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DOE OSTI2020

Modernization of Technical Requirements for Licensing of Advanced Non-Light Water Reactors: LMP Lessons Learned, Best Practices, and Frequently Asked Questions

This report captures lessons learned, best practices, and frequently asked questions with responses gleaned from the experiences of early adopters of the LMP RIPB process. Interviews were conducted in late 2019 with five non-LWR design organizations to gather their feedback on the application of the LMP RIPB process under real production conditions. The overall feedback from the reactor developers is that the LMP RIPB process can be successfully implemented with material benefits to the designer. As with any new processes, numerous challenges and questions were relayed by the designers. These challenges have been translated into lessons learned and best practices. Those two sections address both technical and organizational aspects of implementing the LMP RIPB process. Questions that were asked by multiple designers were turned into “frequently asked questions” and responses were provided by the LMP team.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

A Systems Engineering Approach to Accident Response Planning

This paper explores the Systems Engineering structure, strategies and tools for real world scenarios involving work with accident response groups. A systems engineering approach must be taken by the technical teams to prepare for a successful response and design the technical systems in support of the operations. The scope of this project is focused on laying out the foundation of the systems engineering approach taken to help the teams develop an accident response strategy and identify new engineering designs in support of these operations for the black box systems. This Master’s project involves several interdisciplinary teams & stakeholders across different areas. Identifying the proper tools to use is key to addressing the big picture needs of the multiple stakeholders. This project explores some of the key tools used by the integrated team. The integrated project work will primarily take place over the course of 8 weeks via integrated team meetings. Other work in support of this project will take place off-line as needed by the project lead. Details on the prospective timeline, milestones, key dates and work scope can be referenced in other sections of this paper. Key systems engineering methodologies and tools used thus far in support of this project includes: 1) Market Surveys and Interviews, 2) Project Charter, 3) Feasibility Study, 4) Swim Lane Diagram, and 5) Knowledge Management Plan.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Innovations in Building Energy Modeling: Research and Development Opportunities for Emerging Technologies

Building energy modeling (BEM) is a multipurpose tool for building energy efficiency (EE). The U.S. Department of Energy Building Technologies Office (BTO) seeks to expand the use and effectiveness of BEM in the design and operation of commercial and residential buildings with the goal of achieving lasting reductions in total and peak energy use. This report identifies gaps and outlines recommended initiatives to achieve this goal, based on a combination of technical analysis and stakeholder input. In addition to BTO, this report can benefit BEM professionals (architects, mechanical engineers, energy consultants, building auditors, equipment manufacturers, and BEM software vendors) and BEM clients (building owners and operators, EE program administrators, EE service providers, policymakers, and policy and code jurisdictions such as states and cities). This report was developed in two phases. In the first, BTO worked with a team from Navigant Consulting (now Guidehouse) to characterize objectives, opportunities, and current activities; identify gaps and barriers; and define initiatives. To collect input, Navigant conducted telephone interviews and workshops with industry experts. The initial phase produced a draft report, which was released for public review in 2016 and yielded over 400 comments. Based on these comments, BTO compiled a second draft report that addressed many of those comments while acknowledging changes that had occurred both at BTO and in the industry. Unlike the first draft report, the second focused much more heavily on BTO’s own role, portfolio, and activities. BTO is a direct player in the BEM field - it funds the development of several significant software packages that are embedded in commercial products - and transparency about its goals and future plans is requisite. BTO recognizes that a great number of other public and private organizations contribute to the BEM enterprise. With the second draft report, BTO did not attempt to produce a blueprint for the industry as a whole, but rather a working document BTO can use to iteratively solicit stakeholder input and synthesize it into a program. BTO released the second draft report for public review in 2019. The second round of review generated 83 pages of feedback and comments - almost exactly the length of the draft report itself - a significant portion of which was collected and synthesized by IBPSA-USA Advocacy Committee. This final report incorporates this feedback. This report does not address the use of BEM in support of building-based grid services, a recent BTO initiative called Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings (GEB). In 2019, BTO published a report that specifically addresses the role of BEM - and other “integration” technologies - in GEB.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2020

A Systems Engineering Approach to Accident Response Planning.

This paper explores the Systems Engineering structure, strategies and tools for real world scenarios involving work with accident response planning. A systems engineering approach must be taken by the technical teams to prepare for a successful response and design the technical systems in support of the operations. The scope of this project is focused on laying out the foundation of the systems engineering approach taken to help the teams develop an accident response strategy and identify new engineering designs in support of these operations for the black box systems. This Masters project involved several interdisciplinary teams & stakeholders. Identifying the proper tools to use was key to addressing the big picture needs of the multiple stakeholders. The integrated project work primarily took place over the course of eight weeks via integrated team meetings. Other work in support of this project was conducted off-line as needed by the project lead. Details on the prospective timeline, milestones, key dates and work scope can be referenced in this paper. Key systems engineering methodologies and tools used in support of this project included but is not limited to: Market Surveys and Interviews Project Charter Feasibility Study Swim Lane Diagram Knowledge Management Plan. A full suite of tools and the details regarding the application of these tools and results of this study is provided in this report.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Human Factors Considerations for Automating Microreactors

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has interacted with vendors pursuing the commercialization of microreactors ( <10 MW th ). It is envisioned that microreactors could be assembled and fueled in a factory and shipped to a site. Many of the sites are expected to be remote locations requiring off-grid power or in some cases military bases. However, before this new class of nuclear reactor can be fully developed and implemented by designers, an effort must be made to explore the technical issues and provide reasonable assurance to the public regarding health and safety impacts centered on various technical issues. Prior works have examined many of these issues. One issue not yet fully explored is the possible change in role of the operations and support personnel. Due to the passive safety features of microreactors and their low level of nuclear material, the microreactor facilities may automate more functions and rely on inherent safety features more than its predecessor nuclear power plants. In some instances, human operators may not be located onsite and may instead be operating or monitoring the facility from a remote location. Some designs also call for operators to supervise and control multiple microreactors from the control room. This report explores the issues around reduced staffing of microreactors, highlights the historical safety functions associated with human operators, assesses current licensing requirements for appropriateness to varying levels of personnel support, and describes a recommended regulatory approach for reviewing the impact of reduced staff to the operation of microreactors. The report evaluates these issues through an extensive literature survey and Subject Matter Expert interviews. The literature covers research topics related to Human Factors Engineering as well as regulatory guidance given by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2021

A Valentine’s tribute to Lab love: Watch clips from 1943 wedding of two staff

She was a secretary for Director J. Robert Oppenheimer. He was a physicist who helped create the world’s first atomic bombs. And for 65 years they were Mr. and Mrs. Bradner. Hugh Bradner was the first person that Marjorie Hall met upon arrival to join the Lab’s clandestine war-time efforts. He happened to be in Dorothy McKibbin’s Santa Fe office when Marjorie walked in. It was love at first sight, Marjorie recalled years later in an interview. The Bradners were married in September 1943 at McKibbin’s home. It was one of many weddings there during the Manhattan Project era. Los Alamos was fenced and guarded during this time, as staff raced to secretly develop nuclear weapons to help end World War II. Most were young – the average age was late 20s – and many, like the Bradners, met their lifelong partners then. The Bradners left Los Alamos after the war ended in 1945. Hugh is credited with inventing the neoprene wetsuit in 1951. The couple had one daughter. Marjorie, 89, and Hugh, 92, died just a few weeks apart in 2008 in California. Many of their home movies from their time in Los Alamos are preserved at the Lab. They are part of the collections in the National Security Research Center, which is the Lab’s classified library and also houses unclassified artifacts.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Technical Issues in the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) Ratification Debate: A 20 Year Retrospective

Two decades after the U.S. Senate declined in 1999 to give its consent to ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the treaty remains in legal and political limbo. Legally, the treaty cannot enter into force without U.S. ratification. However, the Senate’s rejection does not strip the treaty of its force as an element of customary international law or alter the will of other signatories to see it enter into force. Politically, the debate over the virtues and flaws of the treaty remains as strong as ever, with some CTBT advocates pushing energetically for U.S. re-review while some opponents seek ways to “un-sign” the treaty. Meanwhile, despite the Senate’s rejection of the treaty, the United States acts in a manner consistent with its main obligations by maintaining a moratorium on explosive nuclear testing and providing financial support (as well as technical expertise) to the CTBT Organization (CTBTO)—in particular the CTBTO’s International Monitoring System (IMS). The CTBT may well remain in such limbo for a long time to come, unless some catalytic event comes along to re-shape national perceptions and priorities, one way or the other. The treaty’s future, whatever it might be, will be determined in part by how much perspectives might have changed in light of interim developments. Our purpose is to shed light on some of those developments and to assess their relevance. The 1999 ratification debate addressed a large number of issues. Rejection was driven by various policy and technical judgments. The purpose of this paper is to re-examine those technical judgments in light of what has been learned over the following two decades. On some technical matters, there was explicit recognition of extant uncertainties, as well as a conviction and hope that time would dispel them. To be doubly clear, our purpose is not to recommend a way forward on CTBT ratification. The policy judgments of 1999 and 2020 are beyond the scope of this paper. This technical re-examination proceeds as follows. It begins with a short background section to introduce the key technical matters in discussion in the U.S. ratification process. Then it moves systematically through each of those topics with a review of relevant background information, a discussion of key points in debate, an analysis of subsequent experience, and a current assessment. The historical analysis draws on many sources including the primary documents of the Congressional debate, the official article-by-article interpretation by the Department of State, and the statements of key players in the process. We also relied on key technical reports and publications by subject matter experts that have addressed in more detail many of the issues in our focus. These sources include the 2002 and 2012 reports of the National Academy of Sciences as well as publications by senior technical staff of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) who were actively involved in the ratification debate, including then-Laboratory Director Bruce Tarter. We also conducted several interviews with government officials from the 1990s, past laboratory directors, and other members of the scientific community. But, except where individuals are specifically cited by name, the judgments offered here are our own and should not be attributed to any other individual or to LLNL as such.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗
DOE OSTI2021

A Circular Economy for Lithium-Ion Batteries Used in Mobile and Stationary Energy Storage: Drivers, Barriers, Enablers, and U.S. Policy Considerations

As large-format battery energy storage (BES) capacity increases in the United States, so will the volume of spent lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) (Bade 2019). Estimates based on a 10-year lifetime assumption found that the volume of LiBs that have reached the end of their utility for electric vehicle (EV) applications could total two million units (four million metric tons) annually by 2040 in the United States (Richa et al. 2014; Ai and Borucki 2018). Although there is currently no publicly available decommissioning or end-of-life (EoL) projection for stationary BES systems, the U.S. energy storage market is expected to grow from an annual deployment of 523 megawatts in 2013 to 7.3 gigawatts in 2025 (Wood MacKenzie and ESA 2020; Wesoff 2020). Despite potential secondary market opportunities and the potential benefits associated with the reuse/recovery of LiB material, anecdotal evidence suggests that in the United States most decommissioned LiBs from EVs are landfilled or otherwise disposed of (Steward et al. 2019; Salim et al. 2019; CPUC 2019; DTSC 2019d; NREL 2019b; Jacoby 2019; DOE 2019). The reuse of large-format LiBs is not at commercial scale and to date consists of only a handful of U.S.-led pilot projects. Similarly, less than 5% of LiBs from EVs are sent to recycling facilities in the United States (Steward et al. 2019; Jacoby 2019; America Made 2019; Patel 2017). As awareness of current practices grows, and the demand for critical LiB materials increases, U.S. industry stakeholders, regulators, and policymakers are starting to (1) consider solutions to drive and enable environmentally sustainable materials management decisions and behaviors and (2) identify barriers to a circular economy for LiBs (Figure 1). Circular economy principles (Figure 1) attempt to transition from a “take-make-consume-dispose” linear economic system to a circular system that allows for the long life, high performance, and the reuse/recovery of products and materials (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2016). We begin this report by summarizing drivers, barriers, and enablers to a circular economy for LiBs used in mobile and stationary BES systems in the United States. We then report on our analysis of federal and state regulatory considerations that may impact the reuse/recovery and disposal of LiBs, and potential civil and criminal liabilities associated with noncompliance. We conclude by highlighting state policies and initiatives in the United States that expressly address reuse/recovery and disposal of large-format LiBs. Our results are based on legal and literature-based research and interviews with mobile and stationary BES industry stakeholders, regulators, and policymakers. While this report addresses stationary BES, as well as mobile BES, much of the information and experience with LiB decommissioning and EoL material management is derived from the increasing management of spent EV LiBs in the United States.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2021

A Circular Economy for Solar Photovoltaic System Materials: Drivers, Barriers, Enablers, and U.S. Policy Considerations

As PV capacity increases, owners are also decommissioning older system assets. Estimates based on a 30-year lifetime assumption found that cumulative U.S. end-of-life (EoL) PV modules could total one million metric tons (Mt) by 2030 and up to 10 million Mt by 2050 (Weckend, Wade, and Heath 2016). Beyond maintenance replacements, early retirements that are due to efficiency upgrades and extreme weather, as well as PV deployment beyond earlier expectations, would increase these projections. PV system owners must evaluate equipment management options for used modules and system components retired during maintenance activities, refurbishment, repowering and system decommissioning. PV manufacturers must also evaluate material management options from customer returns, defects, and scrap. Management options for early retired and EoL PV system material include reuse, repair for reuse, recycling-based resource recovery, storage, and disposal. Disposal of PV system material increases the burden on landfill capacity, while reuse, repair for reuse, and recycling-based resource recovery (reuse/repair/recovery) options salvage valuable materials and provide secondary market opportunities and ancillary benefits (Weckend, Wade, and Heath 2016; EPA 2019c; SWEEP 2019). PV system owners may also decide store used modules and components as spares, or in the interim before a reuse or EoL management decision is made. Despite potential secondary market opportunities and the potential benefits associated with the repair/reuse/recovery of PV system material, anecdotal evidence suggests that in the United States decommissioned PV modules are stored, landfilled or otherwise disposed of (Salim et al. 2019; CPUC 2019b; DTSC 2019b; NREL 2019a). Some modules are being disposed of in municipal nonhazardous landfills and federally regulated hazardous treatment, storage, and disposal facilities, and others are being stored in warehouses until economically viable repair/reuse/recycling becomes available (CPUC 2019b; DTSC 2019b; NREL 2019a; Libby and Shaw 2018). As awareness of current practices grows, and the demand for critical PV module material increases, U.S. industry stakeholders, regulators, and policymakers are starting to (1) consider solutions to drive and enable environmentally sustainable materials management decisions and behaviors and (2) identify barriers to a circular economy for PV system materials. Circular economy principles attempt to transition from a "take-make-consume-dispose" linear economic system to a circular system that allows for the long life, and the reuse/repair/recovery of products and materials (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2020). We begin this report by summarizing the drivers, barriers, and enablers to a circular economy for PV system materials in the United States. We then report on our analysis of federal and state regulatory considerations that may impact the repair/reuse/recovery of PV materials, and potential civil and criminal liabilities associated with noncompliance. We then discuss state policies and initiatives in the United States that expressly address PV system decommissioning and repair/reuse/recovery of PV materials. We conclude by providing case studies of U.S. business models for the repair/reuse/recovery of PV system materials. Our results are based on legal and literature-based research and interviews with solar industry stakeholders, regulators, and policymakers.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Study of Additive Manufacturing Applications to Geothermal Technologies Final Project Report

This report summarizes work performed to assess the potential for utilizing additive manufacturing (AM) to substantially improve either the availability, performance or cost basis for tools and components that are required for geothermal energy production. A systematic cataloging of geothermal activities, associated technologies, and current manufacturing methods was first undertaken. This included literature reviews as well as interviews with subject matter experts, service companies and OEMs. An industry workshop was held as part of this portion of the project to obtain input and concerns from a broad range of OEMs, service providers and end users. This workshop was also used to gage the current level of AM activity in industry, receptiveness to the use of AM manufactured parts, and any up front concerns that may exist. A summary of the workshop is presented in this report. Representative components and assemblies and their current manufacturing methods were then analyzed by additive manufacturing experts at a company called Senvol to determine the feasibility and required steps for producing parts by additive manufacturing. A step by step description of conventional manufacturing of the parts was also performed to establish a manufacturing baseline for comparison purposes. This analysis also considered and described the benefits of additively manufacturing the parts in terms of specific AM systems, material availability for AM, dimensional requirements and potential economic advantages. Details of the manufacturability assessment were summarized in a report which is included as a chapter in this document. The analysis of the AM subject matter experts was then be used by techno-economic analysts to perform a comparative economic evaluation of the manufacturing of select technologies by AM and conventional approaches. This activity leveraged ORNL expertise and prior experience in other applications. A framework based on assessing cost, volume production considerations, and time to manufacture was created to more easily discern the advantages or disadvantages of additive versus conventional manufacturing methods. The report concludes with a general assessment of the current applicability of AM for geothermal technologies, AM gaps and needs related to typical geothermal hardware, and the potential benefits and impacts of AM to geothermal energy production.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Protocols for Uranium Carbon Analysis

In 1998, MST-6 (now SIGMA) installed a Horiba EMIA-8200 Carbon/Sulfur analyzer to provide the ability to perform in-house chemical analysis on a variety of materials including uranium. While many of the results and procedures were detailed in program files, no compiled record of the overall analytic process was ever published. This retrospective utilizes existing logbooks, operator interviews, instrument manuals, and notes to catalog what is known about the past procedures and protocols for carbon analysis that were established and present the data informing those decisions.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2021

U.S. ESCO Industry: Industry Size and Recent Market Trends

This study is the latest in a series of LBNL research into U.S. ESCO industry characteristics and market trends. The research is based on interviews with ESCO industry executives conducted during the fall of 2019 and the first half of 2020. Nearly all companies that identified themselves as ESCOs were contacted as part of this project. We find that after a period of little growth (2011-2014), industry revenues reached an estimated $6 billion in 2018, or a 3.4% annual average growth rate from 2015-2018. ESCOs primarily serve the public an institutional sectors (e.g., federal, state, and local governments; university and colleges; and K-12 schools). In 2018, project investments by public and institutional organizations accounted for over 90% of industry revenue, which is consistent with previous industry studies. ESCO activity in the Middle Atlantic, East North Central, and Pacific regions in the U.S. delivered the highest share of revenue in 2018, which is also consistent with earlier research. ESCOs reported that a majority of their customers use energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs) primarily for facility capital improvement needs and resilience rather than utility savings. In addition, the importance of non-energy benefits (e.g., water savings, avoided operations and maintenance costs, and avoided capital costs) accounted for in the project savings guarantee reportedly increased in all markets during 2016-2018 compared to previous time periods. The study found that the ESCO industry faces several key challenges, including: (1) increasing project development times due to more complex projects and other factors; (2) difficulty finding qualified subcontractors in some regions, including minority- women- and disadvantaged population-owned small business enterprises; and (3) difficulty accessing project documents and quickly fulfilling customer requests to justify project payments several years into the performance period of a project.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

CRADA with FedIMPACT, LLC (Project 1): Cooperative Research and Development CRADA Number CRD-17-00713 (Final Report)

The funds-in under the CRADA will fund a team of National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researchers to participate in Energy I-Corps (formerly known as Lab-Corps). Energy I-Corps pairs teams of researchers with industry mentors for an intensive two-month training where the researchers define technology value propositions, conduct customer discovery interviews, and develop viable market pathways for their technologies. FedIMPACT, LLC and its affiliate IP Group, Inc. will evaluate the work completed at Energy I-Corps to determine whether it would like to pursue further commercialization and development of related technologies and background intellectual property.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2021

Investigating User Experiences with Data Abstractions on High Performance Computing Systems

Scientific exploration generates expanding volumes of data that commonly require High Performance Computing (HPC) systems to facilitate research. HPC systems are complex ecosystems of hardware and software that frequently are not user friendly. The Usable Data Abstractions (UDA) project set out to build usable software for scientific workflows in HPC environments by undertaking multiple rounds of qualitative user research. Qualitative research investigates how individuals accomplish their work and our interview-based study surfaced a variety of insights about the experiences of working in and with HPC ecosystems. This report examines multiple facets to the experiences of scientists and developers using and supporting HPC systems. We discuss how stakeholders grasp the design and configuration of these systems, the impacts of abstraction layers on their ability to successfully do work, and the varied perceptions of time that shape this work. Examining the adoption of the Cori HPC at NERSC we explore the anticipations and lived experiences of users interacting with this system’s novel storage feature, the Burst Buffer. We present lessons learned from across these insights to illustrate just some of the challenges HPC facilities and their stakeholders need to account for when procuring and supporting these essential scientific resources to ensure their usability and utility to a variety of scientific practices.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Fission to Fusion: An Island Goes Missing

Hollywood actor Reed Hadley walked the decks of the USS Estes with the practiced ease characteristic of his profession. Stopping periodically to relight his pipe, Hadley narrated an AEC film depicting the final hours and minutes leading up to the detonation of Mike, the world’s first thermonuclear bomb. Hadley’s smooth camera presence contrasted sharply with those of the scientists and technicians he interviewed, particularly Alvin Graves, who came across wooden and condescending. Just after Hadley put on his dark goggles to prevent flash blindness, Mike exploded with a force of 10.4 megatons, completely vaporizing the entire ground zero island of Elugelab. The film made one thing clear – Los Alamos scientists could build a thermonuclear bomb, but they could not act.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2021

Advancing Solar Innovation for Low and Moderate-Income Households (Final Technical Report)

The overarching goal of this project was to deepen the understanding of the social and economic aspects of solar adoption, with a specific eye towards any pathways or barriers that could be identified that directly impact low and moderate-income households. Specific objectives included (1) identifying and assessing significant non-economic barriers that complicate the ability of LMI households to adopt and benefit from solar, even under scenarios with low economic barriers; (2) assessing the differential ability of groups to benefit from solar adoption based on their ability to invest in different solar innovations; (3) explaining why some LMI communities nonetheless experience significantly higher rates of solar adoption and benefit than others; (4) developing a methodological model for generating data addressing key issues to the project; and (5) designing and developing an interactive web portal that aggregates existing datasets, provides researchers trend analysis capabilities, standardizes project protocols for other states and communities; provides the opportunities for researchers using the same protocol in other communities to upload their results; and engages with the general public by providing them the ability to upload their own perspectives and stories of solar technology adoption. Through a common framework for conducting semi-structured field interviews. In partnership with cooperative extension services, in conjunction with survey research and the aggregation of existing solar adoption datasets, this study has identified that currently ,there is a strong values alignment and knowledge access challenge that continues to affect solar adoption. Participants in this study – many of whom are either low or moderate-income and/or live in underserved rural communities do not believe solar is an option where they live or believe solar is appropriate for their lifestyle. This perception challenge is further exacerbated by the absolute dearth of adopters in most communities and a total lack of local marketing for solar energy. What marketing that does exist is geared towards audiences other than those in the participant's community, reinforcing a perception that 22% of survey respondents (n = 1,551) have: that solar energy is not meant for them and their community. Overcoming these serious human challenges pertaining to knowledge and marketing are critical to reducing the customer acquisition costs incurred amongst LMI communities and especially those in rural America where the opportunities solar provides to increase local energy resilience, security, all while engaging in personal stewardship of the planet could align with local values. Community-Based Social Marketing, built in partnership with community leaders and geared towards meeting local visions of ideal life, is a near term opportunity to bridge the gap between local priorities and national market and policy imperatives for solar while moving towards the administration's goals for renewable energy as part of a just and equitable decarbonization program. The tools and methods developed for this study can serve as a template for identifying other specific local challenges for solar adoption in other state, and provide the opportunity for a common data framework for understanding system-wide trends and barriers to achieving uptake of residential solar in communities that may, ultimately, benefit the most from the technology.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Impact of Extreme Weather Events on Physical Protection System Effectiveness for a Hypothetical Small Modular Reactor Facility: Systems Analysis and Considerations

This report will summarize the group's work to provide recommendations to secure nuclear facilities before, during and after an extreme weather event. Extreme weather events can have drastic impacts to nuclear facilities as seen by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011. Recent hurricanes in the United States including Hurricane Harvey demonstrate the devastating effects these storms can have on infrastructure and the surrounding communities. The group is attempting to identify the gaps that potential small modular reactor (SMR) facilities will need to address in order to provide adequate site security before, during and after extreme weather events. This effort proceeded in three parts to provide insights and recommendations to secure Small Modular Reactor facilities for extreme weather events:(1) a literature review of academic articles as well as relevant documents including the existing regulatory framework and recommendations from the IAEA, NRC, and DOE, (2) subject matter expert interviews from a wide variety of security backgrounds, and (3) modeling and simulation on a hypothetical SMR facility. Special attention was paid to the interactions between stakeholders and nuclear facility design considerations, particularly the topics of safety and security. Engineering design issues from safety and security perspectives were discussed and included in simulation. Each step informed the proceeding, with the result including full tabletop scenarios of EWE impacts to security system effectiveness on the hypothetical model. This systems-level analysis provides results to inform recommendations to secure SMR facilities.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗