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DOE OSTI2020

Electrocatalytic Hydrogenation of Biomass-Derived Organics: A review

Sustainable energy generation calls for a shift away from centralized, high-temperature, energy-intensive processes to decentralized, low-temperature conversions that can be powered by electricity produced from renewable sources. Electrocatalytic conversion of biomass-derived feedstocks would allow carbon recycling of distributed, energy-poor resources in the absence of sinks and sources of high-grade heat. Selective, efficient electrocatalysts that operate at low temperatures are needed for electrocatalytic hydrogenation (ECH) to upgrade the feedstocks. For effective generation of energy-dense chemicals and fuels, two design criteria must be met: (i) a high H:C ratio via ECH to allow for high-quality fuels and blends, and (ii) a lower O:C ratio in the target molecules via electrochemical decarboxylation/deoxygenation to improve the stability of fuels and chemicals. The goal of this review is to determine whether the following questions have been sufficiently answered in open literature, and if not, what additional information is required: (1) What organic functionalities are accessible for electrocatalytic hydrogenation under a set of reaction conditions? How do substitutions and functionalities impact the activity and selectivity of ECH? (2) What material properties cause an electrocatalyst to be active for ECH? Can general trends in ECH be formulated based on the type of electrocatalyst? (3) What is the impact of reaction (electrolyte concentration, pH, operating potential) and reactor type conditions?

Catalysts, redox reactions, hydrocarbons, Aromatic↗

DOE OSTI2024

Cosimulating Integrated Energy Systems With Heterogeneous Digital Twins: Matching a Connected World

Energy system integration promises in-creased resiliency and the unlocking of synergies, while also contributing to our goal of decarbonization. It is enabled by both old and new technologies, glued together with data and digital services. Hydrolyzers, heat pumps, distributed renewable generation, smart buildings, and the digital grid edge are all currently the subject of integration with the power system and the energy sector at large. To plan and operate such a multidisciplinary and multisectoral system properly, insight, tools, and expertise are all needed. Further, this is exactly where the state of the art fails to deliver: tools for integrated energy systems (IESs) are still in their infancy, and many times, even academia treats these sectors separately, producing experts in each of them but not across.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2023

Projecting Future Energy Production from Operating Wind Farms in North America. Part I: Dynamical Downscaling

Abstract New simulations at 12-km grid spacing with the Weather and Research Forecasting (WRF) Model nested in the MPI Earth System Model (ESM) are used to quantify possible changes in wind power generation potential as a result of global warming. Annual capacity factors (CF; measures of electrical power production) computed by applying a power curve to hourly wind speeds at wind turbine hub height from this simulation are also used to illustrate the pitfalls in seeking to infer changes in wind power generation directly from low-spatial-resolution and time-averaged ESM output. WRF-derived CF are evaluated using observed daily CF from operating wind farms. The spatial correlation coefficient between modeled and observed mean CF is 0.65, and the root-mean-square error is 5.4 percentage points. Output from the MPI-WRF Model chain also captures some of the seasonal variability and the probability distribution of daily CF at operating wind farms. Projections of mean annual CF (CF A ) indicate no change to 2050 in the southern Great Plains and Northeast. Interannual variability of CF A increases in the Midwest, and CF A declines by up to 2 percentage points in the northern Great Plains. The probability of wind droughts (extended periods with anomalously low production) and wind bonus periods (high production) remains unchanged over most of the eastern United States. The probability of wind bonus periods exhibits some evidence of higher values over the Midwest in the 2040s, whereas the converse is true over the northern Great Plains. Significance Statement Wind energy is playing an increasingly important role in low-carbon-emission electricity generation. It is a “weather dependent” renewable energy source, and thus changes in the global atmosphere may cause changes in regional wind power production (PP) potential. We use PP data from operating wind farms to demonstrate that regional simulations exhibit skill in capturing actual power production. Projections to the middle of this century indicate that over most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains annual expected PP is largely unchanged, as is the probability of extended periods of anomalously high or low production. Any small declines in annual PP are of much smaller magnitude than changes due to technological innovation over the last two decades.

Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences↗

DOE OSTI2024

Data for Sustainable Co-Production of Plant Lipids and Cellulosic Sugars from Transgenic Energycane at an Industrially Relevant Scale: A Proof of Concept for Alternative Feedstocks

Development of sustainable and scalable technologies to convert lignocellulosic biomass to biofuels is critical to achieving carbon neutrality. The potential of transgenic bioenergy crops as a renewable source of sugars and lipids has been demonstrated at bench-scale. However, scaling up these processes is important for holistic analysis. Here proof-of-concept for chemical-free hydrothermal pretreatment of transgenic energycane-oilcane line L13 at an industrially relevant scale to recover vegetative lipids along with cellulosic sugars is presented. Pilot-scale processing of 97 kg of transgenic energycane-oilcane L13 stems and high solids pretreatment of bagasse enhanced the recovery of cellulosic glucose and xylose by 5-fold as compared to untreated bagasse and helped in the enrichment of vegetative lipids in the biomass residues which allowed its recovery at the end of the bioprocess. Palmitic and oleic acids were the predominant fatty acids (FAs) extracted from stems and leaves. The processing did not affect lipid composition. The efficiency of lipid recovery from untreated biomass was 75.9% which improved to 88.7% upon pretreatment. The vegetative tissues of transgenic energycane-oilcane L13 contained 0.42 metric tons/hectare of lipids. Processing vegetative tissues yielded 0.38 metric tons/hectare of lipids. This approaches an oil yield similar to soybean (global average 0.44 metric tons/hectare) and is almost twice as high as the oil yield from sugarcane engineered to hyperaccumulate lipids (0.20 metric tons/hectare). The study suggests that further optimization by state-of-the-art metabolic engineering and biomass processing can establish transgenic bioenergy crops for commercial drop-in fuel production.

Biomass Analytics↗

DOE OSTI2024

A synthetic co-culture for bioproduction of ammonia from methane and air

Abstract Fixed nitrogen fertilizers feed 50% of the global population, but most fixed nitrogen production occurs using energy-intensive Haber–Bosch-based chemistry combining nitrogen (N2) from air with gaseous hydrogen (H2) from methane (CH4) at high temperatures and pressures in large-scale facilities sensitive to supply chain disruptions. This work demonstrates the biological transformation of atmospheric N2 into ammonia (NH3) using CH4 as the sole carbon and energy source in a single vessel at ambient pressure and temperature, representing a biological “room-pressure and room-temperature” route to NH3 that could ultimately be developed to support compact, remote, NH3 production facilities amenable to distributed biomanufacturing. The synthetic microbial co-culture of engineered methanotroph Methylomicrobium buryatense (now Methylotuvimicrobium buryatense) and diazotroph Azotobacter vinelandii converted three CH4 molecules to l-lactate (C3H6O3) and powered gaseous N2 conversion to NH3. The design used division of labor and mutualistic metabolism strategies to address the oxygen sensitivity of nitrogenase and maximize CH4 oxidation efficiency. Media pH and salinity were central variables supporting co-cultivation. Carbon concentration heavily influenced NH3 production. Smaller-scale NH3 production near dispersed, abundant, and renewable CH4 sources could reduce disruption risks and capitalize on untapped energy resources. One-Sentence Summary Co-culture of engineered microorganisms Methylomicrobium buryatense and Azotobacter vinelandii facilitated the use of methane gas as a sole carbon feedstock to produce ammonia in an ambient temperature, atmospheric pressure, single-vessel system.

Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology↗

DOE OSTI2020

Predicted annual biomass input to maintain soil organic carbon under contrasting management

Corn (Zea mays L.) residue is an important source of lignocellulosic feedstocks for meeting the US renewable energy goals. However, there is uncertainty in how much biomass can be sustainably harvested. The objectives of this study were to (i) simulate soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics in the 0–20, 20–30, and 0–30 cm soil depths for the 2005–2015 study period using CQESTR, a process-based C model; (ii) establish trends in SOC with residue removal and tillage management over the predictive period of 2016–2035; and (iii) recommend practices to maintain SOC stocks in a corn–soybean (Glycine max L. [Merr.]) rotation with corn residue removal in western Minnesota. The residue removal treatments in the conventional tillage since 1995 (CT 95 ) and no tillage since 1995 (NT 95 ) were initiated in 2005, and in 2006 for the no tillage since 2005 (NT 05 ). Corn residue removal treatments were none, cob removal, ~50% removal, and ~75% removal (R0, RCob, R50, and R75, respectively). Only R0 in NT 05 increased SOC (0.32 Mg C ha –1 yr –1 ) stocks in the top 30 cm soil depth by 2035 with annual aboveground biomass input of 6.30 Mg ha –1 yr –1 . It was concluded that only the NT 05 field has the potential to maintain SOC at the current rate of biomass addition, and a minimal annual aboveground C (MSC) input of 3.75 Mg C ha –1 yr –1 is required to maintain SOC until 2035. These simulation results indicate that caution should be used in removing residue especially under conventional tillage.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2020

Innovations in Renewable Energy Technologies, Systems, and Energy Analysis

Costs for renewable energy technologies have declined rapidly in the past decade and their use for residential, commercial, and utility scale electricity has therefore grown exponentially. As the energy mix diversifies, energy analysis becomes increasing important, requiring renewable energy to integrate with other reduced emission energy sources, such as small modular nuclear reactors and carbon capture and utilization. Energy analysis can also explore the expansion of clean energy into new sectors, such as industrial processes and electrification. The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA), which is a partnership of NREL and universities, study the integration and application of clean energy technologies into existing and new sectors. This presentation includes an overview of NREL and JISEA and summarizes innovations in renewable energy technologies and energy systems analysis.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2020

In-Pile Instrumentation (I2) (2018 Report)

Energy demand is growing exponentially, renewing interest in nuclear technology as a reliable, carbon-free energy source. In alignment with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Idaho National Laboratory’s (INL’s) primary mission is to discover, demonstrate and secure innovative nuclear energy solutions. The capability to monitor the conditions inside nuclear reactors core is considered essential to this development process. To enable such capability, the InPile Instrumentation (I2) program was conceived in 2017 as an additional element to DOE Crosscutting Technology Development activities under the Nuclear Energy Enabling Technology (NEET) program. This document reports on the first year of implementation of research activities.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

NASA NTRS2006

Seawater/Saline Agriculture for Energy, Warming, Water, Rainfall, Land, Food and Minerals

The combination of the incipient demise of cheap oil and increasing evidence of Global Warming due to anthropogenic fossil carbon release has reinvigorated the need for and efforts on Renewable energy sources, especially for transportation applications. Biomass/Bio-diesel appears to have many benefits compared to Hydrogen, the only other major renewable transportation fuel candidate. Biomass Production is currently limited by available arable land and fresh water. Halophyte Plants and seawater irrigation proffer a wholly new biomass production mantra using wastelands and very plentiful seawater. Such an approach addresses many-to-most of the major emerging Societal Problems including Land, Water, Food, Warming and Energy. For many reasons, including seawater agriculture, portions of the Sahara appear to be viable candidates for future Biomass Production. The apparent nonlinearity between vegetation cover and atmospheric conditions over North Africa necessitates serious coupled boundary layer Meteorology and Global Circulation Modeling to ensure that this form of Terra Forming is Favorable and to avoid adverse Unintended Consequences.

Bushnell, Dennis↗

DOE OSTI2021

The Role of Hydropower in the Next-Generation Grid

Hydropower can provide a low-carbon source of energy, capacity, and flexibility to the grid. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL's) hydropower research covers multiple aspects of grid integration, including hydropower's role in grid planning, operations modeling, and reliability and resilience research.

grid integration↗

DOE OSTI2025

Life Cycle Assessment of Methanol from Fossil, Biomass, and Waste Sources, and Its Use as a Marine Fuel in Dual-Fuel Engines

Methanol is gaining interest in the marine sector from energy security and reducing emissions perspective. This study provides a comparative life cycle assessment of methanol as a marine fuel, across GHG and criteria air pollutant emission metrics, when it is used in a dual-fuel engine. Twelve methanol pathways from four different feedstock categories were considered, including (1) cellulosic biomass forest residues and clean pine mix, corn stover, switchgrass, and miscanthus; (2) organic wastes renewable natural gas from wastewater sludge, swine manure, food waste, and landfill gas; (3) fossil resources coal and natural gas (NG); and (4) e-methanol using captured carbon dioxide. When used in a dual-fuel engine with pilot fuel, life cycle GHG emissions for woody biomass-based methanol were approximately 19 gCO 2 e MJ −1 , while emissions from waste-based sources ranged between −154 and 31 gCO 2 e MJ −1 . Methanol from renewable sources showed a GHG reduction potential between 58 and 226% compared to conventional NG-based methanol (122 gCO 2 e MJ −1 ), primarily due to the avoided emissions from conventional waste management. When carbon from process emissions were captured, the reduction could be up to 327%. All pathways exhibited lower NO X , and particulate matter emissions compared to the baseline marine fuel (MGO 0.1% sulfur), while woody biomass and coal pathways had higher SO X emissions.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

DOE OSTI2022

Choosing the Best Carbon Factor for the Job: Exploring Available Carbon Emissions Factors and the Impact of Factor Selection

Over 600 local governments in the United States, including nearly half of the largest 100 cities, have enacted climate action plans that include carbon reduction goals and greenhouse gas inventories (Markolf et al. 2020). The magnitude of these goals ranges from modest reduction targets to carbon neutrality. None will be met without significant contributions from the buildings sector. Understanding how energy efficiency and building electrification impact greenhouse gas emissions requires local, time-sensitive, and forward-looking carbon emissions factors for electricity use in buildings. There are a variety of emissions factors currently available from various sources, including average emissions factors and historical short-run marginal emissions factors. Long-run marginal emissions factors and future-year short-run marginal emissions factors are also now available from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL's) Cambium data sets. In this paper, we describe the different carbon emissions factors available, including both conventional sources and newly available options. We discuss the types of analyses each emissions factor is best suited to support. Then, using residential energy efficiency and electrification load profiles, we demonstrate how different conclusions result from different choices of carbon emissions factors. For two grid regions, we explore takeaways of using current versus future-year emissions, short-run versus long-run, and levelized versus single-year values. We include a framework for selecting the best carbon emissions factor for the job.

carbon emissions factors↗

DOE OSTI2024

Choosing the Best Carbon Factor for the Job: Exploring Available Carbon Emissions Factors and the Impact of Factor Selection: Preprint

carbon emissions factors↗

DOE OSTI2020

Biomass feedstock transport using fuel cell and battery electric trucks improves lifecycle metrics of biofuel sustainability and economy

We report the use of new vehicle technologies such as fuel cell hybrid electric and fully electric powertrains for biomass feedstock supply is an unexplored solution to reducing biofuel production cost, greenhouse gas emissions, and health impacts. These technologies have found success in light-duty vehicle applications and are in development for heavy-duty trucks. This study presents the first detailed stochastic techno-economic analysis and life-cycle assessment of biomass feedstock supply systems with diesel, fuel cell hybrid electric, and fully electric trucks and determines their impacts on biofuel production considering butanol as a representative biofuel. This study finds that fuel cell hybrid electric and fully electric trucks consume less energy relative to the diesel-powered truck regardless of the evaluated circumstances, including payloads of truck (loaded and empty), pavement types (gravel and paved), road conditions (normal and damaged), and road networks (local and highways). The use of fuel cell hybrid and fully electric trucks powered by H 2 -fuel and renewable sources of electricity, respectively, results in a large reduction in cost and carbon footprint, specifically for a long-distance hauling, and minimize other economic and environmental impacts. While the economic advantage of fuel cell hybrid electric vehicle is dependent on the price of H 2 -fuel and road conditions, use reduces the GHG emissions of biobutanol per 100 km-trucking-distance by 0.98-10.9 gCO 2e /MJ. Results show that converting to fully electric truck transport decreases the biobutanol production cost and GHG emissions per 100 km-trucking-distance by 0.4-7.3 cents/L and 0.78 to 9.1 gCO 2e /MJ, respectively. This study establishes the foundation for future investigations that will guide the development of economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable biomass feedstock supply system for cellulosic biorefineries or other goods transportation systems.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

DOE OSTI2022

Subsurface Hydrogen and Natural Gas Storage (State of Knowledge and Research Recommendations Report)

Global efforts to decrease carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions will result in increased reliance on renewable energy sources. One of the most significant obstacles to implementing this transition is the need for energy storage to compensate for varying, and sometimes intermittent, production rates and ever-increasing demand. An attractive solution is to use surplus energy to produce hydrogen gas (H 2 ), which can then be used to produce energy on demand without emitting CO 2 . This approach would require a vast H 2 network linking generators with consumers via transmission systems. Additionally, H 2 storage would be needed to support immediate needs, but larger storage reserves also will be required to ensure energy reliability and mitigate the impact of the mismatch between variable production rates and demand. Large-scale storage of H 2 may be achieved by using underground resources similar to how natural gas (NG) has been stored for the past century. While there is much experience in underground NG storage (UGS), significant technical challenges must be addressed to economically and safely store H 2 at the commercial scale. The purpose of this report is to assess the current state of knowledge and to identify technical research needs to facilitate deployment of large-scale underground hydrogen storage (UHS).

03 NATURAL GAS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Transforming our understanding of chloroplast-associated genes through comprehensive characterization of protein localizations and protein-protein interactions

Bioenergy crops are a renewable source of fuels and are a critical base for building a carbon-neutral economy. Rational engineering of bioenergy crops has the potential to enhance the yields. However, our ability to engineer plants is limited because the functions of most genes remain unknown. Systematic characterization of gene function in plants thus has the potential to greatly accelerate bioenergy research. Here, we focus on the chloroplast, an underexplored energy-producing organelle that is a hallmark of plants. The chloroplast is one of the promising targets of biofuel crop engineering efforts because of its central role in photosynthesis, metabolism, and intracellular signaling. However, the protein composition of the chloroplast and the functions of most of its proteins remain poorly characterized. At the core of this project, we sought to comprehensively determine the localization of chloroplast-associated proteins and generate a spatially defined protein-protein interaction network for chloroplast. For this purpose, we used the leading model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, which greatly increased experimental speed and throughput. We illustrated the value of our findings to land plants by determining the localization of Arabidopsis thaliana land plant homologs of the Chlamydomonas proteins. Altogether, we were successful in determining the localization of 1,034 chloroplast-associated proteins in Chlamydomonas. The localizations provide numerous insights into the spatial organization of chloroplasts and how they function to support photosynthesis. The localization patterns of distinct proteins revealed new chloroplast structures and revealed new spatial organization inside the chloroplast. We also identified new components of known chloroplast structures, such as the chloroplast envelope, nucleoid, plastoglobuli, and pyrenoid. We identified these new components by investigating the interacting partners of known proteins. Many proteins localized in both the chloroplast and other cellular structures, thereby hinting at new functions and communication between cellular structures. We also applied machine learning on the atlas to generate predictions for the location of all of the proteins in Chlamydomonas. This enabled us to assign putative functions to many uncharacterized proteins based on their cellular location. Altogether, this research establishes a rich resource that opens new avenues of investigation and guides future work in deciphering and manipulating chloroplast function. Next, we developed an extensive protein-protein interaction network for the chloroplast by performing affinity purification-mass spectrometry on ~1,150 tagged chloroplast-associated proteins, the first such large-scale study in any photosynthetic organism. This dataset reveals 4,694 high-confidence protein-protein interactions, offering insights into the functions of thousands of conserved poorly-characterized chloroplast proteins. This systematic identification of protein-protein interactions in the chloroplast also provides multiple exciting new research directions and a detailed blueprint of the chloroplast's operation. This research lays the groundwork to decipher the inner workings of the chloroplast, the cell structure at the heart of photosynthesis. The spatial atlas and protein-protein interactions reveal chloroplast organizational features that would not have been accessible with traditional approaches. The localization mapping, insights into the function, and research materials generated further provide a rich resource for the research community to advance the understanding of how the chloroplast is organized to enable engineering of enhanced photosynthetic organisms.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2021

Renewable Energy for Industrial Environmental Management

Costs for renewable energy technologies have declined rapidly in the past decade and their use for residential, commercial, and utility scale electricity has grown exponentially as they become cost competitive. Simultaneously, industrial and manufacturing processes have been increasingly seeking ways to reduce emissions and operational costs in highly competitive sectors. With these combined drivers of lower cost and reduced environmental impact, renewable energy may become a viable energy provider for industrial processes such as oil and gas, mining, chemical refining, food production, and manufacturing. Renewable energy technologies may also partner with other reduced emission energy sources, such as small modular nuclear reactors and carbon capture and utilization, to create cleaner and circular industrial systems for reduced resource use. The Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA), which is a partnership of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and five universities and others, has been studying to potential for application of clean energy technologies to the heterogenous energy demands in industry. Dr. Jill Engel-Cox will present an overview of NREL and JISEA, the status and potential future of renewable energy technologies, and collaborations with the oil and gas industry and other industrial sectors to improve their environmental performance and reduce operational costs.

ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2023

Children Of the Sun Solar Initiative (COSSI) (Final)

The Children Of the Sun Solar Initiative (COSSI) project is a pivotal step towards energy independence for the Spokane Tribe and the Spokane Indian Housing Authority (SIHA). It involves evaluating the solar potential of 32 SIHA and Tribal buildings, with a goal of achieving energy autonomy through renewable sources. By installing 652.5 kW of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, the project significantly reduces carbon emissions, lowers energy costs, and enhances sustainability. Key Points: (1) COSSI's mission is to empower the Spokane Tribe and SIHA with clean energy solutions, aligning with their Long-Term Energy Vision. (2) The project includes solar installations on 32 buildings, generating approximately 700,000 kWh annually. (3) It also involves collaboration with SIHA's Weatherization Program and offers training opportunities for tribal members. (4) The installations aid energy efficiency and cost reduction for high-energy-use structures. (5) The initiative advances the Tribe's economic infrastructure, fostering renewable resources and sustainable practices. (6) COSSI serves as a model for leveraging federal funding and tax credits to establish clean energy projects, while generating training and job prospects. (7) The project contributes to energy independence through the adoption of evolving solar technologies. Overall, COSSI is a forward-looking effort to usher in clean energy, enhance infrastructure, and inspire similar projects across tribal and housing authorities.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗