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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 253 records · Page 14
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Presentation: SMR Current Status: Development Needs and Global Perspectives

Defined as nuclear reactors with a power output up to 300 megawatts electrical (MWe) by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and targeted for multipurpose applications, small modular reactors (SMRs) have been recognized as a very promising, clean, affordable, and sustainable energy source by many countries. At present, more than 80 SMRs are under design, development, demonstration, deployment, and beyond (4D+) phases worldwide. This paper focuses on the current world status of SMRs and focuses on the necessary developments to accelerate the process of adopting SMRs as a major energy source globally. SMRs are not a new concept, but they do represent a new vision for older concepts if the challenges inherent within them are mitigated with strategic and realistic solution approaches. The major challenges for SMRs 4D+ like any new reactors are: (a) qualifying the advanced fuel-to-reactor design; (b) supporting rapid scaled/prototypic experimentations; (c) maintaining local and global codes, standards, and licensing; (d) supply chain issues; (e) effective cradle-to-grave nuclear fuel cycle and fuel material transportation, and (f) mitigating financial and environmental risks. These upfront challenges can be mitigated with a synergistic solution approach among the various stakeholders: industry, academia, research, government, and international entities.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2024

SMR Current Status: Development Needs and Global Perspectives

Defined as nuclear reactors with a power output up to 300 megawatts electrical (MWe) by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and targeted for multipurpose applications, small modular reactors (SMRs) have been recognized as a very promising, clean, affordable, and sustainable energy source by many countries. At present, more than 80 SMRs are under design, development, demonstration, deployment, and beyond (4D+) phases worldwide. This study focuses on the current world status of SMRs and focuses on the necessary developments to accelerate the process of adopting SMRs as a major energy source globally. SMRs are not a new concept, but they do represent a new vision for older concepts if the challenges inherent within them are mitigated with strategic and realistic solution approaches. The major challenges for SMRs 4D+ like any new reactors are: (a) qualifying the advanced fuel-to-reactor design; (b) supporting rapid scaled/prototypic experimentations; (c) maintaining local and global codes, standards, and licensing; (d) supply chain issues;(e) effective cradle-to-grave nuclear fuel cycle and fuel material transportation, and (f) mitigating financial and environmental risks. These upfront challenges can be mitigated with a synergistic solution approach among the various stakeholders: industry, academia, research, government, and international entities.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2010

Narrow Energy Spread Protons and Ions from High-Intensity, High-Contrast Laser Solid Target Interactions

Recent simulations show that an idealized, high intensity, short pulse laser can generate quasi-monoenergetic proton beams with energies over 100 MeV in an interaction with a thin film. However, most short pulse laser facilities with sufficient intensity have difficulty controlling the nanosecond and picosecond contrast necessary to realize such a regime. Experiments were performed to investigate proton and ion acceleration from a high contrast, short pulse laser by employing dual plasma mirrors along with a deformable mirror at the HERCULES laser facility at the Center for Ultrafast Optical Sciences, University of Michigan. Plasma mirrors were characterized, allowing a 50% throughput with an intensity contrast increase of 105. The focal spot quality was also exceptional, showing a 1.1 micron full width at half maximum (FWHM) focal diameter. Experiments were done using temporally cleaned 30 TW, 32 fs pulses to achieve an intensity of up to 10{sup 21} Wcm{sup -2} on Si{sub 3}N{sub 4} and Mylar targets with thicknesses ranging 50 nm to 13 microns. Proton beams with energy spreads below 2 MeV were observed from all thicknesses, peaking with energies up to 10.3 MeV and an energy spread of 0.8 MeV. Similar narrow energy spreads were observed for oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon at the silicon nitride thickness of 50 nm with energies up to 24 MeV with an energy spread of 3 MeV, whereas the energy spread is greatly increased at a larger thickness. Maximum energies were confirmed with CR39 track detectors, while a Thomson ion spectrometer was used to gauge the monoenergetic nature of the beam.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Uruguay's Action Plan and Experience for Power Sector Decarbonization

A collaborative report from the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM), Lessons Learned for Rapid Decarbonization of Power Sectors, was delivered to energy ministers and presented at the 13th CEM (CEM13) in the United States in September 2022. In light of these lessons learned and discussed at CEM13, several jurisdictions signaled intent to develop Action Plans for power sector decarbonization. The first cohort of Action Plans was released at CEM14 in India in July 2023. The Uruguay Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining is pleased to release this Action Plan as a contribution to the second cohort of Action Plans released at CEM15 in Brazil in October 2024. The Action Plans, supported by the 21st Century Power Partnership, and other CEM workstreams via direct technical assistance and capacity building, are intended to focus on select implementation actions given each country's existing power sector goals and activities, and are an opportunity for countries to display leadership in power sector decarbonization. The Action Plans are organized in a framework for planning, building, and operating, as well as stakeholder engagement where appropriate based on country priorities. They complement, but are differentiated from, other international power sector initiatives such as the Breakthrough Agenda (whose broad purpose is to raise collective ambition) and the Global Power System Transformation Consortium (whose goals are to convene power system operators to accelerate research innovations and foster peer learning). These Action Plans are voluntary, developed by each country individually, not comprehensive of all activities within the jurisdiction, and are living documents that are subject to change.

21st Century Power Partnership↗
DOE OSTI2024

Brazil's Action Plan for Rapid Decarbonization of Power Sectors

A collaborative report from the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) on Lessons Learned for Rapid Decarbonization of Power Sectors was delivered to energy ministers and presented at the CEM13 in the United States in September 2022. In light of these lessons learned and discussed at CEM13, several jurisdictions signaled intent to develop Action Plans for power sector decarbonization. The first cohort of Action Plans was released at CEM14 in India in July 2023. The second cohort of action plans will be presented at CEM15 in Brazil. The Action Plans, supported by the 21st Century Power Partnership, and other CEM workstreams via direct technical assistance and capacity building, are intended to focus on select implementation actions, given each country's existing power sector goals and activities, and are an opportunity for countries to display leadership in power sector decarbonization. The Action Plans are organized in a framework for Planning, Building and Operating, as well as Stakeholder Engagement where appropriate based on country priorities. They complement, but are differentiated from, other international power sector initiatives such as the Breakthrough Agenda (whose broad purpose is to raise collective ambition) and the Global Power System Transformation Consortium (whose goals are to convene power system operators to accelerate research innovations and foster peer learning). These Action Plans are voluntary, developed by each country individually, not comprehensive of all activities within the jurisdiction, and are living documents that are subject to change.

21st Century Power Partnership↗
NASA NTRS2022

An Efficient and Effective Light Gas Gun Design for Millimeter-Scale Hypervelocity Testing

This paper serves to document a design for a light gas gun that was used for 3 decades at NASA’s Langley Research Center. By adapting readily-available equipment and supplies, this apparatus was capable of accelerating projectiles at up to 9 kilometers per second. The lack of a projectile-carrying sabot sacrifices some adaptability in projectile size, but results in a design that can be cleaned and cycled with far less labor input. Overall limitation on the projectile impact energies attainable effectively limit the applications to assessing the relatively thin shields employed for robotic spacecraft (as opposed to manned missions). The original gun has been decommissioned, but it is believed that this design has application for robotic spacecraft shield testing in the modern world, allowing cost-effective generation of larger sample sizes than with conventional sabot-based light gas guns.

Hypervelocity↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

An Efficient and Effective Light Gas Gun Design for Millimeter-scale Hypervelocity Testing

This paper serves to document a design for a light gas gun that was used for 3 decades at NASA’s Langley Research Center. By adapting readily-available equipment and supplies, this apparatus was capable of accelerating projectiles at up to 9 kilometers per second. The lack of a projectile-carrying sabot sacrifices some adaptability in projectile size, but results in a design that can be cleaned and cycled with far less labor input. Overall limitation on the projectile impact energies attainable effectively limit the applications to assessing the relatively thin shields employed for robotic spacecraft (as opposed to manned missions). The original gun has been decommissioned, but it is believed that this design has application for robotic spacecraft shield testing in the modern world, allowing cost-effective generation of larger sample sizes than with conventional sabot-based light gas guns.

Hypervelocity↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

An Efficient and Effective Light Gas Gun Design for Millimeter-Scale Hypervelocity Testing

This paper serves to document a design for a light gas gun that was used for 3 decades at NASA’s Langley Research Center. By adapting readily-available equipment and supplies, this apparatus was capable of accelerating projectiles at up to 9 kilometers per second. The lack of a projectile-carrying sabot sacrifices some adaptability in projectile size, but results in a design that can be cleaned and cycled with far less labor input. Overall limitation on the projectile impact energies attainable effectively limit the applications to assessing the relatively thin shields employed for robotic spacecraft (less useful for those used for manned missions). The original gun has been decommissioned, but it is believed that this design has application for robotic spacecraft shield testing in the modern world, allowing cost-effective generation of larger sample sizes than with conventional sabot-based light gas guns.

Scott Hull↗
DOE OSTI2024

Developing Multiphysics, Integrated, High-Fidelity, Massively Parallel Computational Capabilities for Fusion Applications Using MOOSE

As the need for fusion as a clean, sustainable, and abundant energy source grows internationally, so does the need for multiphysics, computational tools to model, study, and predict the complex interactions between plasma, materials, and engineering processes. These tools have a crucial role to play in solving scientific and engineering challenges and accelerating fusion energy deployment. To address these needs, modeling capabilities should enable massively parallel, multiphysics, fully integrated high-fidelity simulations of fusion systems. Additional attributes, such as being open source and modular while maintaining high software quality assurance standards will maximize impact by ensuring accessibility for all and wide acceptance, rapid expansion and development, as well as reliability, efficiency, and robustness. In this paper, we describe how the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) framework, which has a track record of success in the fission space thanks to the attributes listed above, can be leveraged in the fusion energy field. We highlight key successes of the MOOSE application in the fission space and describe how MOOSE has been and is being applied to fusion applications in the United States---e.g., Tritium Migration Analysis Program, version 8 (TMAP8), MOOSE Fusion Module, Fusion ENergy Integrated multiphys-X (FENIX)---and the United Kingdom---e.g., AURORA, Achlys, Apollo. These efforts aim to establish a suite of tools that can be further extended to accelerate fusion energy deployment.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Analysis of bipolar membranes for electrochemical CO 2 capture from air and oceanwater

Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) must be removed from the atmosphere to mitigate the negative effects of climate change. However, the most scalable methods for removing CO 2 from the air require heat from fossil-fuel combustion to produce pure CO 2 and continuously regenerate the sorbent. Bipolar-membrane electrodialysis (BPM-ED) is a promising technology that uses renewable electricity to dissociate water into acid and base to regenerate bicarbonate-based CO 2 capture solutions, such as those used in chemical loops of direct-air-capture (DAC) processes, and in direct-ocean capture (DOC) to promote atmospheric CO 2 drawdown via decarbonization of the shallow ocean. In this study, we develop an experimentally validated 1D model for the electrochemical regeneration of CO 2 from bicarbonate-based carbon capture solutions and seawater using BPM-ED. For DAC, our experimental and computational results demonstrate that pH swings induced by BPM water dissociation drive the formation of CO 2 at the cation-exchange layer|catholyte interface with energy-intensities of less than 150 kJ mol -1 . However, high rates of bubble formation increase energy intensity at current densities >100 mA cm -2 . Correspondingly, accelerating water dissociation catalysis and enacting bubble removal could enable CO 2 recovery at energy intensities <100 kJ mol -1 and current densities >100 mA cm -2 . For DOC, mass transport limitations associated with low carbon concentrations in oceanwater suggest that DOC is best suited for clean production of acid and base usable in downstream processes. Further, these results provide design principles for industrial-scale CO 2 recovery using BPM-ED.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

An Efficient and Effective Light Gas Gun Design for Millimeter-scale Hypervelocity Testing

This paper serves to document a design for a light gas gun that was used for 3 decades at NASA’s Langley Research Center. By adapting readily-available equipment and supplies, this apparatus was capable of accelerating projectiles at up to 9 kilometers per second (when new). The lack of a projectile-carrying sabot sacrifices some adaptability in projectile size, but results in a design that can be cleaned and cycled with far less labor input. Overall limitation on the projectile impact energies attainable effectively limit the applications to assessing the relatively thin shields employed for robotic spacecraft (less useful for those used for manned missions). The original gun has been decommissioned, but it is believed that this design has application for robotic spacecraft shield testing in the modern world, allowing cost-effective generation of larger sample sizes than with conventional sabot-based light gas guns.

Scott Hull↗
NASA NTRS2007

NASA's Potential Contributions for Using Solar Ultraviolet Radiation in Conjunction with Photocatalysis for Urban Air Pollution Mitigation

More than 75 percent of the U.S. population lives in urban communities where people are exposed to levels of smog or pollution that exceed the EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) safety standards. Urban air quality presents a unique problem because of a number of complex variables, including traffic congestion, energy production, and energy consumption activities, all of which can contribute to and affect air pollution and air quality in this environment. In environmental engineering, photocatalysis is an area of research whose potential for environmental clean-up is rapidly developing popularity and success. Photocatalysis, a natural chemical process, is the acceleration of a photoreaction in the presence of a catalyst. Photocatalytic agents are activated when exposed to near UV (ultraviolet) light (320-400 nm) and water. In recent years, surfaces coated with photocatalytic materials have been extensively studied because pollutants on these surfaces will degrade when the surfaces are exposed to near UV light. Building materials, such as tiles, cement, glass, and aluminum sidings, can be coated with a thin film of a photocatalyst. These coated materials can then break down organic molecules, like air pollutants and smog precursors, into environmentally friendly compounds. These surfaces also exhibit a high affinity for water when exposed to UV light. Therefore, not only are the pollutants decomposed, but this superhydrophilic nature makes the surface self-cleaning, which helps to further increase the degradation rate by allowing rain and/or water to wash byproducts away. According to the Clean Air Act, each individual state is responsible for implementing prevention and regulatory programs to control air pollution. To operate an air quality program, states must adopt and/or develop a plan and obtain approval from the EPA. Federal approval provides a means for the EPA to maintain consistency among different state programs and ensures that they comply with the requirements of the Clean Air Act.

Ryan, robert E.↗
DOE OSTI2013

IDEA Clean Energy Application Center

The DOE Clean Energy Application Centers were launched with a goal of focusing on important aspects of our nation’s energy supply including Efficiency, Reliability and Resiliency. Clean Energy solutions based on Combined Heat & Power (CHP), District Energy and Waste Heat Recovery are at the core of ensuring a reliable and efficient energy infrastructure for campuses, communities, and industry and public enterprises across the country. IDEA members which include colleges and universities, hospitals, airports, downtown utilities as well as manufacturers, suppliers and service providers have long-standing expertise in the planning, design, construction and operations of Clean Energy systems. They represent an established base of successful projects and systems at scale and serve important and critical energy loads. They also offer experience, lessons learned and best practices which are of immense value to the sustained growth of the Clean Energy sector. IDEA has been able to leverage the funds from the project award to raise the visibility, improve the understanding and increase deployment CHP, District Energy and Waste Heat Recovery solutions across the regions of our nation, in collaboration with the regional CEAC’s. On August 30, 2012, President Obama signed an Executive Order to accelerate investments in industrial energy efficiency (EE), including CHP and set a national goal of 40 GW of new CHP installation over the next decade IDEA is pleased to have been able to support this Executive Order in a variety of ways including raising awareness of the goal through educational workshops and Conferences and recognizing the installation of large scale CHP and district energy systems. A supporting key area of collaboration has involved IDEA providing technical assistance on District Energy/CHP project screenings and feasibility to the CEAC’s for multi building, multi-use projects. The award was instrumental in the development of a first-order screening/feasibility tool for these types of community energy projects. The Excel based tool incorporates hourly climate based building loads data to arrive at the composite energy demand for the district and compares the Net Present Value (NPV) of the costs of CHP/DE alternatives. This tool has been used to provide assistance to several projects in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Intermountain and Pacific Regions. The tool was disseminated to the CEACs and supplemented by a Training Webinar and a How to Guide IDEA produced a US Community Energy Development Guide to support mayors, planners, community leaders, real estate developers and economic development officials who are interested in planning more sustainable urban energy infrastructure, creating community energy master plans and implementing CHP/ District Energy systems in cities, communities and towns. IDEA has collected industry data and provided a comprehensive data set containing information on District Energy installations in the US. District energy systems are present in 49 states and theDistrict of Columbia. Of the 597 systems 55% were DE alone while the remainder was some combination of CHP, district heating, and district cooling. District energy systems that do not currently involve electric generation are strong near-term candidates for the adoption of CHP due to the magnitude of their aggregated thermal load. This data has helped inform specific and targeted initiatives including technical assistance provided by the CEAC’s for EPA’s Boiler MACT Compliance by large District Heating System boilers. These outcomes have been greatly enabled by the close coordination and collaboration with DOE CEAC leadership and with the eight regional US DOE Clean Energy Application Centers and the award’s incremental funding has allowed IDEA to leverage our resources to be an effective champion for Clean Energy.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2024

Basic Energy Sciences Roundtable: Foundational Science to Accelerate Nuclear Energy Innovation

Energy security, availability, and reliability are among the greatest challenges facing the nation and the planet. An abundant potential source of energy resides in the fundamental atomic building blocks of the universe in the form of nuclear fission and fusion reactions. In fact, energy from nuclear fission currently provides the majority of the world’s zero-carbon electricity, and future fusion energy systems offer great promise; carbon-free nuclear energy technologies can be key to the world’s decarbonized energy future. Although contemporary fission systems use well-established technologies to supply safe and efficient baseload power, they could be more fuel efficient and less costly. Moving beyond massive light-water fission reactors to a variety of advanced nuclear systems—which will vary in size and operate in extremes of temperature, corrosivity, and other parameters—will place stringent conditions on materials and chemical systems. New demands will be placed on the coolants and solvents, the materials, and the monitoring tools used in these reactors. Fusion-based nuclear energy will require superior materials to withstand extremely high temperatures, plasma exposure, radiation damage, and implanted gases. The advantages associated with these new fission and fusion technologies will be realized only through continued advancements in the fundamental science underpinning our knowledge of the physics and chemistry of nuclear systems gained via improved experimental and computational methods. In July 2022, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences—in coordination with the Offices of Nuclear Energy, Fusion Energy Sciences, and Advanced Scientific Computing Research—held a virtual roundtable titled “Foundational Science to Accelerate Nuclear Energy Innovation” to discuss the scientific and technical barriers for advanced nuclear energy systems. Five priority research opportunities were identified to address these scientific and technical challenges and to accelerate progress toward the realization of next-generation fusion and fission energy systems. The foundational science gaps inhibiting the advancement of nuclear energy technologies are identified and tackled in five priority research opportunities. These opportunities pave the way to accelerate the development and ultimately the adoption of new nuclear energy systems. They include the fundamental aspects of ion-electron interactions; novel properties of next-generation coolants and solvents; interfacial dynamics, not only in solids, but in other aspects of nuclear reactors; novel operando and in situ monitoring and sensing; and artificial intelligence to accelerate condensed phases discovery. Building on the foundation established by previous Basic Energy Sciences workshops, these opportunities encompass recent advances in fundamental knowledge and focus on the experimental and computational methods needed to resolve major technical challenges for nuclear energy technologies. Through developing fundamental scientific insight as well as pushing the frontiers of modeling complex systems and probing the operation of materials and chemical systems in extreme environments, research motivated by the priorities identified here will further develop the promise, potential, and utilization of nuclear energy for a clean energy future.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Power sector impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022

Abstract The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is regarded as the most prominent piece of federal climate legislation in the U.S. thus far. This paper investigates potential impacts of IRA on the power sector, which is the focus of many core IRA provisions. We summarize a multi-model comparison of IRA to identify robust findings and variation in power sector investments, emissions, and costs across 11 models of the U.S. energy system and electricity sector. Our results project that IRA incentives accelerate the deployment of low-emitting capacity, increasing average annual additions by up to 3.2 times current levels through 2035. CO 2 emissions reductions from electricity generation across models range from 47%–83% below 2005 in 2030 (68% average) and 66%–87% in 2035 (78% average). Our higher clean electricity deployment and lower emissions under IRA, compared with earlier U.S. modeling, change the baseline for future policymaking and analysis. IRA helps to bring projected U.S. power sector and economy-wide emissions closer to near-term climate targets; however, no models indicate that these targets will be met with IRA alone, which suggests that additional policies, incentives, and private sector actions are needed.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

State-Level Employment Projections for Four Clean Energy Technologies in 2025 and 2030

As states and local governments weigh how to spur economic growth, stimulate job creation, and simultaneously adapt to meet climate goals, modern energy codes, and energy demand, this report provides a simple and transparent method to estimate the size of the workforce needed to support modeled deployments for energy efficiency in buildings, stationary battery energy storage (BES), solar photovoltaics (PV), and land-based wind in 2025 and 2030. In addition to a straightforward estimation method, this report includes state-level job estimates for two different deployment scenarios: a business-as-usual scenario and a more accelerated deployment scenario. The scope of the technologies included in this report is limited to four key energy technologies within the power sector that have strong job growth prospects and widespread geographic deployment potential. Although the included technologies are not all-encompassing, they have generated specific interest from state energy offices across the nation.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Megawatt-Scale Low Temperature Electrolyzer Research Expansion

The development and installation of a flexible low-temperature electrolyzer research capability at the multi-MW scale with integrated renewables will help lower the cost barrier to entry for electrolyzer manufactures needing at scale system and stack evaluation and enable more electrolyzer manufactures to accelerate to commercialization with building block scale demonstration and validation. This NREL capability represents a DOE HFTO investment to support the $1B DOE Clean Hydrogen Electrolysis Program working to achieve the Hydrogen Shot goal of $1 for 1 kg hydrogen in 1 decade, lower greenhouse gas emissions and criteria pollutants, build clean energy infrastructure, and provide pathways to private sector uptake.

Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (AR↗