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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

Common Column Identification for Table Similarity Detection in Electrified Transportation Data Lakes

Electrified transportation often requires researchers and operators to interact with datasets from a wide range of sources and disciplines, such as transportation, power systems, public health, policies, and regulations. These datasets vary in quality and format, making it difficult to understand, preprocess, and identify key columns representing real-world entities or values for indexing and joining, which can negatively impact downstream analysis and operation. Existing solutions are limited, requiring extensive manual customization or data expertise to utilize. In this article, we propose a multi-layered approach to automatically identify key columns to expedite preprocessing and aid in analysis of electrified transportation data. Our method leverages a dynamic ontology to identify common fields and an information theory-based strategy for edge cases that are difficult to generalize. Evaluations on a number of datasets from data.gov and kaggle.com show improved performance of our methods over several baseline techniques, and our ablation analyses illustrate the efficacy of individual components of our method. Our case studies also demonstrate that our methods have the potential to improve analysis of electrified transportation data and aid in automatic integration of such datasets.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Simulating competition in the US bioeconomy to produce hard‐to‐electrify transportation fuels using limited biomass resources

This study presents a novel bioeconomy optimization framework, BiOpt, designed to address critical questions regarding the strategic use of limited US biomass resources for biofuel production. By integrating detailed techno-economic analyses, life cycle assessments, and resource assessment data, BiOpt optimizes resource distributions across competing technologies to maximize economic performance and/or minimize greenhouse gas emissions. Using feedstock scenarios from the 2023 Billion Ton Study, the analysis explores optimal biomass allocations across sustainable aviation fuel, diesel, and marine biofuel conversion pathways given varying production targets and policy incentives. Results demonstrate distinct feedstock preferences and pathway utilizations when prioritizing economic returns vs. emissions reductions. For instance, fats, oils, and greases were highly favored in cost-optimized scenarios, while low-carbon feedstocks such as wet waste dominated greenhouse gas-minimized strategies. The findings underscore the pivotal role of policy incentives and technological advances in shaping biofuel supply chains and provide actionable insights for scaling sustainable biofuel production to decarbonize hard-to-electrify sectors. This framework offers a robust tool for policymakers and stakeholders to evaluate biofuel strategies that balance energy output, economic viability, and environmental impact.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2020

The shape of electrified transportation

Transportation is currently the least-diversified energy demand sector, with over 90% of global transportation energy use coming from petroleum products [1]. For more than a century, petroleum fuels have been relied upon to move people and goods within and between towns and cities, and on roads, railways, farms, waterways, and in the air. These energy-dense fuels have unquestionably provided reliable and convenient mobility options to power the modern global economy. However, these benefits have also created challenges associated with geopolitics, energy security, price volatility, and environmental impacts.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Review on Simulation Platforms for Agent-Based Modeling in Electrified Transportation

As the use of combustion engine vehicles plays a deciding role in global warming, we can observe a trend to replace them with electric vehicles (EV) driven by new environmentally conscious policies and increasing technological capabilities. With improvements in driving range and reduction in prices come new challenges that may hamper the progress towards complete battery driven transportation. A major challenge for the increasing EV adoption is the planning of extensions to existing infrastructure or the inclusion of new infrastructure components in the planning process. This demands increasingly complex planning tools that can simulate the interplay between different stakeholders in modern transportation scenarios such as EVs, charging stations, energy providers, and general transportation participants. Simulation platforms for agent-based modeling in transportation have been developed as effective interactive tools that allow planners to explore different trade-offs across different scenarios with the ability to simulate the impact of policy or infrastructure decisions on the different stakeholders in the simulation. This article surveys several of the major simulation platforms that include modern EV-based forms of transportation and allow the simulation of relevant infrastructure components alongside the well established transportation simulations. These tools allow researchers to analyze expected traffic flow, identify possible charging station locations based on area demand, predict electrical grid demand, and more. Here this survey intends to make it easier for researchers to identify and apply a simulation platform in the context of supporting the increasing electrification of the transportation sector, enabling more efficient simulation and planning capabilities in this domain.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Policy Framework to Improve Mobility Efficiency and Electrify Transportation in Tonga

The Kingdom of Tonga, like many small island developing states, is heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels to meet its current energy needs, especially for transportation. The Kingdom has requested a policy framework that benefits its land transportation sector by saving cost and time, increasing resilience, and reducing petroleum and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This framework was developed by building on past work, namely the Tonga Energy Efficiency Master Plan 2020-2030 (TEEMP), the Tonga Energy Road Map 2021-2035 (TERMPLUS), and the Regional Electric Mobility Policy for Pacific Island Countries and Territories developed by the Pacific Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (PCREEE). The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to Tonga's land transportation system were identified at stakeholder working group meetings in Tonga in June 2023. A set of appropriate policies that have been effective in relevant jurisdictions were then discussed and refined by the working group. The resulting 27 policies are defined according to intended outcomes, relationship to other proposed policies, applications in other relevant jurisdictions, hurdles to implementation, resilience impact, equity impact, and government revenue impact. Some of the policies are also accompanied by implementation recommendations.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Electrifying the U.S. Transportation System with the Joint Office

The Joint Office of Energy and Transportation is accelerating an electrified transportation system that is convenient, reliable, affordable, accessible, and equitable. The Joint Office was created under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) to leverage the combined expertise of the U.S. Departments of Energy and Transportation. This is an overview fact sheet describing the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Towards cost-competitive middle distillate fuels from ethanol within a market-flexible C2 platform-based biorefinery concept

Ethanol to middle distillates (ETMD) is a promising pathway to produce sustainable liquid fuels to decarbonize the hard-to-electrify transportation sectors due to (1) the abundant sugar/starch and lignocellulosic biomass, (2) the existing deployment scale of fuel ethanol production (similar to 29 billion gallons per year globally), and (3) emerging opportunities in C2+ alcohol synthesis from CO2. Here we report a conceptual market-responsive biorefinery centered around a new ETMD pathway based on one-step ethanol to butene-rich olefins (ETO) over a Cu-Zn-Y/Beta catalyst. Specifically, this ethanol conversion pathway comprises one-step ETO, oligomerization, and hydrotreating. This ETO is distinct from that in the conventional ethanol-to-jet process which is based on two-step ethanol to ethylene and ethylene oligomerization to butenes. Butene-rich olefins can be shifted to butadiene-rich products by simply changing the reaction atmosphere from hydrogen to inert gas over the same ETO catalyst. Leveraging the experimental results, baseline techno-economic analysis (TEA) and sensitivity analysis indicate that the ethanol conversion cost is $0.60 per gallon gasoline equivalent (GGE), with opportunities for further cost reduction via improving the liquid hydrocarbon yield and space velocities, and process optimization on balancing dewatering of ethanol feed prior to the ETO step. The minimum fuel selling price (MFSP) of liquid hydrocarbons derived from corn starch ethanol with butadiene as coproduct is $1.64 per GGE, in the range that is cost competitive with petroleum kerosene-type jet fuel. Projected MFSP for cellulosic ethanol (corn stover) derived hydrocarbons is below $3.00 per GGE and co-production of butadiene further reduces the MFSP to $1.70 per GGE. The Well-to-Wake life-cycle analysis indicates that 85% greenhouse gas emission reduction can be achieved when using corn stover compared to petroleum reference and the associated carbon credits will provide significant economic incentives to favor the cellulosic ethanol-derived hydrocarbon fuels. This study demonstrates a low-cost pathway to middle distillate fuels leveraging existing ethanol infrastructure, where catalysis innovation drives the reduction of process complexity and flexible coproduction of a value-added chemical product.

Zhang, Junyan↗
DOE OSTI2026

Transition from Vehicular to Structural Ionic Transport in Electrified Alkali Aqueous Solutions

A molecular understanding of the solvation and dynamics of ions under static electric fields is crucial for modelling a wide range of natural and technological processes. Yet, traditional simulation methods suffer from a trade-off that has to be made between accuracy and statistical convergence. To bridge this gap, herein we extend our recently introduced Perturbed Neural Network Potential Molecular Dynamics (PNNP MD) approach to investigate the solvation structures and ionic transport mechanisms of electrified alkali cationic solutions. We obtain ionic conductivities for Li+, Na+ and Cs+ from the field dependence of the ionic current density in good agreement with experiment. Surprisingly, the migration mechanism is found to be strikingly different for the three ions despite their similar ionic conductivities. While Li+ conducts predominantly through vehicular migration of a stable 4-fold coordinated ion at all field strengths, Cs+ conducts strictly through a structural diffusion mechanism, where 9-12 transient first shell water coordination bonds are broken and renewed. Notably, aqueous Na+ emerges as a “Goldilocks” ion: its ion-water interactions are strong enough to maintain distinct 5-6 fold coordination shells at zero field (unlike Cs+) yet labile enough to be strongly perturbed by electric fields (unlike Li+). As a consequence, we observe an electric field-induced transition from vehicular to structural ionic transport for Na+ that is accompanied by a marked increase in the ionic current density. Our results imply that the conductance mechanism of ions with moderate ion-solvent interactions can be effectively tuned by external electric fields.

Joll, Kit↗
DOE OSTI2024

Coupling of the Electricity and Transportation Sectors - Part I: Sector Overviews

“Sector coupling” is a concept that addresses potential designs for the future power industry. Traditionally, the energy sectors, i.e., electricity supply, transport, and industry, have functioned largely independently from one another. Thus, the concept of sector coupling means that the electricity sector would become the central pillar of the energy system, supplying the other sectors – transportation and industry – with energy in various ways, a scheme described by the term “Power-to-X”. This report delves into the ambitious goal set by the United States to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, with a pivotal milestone of making half of all passenger vehicles sold in America zero-emission by 2030. Central to achieving this objective is the electrification of the transportation sector, resulting in complex interactions between this sector and the electric industry. As electric vehicles become more prevalent, a shift in the dependency on electricity for vehicle charging emerges, alongside a reduction in the electricity demand associated with maintaining the fossil fuel supply chain. Both the electricity and fossil fuel have been identified as critical infrastructure sectors, the transportation sector's historical reliance on fossil fuels, and the mature supply chain supporting them are explored. This study emphasizes the existing sectoral coupling between the electric energy and transportation sectors, extending beyond vehicle charging to essential operations at refineries, pipeline facilities, storage, and fuel extraction. Recognizing the critical dependency of fossil fuel supply chain operations on the electric sector, this research underscores the need for a comprehensive view of the evolving dynamics between the transportation and electric sectors. This study has been split into two segments, Part-I provides an overview of the existing fossil fuel supply chain architecture and the electrical sector. We provide an in-depth analysis of the grid-transportation sectoral coupling, its interactions, the vulnerabilities and essential take-aways that would help us to address them and apply towards an electrified transportation sector in the future. We engaged with stakeholders to understand their expectations in enabling an electrified transportation. We accumulate the understandings from the current fossil fuel-based system in developing a risk matrix, by identifying all the threats and vulnerabilities and how would they apply to both the current and future transportation systems in Part-II of this report.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2023

LA100 Equity Strategies. Chapter 10: Household Transportation Electrification

The LA100 Equity Strategies project integrates community guidance with robust research, modeling, and analysis to identify strategy options that can increase equitable outcomes in Los Angeles' clean energy transition. This chapter focuses on residential electric vehicle (EV) incentive programs and multimodal electrified transportation services as means to increase equity in household transportation electrification. Specifically, NREL modeled EV adoption and affordability under business-as-usual and enhanced low-income incentives scenarios and transportation-related energy burdens under multimodal electric travel scenarios, including shared EVs, e-bikes, and improved transit services. Based on our analysis and community guidance, we identified strategies for 1)?increasing equity in new and used light-duty EV adoption and EV charging infrastructure distribution, focused on household used EV ownership and home charging access and 2) affordable, time-efficient, and equitable multimodal electrified transportation options, specifically considering the non-vehicle-owning population. Research was guided by input from the community engagement process, and associated equity strategies are presented in alignment with that guidance.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2020

The Value of Motorcycle Electrification in Mexico City

Local and city governments worldwide are looking to adopt emerging technologies and mobility approaches, such as electric vehicles, as they pursue their environmental and economic goals. Commercially available electric vehicles include buses, automobiles, motorcycles, and other two-wheelers. Electrifying transportation is critical to achieve urban sustainability, but it also raises challenges for private and public actors. Jurisdictions across countries are seeking to answer big questions, including how the transportation sector can be electrified, what impacts are priorities, and how such impacts can be obtained.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Inequality and the Future of Electric Mobility in 36 U.S. Cities: An Innovative Methodology and Comparative Assessment

Electric vehicles are seen as one of the technological solutions to transition our transportation systems away from carbon, and cities offer unique opportunities to electrify transportation. To be equitable, however, this transition will not merely require technological innovations. Acknowledging socio-spatial inequalities and creating strategies to address them are critical - yet relatively underexplored - dimensions of the transportation transition. This paper integrates relevant literature into a micro-urban social typology (MUST) approach that uses agglomerative clustering techniques to examine, first, the factors and attributes defining transportation inequities within 36 U.S. cities, and, second, the implications of these inequities for policies that foster a more equitable transportation transition. By combining socio-spatial and transportation data, we identified five MUSTs: Wealthy, Urban Disadvantaged, Urban Renters, Middle-Class Homeowners, and Rural/Exurban. Rather than being tied to any particular indicator (e.g., homeownership), these MUSTs contain intersecting factors and features of inequities. We compare transportation and health outcomes across MUSTs, and the results suggest that user-centric strategies and public investments are necessary to foster true transportation equity. These must go beyond the electrification of private vehicles and should be tailored to the specific characteristics of each MUST. These could include electric carpooling for the rural/exurban MUST and electrification of transit for the urban disadvantaged and renter MUSTs. Our typology offers a critical next step toward informing transportation transition policies to target critical sociodemographic, economic, and techno-infrastructural factors.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗
DOE OSTI2023

Architecture for Co-Simulation of Transportation and Distribution Systems with Electric Vehicle Charging at Scale in the San Francisco Bay Area

This work describes the Grid-Enhanced, Mobility-Integrated Network Infrastructures for Extreme Fast Charging (GEMINI) architecture for the co-simulation of distribution and transportation systems to evaluate EV charging impacts on electric distribution systems of a large metropolitan area and the surrounding rural regions with high fidelity. The current co-simulation is applied to Oakland and Alameda, California, and in future work will be extended to the full San Francisco Bay Area. It uses the HELICS co-simulation framework to enable parallel instances of vetted grid and transportation software programs to interact at every model timestep, allowing high-fidelity simulations at a large scale. This enables not only the impacts of electrified transportation systems across a larger interconnected collection of distribution feeders to be evaluated, but also the feedbacks between the two systems, such as through control systems, to be captured and compared. The findings are that with moderate passenger EV adoption rates, inverter controls combined with some distribution system hardware upgrades can maintain grid voltages within ANSI C.84 range A limits of 0.95 to 1.05 p.u. without smart charging. However, EV charging control may be required for higher levels of charging or to reduce grid upgrades, and this will be explored in future work.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Hazard and Operability Study for the Ammonia Fuel Systems at the National Transportation Research Center

Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL’s) Buildings and Transportation Science Division (BTSD) plans to operate research engines fueled by ammonia in two engine test cells at the National Transportation Research Center (NTRC). A scientific need has recently emerged to evaluate the suitability of liquid anhydrous ammonia as a low-lifecycle-carbon fuel source for difficult-to-electrify transportation sectors, including the marine sector. Therefore, BTSD plans to install an ammonia storage and delivery system to 2360 HVC engine research labs L125 (Cell 3) and L111 (Cell 7) capable of delivering 35 and 75 lb/h, respectively. These laboratories are specifically designed to allow for engine and fuels research and development, and they have existing safety systems for mitigating risks associated with toxics and flammables. Anhydrous ammonia is toxic and flammable, and the system will use relatively large quantities compared with standard gas bottles. Ammonia is one of the most widely produced chemicals in the world, and the hazards associated with toxicity and flammability are well understood. Ammonia storage for use in engine research at NTRC is anticipated to take the form of an ammonia tank with capacity of 1,000 water gallons; this quantity will remain below the threshold quantity of 10,000 lb (~2,000 gal) used both by the US Environmental Protection Agency for reporting under the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act and for Risk Management Program requirements, and also by the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration for Process Safety Management requirements. ORNL’s Environmental Protection Services Division was also consulted to verify that the quantities of ammonia anticipated to be used would be in compliance with environmental regulations. The Environmental Protection Services Division staff confirmed that the anticipated quantities fall below ORNL’s permit thresholds. However, because of the hazards associated with anhydrous ammonia, the quantities to be used, and the limited experience with similar quantities of ammonia at ORNL, BTSD decided to perform a hazard and operability (HazOp) study on the ammonia storage and delivery system.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2023

EVI-Pro for Bogota Columbia [Slides]

The transportation sector is one of the largest producers of greenhouse gas emissions globally, with 37% of global CO 2 emissions in 2021 according to the International Energy Agency. Transitioning from internal combustion engine vehicles powered by fossil fuels to electrified transportation is a critical component in reducing those emissions significantly over the coming decades and avoiding the worst consequences of climate change. With governments and automakers increasingly announcing electrification targets and a progression away from the production and sale of internal combustion engine vehicles, a robust network of charging infrastructure must be built to enable the widespread use of electric vehicles (EVs). Some of the greatest hurdles to EV deployment are linked to the buildout of the required charging infrastructure including where it should be built, what types and how much charging would be optimal given high costs of installation, and the impact on the electrical grid. To this end, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) conducts extensive research on EV deployment, including the development of the EVI-Pro model used to plan the future buildout of charging infrastructure given the travel patterns in a region. This document summarizes work done by NREL in the Bogotá, Colombia region to help Colombia plan for its EV deployment goals.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Chapter Ten - Power, Buildings, and Other Critical Networks: Integrated Multisystem Operation

The electrifying transportation sector, the increasing grid interactivity of the built environment, the rapidly expanding number of devices within the Internet-of-Things, and the overall trend toward highly connected systems and interdependent networks is revolutionizing the operation of the electric power grid. While these changes are presenting grid operators with new challenges to ensure an efficient, reliable, and sustainable operation of the grid, they also enable a new suite of resources that can be utilized for assisting the grid in times of need. In this chapter, we explore how these recent changes and trends are affecting modern power systems and discuss the benefits and challenges of an increasingly electrified and interconnected world. We will observe how various critical infrastructure, that is, buildings, water and gas, transportation, and telecommunication networks are highly dependent on power network operations but, with improved coordination and control, can also provide valuable assets to the grid in times of need.

electricity markets↗
DOE OSTI2024

Navigating Options for Transportation Electrification and Solar Charging: Steps and Lessons Learned in Montana Communities

This document is intended to assist communities who are considering investing in electric transportation. It can assist communities engage stakeholders, prioritize community goals, assess electric transportation options, and navigate complex decisions about deploying zero emission electric transportation in their community. It covers technological, economic and environmental aspects of the transition to electric vehicles (EV), and highlights the specific considerations related to the deployment of renewable energy technologies (e.g., distributed solar) in combination with EV supply equipment (EVSE, e.g., charging stations). There are many important decisions to make and questions for communities to ask themselves as they consider electric vehicle types, charging infrastructure, and electricity generation options. This guide will help communities assess: (1) Which stage in the decision-making process they are in with respect to EV deployment; (2) Questions they can explore to guide their decisions about EV deployment; (3) How to engage key stakeholders on EV deployment options; (4) Tradeoffs and benefits of various electric transportation options and; (5) Synergies of pairing electric vehicle charging and renewable energy generation technologies. The analysis and lessons learned presented in this roadmap are intended to serve as a template and guide for similarly situated communities across the country who want to prepare for and play a role in the electrified transportation future.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗