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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2016

Distributed Wind Resource Assessment: State of the Industry

In support of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Wind and Water Power Technologies Office (WWPTO) goals, researchers from DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) are investigating the Distributed Wind Resource Assessment (DWRA) process, which includes pre-construction energy estimation as well as turbine site suitability assessment. DWRA can have a direct impact on the Wind Program goals of maximizing stakeholder confidence in turbine performance and safety as well as reducing the levelized cost of energy (LCOE). One of the major components of the LCOE equation is annual energy production. DWRA improvements can maximize the annual energy production, thereby lowering the overall LCOE and improving stakeholder confidence in the distributed wind technology sector by providing more accurate predictions of power production. Over the long term, one of the most significant benefits of a more defined DWRA process could be new turbine designs, tuned to site-specific characteristics that will help the distributed wind industry follow a similar trajectory to the low-wind-speed designs in the utility-scale industry sector. By understanding the wind resource better, the industry could install larger rotors, capture more energy, and as a result, increase deployment while lowering the LCOE. a direct impact on the Wind Program goals of maximizing stakeholder confidence in turbine performance and safety as well as reducing the levelized cost of energy (LCOE). One of the major components of the LCOE equation is annual energy production. DWRA improvements can maximize the annual energy production, thereby lowering the overall LCOE and improving stakeholder confidence in the distributed wind technology sector by providing more accurate predictions of power production. Over the long term, one of the most significant benefits of a more defined DWRA process could be new turbine designs, tuned to site-specific characteristics that will help the distributed wind industry follow a similar trajectory to the low-wind-speed designs in the utility-scale industry sector. By understanding the wind resource better, the industry could install larger rotors, capture more energy, and as a result, increase deployment while lowering the LCOE.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2017

Advanced, Energy-Efficient Hybrid Membrane System for Industrial Water Reuse

In the U.S. manufacturing sector, current industrial water use practices are energy-intensive and utilize and discharge high volumes of waters, rendering them not sustainable especially in light of the growing scarcity of suitable water supplies. To help address this problem, the goal of this project was to develop an advanced, cost-effective, hybrid membrane-based water treatment system that can improve the energy efficiency of industrial wastewater treatment while allowing at least 50% water reuse efficiency. This hybrid process would combine emerging Forward Osmosis (FO) and Membrane Distillation (MD) technology components into an integrated FO-MD system that can beneficially utilize low-grade waste heat (i.e., T < 450 °F) in industrial facilities to produce distilled-quality product water for reuse. In this project, laboratory-, bench-, and pilot-scale experiments on the hybrid FO-MD system were conducted for industrial wastewater treatment. It was demonstrated at laboratory, bench, and pilot scales that FO-MD membrane technology can concentrate brine to very high total dissolved solids (TDS) levels (>200,000 ppm) that are at least 2.5 times higher than the TDS level to which RO can achieve. In laboratory testing, currently available FO and MD membranes were tested to select for high-performing membranes with high salt rejection and high water flux. Multiple FO membrane/draw-salt solution combinations that gave high water flux with higher than 98% salt rejection were also identified. Reverse draw-salt fluxes were observed to be much lower for divalent salts than for monovalent salts. MD membranes were identified that had 99.9+% salt rejection and water flux as high as 50-90 L/(m 2 ·h) for flat-sheet membranes and >20 L/(m 2 ·h) for hollow fibers. In bench-scale testing, a single unit of commercially available FO and MD membrane modules were evaluated for continuous, integrated operation. Using the laboratory- and bench-scale test data, numerical modeling was performed on the FO and MD processes to estimate engineering parameters for a larger-scale pilot unit. Based on the experimental studies and modeling results, a pilot-scale, integrated FO-MD prototype unit was designed and built for trailer-mounted operation. This prototype system was fed real industrial wastewater, which could not be further treated by conventional technologies, from an oil production facility and was successfully operated for over 15 weeks without major stoppage. About 90% water recovery was possible, while concentrating the TDS from 12,000 ppm up to 190,500 ppm. The FO-MD prototype rejected most wastewater contaminants while producing water with <300 ppm TDS, even when the feed TDS was higher than 150,000 ppm. No chemical cleaning was necessary during the pilot testing period. Flushing the system with dechlorinated tap water was sufficient to reset the membranes for the next set of test conditions. Pilot performance and membrane autopsy showed that, even though the feed was concentrated more than 10 times, membrane fouling was unnoticeable and no defects were detected on the FO and MD membrane surfaces. This project demonstrated the technical feasibility of the hybrid FO-MD process by taking water already treated to the limit with the highest level of current technologies and further concentrating it 10-fold by using mostly low-cost materials. Because no membranes suitable for full-scale plant applications are available at present, economical feasibility of the hybrid technology is still uncertain, but it is expected that broader industry participation can further reduce FO-MD process costs.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2018

Industrial Scale Demonstration of Smart Manufacturing, Achieving Transformational Energy Productivity Gains

While many U.S. manufacturing operations utilize optimization for individual unit processes, smart manufacturing (SM) systems that integrate manufacturing intelligence in real time across an entire production operation are rare in large companies and virtually nonexistent in smaller organizations. One example of an area where SM systems can be applied is in the management of waste heat. A smart system that not only seeks to recover waste heat, but also to use energy more efficiently, is a more cost-effective approach because energy use, waste energy loss and product output are optimized together. The overall objective of this project was to develop an industry-accepted SM Platform that enables smart systems by accelerating and lowering the cost of development and implementation scales for use in diverse sets of manufacturing industry sectors, manufacturing operations and company sizes. Specifically, the project (1) designed and demonstrated the application of a prototype SM Platform for two diverse commercial test beds, (2) demonstrated at one and estimated for the other test bed the potential reduction in waste heat generation, and (3) worked with leading automation vendors to catalyze low-cost commercialization of the technology developed. The Smart Manufacturing Application and Data Platform (SM Platform) developed during this project is an innovative approach that marries IT virtualization technologies with operational data and modeling system requirements to construct a ready-to-go platform for enabling sensor – data – modeling – actuation systems, driven by real-time plant data and performance metrics. This SM Platform allows manufacturing organizations, regardless of their industry or size, to assemble new operational systems at a much lower cost, optimizing process knowledge and improving energy productivity by integrating with existing process control and automation systems. Also developed during this project is a methodology for developing energy productivity metrics that use real-time process information and provide comparisons for potential, practical, and actual performance, as well as examples and the methodology for provisioning of an Energy Dashboard that displays alternatives to optimize energy use within specific business contexts aimed at helping improve energy productivity and reduce emissions in U.S. manufacturing. The SM Platform designed utilizes current manufacturing, operational and IT industry standards. The platform can be used to expedite sensor – data – model – actuation system development and deployment in a cloud-based environment using a novel end-to-end workflow as a service capability that is already integrated with data connection, ingestion, and contextualization services. In addition, the methodology for development of energy productivity metrics and reusable application templates called Toolkits have been defined so that they can be tailored to a specific business situation. The project’s two test beds, one in a hydrogen production plant and the other in a forging, heat treatment, and machining operation, utilize sensor-driven modeling, measurement, and simulation systems. In these two test beds, the implementation of these as a comprehensive system has made it possible for energy productivity to be managed in real-time throughout the plant and enterprise using an energy dashboard. The development pathway to direct machine actuation was articulated. During the first year, the project team developed the most highly instrumented steam-methane reformer (SMR) in the U.S. using infrared cameras and thermocouples. Real-time data are streamed to high fidelity and reduced-order models for analysis. A high fidelity CFD model, parallelized in the SM Platform cloud environment, was demonstrated for operational use. This is the first real-time operational productivity system of a steam methane reformer using both high fidelity and data-driven models together in a real time situation to balance natural gas flow to the reformer tubes. An infrared camera system was developed and shown to outperform thermocouples in coverage, accuracy, reliability, and cost effectiveness for use in a high temperature, harsh environment. A forging, heat-treating, machining line operation test bed includes new instrumentation for data capture analysis, modeling, and simulation and will be integrated into SM Platform workflows so that business performance can be managed in real-time. Composable metrics were developed using the SM Platform to drive improvements in energy productivity, environmental performance, safety, asset management, costs, and overall operations. A major focus of the SM systems developed was optimization of energy productivity at the enterprise level, which resulted in reductions in waste heat generation for the two project test beds. Reductions in the waste heat generated will result in greater energy savings than will waste heat recovery due to inefficiencies in the heat transfer process. For the SMR test bed an efficiency improvement of 1 – 2% with a corresponding waste heat reduction of 5% were demonstrated. It should be noted that the test bed SMR unit had an efficiency of more than 90% as compared to 70 to 80% efficiencies of most SMR units. So implementation of similar SM systems at typical SMR units could yield more than 15 to 25% waste heat reductions. Similarly the forging, heat-treating, machining line operation test bed is a DOE AMO Platinum Level Superior Energy Performance plant with a much higher than typical overall operating efficiency. For this test bed heat integration using recuperators is estimated to result in fuel savings of 15.9% due to waste heat recovery compared to the base case without recuperators with negligible changes in part exit conditions. This results in an 18.9% energy efficiency improvement. The project team estimates that broad multi-sector adoption of the developed technology could reduce waste heat generation by an amount equivalent to 1.3% of total U.S. energy use. This waste heat reduction is associated with 69 million tons reduction in annual carbon dioxide emissions. Other potential benefits include reducing process times, solid and liquid wastes, environmental impacts, and water use. It is estimated that this investment has an anticipated payback period of less than one year in energy-intensive applications. The SM Platform could also reduce the costs of deploying SM systems by 50% in manufacturing operations. Commercialization of the SM Platform will require significant cross-industry collaboration and technology provider market changes. Steps taken toward commercialization included 1) analyzing savings from deployment of the SM Platform and 2) holding SM Platform workshops, webinars, and conferences with targeted individual industry segments, with a focus on small and medium-sized organizations. An upgraded community website has been established as a portal for accessing and distributing information. Most importantly, the SM platform enabling technology developed during this project and its commercialization will continue, evolve and expand under the Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CESMII).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2018

Embedded Hardware Solution for Cybersecurity in Industrial Control Systems

Industrial Control Systems are the backbone of manufacturing, power, and critical infrastructure. These systems are made up of electronic and mechanical devices that operate on complex feedback systems that allow the production of consumer products, electricity, clean water, and nuclear industries. This broad reach of cybersecurity has earned it a place in the strategic roadmaps for many government agencies, including the Department of Energy. Their efforts stem from two general initiatives which are to improve cybersecurity in the energy sector and to strengthen effectiveness of Department of Energy incident management capabilities. Particular emphasis is in improving learning and preservations of knowledge at the labs, and to encourage collaboration between the labs. This project aims to develop Savannah River National Laboratory’s knowledge of industrial control systems cybersecurity by providing our engineers the opportunity to learn and execute advanced concepts in cybersecurity to real problems in industrial control systems. Successful execution of this project will enhance Savannah River National Laboratory’s knowledge and capability in the realm of Industrial Control System and Operational Technology cybersecurity as well as advance understanding of defensive needs in these environments. This will directly impact Savannah River National Laboratory’s capability to contribute and collaborate with Department of Energy, other Labs, and commercial partners in meeting Department of Energy national industrial control systems/Operations Technology cybersecurity goals.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Mining G.O.L.D. (Geothermal Opportunities Leveraged Through Data): Exploring Synergies Between the Geothermal and Mining Industries

This report analyzes potential collaborations between the geothermal and locatable mineral industries (focused on the portion of the Basin and Range Province within Nevada, United States of America). The objectives of this study included analyzing: 1. The type and quality of data collected by the locatable mineral industry to determine feasibility for geothermal resource exploration; 2. The regulatory pathways and potential barriers that could prevent development of geothermal resources discovered via a mining claim (and vice versa) in the United States; 3. The historical development of geothermal resources discovered via mineral exploration data in the United States and illustrations of co-located mining and geothermal power projects; 4. The value propositions for both the locatable mineral and the geothermal industries to collaborate. This article concludes that many of the data collected by the mining industry as part of locatable mineral exploration (e.g., copper, gold, lithium) would also be useful for identifying and developing previously unknown geothermal resources (and in some notable cases, already have led to geothermal resource development). In addition, for minimal costs, the mining industry could catalogue these data and potentially monetize the data itself or use the data in the future to develop a geothermal project. Leveraging these locatable mineral data to develop geothermal resources and/or co-located minerals and geothermal resources would represent significant cost savings when compared to developing geothermal resources under a business-as-usual scenario as well as compared to current generating technologies (e.g., diesel-powered generators) employed at remote mining operations. Ultimately, leveraging mining industry data, knowledge, and expertise serves to effectively expand the geothermal exploration workforce, increase the rate of geothermal resource discovery, and potentially reduce geothermal electricity's levelized cost of energy (LCOE) by 23%-29%.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Assessments of advanced reactor heat supply to high temperature industrial unit operations: Heat Engines and Heat Pumps

In this report, the feasibility of employing Advanced Nuclear Reactors to supply the necessary high-quality heat to Industrial Processes is investigated. As a first step, the most relevant industrial applications that could benefit from this coupling were identified. Four industries including petroleum refining (distillation, catalyst regeneration, hydro-steam cracking), chemical polymers, steel manufacturing (metals annealing/soaking) and cement manufacturing (calcination of limestone and dolomite industries) were considered. An overview of the heat duties, i.e., the temperatures and thermal powers required by representative plants of the different processes, was provided. Secondly, the thermodynamic conditions of the steam produced by representative designs of Advanced Reactor concepts (Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactors, Molten Salt Reactors, and High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors) were summarized. The comparison between the requirements of the industrial processes and the capabilities of the candidate nuclear power plants showed that only a few processes could benefit from the coupling. Although Advanced Reactors operate at higher temperatures than Light Water Reactors, the thermodynamic conditions of the generated steam flow rates are generally not suitable for the selected applications. At the same time, data indicate that most of the processes can be suitably supplied if the temperature of steam is elevated to 900 °C. One possible solution to boost the quality of the steam from the nuclear island involves the use of a heat pump. Based on a technology similar to that found in refrigerators and air conditioners, heat pumps extract heat from a source, elevate its temperature and transfer it to where it is needed. A simple numerical example illustrating the viability of this method is described. Specifically, the energy conversion cycle of a conventional Pressurized Water Reactor was extended to incorporate a compressor to raise the heating value of the steam produced by the reactor. Two reference configurations, i.e., one where the industrial process coupled to the nuclear power plant exhausts saturated liquid and the other where it exhausts saturated steam, were considered. The thermal efficiencies achievable by increasing the heating value of the reactor steam in this way are significantly greater than by direct electric heating.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Future Electric Power Industry and Grids—Now What Again is Our Destination?

Having a vision that others agree to support and work toward is highly desirable but hard to achieve. We seem to lack a common and shared understanding of the vision—or worse, multiple visions (vivid mental images or documented statements) with varying areas of focus and details: • some appear to be similar but have differing underlying goals and characteristics, or • some reflect differing viewpoints as to effects on various stakeholders. These desirable and undesirable situations apply to realizing visions for enterprise and industry, including the electricity sector. Multiple industry stakeholder groups have developed goals, industry vision statements, and characterizations of the future. The viewpoints are promoted, discussed, refined by their stakeholder group, and often published to promote broad understanding and to inform or influence others. The GridWise Architecture Council asked itself how well-aligned these characterizations of the future are. If these publications collectively set the overall direction for the industry, it is useful to identify their answers to questions such as, where is the electric industry headed, guided by what objectives, and with what role(s) for the customers, electric utilities, and other stakeholders? Are these goals, visions, and future states moving toward a common vision, do they provide value for the stakeholders, and are they likely to meet the objective stated? This paper addresses these questions via an assessment and characterization of a sampling of stakeholder groups’ publicly available vision and future state reports for the electricity industry. Identified electric power grid architectural topic areas needing further work are described, along with GridWise Architecture Council analysis and observation, potential collaborative work efforts, and suggested next steps.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
NASA NTRS1979

The role of thermal energy storage in industrial energy conservation

Thermal Energy Storage for Industrial Applications is a major thrust of the Department of Energy's Thermal Energy Storage Program. Utilizing Thermal Energy Storage (TES) with process or reject heat recovery systems is shown to be extremely beneficial for several applications. Recent system studies resulting from contracts awarded by the Department of Energy (DOE) identified four especially significant industries where TES appears attractive - food processing, paper and pulp, iron and steel, and cement. Potential annual fuel savings with large scale implementation of near term TES systems for these industries is over 9,000,000 bbl of oil. This savings is due to recuperation and storage in the food processing industry, direct fuel substitution in the paper and pulp industry and reduction in electric utility peak fuel use through inplant production of electricity from utilization of reject heat in the steel and cement industries.

Duscha, R. A.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Space industrialization: A national perspective

Space industrialization (or commercialization) has the potential to be a major player in America's space program. If this potential is to be realized, however, industrialization efforts must be considered within the context of the other major portions of the space program: shuttle, space station, and civil remote sensing. Further, development efforts must be based upon a sound scientific and technical understanding of the products and processes, and there must be a trained cadre of dedicated individuals willing to devote time and effort to this effort. There remain considerable risks and uncertainties. Given all this, the best path to follow would seem to be a long term, balanced commitment, emphasizing government, industry, and academia partnerships. Several points are addressed: (1) the place of space industrialization in the overall national space program; (2) the meaning of space industrialization with respect to the historic, national aims of space; and (3) specifically what is being industrialized.

Reis, V. H.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Space and biotechnology: An industry profile

The results of a study conducted by the Center for Space and Advanced Technology (CSAT) for NASA-JSC are presented. The objectives were to determine the interests and attitudes of the U.S. biotechnology industry toward space biotechnology and to prepare a concise review of the current activities of the biotechnology industry. In order to accomplish these objectives, two primary actions were taken. First, a questionnaire was designed, reviewed, and distributed to U.S. biotechnology companies. Second, reviews of the various biotechnology fields were prepared in several aspects of the industry. For each review, leading figures in the field were asked to prepare a brief review pointing out key trends and current industry technical problems. The result is a readable narrative of the biotechnology industry which will provide space scientists and engineers valuable clues as to where the space environment can be explored to advance the U.S. biotechnology industry.

Johnston, Richard S.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Space Product Development: NASA Partnering With Industry For Out of This World Results

True space commercialization can only be achieved through having the broadest possible industrial participation. Commercial paradigms focused simply on commercial launch operations are not viable since there are limited payload launch opportunities in terms of satellites and similar vehicles, and there are not yet sufficient markets to support large-scale operations and innovation. What is required to expand commercial operations to the point of viability is a broad base of industry that understands the opportunities of commercial space and microgravity operations, and is eager to take advantage of it. Interesting non-aerospace companies in commercial space and microgravity research or operations is a major challenge, since these companies must be educated about the opportunities, introduced into the process in an effective and comfortable manner, and encouraged to continue and expand their work in this area. The NASA Space Product Development Program does this through fifteen Commercial Space Centers located across the United States, each focusing on a different area of interest to industry rather than of interest to NASA. These Centers serve as a consortium of industry, academia, and government, bringing the synergistic effects of membership to the benefit of all. This paper will discuss the guiding philosophies of this program, its organization, the successes obtained by industry in a variety of fields, and the success NASA is experiencing in building the broad base of industry needed to achieve true space commercialization.

Nall, Mark E.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Application of Core Theory to the Airline Industry

Competition in the airline industry has been fierce since the industry was deregulated in 1978. The proponents of deregulation believed that more competition would improve efficiency and reduce prices and bring overall benefits to the consumer. In this paper, a case is made based on core theory that under certain demand and cost conditions more competition can actually lead to harmful consequences for industries like the airline industry or cause an empty core problem. Practices like monopolies, cartels, price discrimination, which is considered inefficient allocation of resources in many other industries, can actually be beneficial in the case of the airline industry in bringing about an efficient equilibrium.

Raghavan, Sunder↗
DOE OSTI2018

A System Dynamics Model of Early-Stage Transition Dynamics in the Bioproducts Industry

The U.S. Department of Energy, Bioenergy Technologies Office has a broad understanding of different conversion processes that produce bioproducts (chemicals derived from biomass feedstocks) and the techno-economic attributes of those processes. However, bioproducts have in many cases proven to be difficult to scale up to commercial production, and there is currently a need for greater understanding around the possible successful scenarios for advancing the bioproducts industry. Insight into the myriad factors that impact the success of individual bioproducts and the growth of the bioproducts industry will enable bioproduct stakeholders to evaluate strategies for development and investment that could achieve the greatest impact. An understanding of these factors will also enable the identification of synergies between the bioproducts and biofuels industries that occur through shared learning and co-production. The Bioproduct Transition Dynamics (BTD) model explores questions such as the following: what are the factors that separate a successful, commercially produced bioproduct like succinic acid from one that never progresses beyond bench-scale lab research? Can these factors be influenced by stakeholders, and to what extent? The BTD model uses system dynamics to capture the impacts of investor decision-making, bioproduct techno-economics, and end use factors during the early stages of bioproduct development. Key components of the BTD model include techno-economic benchmarks that inform the investor decision-making process, failures and setbacks in development and the resulting need for additional work, and the impacts of effective or ineffective management during each development stage. These factors and their interactions are tracked through bench-scale laboratory research, piloting, demoing, and the construction and operation of the first commercial-scale plant. Bioproduct development is linked to the biofuels industry through a shared-learning model, enabling the benefit to biofuels from bioproduct technology and feedstock supply chain development to be quantified. A wide variety of bioproducts can be analyzed using the BTD model, including bioproducts that have been developed through economic or policy-driven mechanisms, and those with either niche (low volume) or scalable (high volume) demand. The BTD model also has the potential to apply to technology development processes outside the bioproducts industry; background research performed for this project has shown that the early stages of technology development are similar, and impacted by similar factors, regardless of the exact industry. This presentation will cover the BTD model logic, input data, validation process, and results of a sensitivity analysis based on techno-economic data for succinic acid. The sensitivity analysis was performed to identify factors with the largest impact on the eventual success or failure of a bioproduct. Results indicate that management effectiveness, which affects how efficiently money spent is converted into technological advancements, is the single most important factor in determining whether a bioproduct reaches commercial-scale production. The capacity of the first commercial plant and the type of biomass feedstock used, as well as the presence of government support in the form of cost-sharing, were also identified as significant factors.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Identifying Pathways for Enhanced Collaboration Between the Mining and Geothermal Industries

The locatable mineral industry is shifting toward improving environmental performance and becoming more sustainable, with numerous mining companies shifting to renewable energy technologies to power mine operations and at least one company pledging net-zero emissions by 2050. One potential electricity source to help achieve improved environmental performance and decarbonization within the mining industry is geothermal energy. As part of a study into potential collaboration between the geothermal and locatable mineral industries (focused on the portion of the Basin and Range Province within Nevada), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) with support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO), investigated data, economic, and regulatory factors that may contribute to or inhibit synergies between the two industries. The objectives of the study included analyzing: The type and quality of data collected by the locatable mineral industry to determine feasibility for geothermal resource exploration; The regulatory pathways and potential barriers that could prevent development of geothermal resources discovered via a mining claim (and vice versa); The historical development of geothermal resources discovered via mineral exploration data; The value propositions for both the locatable mineral and the geothermal industries to collaborate.

40 EE - Geothermal Technologies Office (EE-4G)↗
DOE OSTI2022

Use of novel refractory design and installation techniques for improved energy efficiency in iron and steel and other energy intensive industries

This paper describes the planned work to be performed under a United States Department of Energy funded project to bring together the key players necessary to develop and deploy new technology which could increase the thermal efficiency of the steel industry as well as other energy intensive industries. It is hoped that such improvements in energy efficiency will reduce the overall energy and environmental footprint of domestic industry, as well as provide economic benefit to the individual companies. The described project brings together a vertically integrated collaborative team consisting of the end user (U.S. Steel), material producers/suppliers (Allied Mineral Products and Reno Refractories), raw material suppliers (American Metallurgical Services, Minerals Manufacturing), and research organizations (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, National Energy Technology Laboratory and University of Alabama-Birmingham) with the objective of designing and producing new refractory materials based on novel aggregates, improved particle packing, and engineered surface texture. In addition, the recycling and use of spent refractory materials will be investigated and a novel installation technique will be developed taking advantage of new additive manufacturing technology and existing refractory shotcrete technology. It is hoped that the combination of these new technologies will allow for the improvement of the energy, environmental, and economic efficiency of the steel industry while also reducing the environmental footprint of the refractory and steel industries. Additionally, the developed technology is expected to be applicable to other energy intensive industries such as cement, glass, pulp and paper, and non-ferrous metals processing.

Hemrick, James↗
DOE OSTI2025

STREAM: A technology planning and capacity expansion model for the industrial sector

The Strategic Technology Roadmapping and Energy, Environmental, and Economic Analysis Model—STREAM—is an optimization-based modeling tool and analysis framework to assist with strategic planning and technology investments of the industrial sector. This open-source framework is written in Julia using the JuMP package, which enables users to model future “pathways” for incumbent and future production technologies, costs, fuels and energy carriers, and energy and non-energy environmental impacts from industries as they transform in pursuit of a robust and competitive manufacturing sector. The model starts with an initial stock of industrial production technologies and assets at a facility level and then determines pathways that minimize cost, subject to an array of possible constraints on demand, market shares, environmental flows, and other exogenously specified operational considerations such as capacity utilization rates or regional energy costs. Key features of the framework include flexibility to model a wide range of industries and industrial technologies/processes at varying levels of granularity, ability to perform parametric sensitivity analyses, and ability to visualize model results using visualization objects.

capacity expansion↗
DOE OSTI2023

Smart Manufacturing Pathways for Industrial Decarbonization and Thermal Process Intensification

Rapid decarbonization is fast becoming the primary environmental and sustainability initiative for many economic sectors. Industry consumes more than 30 % of all primary energy in the United States and accounts for nearly 25 % of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. More than 70 % of energy consumed by the industrial sector is related to thermal processes, which are also the largest contributors of carbon emissions, overwhelmingly due to the combustion of fossil fuels. Thermal process intensification (TPI) seeks to dramatically improve the energy performance of thermal systems through technology pillars focusing on alternative energy sources and processes, supplemental technologies, and waste heat management. The impacts of TPI have significant overlap with the goals of industrial decarbonization (ID) that seeks to phase out all GHG emissions from industrial activities. Emerging supplemental technologies such as smart manufacturing (SM) and the industrial internet of things (IoT) enable significant opportunities for the optimization of manufacturing processes. Combining strategies for TPI and ID with SM and IoT can open and enhance existing opportunities for saving time and energy via approaches such as tighter control of temperature zones, better adjustment of thermal systems for variations in production levels and feedstock properties, and increased process throughput. Data collected by smart processes will also enable new advanced solutions such as digital twins and machine learning algorithms to further improve thermal system savings. Herein, this paper examines the individual pathways of TPI, ID, and SM and how the combination of all three can accelerate energy and GHG reductions.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2013

Assessment of Industrial Load for Demand Response across U.S. Regions of the Western Interconnect

Demand response (DR) has the ability to both increase power grid reliability and potentially reduce operating system costs. Understanding the role of demand response in grid modeling has been difficult due to complex nature of the load characteristics compared to the modeled generation and the variation in load types. This is particularly true of industrial loads, where hundreds of different industries exist with varying availability for demand response. We present a framework considering industrial loads for the development of availability profiles that can provide more regional understanding and can be inserted into analysis software for further study. The developed framework utilizes a number of different informational resources, algorithms, and real-world measurements to perform a bottom-up approach in the development of a new database with representation of the potential demand response resource in the industrial sector across the U.S. This tool houses statistical values of energy and demand response (DR) potential by industrial plant and geospatially locates the information for aggregation for different territories without proprietary information. This report will discuss this framework and the analyzed quantities of demand response for Western Interconnect (WI) in support of evaluation of the cost production modeling with power grid modeling efforts of demand response.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗