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At least 145 records · Page 8

Mechanistic Modeling of TEG Dehydrator Emissions in Oil and Gas Industry

This work presents a mechanistic modeling approach for simulating methane emissions from triethylene glycol (TEG) dehydrators used in oil & gas (O&G) operations. The model was developed as a modular component of the Mechanistic Air Emissions Simulator (MAES) tool, incorporating species-specific absorption and emission dynamics through two-level, second-order polynomial regression (PR) models trained on ProMax simulation data: (1) species-level regression models that track the transfer rates of individual gas species within the dehydrator unit streams, and (2) outlet flow stream regression models that predict the fraction of inlet gas distributed among the outlet streams of the dehydrator unit. These behaviors were characterized over a range of glycol circulation ratios, wet gas pressures, and temperatures. The model was validated using root mean square error (RMSE) analysis. The species-level PR achieved low root mean square error (RMSE) values (<0.03) for light hydrocarbon species across all dehydrator components, ranging from 0.0009 for methane to 0.029 for normal pentane. Similarly, the outlet-level PR yielded RMSE values below 0.002 for the dry gas fraction, 0.001 for the flash tank fraction, and 0.002 for the still vent fraction, demonstrating strong agreement between predicted and reference ProMax values. When deployed at field facilities, the model significantly improved MAES-simulated dehydrator emissions, revealing that gas-assisted glycol pump emissions are the dominant contributors to both dehydrator-level and site-level methane emissions under uncontrolled conditions. Further analysis of the 154 dehydrator units reported by operators under the AMI 2024 project showed that 54 units (31%) used gas-driven glycol pumps, of which 6 units (11%) operated with uncontrolled flash tanks, and 22 units (40.7%) were identified as potentially oversized. Of the six dehydrator units with uncontrolled gas-assisted pumps, pump emissions accounted for 90.25% of total dehydrator emissions and 63.10% of total site-level emissions. These findings highlight substantial opportunities for emissions mitigation through equipment upgrades.

MAES↗

HydroBio: Hydropower Capacity and Freshwater Biodiversity in Conterminous United States Sub-basins

This dataset summarizes existing and potential hydropower capacity and freshwater biodiversity at the sub-basin level throughout the conterminous United States (CONUS). It contains descriptive information regarding each sub-basin (e.g., 8-digit hydrologic unit code identifier, name, states, and size) along with sub-basin-level summaries of: 1) existing hydropower capacity (MW), 2) potential nominal non-powered dam (NPD) capacity (MW), 3) potential capacity of new stream reach development (NSD) (MW), and 4) freshwater biodiversity, including the total richness of fish, crayfish, and mussels and metrics that account for how rare and threatened those species tend to be. Hydropower data were obtained from Oak Ridge National Laboratory data resources (Existing Hydropower Assets, Non-Powered Dam Technical Potential, and New Stream Reach Development). Freshwater biodiversity data were obtained from NatureServe. Sub-basin characteristic information was obtained from the United States Geological Survey. Additionally, long data that provide lists of unique elements within each sub-basin for each constituent data resource (e.g., NatureServe, Existing Hydropower Assets) are provided to enhance dataset utility for users. The dataset provides, for the first time, a national-level assessment of existing and potential hydropower capacity in the context of freshwater biodiversity and is a valuable resource for stakeholders tasked with providing affordable, reliable energy to the American public while maintaining or enhancing invaluable freshwater resources. The dataset contains six data files in comma separated (*.csv) format that are within a zipped file.

Bozeman, Bryan [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORN↗

Assessing Spatial Representativeness of Global Flux Tower Eddy-Covariance Measurements Using Data from FLUXNET2015

Large datasets of carbon dioxide, energy, and water fluxes were measured with the eddy-covariance (EC) technique, such as FLUXNET2015. These datasets are widely used to validate remote-sensing products and benchmark models. One of the major challenges in utilizing EC-flux data is determining the spatial extent to which measurements taken at individual EC towers reflect model-grid or remote sensing pixels. To minimize the potential biases caused by the footprint-to-target area mismatch, it is important to use flux datasets with awareness of the footprint. This study analyze the spatial representativeness of global EC measurements based on the open-source FLUXNET2015 data, using the published flux footprint model (SAFE-f). The calculated annual cumulative footprint climatology (ACFC) was overlaid on land cover and vegetation index maps to create a spatial representativeness dataset of global flux towers. The dataset includes the following components: (1) the ACFC contour (ACFCC) data and areas representing 50%, 60%, 70%, and 80% ACFCC of each site, (2) the proportion of each land cover type weighted by the 80% ACFC (ACFCW), (3) the semivariogram calculated using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) considering the 80% ACFCW, and (4) the sensor location bias (SLB) between the 80% ACFCW and designated areas (e.g. 80% ACFCC and window sizes) proxied by NDVI. Finally, we conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the representativeness of each site from three aspects: (1) the underlying surface cover, (2) the semivariogram, and (3) the SLB between 80% ACFCW and 80% ACFCC, and categorized them into 3 levels. The goal of creating this dataset is to provide data quality guidance for international researchers to effectively utilize the FLUXNET2015 dataset in the future.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Scalable and Secure Power Outage Data Reporting: A Hexagonal Geospatial Approach

Power outages disrupt critical infrastructure and cause billions of dollars in economic losses annually in the United States. Accurate and granular outage reporting is vital for effective restoration and mitigation. This paper examines the integration of the Hexagonal Hierarchical Geospatial Indexing System (H3) to enhance power outage reporting, leveraging its uniform grid structure, scalable resolutions, and support for privacy-preserving analysis. Using high-resolution LandScan Global population data and K-anonymization techniques, this work achieves a balance between data granularity and privacy. Results show that lower privacy thresholds (e.g., K-anonymity = 2) enable higher resolution, while stricter thresholds (e.g., >15 people per hex) reduce granularity, potentially affecting localized responses. State-and county-level resolution case studies demonstrate H3’s adaptability and the trade-offs between precision and privacy. The proposed H3-based framework offers a scalable and efficient solution for geospatial data integration within the energy sector, such as outage data, aiding utilities and regulators in improving resilience and response efforts, particularly in disaster-prone regions.

Ahmad, Nasir [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000150677368)↗

A Centralized AI Lakehouse Framework for Brain Tumor MRI Classification and Segmentation, University KPI Forecasting, and Water Potability Prediction

In many university and healthcare projects, models are built for very different data types such as tables, institutional time series, and medical images, but they are deployed as separate applications. In this work, that separation made testing and maintenance difficult because each module had its own pipeline and runtime requirements. This paper presents an integrated AI lakehouse-style implementation that runs three model pipelines inside one containerized backend. For medical imaging, we used MRI datasets from IEEE DataPort: a four-class classification set with 7012 images (5708 train/1304 test) and a segmentation set with 3063 image–mask pairs. The classification model (ResNet50 transfer learning) is evaluated using a proper train–validation–test protocol across multiple splits (80/10/10, 70/10/20, 60/10/30, and 10/30/60), achieving a test accuracy of 99.00% under the standard 80/10/10 split. Additionally, a patient-level evaluation is conducted using an external glioma dataset to provide a more realistic assessment without data leakage. The segmentation model (DeepLabV3-ResNet50) achieved 83.09% validation mIoU and 88.79% Dice score. For university KPI forecasting, we used annual IPEDS and NSF HERD data from 2010 to 2023 for three universities (BSU, EOU, and UAB). To examine the effect of preprocessing on forecasting performance, two case studies are conducted. In the first case, linear interpolation is applied to generate semester-level data. In the second case, the original annual data is used directly without interpolation. Random Forest regression and ARIMA models are evaluated using MAE, RMSE, MAPE, and R 2 . The results showed that interpolation improved apparent forecasting performance due to smoothing, while evaluation on the original annual data provided a more realistic assessment of model behavior. To further validate the framework on a larger dataset, an additional case study is conducted using a student dropout dataset. For water potability, we trained and compared multiple tabular classifiers on a large dataset (1,048,575 samples). A Random Forest model (100 trees, max depth 10) achieved 85.86% test accuracy and high recall for unsafe samples (0.8447). All modules are served via FastAPI and deployed together using Docker, with workflow automation routing requests to the correct endpoint. System-level benchmarking indicates that the backend maintains stable throughput and latency under concurrent requests.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

2017 National Household Travel Survey - Arizona Add-On

# 2017 National Household Travel Survey – Arizona Add-On The Arizona add-on survey supplements the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) with additional household samples and detailed travel behavior for an assigned travel day. ## Data Collection Agency The Federal Highway Administration conducted the NHTS and corresponding add-on surveys. ## Methodology This survey documents the demographic, attitudinal, and travel behavior for all members of 2,987 households, as collected from April 2016 to April 2017. Daily travel details provide insight into work and school commutes, non-emergency medical trips, shopping trips, and even how travel differs in the summer and on weekends as compared to a typical weekday when school is in session. When statistically weighted to adjust for survey biases, the data demographically represents all Americans and is appropriate for analysis at the national and census region levels. ## Survey Records Survey records include a total of 6,081 participants. ## Transportation Data The NHTS Arizona add-on data package contains a demographic and socioeconomic composition of 6,081 people from 2,987 households in Arizona, as well as detailed information on the travel behavior of each household for a designated 24-hour period. The survey logged more than 258,000 vehicle miles of travel by participants during 19,779 trips. For details on available data and variable definitions, see the [data dictionary](https://www.nrel.gov/media/docs/libraries/tsdc/data-elements-2017.xlsx?sfvrsn=ad09b18c_3). Transportation data are available as zipped files. [Download Winzip](http://www.winzip.com/downwz.htm).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

2017 National Household Travel Survey - Arizona Add-On

# 2017 National Household Travel Survey – Arizona Add-On The Arizona add-on survey supplements the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) with additional household samples and detailed travel behavior for an assigned travel day. ## Data Collection Agency The Federal Highway Administration conducted the NHTS and corresponding add-on surveys. ## Methodology This survey documents the demographic, attitudinal, and travel behavior for all members of 2,987 households, as collected from April 2016 to April 2017. Daily travel details provide insight into work and school commutes, non-emergency medical trips, shopping trips, and even how travel differs in the summer and on weekends as compared to a typical weekday when school is in session. When statistically weighted to adjust for survey biases, the data demographically represents all Americans and is appropriate for analysis at the national and census region levels. ## Survey Records Survey records include a total of 6,081 participants. ## Transportation Data The NHTS Arizona add-on data package contains a demographic and socioeconomic composition of 6,081 people from 2,987 households in Arizona, as well as detailed information on the travel behavior of each household for a designated 24-hour period. The survey logged more than 258,000 vehicle miles of travel by participants during 19,779 trips. For details on available data and variable definitions, see the [data dictionary](https://www.nrel.gov/media/docs/libraries/tsdc/data-elements-2017.xlsx?sfvrsn=ad09b18c_3). Transportation data are available as zipped files. [Download Winzip](http://www.winzip.com/downwz.htm).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

2017 National Household Travel Survey - Arizona Add-On

# 2017 National Household Travel Survey – Arizona Add-On The Arizona add-on survey supplements the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) with additional household samples and detailed travel behavior for an assigned travel day. ## Data Collection Agency The Federal Highway Administration conducted the NHTS and corresponding add-on surveys. ## Methodology This survey documents the demographic, attitudinal, and travel behavior for all members of 2,987 households, as collected from April 2016 to April 2017. Daily travel details provide insight into work and school commutes, non-emergency medical trips, shopping trips, and even how travel differs in the summer and on weekends as compared to a typical weekday when school is in session. When statistically weighted to adjust for survey biases, the data demographically represents all Americans and is appropriate for analysis at the national and census region levels. ## Survey Records Survey records include a total of 6,081 participants. ## Transportation Data The NHTS Arizona add-on data package contains a demographic and socioeconomic composition of 6,081 people from 2,987 households in Arizona, as well as detailed information on the travel behavior of each household for a designated 24-hour period. The survey logged more than 258,000 vehicle miles of travel by participants during 19,779 trips. For details on available data and variable definitions, see the [data dictionary](https://www.nrel.gov/media/docs/libraries/tsdc/data-elements-2017.xlsx?sfvrsn=ad09b18c_3). Transportation data are available as zipped files. [Download Winzip](http://www.winzip.com/downwz.htm).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

2017 National Household Travel Survey - Arizona Add-On

# 2017 National Household Travel Survey – Arizona Add-On The Arizona add-on survey supplements the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) with additional household samples and detailed travel behavior for an assigned travel day. ## Data Collection Agency The Federal Highway Administration conducted the NHTS and corresponding add-on surveys. ## Methodology This survey documents the demographic, attitudinal, and travel behavior for all members of 2,987 households, as collected from April 2016 to April 2017. Daily travel details provide insight into work and school commutes, non-emergency medical trips, shopping trips, and even how travel differs in the summer and on weekends as compared to a typical weekday when school is in session. When statistically weighted to adjust for survey biases, the data demographically represents all Americans and is appropriate for analysis at the national and census region levels. ## Survey Records Survey records include a total of 6,081 participants. ## Transportation Data The NHTS Arizona add-on data package contains a demographic and socioeconomic composition of 6,081 people from 2,987 households in Arizona, as well as detailed information on the travel behavior of each household for a designated 24-hour period. The survey logged more than 258,000 vehicle miles of travel by participants during 19,779 trips. For details on available data and variable definitions, see the [data dictionary](https://www.nrel.gov/media/docs/libraries/tsdc/data-elements-2017.xlsx?sfvrsn=ad09b18c_3). Transportation data are available as zipped files. [Download Winzip](http://www.winzip.com/downwz.htm).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

2017 National Household Travel Survey - Arizona Add-On

# 2017 National Household Travel Survey – Arizona Add-On The Arizona add-on survey supplements the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) with additional household samples and detailed travel behavior for an assigned travel day. ## Data Collection Agency The Federal Highway Administration conducted the NHTS and corresponding add-on surveys. ## Methodology This survey documents the demographic, attitudinal, and travel behavior for all members of 2,987 households, as collected from April 2016 to April 2017. Daily travel details provide insight into work and school commutes, non-emergency medical trips, shopping trips, and even how travel differs in the summer and on weekends as compared to a typical weekday when school is in session. When statistically weighted to adjust for survey biases, the data demographically represents all Americans and is appropriate for analysis at the national and census region levels. ## Survey Records Survey records include a total of 6,081 participants. ## Transportation Data The NHTS Arizona add-on data package contains a demographic and socioeconomic composition of 6,081 people from 2,987 households in Arizona, as well as detailed information on the travel behavior of each household for a designated 24-hour period. The survey logged more than 258,000 vehicle miles of travel by participants during 19,779 trips. For details on available data and variable definitions, see the [data dictionary](https://www.nrel.gov/media/docs/libraries/tsdc/data-elements-2017.xlsx?sfvrsn=ad09b18c_3). Transportation data are available as zipped files. [Download Winzip](http://www.winzip.com/downwz.htm).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

2017 National Household Travel Survey - Arizona Add-On

# 2017 National Household Travel Survey – Arizona Add-On The Arizona add-on survey supplements the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) with additional household samples and detailed travel behavior for an assigned travel day. ## Data Collection Agency The Federal Highway Administration conducted the NHTS and corresponding add-on surveys. ## Methodology This survey documents the demographic, attitudinal, and travel behavior for all members of 2,987 households, as collected from April 2016 to April 2017. Daily travel details provide insight into work and school commutes, non-emergency medical trips, shopping trips, and even how travel differs in the summer and on weekends as compared to a typical weekday when school is in session. When statistically weighted to adjust for survey biases, the data demographically represents all Americans and is appropriate for analysis at the national and census region levels. ## Survey Records Survey records include a total of 6,081 participants. ## Transportation Data The NHTS Arizona add-on data package contains a demographic and socioeconomic composition of 6,081 people from 2,987 households in Arizona, as well as detailed information on the travel behavior of each household for a designated 24-hour period. The survey logged more than 258,000 vehicle miles of travel by participants during 19,779 trips. For details on available data and variable definitions, see the [data dictionary](https://www.nrel.gov/media/docs/libraries/tsdc/data-elements-2017.xlsx?sfvrsn=ad09b18c_3). Transportation data are available as zipped files. [Download Winzip](http://www.winzip.com/downwz.htm).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

2017 National Household Travel Survey - Arizona Add-On

# 2017 National Household Travel Survey – Arizona Add-On The Arizona add-on survey supplements the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) with additional household samples and detailed travel behavior for an assigned travel day. ## Data Collection Agency The Federal Highway Administration conducted the NHTS and corresponding add-on surveys. ## Methodology This survey documents the demographic, attitudinal, and travel behavior for all members of 2,987 households, as collected from April 2016 to April 2017. Daily travel details provide insight into work and school commutes, non-emergency medical trips, shopping trips, and even how travel differs in the summer and on weekends as compared to a typical weekday when school is in session. When statistically weighted to adjust for survey biases, the data demographically represents all Americans and is appropriate for analysis at the national and census region levels. ## Survey Records Survey records include a total of 6,081 participants. ## Transportation Data The NHTS Arizona add-on data package contains a demographic and socioeconomic composition of 6,081 people from 2,987 households in Arizona, as well as detailed information on the travel behavior of each household for a designated 24-hour period. The survey logged more than 258,000 vehicle miles of travel by participants during 19,779 trips. For details on available data and variable definitions, see the [data dictionary](https://www.nrel.gov/media/docs/libraries/tsdc/data-elements-2017.xlsx?sfvrsn=ad09b18c_3). Transportation data are available as zipped files. [Download Winzip](http://www.winzip.com/downwz.htm).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

2017 National Household Travel Survey - Arizona Add-On

# 2017 National Household Travel Survey – Arizona Add-On The Arizona add-on survey supplements the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) with additional household samples and detailed travel behavior for an assigned travel day. ## Data Collection Agency The Federal Highway Administration conducted the NHTS and corresponding add-on surveys. ## Methodology This survey documents the demographic, attitudinal, and travel behavior for all members of 2,987 households, as collected from April 2016 to April 2017. Daily travel details provide insight into work and school commutes, non-emergency medical trips, shopping trips, and even how travel differs in the summer and on weekends as compared to a typical weekday when school is in session. When statistically weighted to adjust for survey biases, the data demographically represents all Americans and is appropriate for analysis at the national and census region levels. ## Survey Records Survey records include a total of 6,081 participants. ## Transportation Data The NHTS Arizona add-on data package contains a demographic and socioeconomic composition of 6,081 people from 2,987 households in Arizona, as well as detailed information on the travel behavior of each household for a designated 24-hour period. The survey logged more than 258,000 vehicle miles of travel by participants during 19,779 trips. For details on available data and variable definitions, see the [data dictionary](https://www.nrel.gov/media/docs/libraries/tsdc/data-elements-2017.xlsx?sfvrsn=ad09b18c_3). Transportation data are available as zipped files. [Download Winzip](http://www.winzip.com/downwz.htm).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

2017 National Household Travel Survey - Arizona Add-On

# 2017 National Household Travel Survey – Arizona Add-On The Arizona add-on survey supplements the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) with additional household samples and detailed travel behavior for an assigned travel day. ## Data Collection Agency The Federal Highway Administration conducted the NHTS and corresponding add-on surveys. ## Methodology This survey documents the demographic, attitudinal, and travel behavior for all members of 2,987 households, as collected from April 2016 to April 2017. Daily travel details provide insight into work and school commutes, non-emergency medical trips, shopping trips, and even how travel differs in the summer and on weekends as compared to a typical weekday when school is in session. When statistically weighted to adjust for survey biases, the data demographically represents all Americans and is appropriate for analysis at the national and census region levels. ## Survey Records Survey records include a total of 6,081 participants. ## Transportation Data The NHTS Arizona add-on data package contains a demographic and socioeconomic composition of 6,081 people from 2,987 households in Arizona, as well as detailed information on the travel behavior of each household for a designated 24-hour period. The survey logged more than 258,000 vehicle miles of travel by participants during 19,779 trips. For details on available data and variable definitions, see the [data dictionary](https://www.nrel.gov/media/docs/libraries/tsdc/data-elements-2017.xlsx?sfvrsn=ad09b18c_3). Transportation data are available as zipped files. [Download Winzip](http://www.winzip.com/downwz.htm).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

2017 National Household Travel Survey - Arizona Add-On

# 2017 National Household Travel Survey – Arizona Add-On The Arizona add-on survey supplements the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) with additional household samples and detailed travel behavior for an assigned travel day. ## Data Collection Agency The Federal Highway Administration conducted the NHTS and corresponding add-on surveys. ## Methodology This survey documents the demographic, attitudinal, and travel behavior for all members of 2,987 households, as collected from April 2016 to April 2017. Daily travel details provide insight into work and school commutes, non-emergency medical trips, shopping trips, and even how travel differs in the summer and on weekends as compared to a typical weekday when school is in session. When statistically weighted to adjust for survey biases, the data demographically represents all Americans and is appropriate for analysis at the national and census region levels. ## Survey Records Survey records include a total of 6,081 participants. ## Transportation Data The NHTS Arizona add-on data package contains a demographic and socioeconomic composition of 6,081 people from 2,987 households in Arizona, as well as detailed information on the travel behavior of each household for a designated 24-hour period. The survey logged more than 258,000 vehicle miles of travel by participants during 19,779 trips. For details on available data and variable definitions, see the [data dictionary](https://www.nrel.gov/media/docs/libraries/tsdc/data-elements-2017.xlsx?sfvrsn=ad09b18c_3). Transportation data are available as zipped files. [Download Winzip](http://www.winzip.com/downwz.htm).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

2017 National Household Travel Survey - Arizona Add-On

# 2017 National Household Travel Survey – Arizona Add-On The Arizona add-on survey supplements the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) with additional household samples and detailed travel behavior for an assigned travel day. ## Data Collection Agency The Federal Highway Administration conducted the NHTS and corresponding add-on surveys. ## Methodology This survey documents the demographic, attitudinal, and travel behavior for all members of 2,987 households, as collected from April 2016 to April 2017. Daily travel details provide insight into work and school commutes, non-emergency medical trips, shopping trips, and even how travel differs in the summer and on weekends as compared to a typical weekday when school is in session. When statistically weighted to adjust for survey biases, the data demographically represents all Americans and is appropriate for analysis at the national and census region levels. ## Survey Records Survey records include a total of 6,081 participants. ## Transportation Data The NHTS Arizona add-on data package contains a demographic and socioeconomic composition of 6,081 people from 2,987 households in Arizona, as well as detailed information on the travel behavior of each household for a designated 24-hour period. The survey logged more than 258,000 vehicle miles of travel by participants during 19,779 trips. For details on available data and variable definitions, see the [data dictionary](https://www.nrel.gov/media/docs/libraries/tsdc/data-elements-2017.xlsx?sfvrsn=ad09b18c_3). Transportation data are available as zipped files. [Download Winzip](http://www.winzip.com/downwz.htm).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Maximizing Marine Carbon Removal by Coupling Electrochemical and Biological Methods

Integrated development of emerging marine decarbonization strategies offers the possibility of lowering CO2 removal costs and enabling their widespread deployment. In this study we examine the feasibility and benefits of coupling electrochemical and biological marine carbon removal strategies. Bipolar membrane electrodialysis (BPMED) is used to generate acid and alkalinity from seawater and electricity, and the alkalinity is returned to the ocean for indirect CO2 removal from the atmosphere, but the acid stream is a waste product. Considering the large-scale of CO2 removal necessary, the acid storage, neutralization, and disposal have prohibitive costs and carbon footprint. Here we investigate the feasibility to valorize the acid stream to enhance the growth and CO2 uptake through photosynthesis in the fast-growing marine phytoplankter Picochlorum celeri. When added to active algae cultures, the BPMED-generated acidified seawater alters the carbonate-bicarbonate equilibrium thereby increasing the bioavailability of CO2 and the observed growth rates. Additions of up to 2 mM H+ from BPMED effluent streams increased algal productivity up to 3-fold. A high-level analysis conducted based on experimental data to estimate the potential of sequestered CO2 emissions when compared to conventional commercial means of acid utilization or disposal, is estimated to be ~30 kgCO2 / kgacid. Through further development and optimization in terms of choice of algal species, growth conditions, acid addition rates, etc. the combined electrochemical-biological approach has the potential to achieve higher net CO2 removal.

carbon dioxide, marine, marine algae↗

Powering the Woods Hole X-Spar Buoy with Ocean Wave Energy—A Control Co-Design Feasibility Study

Despite its success in measuring air–sea exchange, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s (WHOI) X-Spar Buoy faces operational limitations due to energy constraints, motivating the integration of an energy harvesting apparatus to improve its deployment duration and capabilities. This work explores the feasibility of an augmented, self-powered system in two parts. Part 1 presents the collaborative design between X-Spar developers and wave energy researchers translating user needs into specific functional requirements. Based on requirements like desired power levels, deployability, survivability, and minimal interference with environmental data collection, unsuitable concepts are pre-eliminated from further feasibility study consideration. In part 2, we focus on one of the promising concepts: an internal rigid body wave energy converter. We apply control co-design methods to consider commercial of the shelf hardware components in the dynamic models and investigate the concept’s power conversion capabilities using linear 2-port wave-to-wire models with concurrently optimized control algorithms that are distinct for every considered hardware configuration. During this feasibility study we utilize two different control algorithms, the numerically optimal (but acausal) benchmark and the optimized damping feedback. We assess the sensitivity of average power to variations in drive-train friction, a parameter with high uncertainty, and analyze stroke limitations to ensure operational constraints are met. Our results indicate that a well-designed power take-off (PTO) system could significantly extend the WEC-Spar’s mission by providing additional electrical power without compromising data quality.

autonomous systems↗