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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Report to the President: Harnessing Social and Behavioral Science Insights to Enhance Policymaking and Improve the Lives of the American People

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) is the sole body of advisors from outside the federal government charged with making science, technology, and innovation policy recommendations to the President and the White House. Established by Executive Order, it is an independent Federal Advisory Committee comprised of distinguished individuals from industry, academia, and non-profit organizations with a range of perspectives and expertise. On January 15, 2025, PCAST sent a report to the President with recommendations to harness the insights of social and behavioral science research to benefit the American public.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Blending Behavioral Science and Physics-Based Models Inform Equitable Decarbonization Pathways in the US Housing Stock: Preprint

A just energy transition is an imperative of the Biden-Harris Administration, emphasizing the equitable distribution of benefits through energy-efficient and decarbonizing household technologies. Understanding the factors that increase a household's willingness to adopt these technologies helps policymakers implement more targeted and effective approaches. Our research addresses this by blending 550,000 housing stock types and energy simulation data with a nationally representative survey on residential technology adoption and decision-making (n=10,000). We identify energy equity gaps across tenure and income, highlighting disparities in energy burdens and insecurity. Findings show that households with prior modification experience are more willing to renovate, suggesting that small-scale retrofit programs could foster greater willingness. Energy secure but burdened homeowners are least willing to modify, highlighting the need to consider energy bill perceptions in policy design. Nearly half of US households that are energy burdened also face energy insecurity, with a significant gap in assistance for low-income households. We emphasize the need to understand household perceptions to improve policy. This research underscores the importance of understanding household behaviors to improve policy effectiveness, offering actionable insights for policymakers to promote equitable housing upgrades and advance a decarbonized future.

behavioral science↗
DOE OSTI2023

Increasing the Reach of Low-Income Energy Programmes through Behaviourally Informed Peer Referral

Subsidized energy assistance programmes are a popular policy tool for promoting energy justice, but, like other social benefits programmes, are often undersubscribed. To improve uptake, some programmes have turned to social influence strategies, such as asking programme participants to refer their peers. Here, through a field experiment with California's low-income solar programme (N = 7,676), we show that referral behaviour depends on how existing participants are approached. Adding behavioural science strategies to a referral reward increases peer referral rates, referral quality and ultimately solar adoption. Compared with only reminding existing adopters of a potential US$200 reward for referrals that result in adoption, adding an appeal to reciprocity through a non-contingent US$1 gift - and further combining this gift with a simplified referral process - leads to 2.6-5.2 times as many solar contracts. These results highlight the potential of behaviourally informed peer referral programmes to accelerate equitable access to clean energy.

California↗
DOE OSTI2023

Extrapair offspring of the blue-footed booby show no sign of higher fitness in the first 10 years of life

According to the good genes and genetic compatibility hypotheses, females of socially monogamous species obtain genetic benefits for their offspring by performing extrapair copulations with males of higher quality than their social mates or males with whom they are more genetically compatible. If extrapair offspring do receive genetic benefits in the form of advantageous alleles or more compatible allele combinations, they should outperform their within-pair half-siblings' survival and/or reproductive output. Here, in this study, we followed 52 extrapair and 737 within-pair blue-footed booby, Sula nebouxii, offspring during their first 10 years of life (excluding the embryonic period and the first 10 days after hatching) to assess whether they differed in fledging probability, fledgling body condition, recruitment probability, age at first reproduction, number of breeding events or accumulated breeding success. Extrapair and within-pair offspring did not differ in any of these proxies of fitness. Furthermore, we found that extrapair offspring were equally likely to occur in any hatching position. However, differences in fledgling production over the lifetime could not be ruled out, and because only within-pair production of eggs and fledglings was tallied, the possibility remains that extrapair offspring could produce more extrapair offspring later in life than do within-pair offspring. Furthermore, the possibility of context-dependent genetic benefits occurring only under stressful conditions cannot be discounted because our sample of offspring was obtained in a single exceptionally favourable reproductive season.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Mitigating Extremist Maritime Threats to Radiological Material Transport Vessels

The 21st century has experienced a rise in the threat of global radicalism and extremist organizations, and there has been oft-reported interest from these groups in obtaining or exploiting radiological materials. The threat of extremists acquiring radiological materials while in transit or sabotaging a transport vessel carrying materials at sea is one that requires increased attention. Transport is already one of the most vulnerable times for any cargo but including the difficulties in securing a large ship on the open ocean makes oceanic transport of radiological materials a space of elevated vulnerability for sabotage, theft, or other attacks. The risks of violent extremist attacks on trade ships and trading routes are serious, as shipping routes sustain the global economy, but an attack on a radiological transport vessel could be a magnitude worse, impacting national and international security. While radicalists have largely remained on land in the past due to minimal maritime expertise or inability to project power out of their immediate vicinity, the world has witnessed past attacks on ships such as the USS Cole and the MV Limburg and it is likely only a matter of time before groups extend further into the sea and engage in more maritime campaigns against material transport vessels. This paper suggests methods for increasing safety and security on oceanic transport voyages through behavioral science principles and insider threat recognition training, as well as a better understanding of adversarial and extremist psychology. By providing transport personnel with the knowledge and support to identify and respond to unique maritime threats by extremists, these principles and training suggestions should advance and increase security on the high seas.

Kinney, Justin↗
DOE OSTI2023

Fast Charging Infrastructure for Electrifying Road Trips to and from National Parks in the Western United States

National parks in the Western United States draw over 80 million visitors every year, and most visitors rely on personal cars for their road trips (or long-distance travels). Travel to national parks represents distinct travel demand, as they are typically located in remote areas necessitating long-distance trips. This study investigates the quantity and locations of on-route fast charging infrastructure needed by 2030 to enable seamless travel to/from national parks using electric vehicles in seven target states in the region, employing unprecedented high-resolution spatial and temporal analysis. We find that the required number of fast charging ports for on-route charging infrastructure ranges from 1,200 to 22,000, depending on different assumptions of key input parameters - vehicle electrification rate, charging behavior, average gap between charging stations, port utilization rate, and towing trailers. Our analysis also indicates that electrical load for on-route fast charging infrastructure would peak in the afternoon, in the range of 70-400 MW, varying with the key input parameters. This study illustrates how different input parameters result in different degrees of impact on various aspects of charging infrastructure. We also examine the characteristics of projected charging infrastructure in terms of land use type, relationship with traffic volume, size of stations, and other variables.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Alignment among environmental programs in higher education: What Food-Energy-Water Nexus concepts are covered in introductory courses?

Interdisciplinary environmental and sustainability (IES) programs are different from other fields because they focus on a complex integration of humanities, social, and natural sciences concepts centered on the interactions of coupled human and natural systems. The interdisciplinary nature of IES programs does not lend itself to traditional discipline-specific concept inventory frameworks for critically evaluating preconceptions and learning. We discuss the results of the first phase of a research project to develop a next generation concept inventory for evaluating interdisciplinary concepts important for introductory IES courses. Using the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) Nexus (the intersections/interdependencies of food, energy, and water sectors) as our focus, we conducted a content analysis of eight representative college-level introductory environmental course syllabi and course materials (e.g., textbooks, journal articles, print media) to identify common interdisciplinary FEW Nexus concepts taught in introductory IES courses. Results demonstrate that all IES introductory course materials reference the FEW Nexus. Food, energy, and/or water resources as individual elements of the FEW Nexus are frequently described, but connections between these resource systems are included less often. Biology, energy systems, waste and pollution in the natural environment, agriculture, earth sciences and geology, climate change, behavioral social sciences, and economics concepts are most associated with FEW concepts, hinting at commonalities across IES topics that anchor systems thinking. Despite differences in IES programs, there appears to be some alignment between core concepts being taught at the FEW Nexus in introductory courses.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Interspecific oral rabies vaccine bait competition in the Southeast United States

Here, the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Rabies Management Program (NRMP) has coordinated the use of oral rabies vaccination (ORV) to control the spread of raccoon rabies virus variant west of the Appalachian Mountains since 1997. Working with state and local partners, the NRMP deploys ORV baits containing a rabies vaccine, primarily targeting raccoon populations (Procyon lotor). Bait competition between raccoons and non-target species may limit the effectiveness of ORV programs, but the extent of bait competition remains poorly quantified, particularly in the southeastern United States. We placed placebo ORV baits in bottomland hardwood (n = 637 baits) and upland pine (n = 681 baits) habitats in South Carolina, USA during August-December 2019 and used remote cameras to examine bait competition between raccoons and non-target species. The estimated proportion of bait consumed by raccoons was 18.8 ± 2.1% in bottomland hardwood and 11.6 ± 2.1% in upland pine habitats. Vertebrate competition appeared to have a minimal effect on raccoon uptake as estimated consumption did not exceed 5% for any species or 8% of bait uptake events cumulatively. We estimated that raccoons were the primary consumer of baits in bottomland hardwood, whereas invertebrates were the primary consumer in upland pine (26.7 ± 1.3% of baits). Our results indicate a need to closely consider the effects of invertebrates on bait consumption to minimize their potential impact on ORV bait uptake by target species. Uptake probabilities by raccoons were relatively low but not primarily driven by competition with vertebrates. As such, strategies to increase the specificity of raccoon uptake may be needed to enhance the effectiveness of ORV baiting programs.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Co-occurrence of native white-tailed deer and invasive wild pigs: Evidence for competition?

Understanding whether invasive and native species compete for shared resources where they co-occur is essential for mitigating the negative impacts of invasive species on native ecosystems. Here, we examined how the presence and density of an invasive species, wild pigs (Sus scrofa), affect native white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus; hereafter, deer) on the Savannah River Site, SC, USA. We examined potential changes in deer areas of use, temporal overlap, and occupancy to evaluate the effects of wild pig occurrence and density on deer space use, diel activity, and co-occurrence with wild pigs across 9 months during 2018 and 2019. Wild pig density had the strongest effect on deer space use in high- and moderate-use areas. Declines in deer space use in response to wild pig density were most pronounced in March and October 2018 and April 2019 for females, while male space use declined in response to wild pig density in October and December 2018. Both species were largely nocturnal with high overlap in diel activity across months. Deer occupancy responses to wild pig density varied across months, with negative responses in May and October 2018 and positive responses in July 2018 and April 2019. Deer and wild pigs co-occurred at 30%–59% of camera stations across months, with broadscale co-occurrence patterns being unaffected by changes in shared cover or wild pig occurrence. Overall, our results suggest that deer make fine-scale behavioral adjustments to avoid wild pigs, providing evidence that competition is likely occurring even where wild pig density is relatively low. Such fine-scale behavioral plasticity in deer appears to mitigate the costs of competition with wild pigs and may be a mechanism enabling long-term co-existence of deer and wild pigs. Our study provides novel insight on the complexities of spatiotemporal relationships between invasive wild pigs and native deer and suggests that the negative effects of interactions between deer and wild pigs may be more pronounced when deer life history needs are particularly demanding. In areas where eradication of invasive wild pigs may be impossible, maintaining low wild pig densities may help mitigate, but may not eliminate, the negative effects of wild pigs on deer.

resource partitioning↗
DOE OSTI2023

Data Privacy for the Grid: Toward a Data Privacy Standard for Inverter-Based and Distributed Energy Resources

The traditional approach to planning the distribution grid has focused on reliability in the context of gradual and reasonably predictable load growth. Forecasts of load growth, combined with asset management practices, were used by system planners to identify upgrades to the system to maintain or improve reliability. The decisions, typically based within load flow analysis tools, included considerations about contingency scenarios and corporate forecasts (i.e., top-down predictions at a summary level of what would happen in a particular area that could impact load growth and behavior). As a result, today, this traditional approach no longer fits all purposes.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

PV Inverter Testing for Momentary Cessation and Rate-of-Change-of-Frequency Events

To understand the power system stability and develop better electromagnetic transient (EMT) models of field deployed photovoltaic (PV) inverters, it is important to characterize inverters' response to abnormal voltage and frequency scenarios. Because EMT models are not typically available for small distribution-connected PV inverters, and because inerterconnection standards historically did not specify desired ride-through behaviors, we tested two such inverters in the lab to characterize their responses to severe undervoltage events and high rate-of-change-of-frequency (ROCOF) conditions. The inverters tested were pre-IEEE 1547-2018 residential PV inverters widely used in the Hawaiian Electric territory and many other areas. The testing results for undervoltage scenarios showed that the inverter from one vendor exhibited momentary cessation while the inverter from the other vendor did not exhibit momentary cessation behavior or tripping for most of the events below the 120 ms undervoltage trip threshold duration set by IEEE 1547-2003. The testing results for ROCOF scenarios showed that the inverter from one vendor temporarily lost synchronization during ROCOF conditions while the inverter from the other vendor did not lose synchronization or cease generation for any ROCOF conditions. Both the inverters were also tested for EMT-simulated grid events with severe changes in frequency and voltage. The observed responses of the inverters were different from the simulated response of PV inverters represented the best available assumptions from pre-existing information. The results from these experiments can be used to update the inverter models used in bulk power system studies.

aggregates↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Human-Machine Shared Control Framework Considering Time-Varying Driver Characteristics

The uncertainties of driver's behavior seriously affect road safety and bring significant challenges to the human-machine cooperative control. Here, this paper proposes a human-machine shared control framework considering driver's time-varying characteristics to improve the co-driving cooperation performance. Firstly, the driving intention is introduced to describe the driver's involvement level through using Gauss-Bernoulli restricted Boltzmann machine method. And the index of driving ability is proposed to evaluate driver skills based on path-tracking errors. Then, a novel human-machine authority allocation strategy is designed by combining the two driving behavior characteristics and used to construct the driver-vehicle interaction system. Subsequently, a T-S fuzzy robust state-feedback shared control system is developed considering time-varying driver behaviors and vehicle states. Finally, the proposed shared steering system is validated by the driver-in-the-loop test bench. The results show that the proposed control method can reduce human-machine conflicts and has obvious superiority in improving performance of driving comfort, path tracking, and vehicle stability for the co-driving vehicles.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Revisiting Power Systems Time-Domain Simulation Methods and Models

The changing nature of power systems dynamics is challenging present practices related to modeling and study of system-level dynamic behavior. While developing new techniques and models to handle the new modeling requirements, it is also critical to review some of the terminology used to describe existing simulation approaches and the embedded assumptions. This article provides a first-principles review of the simplifications and transformations commonly used in the formulation of time-domain simulation models. It introduces a taxonomy and classification of time-domain simulation models depending on their frequency bandwidth, network representation, and software availability. Furthermore, it focuses on the fundamental aspects of averaging techniques, and model reduction approaches that result in modeling choices, and discusses the associated challenges and opportunities of applying these methods in systems with large shares of Inverter Based Resources (IBRs). The article concludes with an illustrative simulation that compares the trajectories of an IBR-dominated system.

behavioral sciences↗
DOE OSTI2023

Neck Muscle Coactivation Response to Varied Levels of Mental Workload During Simulated Flight Tasks

Objective To evaluate neck muscle coactivation across different levels of mental workload during simulated flight tasks. Background Neck pain (NP) is highly prevalent among military aviators. Given the complex nature within the flight environment, mental workload may be a risk factor for NP. This may induce higher levels of neck muscle coactivity, which over time may accelerate fatigue, increase neck discomfort, and affect flight task performance. Method Three counterbalanced mental workload conditions represented by simulated flight tasks modulated by interstimulus frequency and complexity were investigated using the Modifiable Multitasking Environment (ModME). The primary measure was a neck coactivation index to describe the neuromuscular effort of the neck muscles as a system. Additional measures included perceived workload (NASA TLX), subjective discomfort, and task performance. Participants ( n = 60; 30M, 30F) performed three test conditions over 1 hr each while seated in a simulated seating environment. Results Neck coactivation indices (CoA) and subjective neck discomfort corresponded with increasing level of mental workload. Average CoAs for low, medium, and high workloads were: .0278(SD = .0232), .0286(SD = .0231), and .0295(SD = .0228), respectively. NASA TLX mental, temporal, effort, and overall scores also increased with the level of mental workload assigned. For ModME task performance, the overall performance score, monitoring accuracy, and resource management accuracy decreased while reaction times increased with the increasing level of mental workload. Communication accuracy was lowest with the low mental workload but had higher reaction times relative to increasing workload. Conclusion Mental workload affects neck muscle coactivation during combinations of simulated flight tasks within a simulated helicopter seating environment. Application The results of this study provide insights into the physical response to mental workload. With increasing multisensory modalities within the work environment, these insights may assist the consideration of physical effects from cognitive factors.

Behavioral Sciences↗
DOE OSTI2026

Reimagining How Flood Warnings Can Inform Decision‐Making and Community Actions

Society faces increasingly severe flood hazards, intensifying demand for flood early warning systems (FEWS) that deliver accurate and actionable information. However, most existing FEWS remain prediction‐centric, treating decision‐making as a downstream consumer of hazard forecasts while offering limited support for uncertainty interpretation, risk communication, and real‐world response. This Perspective presents a vision and blueprint for a novel inland FEWS‐decision‐making (FEWS‐DM) framework that repositions decision‐making as an equal partner in the forecasting process—not a passive recipient of its outputs. The framework is built on three tightly coupled, co‐evolving thrusts: Physical Science (T1), which advances flood prediction with quantified uncertainty informed by decision relevance; Human Science (T2), which incorporates psychology, behavior, and cultural and institutional context; and Decision Science (T3), which unifies physical predictions and human factors through principled, utility‐based decision support with end‐to‐end uncertainty management. Rather than treating T1 as a solved problem, FEWS‐DM recognizes that forecast development itself must be shaped by decision needs through continuous bidirectional feedback. We identify key scientific, behavioral, and operational challenges limiting such integration and discuss the enabling role of AI, while emphasizing human‐centered design and community feedback as essential for building trust and improving flood risk management.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Inefficacy of mallard flight responses to approaching vehicles

Vehicle collisions with birds are financially costly and dangerous to humans and animals. To reduce collisions, it is necessary to understand how birds respond to approaching vehicles. We used simulated (i.e., animals exposed to video playback) and real vehicle approaches with mallards (Anas platyrynchos) to quantify flight behavior and probability of collision under different vehicle speeds and times of day (day vs. night). Birds exposed to simulated nighttime approaches exhibited reduced probability of attempting escape, but when escape was attempted, fled with more time before collision compared to birds exposed to simulated daytime approaches. The lower probability of flight may indicate that the visual stimulus of vehicle approaches at night (i.e., looming headlights) is perceived as less threatening than when the full vehicle is more visible during the day; alternatively, the mallard visual system might be incompatible with vehicle lighting in dark settings. Mallards approached by a real vehicle exhibited a delayed margin of safety (both flight initiation distance and time before collision decreased with speed); they are the first bird species found to exhibit this response to vehicle approach. Our findings suggest mallards are poorly equipped to adequately respond to fast-moving vehicles and demonstrate the need for continued research into methods promoting effective avian avoidance behaviors.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗