Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “moderator”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 199 records · Page 11

Bringing Low- and Moderate-Income Solar Financing Models to Scale (Final Technical Report (FTR))

In this final report, the Clean Energy States Alliance(CESA) and its project partners describe their work to accelerate the development of solar projects for three distinct subsets of the low- to moderate-income(LMI) solar market: single-family homes, manufactured homes, and community institutions, including multifamily affordable housing. For each market sector, the project team undertook research, outreach, and market-building activities. By advancing promising LMI solar financing innovations for different housing types and spreading them to new locations, the Scaling Up Solar for Under-Resourced Communities project has built momentum to scale up LMI solar. Although the report describes some research pertaining to solar adoption in LMI communities, this project was original in that it focused on two specific models to tackle single-family homes and community institutions. Until this project, very little research dedicated to solar for manufactured homes existed. For each market sector, the project team undertook research, outreach, and market-building activities. For the single-family homes sector, the project encouraged states to adapt a program model based on a successful Connecticut initiative that has brought solar to thousands of LMI homeowners. For manufactured homes, the project analyzed the potential for using solar for that housing sector and worked with states, utilities, and other stakeholders to launch pilot projects or programs. For community institutions, the project team worked with foundations, lenders, and community service organizations to inventory, analyze, and communicate models for philanthropic investment that accelerate the deployment of solar and solar+storage in multifamily affordable housing, health centers, and other LMI-serving community institutions.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Product Innovation to Increase Low-to-Moderate-Income Customers' Adoption of Community Solar PV

This study aims to comprehensively analyze community solar project preferences for consumers and suppliers by conducting three distinct analyses. First we analyze the predictors of community solar contract adoption to understand how individual priorities affect the probability of adoption. Using an original data set of survey responses from potential community solar customers, we analyzed the predictors of contract adoption by employing a weighted logit model. We find that individuals who were previously familiar with community solar projects were significantly more likely to adopt than those who were not familiar. Secondly, a survey of community solar developers and financiers identified industry perceived barriers to community solar access and inclusion. Thirdly, we gathered payment performance information from community solar initiatives to measure how financial risks are perceived and how they interact with customer demographics. Our study is beneficial to the public by providing insights into the drivers and barriers of community solar adoption and sheds light on the importance of understanding individual priorities in designing effective community solar policies. The community solar industry has changed significantly since the beginning of this project. The industry continues to grow at a rapid rate, with an additional 7 gigawatts expected to come online between 2022 and 2027. With federal pressure to meet climate goals, as the harms of climate change continue to impact everybody, legislators are looking to community solar as a method to achieving their states energy policy goals. These new policies that push for low-to-moderate inclusion, coupled with the increase in community solar capacity illustrate a new era for the community solar industry. A number of policies have arisen in the last few months that push for more inclusive practices including the groundbreaking Solar for All program run by the EPA. The research created a “best practice” contract that can then be used, in conjunction with the manuscript and validated study, to pitch the industry on a more inclusive community solar product.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Developing socially and economically generative, resilient PV-energy systems for low- and moderate-income communities: Applications for Puerto Rico (Final Technical Report)

The nexus of energy and poverty is one of the most significant long-term challenges facing the energy and electricity sectors, with negative feedback loops between energy-related costs, risks, and insecurities, on the one hand, and diverse other social and economic insecurities, on the other, helping to undermine health, wellbeing, and resilience in low- and moderate-income communities around the US and the world (Biswas et al. 2022). The transition of energy systems to clean energy alternatives offers a potential opportunity to redesign future energy arrangements in ways that, instead, create beneficial social value for communities, reverses the energy-poverty nexus, and enhances community wellbeing (Biswas et al. 2020; Miller et al. 2018). The promise of clean energy transitions to address the energy-poverty nexus is especially significant when designed using principles of just energy transitions. To leverage just clean energy transitions to accomplish a reversal of the energy-poverty nexus requires improvement in three capabilities: (1) Understanding and mapping the community-scale dynamics and variability of the energy-poverty nexus, which vary considerably from community to community; (2) Evaluating the technical, social, and economic potential for different clean energy system designs to deliver social value to specific communities; and (3) Working collaboratively with communities to imagine and design clean energy systems solutions that meet their needs, fit their capabilities and contexts, and deliver multiple forms of community-desired social value/benefits that help reverse key facets of the energy-poverty nexus. This project developed a portfolio of novel tools, methodological approaches, and collaborative partnerships with four communities in Puerto Rico that further the objective of building these three capabilities.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Moderator Optimization for the Second Target Station Final Design

This report details the results from the optimization simulations performed for the final design of the Second Target Station (STS). This is a continuation of the analysis performed in 2022 for the preliminary design. To evaluate the impact of the design changes since 2022, the analysis was repeated with updated target and moderator models. Additionally, more degrees of freedom have been considered in the premoderator dimensions which provide a refinement compared to the previous optimization analysis.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

The moderately defficient enzyme: Catalysis-related damage in vivo and its repair

Enzymes have in vivo lifespans. Analysis of lifespans – lifetime totals of catalytic turnovers – suggests that non-survivable collateral chemical damage from the very reactions that enzymes catalyze is a common but underdiagnosed cause of enzyme death. Analysis also implies that many enzymes are moderately deficient in that their active-site regions are not naturally as hardened against such collateral damage as they could be, leaving room for improvement by rational design or directed evolution. Enzyme lifespan might also be improved by engineering systems that repair otherwise fatal active-site damage, of which a handful are known and more are inferred to exist. Unfortunately, the data needed to design and execute such improvements is lacking: there are too few measurements of in vivo lifespan, and existing information on the extent, nature, and mechanisms of active-site damage and repair during normal enzyme operation is too scarce, anecdotal, and speculative to act on. Fortunately, advances in proteomics, metabolomics, cheminformatics, comparative genomics, and structural biochemistry now empower a systematic, data-driven approach to identify, predict, and validate instances of active-site damage and its repair. These capabilities would be practically useful in enzyme redesign and improvement of in-use stability, and could change thinking about which enzymes die young in vivo, and why.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

The moderately defficient enzyme: Catalysis-related damage in vivo and its repair

Enzymes have in vivo lifespans. Analysis of lifespans – lifetime totals of catalytic turnovers – suggests that non-survivable collateral chemical damage from the very reactions that enzymes catalyze is a common but underdiagnosed cause of enzyme death. Analysis also implies that many enzymes are moderately deficient in that their active-site regions are not naturally as hardened against such collateral damage as they could be, leaving room for improvement by rational design or directed evolution. Enzyme lifespan might also be improved by engineering systems that repair otherwise fatal active-site damage, of which a handful are known and more are inferred to exist. Unfortunately, the data needed to design and execute such improvements is lacking: there are too few measurements of in vivo lifespan, and existing information on the extent, nature, and mechanisms of active-site damage and repair during normal enzyme operation is too scarce, anecdotal, and speculative to act on. Fortunately, advances in proteomics, metabolomics, cheminformatics, comparative genomics, and structural biochemistry now empower a systematic, data-driven approach to identify, predict, and validate instances of active-site damage and its repair. These capabilities would be practically useful in enzyme redesign and improvement of in-use stability, and could change thinking about which enzymes die young in vivo, and why.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

How to design a focusing guide: The large moderator case1

As continuously shaped super-mirrors are becoming available, the conceptual design of focusing guides should explore a wider range of possibilities to accomplish an efficient neutron beam extraction. Starting from a desired phase-space volume at the sample position and using an upstream ray-tracing approach, the acceptance diagram of any focusing guide can be calculated at the moderator position. To ensure high brilliance transfer and homogeneous coverage, the acceptance diagram should be fully included in the neutron source emission phase-space volume. Following this idea, the guide system can be scaled into dimensionless geometric figures that convey performance limits for a desired cross-section reduction. Moreover, if we impose a monotonic increase of the reflection angle with divergence angle at the sample position, the shape of the mirror is analytically determined. This approach was applied in the design of a focusing guide for SNAP instrument at SNS, at ORNL, USA. The results of McStas simulations are presented with different options included. Our approach facilitates finding an optimal solution for connecting multiple guide pieces to avoid excessive losses and ensure a homogeneous phase space coverage.

Frost, Matthew↗

Modeling, Load Profile Validation, and Assessment of Solar-Rooftop Energy Potential for Low-and-Moderate-Income Communities in the Caribbean

This document presents the modeling of load profile consumption for Low-and-Moderate-Income (LMI) communities in the Caribbean Islands, as well as an assessment of the solar-rooftop energy potential. In this work, real data, together with synthetic and electricity bill data, were collected to validate and improve the load profile models. The solar-rooftop energy potential was obtained through a National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) software called the PVWatts calculator, and mathematical analysis. The analysis of rooftop solar energy potential was conducted to enable the minimum size of solar power systems to fit the energy demand in the community. The results obtained allow estimation of the capacity of the energy system for each house or an entire community.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Genomic Insights into Moderately Thermophilic Methanotrophs of the Genus Methylocaldum

Considering the increasing interest in understanding the biotic component of methane removal from our atmosphere, it becomes essential to study the physiological characteristics and genomic potential of methanotroph isolates, especially their traits allowing them to adapt to elevated growth temperatures. The genetic signatures of Methylocaldum species have been detected in many terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. A small set of representatives of this genus has been isolated and maintained in culture. The genus is commonly described as moderately thermophilic, with the growth optimum reaching 50 °C for some strains. Here, we present a comparative analysis of genomes of three Methylocaldum strains—two terrestrial M. szegediense strains (O-12 and Norfolk) and one marine strain, Methylocaldum marinum (S8). The examination of the core genome inventory of this genus uncovers significant redundancy in primary metabolic pathways, including the machinery for methane oxidation (numerous copies of pmo genes) and methanol oxidation (duplications of mxaF, xoxF1-5 genes), three pathways for one-carbon (C1) assimilation, and two methods of carbon storage (glycogen and polyhydroxyalkanoates). We also investigate the genetics of melanin production pathways as a key feature of the genus.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Supplemental Microalgal Iron Helps Replete Blood Hemoglobin in Moderately Anemic Mice Fed a Rice-Based Diet

Iron deficiency anemia affects 1.2 billion people globally. Our objectives were to determine if (1) supplemental iron extracted from defatted microalgae (Nannochloropsis oceanica, DGM) and (2) a combination of minute amount of plant phytase and inulin could help replete hemoglobin in anemic mice. Mice (7 weeks old) were fed a control diet (6 mg Fe/kg). After 10 weeks, the mice were assigned to three treatments: control, control + DGM iron (Fe-DGM, 39 mg Fe/kg), or control + 1% inulin + 250 units of phytase/kg (INU–PHY, 6 mg Fe/kg). The mice had free access to diets and water for 6 weeks. The Fe-DGM group had elevated blood hemoglobin (p < 0.01) and a two-fold greater (p < 0.0001) liver non-heme iron over the control. Strikingly, the INU-PHY group had 34% greater non-heme iron than the control, despite the same concentrations of iron in their diets. Fe-DGM group had altered (p < 0.05) mRNA levels of hepcidin, divalent metal transporter 1, transferrin and transferrin receptor 1. Iron extracted from defatted microalgae seemed to be effective in alleviating moderate anemia, and INU-PHY enhanced utilization of intrinsic iron present in the rice diet. Our findings may lead to a novel formulation of these ingredients to develop safer and bioavailable iron supplements for iron-deficient populations.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Data Product: Ka ARM Zenith Radar (KAZR), in CfRadial format: moderate sensitivity mode, corrected

The KAZRCFRCOR Value Added Product (VAP) performs several corrections to the ingested KAZR data and also creates a significant detection mask for each radar mode. The VAP computes gaseous attenuation as a function of time and radial distance from the radar antenna, based on ambient relative humidity, and corrects observed reflectivities for that effect. KAZR reflectivities are also corrected in the antenna ‘nearfield’ range to compensate for the near-field antenna pattern and gain. KAZRCFRCOR also dealiases mean Doppler velocities, to correct velocities whose magnitudes exceed the radar’s Nyquist velocity. This dataset contains the 'kazrmd' (moderate sensitivity) mode output from this VAP.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗