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DOE OSTI2013

Fujitsu and BEA Collaboration on Cyber Enabled Smart Grid Performance (CRADA Final report)

In conclusion of this CRADA, this letter documents the actions taken in regard to this collaboration. While the statement of work overviews several joint tasks associated with this effort, the availability of resources on the FLA side prevented any collaboratory development of shared Intellectual Property. Therefore, no patents, copyrights or publications resulted from this effort. However, several meetings at the INL and FLA offices maintained a good relationship and sharing of other potential areas of collaboration in the area of building/community energy management and cyber security.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2013

Climate Information Needs for Financial Decision Making

Climate Information Needs for Financial Decision Making (Final Report) This Department of Energy workshop award (grant #DE-SC0008480) provided primary support for the American Meteorological Society’s study on climate information needs for financial decision making. The goal of this study was to help advance societal decision making by examining the implications of climate variability and change on near-term financial investments. We explored four key topics: 1) the conditions and criteria that influence returns on investment of major financial decisions, 2) the climate sensitivity of financial decisions, 3) climate information needs of financial decision makers, and 4) potential new mechanisms to promote collaboration between scientists and financial decision makers. Better understanding of these four topics will help scientists provide the most useful information and enable financial decision makers to use scientific information most effectively. As a result, this study will enable leaders in business and government to make well-informed choices that help maximize long-term economic success and social wellbeing in the United States The outcomes of the study include a workshop, which brought together leaders from the scientific and financial decision making communities, a publication of the study report, and a public briefing of the results to the policy community. In addition, we will present the results to the scientific community at the AMS Annual Meeting in February, 2014. The study results were covered well by the media including Bloomberg News and E&E News. Upon request, we also briefed the Office of Science Technology Policy (OSTP) and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) on the outcomes. We presented the results to the policy community through a public briefing in December on Capitol Hill. The full report is publicly available at www.ametsoc.org/cin. Summary of Key Findings The United States invests roughly $1.5 trillion U.S. dollars (USD) in capital assets each year across the public and private sectors (Orszag 2008; United States Census Bureau 2013). Extreme weather events create and exacerbate risks to these financial investments by contributing to: • Direct physical impacts on the investments themselves • Degradation of critical supporting infrastructure • Changes in the availability of key natural resources • Changes to workforce availability or capacity • Changes in the customer base • Supply chain disruptions • Legal liability • Shifts in the regulatory environment • Reductions in credit ratings Even small changes in weather can impact operations in critical economic sectors. As a result, maximizing returns on financial investments depends on accurately understanding and effectively accounting for these risks. Climate variability and change can either exacerbate existing risks or cause new sources of risk to emerge. Managing these risks most effectively will depend on scientific advances and increases in the capacity of financial decision makers to use the scientific knowledge that results. Barriers to using climate information must also be overcome. This study proposes three predefined levels of certainty for communicating about weather and climate risks: 1) possible (i.e., unknown likelihood or less than 50% chance of occurrence), 2) probable (greater than 50% chance of occurrence), and 3) effectively certain (at least 95% chance of occurrence). For example, it is effectively certain that a change in climate will alter weather patterns. It is probable that climate warming will cause increases in the intensity of some extreme events. It is possible that climate change will cause major and widespread disruptions to key planetary life-support services. Key recommendations of this study: 1) Identify climate-related risks and opportunities for financial decision making. 2) Create a framework to translate scientific information in clear and actionable terms for financial decision makers. 3) Analyze existing climate assessments and translate projected impacts into possible, probable, and effectively certain impacts. 4) Improve climate projections with respect to precipitation (timing, amount, and intensity), extreme events, and tails of probability distributions (i.e., low-probability but high-consequence events). 5) Increase spatial resolution of climate projections in order to provide climate information at the scale most relevant to financial investments. 6) Improve projections of the societal consequences of climate impacts through integrated assessments of physical, natural, and social sciences. 7) Create a user-friendly information repository and portal that provides easy access to information relevant to financial decision making. 8) Create and maintain opportunities to bring together financial decision makers, scientists, and service providers. Near-term financial decisions have long-term implications for the United States’ social and economic well-being that depend, in part, on climate variability and change. Investments will be most successful, and will advance the interests of society most effectively, if they are grounded in the best available knowledge & understanding.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2014

Fundamental Studies of Recombinant Hydrogenases

This research addressed the long term goals of understanding the assembly and organization of hydrogenase enzymes, of reducing them in size and complexity, of determining structure/function relationships, including energy conservation via charge separation across membranes, and in screening for novel H2 catalysts. A key overall goal of the proposed research was to define and characterize minimal hydrogenases that are produced in high yields and are oxygen-resistant. Remarkably, in spite of decades of research carried out on hydrogenases, it is not possible to readily manipulate or design the enzyme using molecular biology approaches since a recombinant form produced in a suitable host is not available. Such resources are essential if we are to understand what constitutes a “minimal” hydrogenase and design such catalysts with certain properties, such as resistance to oxygen, extreme stability and specificity for a given electron donor. The model system for our studies is Pyrococcus furiosus, a hyperthermophile that grows optimally at 100°C, which contains three different nickel-iron [NiFe-] containing hydrogenases. Hydrogenases I and II are cytoplasmic while the other, MBH, is an integral membrane protein that functions to both evolve H2 and pump protons. Three important breakthroughs were made during the funding period with P. furiosus soluble hydrogenase I (SHI). First, we produced an active recombinant form of SHI in E. coli by the co-expression of sixteen genes using anaerobically-induced promoters. Second, we genetically-engineered P. furiosus to overexpress SHI by an order of magnitude compared to the wild type strain. Third, we generated the first ‘minimal’ form of SHI, one that contained two rather than four subunits. This dimeric form was stable and active, and directly interacted with a pyruvate-oxidizing enzyme with any intermediate electron carrier. The research resulted in five peer-reviewed publications.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2014

Economic Impacts from Indiana's First 1,000 Megawatts of Wind Power

The magnitude of Indiana's available wind resource indicates that the development of wind power infrastructure has the potential to support millions of dollars of economic activity in the state. The Jobs and Economic Development Impact (JEDI) models, developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, are tools used to estimate some of the economic impacts of energy projects at the state level. JEDI calculates results in the form of jobs, earnings, and economic output in three categories: project development and onsite labor, local revenue and supply chain, and induced impacts. According to this analysis, the first 1,000 MW of wind power development in Indiana (projects built between 2008 and 2011): supported employment totaling more than 4,400 full-time-equivalent jobs in Indiana during the construction periods; supports approximately 260 ongoing Indiana jobs; supported nearly $570 million in economic activity for Indiana during the construction periods; supported and continues to support nearly $40 million in annual Indiana economic activity during the operating periods; generates more than $8 million in annual property taxes; generates nearly $4 million annually in income for Indiana landowners who lease their land for wind energy projects.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG)- Better Buildings Neighborhood Program Final Report

The original BetterBuildings for Greensboro grant program included an outreach campaign to inform 100% of the Greensboro community about the benefits of reducing energy use; a plan to reduce energy consumption in at least 34% of the homes and 10% of the other buildings in the east Greensboro target area; and a plan to create and retain jobs in the energy conservation industry. Under the original program structure the City of Greensboro planned to partner with local and regional lenders to create a diversified portfolio of loan products to meet the needs of various income levels and building types. All participants would participate in the loan programs as a method of meeting the program’s 5 to1 private capital match/leverage requirements. In June 2011 the program was restructured to include partnerships with large commercial and multifamily projects, with these partners providing the greater portion of the required match/leverage. The geographic focus was revised to include reducing energy consumption across the entire City of Greensboro, targeting neighborhoods with high concentrations of low-moderate income households and aged housing stock. The community outreach component used a neighborhood-based approach to train community residents and volunteers to conduct door-to-door neighborhood sweeps; delivered high quality information on available program resources; helped residents to evaluate alternative energy efficiency measures and alternative financing sources; assisted with contractor selections and monitoring/evaluation of work; coordinated activities with BetterBuildings program partners; and collected data required by the Department of Energy. Additionally, HERO (Home Energy Response Officers) delivered intro packages (energy efficiency information and products) to thousands of households at the initial point of contact. A pilot program (Early Adopters) was offered from March 1, 2011 through June 30, 2011. The Early Adopters program was designed to offer immediate assistance to property owners ready and able to make their homes more energy efficient, by offering a rebate on their energy assessment and on the cost of upgrades installed. Eligible energy efficient upgrades were inclusive of basic level insulating and weather-stripping, HVAC system and water heater upgrades, to whole home upgrades that include the replacement of windows, doors and appliances. Renewable energy systems such as solar hot water systems were also eligible for the rebate program.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2014

Advanced Systems for Preprocessing and Characterizing Coal-Biomass Mixtures as Next-Generation Fuels and Feedstocks

The research activities presented in this report are intended to address the most critical technical challenges pertaining to coal-biomass briquette feedstocks. Several detailed investigations were conducted using a variety of coal and biomass feedstocks on the topics of (1) coal-biomass briquette production and characterization, (2) gasification of coal-biomass mixtures and briquettes, (3) combustion of coal-biomass mixtures and briquettes, and (4) conceptual engineering design and economic feasibility of briquette production. The briquette production studies indicate that strong and durable co-firing feedstocks can be produced by co-briquetting coal and biomass resources commonly available in the United States. It is demonstrated that binderless coal-biomass briquettes produced at optimized conditions exhibit very high strength and durability, which indicates that such briquettes would remain competent in the presence of forces encountered in handling, storage and transportation. The gasification studies conducted demonstrate that coal-biomass mixtures and briquettes are exceptional gasification feedstocks, particularly with regard to the synergistic effects realized during devolatilization of the blended materials. The mixture combustion studies indicate that coal-biomass mixtures are exceptional combustion feedstocks, while the briquette combustion study indicates that the use of blended briquettes reduces NO x , CO 2 , and CO emissions, and requires the least amount of changes in the operating conditions of an existing coal-fired power plant. Similar results were obtained for the physical durability of the pilot-scale briquettes compared to the bench-scale tests. Finally, the conceptual engineering and feasibility analysis study for a commercial-scale briquetting production facility provides preliminary flowsheet and cost simulations to evaluate the various feedstocks, equipment selection and operating parameters.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2015

DOE SBIR 2014 Topic 2.C – Phase I Final Report

Freshwater is a vital resource for human survival as well as a key component of a wide range of industrial and agricultural needs. However, only 0.65% of the world’s water resources are available as freshwater, and the demand on the world’s water reserves continues to increase, with the demand beginning to outpace the supply in many areas. A water-energy nexus is being reached that requires low –cost and –energy solutions for various degrees of treated water. In a 2012 survey, 88% of Americans were concerned about potential water shortages and approximately two-thirds of the world’s population will be suffering a water shortage over the next few years. Seawater and other saline water materials make up around 98% of the available water, representing an almost unlimited supply of water. The energy, cost and maintenance to remove salts and other unwanted compounds is a barrier to widespread implementation of salt-to-freshwater facilities. These facilities most commonly use reverse osmosis (RO) systems. Due to the high required pressures and moving parts these facilities consume much grid energy and require constant maintenance leading to high capital and operational costs. RO also generates highly concentrated brine that is costly to safely return to the ocean. Capacitive desalination (or capacitive deionization [CDI]) has no moving parts (aside from a low pressure pump and valves), operates at low pressure and does not generate brine that is hazardous to marine life. Not only can the capacitive charge/discharge be cycled almost indefinitely but the system uses low energy and capacitive discharge electrical current can be co-generated back to the system. However, CDI has not seen widespread use for large- or small- scale desalination because electrode efficiency limits the extraction rate below what is useful for most applications. Mainstream Engineering Corporation (MEC) has demonstrated an innovative new electrode structure for the high efficiency desalination of brackish water by capacitive deionization. Electrode manufacturing (nanomanufacturing) is a highly scalable and low-cost electrochemical self-assembly method using a templated process that Mainstream has pioneered and leveraged for several energy technologies over the last decade. The primary accomplishment for Phase I is the fabrication and demonstration of CDI electrode structures are: • Demonstrating the linear scalability of templated approach to the fabrication scaling the electrode structure. • Demonstrated the ability to tune the fabrication of the electrode structures to produce electrodes with a highly controllable aligned nanopore diameter and nanopore depth. • Demonstrated the efficient removal of a sodium chloride salt from brackish water with a 60 times improvement in mg-salt removed/g-carbon compared to a commercial system under the same conditions. • Demonstrated good reproducibility and stability of the electrode structure under realistic CDI operating conditions. • Demonstrated charge efficiency as high as 93% with an expected system level energy requirement of 0.7 to 1.5 kWh/m3 of water; significantly lower than the 2.9 to 3.7 kWh/m3 observed for RO systems Based on the performance characteristics of the electrodes, Mainstream was able to propose a modular and scalable capacitive deionization design that can be adapted to a wide range of conditions providing energy efficient desalination of brackish water.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2015

The International Linear Collider Progress Report 2015

The ILC technical design is now being adapted to the preferred candidate site. Changes in layout are being managed by a rigorous change-control procedure. Series production of cavities for the European XFEL has shown that cavities can be mass-produced in industry with a performance well above XFEL requirements and close to that needed for the ILC. A number of technical developments are under way with a view to further reducing the ILC cost. This work must continue through the preparatory stage for ILC construction once resources become available. A summary of the design updates and of the further preparatory work needed is summarized in tabular form in the Appendix.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Links between persistent DNA damage, genome instability, and aging

The goal of this study was to examine long-term effects of low-dose radiation exposure. One of the hypotheses was that radiation exposure would accelerate the normal aging process. The study was jointly funded by NASA and examined both low-LET radiation (γ-rays) and high-LET radiation (1000 MeV/nucleon 56 Fe ions) at doses of 0.1 Gy and up. The work used the Japanese medaka fish (Oryzias latipes), as a vertebrate model organism that can be maintained in large numbers at low cost for lifetime studies. Like other small laboratory fish, Japanese medaka share many anatomical and histological characteristics with other vertebrates, and a variety of genetic and genomic resources are available. Some work also used the zebrafish (Danio rerio), another widely used laboratory model organism.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗
DOE OSTI2016

DOE Centers of Excellence Performance Portability Meeting

Performance portability is a phrase often used, but not well understood. The DOE is deploying systems at all of the major facilities across ASCR and ASC that are forcing application developers to confront head-on the challenges of running applications across these diverse systems. With GPU-based systems at the OLCF and LLNL, and Phi-based systems landing at NERSC, ACES (LANL/SNL), and the ALCF – the issue of performance portability is confronting the DOE mission like never before. A new best practice in the DOE is to include “Centers of Excellence” with each major procurement, with a goal of focusing efforts on preparing key applications to be ready for the systems coming to each site, and engaging the vendors directly in a “shared fate” approach to ensuring success. While each COE is necessarily focused on a particular deployment, applications almost invariably must be able to run effectively across the entire DOE HPC ecosystem. This tension between optimizing performance for a particular platform, while still being able to run with acceptable performance wherever the resources are available, is the crux of the challenge we call “performance portability”. This meeting was an opportunity to bring application developers, software providers, and vendors together to discuss this challenge and begin to chart a path forward.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2017

Simulation-based Testing of Control Software

It is impossible to adequately test complex software by examining its operation in a physical prototype of the system monitored. Adequate test coverage can require millions of test cases, and the cost of equipment prototypes combined with the real-time constraints of testing with them makes it infeasible to sample more than a small number of these tests. Model based testing seeks to avoid this problem by allowing for large numbers of relatively inexpensive virtual prototypes that operate in simulation time at a speed limited only by the available computing resources. In this report, we describe how a computer system emulator can be used as part of a model based testing environment; specifically, we show that a complete software stack including operating system and application software - can be deployed within a simulated environment, and that these simulations can proceed as fast as possible. To illustrate this approach to model based testing, we describe how it is being used to test several building control systems that act to coordinate air conditioning loads for the purpose of reducing peak demand. These tests involve the use of ADEVS (A Discrete Event System Simulator) and QEMU (Quick Emulator) to host the operational software within the simulation, and a building model developed with the MODELICA programming language using Buildings Library and packaged as an FMU (Functional Mock-up Unit) that serves as the virtual test environment.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2017

Sighten Final Technical Report DEEE0006690 Deploying an integrated and comprehensive solar financing software platform

Over the project, Sighten built a comprehensive software-as-a-service (Saas) platform to automate and streamline the residential solar financing workflow. Before the project period, significant time and money was spent by companies on front-end tools related to system design and proposal creation, but comparatively few resources were available to support the many back-end calculations and data management processes that underpin third party financing. Without a tool like Sighten, the solar financing processes involved passing information from the homeowner prospect into separate tools for system design, financing, and then later to reporting tools including Microsoft Excel, CRM software, in-house software, outside software, and offline, manual processes. Passing data between tools and attempting to connect disparate systems results in inefficiency and inaccuracy for the industry. Sighten was built to consolidate all financial and solar-related calculations in a single software platform. It significantly improves upon the accuracy of these calculations and exposes sophisticated new analysis tools resulting in a rigorous, efficient and cost-effective toolset for scaling residential solar. Widely deploying a platform like Sighten’s significantly and immediately impacts the residential solar space in several important ways: 1) standardizing and improving the quality of all quantitative calculations involved in the residential financing process, most notably project finance, system production and reporting calculations; 2) representing a true step change in terms of reporting and analysis capabilities by maintaining more accurate data and exposing sophisticated tools around simulation, tranching, and financial reporting, among others, to all stakeholders in the space; 3) allowing a broader group of developers/installers/finance companies to access the capital markets by providing an out-of-the-box toolset that handles the execution of running investor capital through a rooftop solar financing program. Standardizing and improving all calculations, improving data quality, and exposing new analysis tools previously unavailable affects investment in the residential space in several important ways: 1) lowering the cost of capital for existing capital providers by mitigating uncertainty and de-risking the solar asset class; 2) attracting new, lower cost investors to the solar asset class as reporting and data quality resemble standards of more mature asset classes; 3) increasing the prevalence of liquidity options for investors through back leverage, securitization, or secondary sale by providing the tools necessary for lenders, ratings agencies, etc. to properly understand a portfolio of residential solar assets. During the project period, Sighten successfully built and scaled a commercially ready tool for the residential solar market. The software solution built by Sighten has been deployed with key target customer segments identified in the award deliverables: solar installers, solar developers/channel managers, and solar financiers, including lenders. Each of these segments greatly benefits from the availability of the Sighten toolset.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

HEP Software Foundation Community White Paper Working Group - Detector Simulation

A working group on detector simulation was formed as part of the high-energy physics (HEP) Software Foundation's initiative to prepare a Community White Paper that describes the main software challenges and opportunities to be faced in the HEP field over the next decade. The working group met over a period of several months in order to review the current status of the Full and Fast simulation applications of HEP experiments and the improvements that will need to be made in order to meet the goals of future HEP experimental programmes. The scope of the topics covered includes the main components of a HEP simulation application, such as MC truth handling, geometry modeling, particle propagation in materials and fields, physics modeling of the interactions of particles with matter, the treatment of pileup and other backgrounds, as well as signal processing and digitisation. The resulting work programme described in this document focuses on the need to improve both the software performance and the physics of detector simulation. The goals are to increase the accuracy of the physics models and expand their applicability to future physics programmes, while achieving large factors in computing performance gains consistent with projections on available computing resources.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2018

High Ion-Accessible Surface Area CNT-Ultracapacitors for Groundwater Desalination

Fresh water is a vital resource for human survival, as well as a key component for a wide range of industrial and agricultural needs. However, only 0.65% of the world’s water resources are available as fresh water, and the demand on the world’s water reserves continues to rise, with the demand already beginning to outpace the supply in many areas. A water-energy nexus is being reached that requires low -cost and -energy solutions for various degrees of treated water. Public awareness of the problem has also risen, such that in a 2012 survey, 88% of Americans reported concerns about potential water shortages. Approximately two-thirds of the world’s population could suffer water shortages over the next few years. Seawater and other saline water supplies make up around 98% of the world’s accessible water. Properly treated to reduce the levels of salinity, this represents an almost unlimited supply of fresh water. The high energy requirements, capital costs, and maintenance requirements to remove salts and other unwanted compounds, however, are barriers to widespread implementation of salt-to-freshwater facilities. These facilities most commonly use reverse osmosis (RO) systems that suffer from high required pressures and failures of moving parts; additionally, these facilities consume much grid energy and require constant maintenance, leading to high capital and operational costs. The RO process also generates large volumes of highly concentrated bio-hazardous brine that is costly to safely return to the ocean. In contrast to RO, capacitive desalination or capacitive deionization (CDI) has fewer moving parts (a low-pressure pump and several valves), operates at low pressure, and does not generate large quantities of brine that are hazardous to marine life. The capacitive charge/discharge of a CDI system can be cycled almost indefinitely, and the system has low energy requirements because the capacitive discharge electrical current can be co-generated back to the system. RO must remove the water from the salt while CDI removes the salt from the water. This represents a significant difference in the number of molecules which must be moved and energy required to desalinate water. However, CDI has not seen widespread use for large- or small-scale desalination because electrode efficiency has limited the extraction rate below what is useful for most applications. Mainstream demonstrated the following successes during this SBIR program: Performance - We developed an innovative new electrode structure for the high-efficiency removal of ions from salt-contaminated water samples by CDI. Based on prototype electrochemical tests, our CDI consumes as low as 0.71 kW/m 3 of treated water (compared to 2.9 to 3.7 kW/m 3 for RO). Scalability – During Phase II, we increased the electrode size from 3.8 cm 2 single-sided electrodes to 180 cm 2 double-sided electrodes. Using larger acid baths and CVD furnace, we increased electrode fabrication capacity increased by 315 times. Scalable electrochemical CDI stack design and balance of plant – During Phase II, we demonstrated at scalable low-pressure drop stack design and balance of plant for the continuous removal of ions. Corrosion Resistance – Based on accelerated corrosion testing data, our high-quality graphitic electrodes have a significantly improved corrosion resistance. This was 20 times better corrosion resistance than our Phase I electrodes and significantly higher than typical CDI system electrodes. Flexibility –By tuning the pore size of the electrode materials, we demonstrated the removal of key target ionic contaminants, such as sodium chloride, nitrate, and phosphate salts. These ionic contaminants are common in agricultural and industrial wastewater runoff and are difficult to remove by conventional methods, which require excessive use of reagents.

Cox, Dr. Philip↗
DOE OSTI2016

High-Resolution Coupling and Initialization to Improve Predictability and Predictions in Climate Models Workshop, September 30 – October 2, 2015

The goals of the workshop were 1) to enhance interactions and communications between the climate-prediction and the climate modeling and projection communities, 2) to summarize and synthesize the current status of the research and also document the challenges in initialized high-resolution simulations in both communities, and 3) to identify the criteria for establishing a multi-model experimental framework to optimally address major pressing questions in the context of available computing resources. The two-and-a-half-day workshop was hosted September 30 to October 2, 2015, at the NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2018

Consumptive Water Use in the Production of Ethanol and Petroleum Gasoline — 2018 Update

The production of energy feedstocks and fuels requires substantial water input. Not only do biofuel feedstocks like corn, switchgrass, and agricultural residues need water for growth and conversion to ethanol, but petroleum feedstocks like crude oil and oil sands also require large volumes of water for drilling, extraction, and conversion into petroleum products. Moreover, in many cases, crude oil production is increasingly water dependent. Competing uses strain available water resources and raise the specter of resource depletion and environmental degradation. Water management has become a key feature of existing projects and a potential issue in new ones. This report examines the growing issue of water use in energy production by characterizing current consumptive water use in liquid fuel production. As used throughout this report, “consumptive water use” is the sum total of water input less water output that is recycled and reused for the process. The estimate applies to surface and groundwater sources for irrigation but does not include precipitation. Water requirements are evaluated for five fuel pathways: bioethanol from corn, ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks, gasoline from Canadian oil sands, Saudi Arabian crude, and U.S. conventional crude from onshore wells. Regional variations and historic trends are noted, as are opportunities to reduce water use.

02 PETROLEUM↗
DOE OSTI2019

Direct Photosynthetic Production of Biodiesel by Growth-Decoupled Cyanobacteria

The ultimate goal of this project was the production and excretion of a lauroyl ester-based drop-in biofuel by building on the development of a cyanobacterial strain derived from Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 that is efficient in using sunlight to reduce CO 2 from the atmosphere to produce and excrete laurate, a fatty acid (FA) that is easily used as a biofuel precursor. To achieve this goal the project focused on five primary objectives: (1) produce more laurate, (2) convert laurate to a lauroyl ester by introducing additional genetic modifications for the synthesis of fatty acid esters, (3) arrest cell growth but not metabolic activity, to make resources more available for lauroyl ester production, (4) reduce the native production of exopolysaccharides to increase the amount of fixed carbon available for biofuel production and to reduce the carbon nutrients available in the medium for potential invasive microbes, and (5) perform a techno-economic analysis to evaluate the longer-term promise and viability of lauroyl ester production in cyanobacterial systems. A photosynthetically produced lauroyl ester could be used as a diesel replacement without the need for additional and costly downstream processing steps, a development of great importance to the mission of DOE with regard to biofuel production.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Sedimentary Geothermal Resources in Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Texas

The objectives of this project were to (1) perform a literature review of sedimentary geothermal resources, (2) identify data sources and develop data-collection methodologies that characterize selected resources, (3) screen sedimentary basins and formations for sedimentary geothermal potential, and (4) evaluate the technical feasibility of one or more selected locations. Numerous publications have characterized geothermal resources within sedimentary basins. A literature search reviewed publications describing resources located in Colorado, Louisiana, Nevada, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. The most attractive resources have high temperature gradients, low drilling costs, and reservoir permeabilities greater than 10 millidarcies (mD). Prospects in Colorado, Nevada, Texas, and Utah exhibit attractive characteristics and were chosen for further analysis. Sedimentary resources in Nevada and Utah are most attractive, followed by tested resources in Texas and untested resources in Colorado. The identified resources in Wyoming and Louisiana had lower geothermal gradients and were not evaluated. Reservoir modeling and techno-economic analysis were performed at Marys River Basin–North in Nevada. Geothermal energy production at this location is expected to have a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) ranging between 10 and 20 cents/kWh. Additional work may result in lower LCOE estimates at this location and at other attractive prospects in these three regions. The Great Basin carbonate and alluvial aquifer system of eastern Nevada and western Utah includes a lower carbonate aquifer unit, which has the potential for hosting both conduction- and convection-dominated geothermal systems. Mapping has identified lateral thickness variability expressed as a roughly 120–150-km-wide central corridor, which hosts the thickest and most continuous formations and extends from near Las Vegas north to the Idaho border. Purchase and analysis of privately held legacy seismic data could potentially compensate for the lack of sufficient data documenting measured depth to the lower carbonate aquifer unit. Multiple orogenies, extension episodes, and intrusive events have deformed and displaced the target formations of the lower carbonate aquifer unit. This structural complexity and potential for dipping reservoirs emphasizes the need for detailed geological, geophysical, and reservoir modeling. Heat flow within three Colorado sedimentary basins reviewed as part of this study was calculated in targeted studies by the Colorado Geologic Survey and Colorado School of Mines. These calculations are based on bottom-hole temperature data sets with significant limitations and some variability but produce values consistently higher than the global continental average of 65 mW/m2 for all three basins. Heat flow in the Raton Basin is the highest; however, permeability measurements from specific sedimentary formations with high heat flow have not been obtained. Promising formations for sedimentary geothermal systems were found in all three regions studied—Nevada-Utah, Colorado, and Texas. The next steps for developing sedimentary geothermal resources vary due to differences in available data and resource uncertainties. Additional scopes of work are recommended for identified basins in these three regions.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗