand how those experiences explain relationships between engagement approaches, mediating factors, and process outcomes. I am interested in the conditions that allow for community empowerment and how a model like MVP 2.0 can shift conditions that hold systems in place. In a practical sense, my empirical results will help municipalities reflect on their work during MVP 2.0 and plan for future community engagement. They may be informative for designing future iterations of the MVP program and for other municipalities, offices of community engagement, and practitioners. The findings will also contribute to the participation, resilience, and climate justice literatures, by adding perspectives on equity-centered resilience and community engagement approaches in smaller towns and rural settings.

Callaham, Shannon↗