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DOE OSTI2020

Removing the Cloak of Secrecy from Legacy Cleanup at Los Alamos national Laboratory - 20395

With the establishment in 2018 of the Los Alamos Legacy Cleanup Contract, the Department of Energy's (DOE) Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office (EM-LA) and its contractor Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) embarked on an expansive program to engage a broad range of local and regional stakeholders in the decision-making process for cleanup of legacy wastes (pre-1999) at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). From the inception of LANL during the Manhattan Project until the issuance of the new cleanup contract, the site was managed by a single management and operations (M and O) contactor whose main focus was national security. Segmenting from laboratory operations a separate cleanup contract managed by DoE's Office of Environmental Management (EM) brought new opportunities for the cleanup of legacy waste. That change likewise has opened new opportunities for engaging the community on legacy cleanup decisions. The new legacy cleanup contract - an unclassified contract - emphasizes public outreach, marking a cultural shift in how stakeholders in Los Alamos and throughout northern New Mexico are engaged. Without the constraints of classified work, EM-LA and N3B have increased the level of transparency with the public regarding cleanup activities. EM-LA and N3B have crafted an approach that best meets the values, priorities and needs of the neighboring communities by adapting the model successfully employed at Rocky Flats. Through enhanced stakeholder involvement, EM-LA will implement decisions that have considered broad input and deliver a safe and efficient cleanup of the site. EM-LA and N3B began the expanded stakeholder outreach program in January 2019, leading up to four Environmental Management Cleanup Forums held in the summer of 2019. EM-LA and N3B are now in the process of initiating a series of meetings with various stakeholder groups to determine their 'values' as they relate to cleanup using a novel approach that elicits and records values. The entire process is documented, ensuring that should questions arise about how, when and why decisions were made, they can be easily addressed. In addition to other public meetings to present cleanup scenarios and solicit active public involvement in cleanup decisions, the EM-LA and N3B approach involves discussions with stakeholders who want to explore specific technical issues and cleanup discussions in depth. EM-LA and N3B are also evaluating and implementing a variety of communications tools to help ensure the engagement plan sets the gold standard for transparency in legacy cleanup and stakeholder involvement. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

DOE OSTI2021

Who is marginalized in energy justice? Amplifying community leader perspectives of energy transitions in Ghana

There is a divide in energy access studies, between technologically-focused modeling papers in engineering and economics, and energy justice frameworks and principles grounded in social sciences. Quantitative computational models are necessary when analyzing energy, and more specifically electricity, systems, as they are technologically-complex systems that can diverge from intuitive patterns. To assure energy justice, these models must be reflective of, and informative to, a wide range of stakeholders, including households and communities alongside utilities, governments, and others. Yet, moving from a qualitative understanding of preferences to quantitative modeling is challenging. In this perspective piece, we pilot the use of the value-focused thinking framework to inform stakeholder engagement. The result is a strategic objective hierarchy that highlights the tradeoffs and the social, economic and technological factors that need to be measured in models. We apply the process in Ghana, using a survey, stakeholder workshops, and follow-up interviews to uncover key tradeoffs and stakeholder-derived objectives. We discuss three key areas that have been rarely, if ever, well-represented in energy models: (1) the relationship between the dynamics of electricity end-use and the technology and economic structure of the system; (2) explicit tradeoffs between electricity access, cost, and reliability as defined by stakeholders; and (3) the definition of new objectives, such as minimizing hazards related to theft. We conclude that this model of engagement provides an opportunity to tie together rigorous qualitative analysis and stakeholder engagement with crucial quantitative models of the electricity system.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2017

Bioeconomy Survey Results Regarding Barriers to the United States Advanced Biofuel Industry

Although the 2005 Environmental Protection Act (EPAct) was enacted to bolster the emerging biofuel industry, 52% of advanced biofuel (AB) projects ended by 2015. However, there are no complete lists of internal and external barriers that can help to explain why these projects are failing. The goal of this study was to develop a list of barriers impeding advanced biofuel projects by conducting a survey of biofuel stakeholders. Based on a literature review and previous research, a list of 23 hypothesized internal and external barriers was elaborated. A survey was conducted to have industry stakeholders provide their perception on the list of hypothesized barriers. The perceptions of industry stakeholders were analyzed by dividing the sample in three different stakeholder groups: advanced biofuel industry members, government representatives, and a third category called others that included publishers, journalists, suppliers, and other related stakeholders to the industry. In addition, nonparametric statistical techniques were used to compare the perceptions of the groups. Here, the most significant results indicated that Technology issues was considered as an internal barrier for the three groups while Funding and Renewable Fuel Standards were perceived as external barriers by the three groups too. In addition, the rating of barriers was further analyzed only by AB industry stakeholders in order to uncover more details on the perception of barriers that might be preventing the AB industry to prosper.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

DOE OSTI2016

Scholarship for Nuclear Communications and Methods for Evaluation of Nuclear Project Acceptability

This project aims to go beyond effective communication in understanding how to design nuclear enterprise projects that will gain stakeholder acceptability. Much of what we are studying is generally applicable to controversial projects, and we expect our results to be of broad value beyond the nuclear arena. Acceptability is more than effective communication; it also requires varying degrees of engagement with a disparate number of stakeholder groups. In the nuclear enterprise, previous attempts have been well designed physically (i.e., technologically sound), but have floundered by being insensitive concerning acceptance. Though effective communication is a necessary, but insufficient, condition for such success, there is a lack of scholarship regarding how to gain stakeholder acceptance for new controversial projects, including nuclear ones. Our work is building a model for use in assessing the performance of a project in the area of acceptability. In the nuclear-social nexus, gaining acceptance requires a clear understanding of factors regarded as being important by the many stakeholders that are common to new nuclear project (many of whom hold an effective veto power). Projects tend to become socially controversial when public beliefs, expert opinion and decision-maker understanding are misaligned. As such, stakeholder acceptance is hypothesized as both an ongoing process and an initial project design parameter comprised of complex, social, cognitive and technical components. Controversial projects may be defined as aspects of modern technologies that some people question, or are cautious about. They could range from genetic modifications, biological hazards, effects of chemical agents, nuclear radiation or hydraulic fracturing operations. We intend that our work will result in a model likely to be valuable for refining project design and implementation to increase the knowledge needed for successful management of stakeholder relationships.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2022

DSO+T: Valuation Methodology and Economic Metrics (DSO+T Study: Volume 4)

This report summarizes a rigorous valuation analysis methodology used by the Distribution System Operator with Transactive (DSO+T) study to estimate the financial benefits and costs of adopting Transactive Energy coordination of distributed energy resources for key stakeholders (for example distribution system operators and customers). This was achieved by modeling the value exchanges between stakeholders and determining the annualized costs and revenues experienced by stakeholders, enabling the evaluation of overall impact on stakeholder’s annualized cash flow. Extensive work was conducted developing methods to estimate the operating costs of distribution system operators at a level of granularity that would allow the financial impact of implementing a transactive energy approach to be estimated. This work included developing parametric models for labor and software costs, distribution system capital and maintenance costs, growth rates, and factors to determine annualized costs of capital investments. Simulation results were used to calculate wholesale energy costs and revenues from retail sales. Valuation analysis methods were also developed for other stakeholders including customers, the transmission system operator, independent system operator, and generators. The resulting capability allows a complete mapping of the flow of financial value between stakeholders that can be directly integrated with the results of demand flexibility simulations. Example results are provided for a business-as-usual case and compared to a transactive energy case as well as to actual cost data.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2014

The Integrated Basin-Scale Opportunity Assessment Initiative: Pilot Assessment for the Deschutes River Basin

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Wind and Water Power Technologies Office provided funding to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and Argonne National Laboratory to develop an approach for assessing a river basin as an integrated system within the context of existing uses and environmental conditions to identify opportunities for sustainable hydropower development and environmental improvements. Called the Integrated Basin-Scale Opportunity Assessment Initiative (BSOA Initiative), the project is one of seven action items of the March 24, 2010 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Sustainable Hydropower. Early efforts of the BSOA Initiative focused on forming a National Steering Committee, identifying potential basins for opportunity assessments, methodologies for stakeholder engagement, existing and needed analytical tools, barriers to the opportunity assessment process, and significant data gaps. One of the key outcomes was identifying a need for better collaborative decision-making tools that can be used by stakeholders. In response to this need, the Basin-Scale Project Team chose a scenario-based modeling approach for assessing hydropower, environmental, and other water-use opportunities. The approach involved the development of a daily hydrologic model for the Upper Deschutes River and Lower Crooked River subbasins to simulate alternative water management scenarios. Two example scenarios were constructed to demonstrate the use of the hydrologic model to explore three management goals in the Deschutes Basin: 1) increasing hydropower assets by adding new generation at existing dams or diversions and in existing irrigation canals or conduits, 2) increasing instream flows to benefit fish and aquatic ecosystems, and 3) maintaining existing water uses (primarily irrigation). Actions to achieve these goals were simulated by incrementally increasing minimum flow requirements during the storage season and reducing water demands during the irrigation season, while simulating hydropower generation at non-powered dams and in irrigation canals. As part of the effort to demonstrate scenario-based modeling, the project team also developed a web-based data-visualization interface for synthesizing modeling results. The interface allows users to view model results in raw form (daily flow) or in the form of value-based metrics that are based on specific information needs expressed by stakeholders (e.g., how often flow exceeds a conservation flow target at a certain location). In addition to the modeling efforts, 29 potential hydropower sites (14 non-powered dams, 15 canal/conduit sites) were evaluated for their technical and economic feasibility using ORNL’s Hydropower Energy and Economic Assessment tool. Results of the feasibility assessment indicated that eight of the sites (four non-powered dams, four canals/conduits) may be feasible and could add approximately 19 megawatts (MW) of hydroelectric capacity in the basin and generate over 78 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of energy per year. The approach presented here is intended to encourage consideration of methods that emphasize exploration of a range of potential management actions that may achieve a better balance among multiple, and often conflicting, management goals. It is important to consider the approach as an iterative and collaborative process focused on moving debates beyond agreement about an exact target that is acceptable to all parties to a discussion of how stakeholders can better understand how achieving their goals interacts with the achievement of goals by other stakeholder groups. By exploring the results of the model in this way, stakeholders are more likely to narrow the bounds of interest so that more in-depth analysis can be completed.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

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↗

DOE OSTI2025

Architecting the Grid Edge: Ensuring Reliability and Resilience

Changes in technology, customer expectations, and business and regulatory environments are rapidly evolving causing fundamental changes in the nation’s electrical infrastructure. Nowhere is this more apparent that at the “grid edge”, where there is an increasing number of new devices and systems, as well as complex new interactions between them. This is leading to the traditional relationship between the end-use customers and their utilities being expanded by an increasing number of stakeholders, each with their own operational and financial objectives, governed by regulatory policy. While there are concerns about the rapidly increasing complexity negatively impacting reliable and resilience of the electrical infrastructure, these changes are also bringing new resources and opportunities that hold great potential if they can be properly coordinated. This white paper outlines the considerations for the coordination of multi-stakeholder objectives with electric utility requirements using the concept of grid services. Describing a framework that enables new stakeholders to achieve their local technical and economic objectives, while simultaneously delivering operational benefits to the electrical infrastructure. The concepts of grid architecture are presented as a tool to evaluate how stakeholders might participate in, and benefit from, services, and how utilities can make decision on the reliance on services to ensure reliability and resilience, translating abstract concepts into actionable information for utilities and grid edge stakeholders. The end result of proper coordination, informed by grid architecture, will be a range of new devices and systems, operated by new stakeholders, achieving their local objectives while also increasing the reliability, resilience, security, and affordability of the nation’s critical electrical infrastructure.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2025

Architecting the Grid Edge: Ensuring Reliability and Resilience

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2021

Making a Water Data System Responsive to Information Needs of Decision Makers

Evidence-based environmental management requires data that are sufficient, accessible, useful and used. A mismatch between data, data systems, and data needs for decision making can result in inefficient and inequitable capital investments, resource allocations, environmental protection, hazard mitigation, and quality of life. In this paper, we examine the relationship between data and decision making in environmental management, with a focus on water management. We focus on the concept of decision-driven data systems —data systems that incorporate an assessment of decision-makers' data needs into their design. The aim of the research was to examine the process of translating data into effective decision making by engaging stakeholders in the development of a water data system. Using California's legislative mandate for state agencies to integrate existing water and other environmental data as a case study, we developed and applied a participatory approach to inform data-system design and identify unmet data needs. Using workshops and focused stakeholder meetings, we developed 20 diverse use cases to assess data sources, availability, characteristics, gaps, and other attributes of data used for representative decisions. Federal and state agencies made up about 90% of the data sources, and could readily adapt to a federated data system, our recommended model for the state. The remaining 10% of more-specialized data, central to important decisions across multiple use cases, would require additional investment or incentives to achieve data consistency, interoperability, and compatibility with a federated system. Based on this assessment, we propose a typology of different types of data limitations and gaps described by stakeholders. We also propose technical, governance, and stakeholder engagement evaluation criteria to guide planning and building environmental data systems. Data-system governance involving both producers and users of data was seen as essential to achieving workable standards, stable funding, convenient data availability, resilience to institutional change, and long-term buy-in by stakeholders. Our work provides a replicable lesson for using decision-maker and stakeholder engagement to shape the design of an environmental data system, and inform a technical design that addresses both user and producer needs.

Cantor, Alida↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

How ExMC Communicates a System Model to Non-Modelers

NASA’s Human Research Program (HRP) Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) Element adopted Systems Engineering (SE) principles and Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) tools to capture the system functions, system architecture, requirements, interfaces, and clinical capabilities for a future exploration medical system. There are many different stakeholders who may use the information in the model: systems engineers, clinicians (physicians, nurses, and pharmacists), scientists, and mission planners. Many of these stakeholders have neither access to MBSE modeling tools nor experience with SE modeling techniques. The challenge faced by ExMC SE team was how to present the content in the model to non-modelers in a way they would understand the content with limited training in MBSE and without using the modeling tool. ExMC SE team created a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) report that shows key model content and is accessible to anyone with a browser. When creating the HTML report, the ExMC SE received stakeholder feedback on what content they wanted and how to display this content. Incorporating this feedback, the report arranges the content in a way that directs readers through the SE process taken to derive the requirements and helps them to understand the fundamental steps in an SE approach. The report includes links to source information (e.g., NASA documentation that describes levels of care) and other SE products (e.g., Concept of Operations). These links were provided to aid in the understanding of how the team created this content through a methodical SE approach. This presentation outlines the process used to develop the model, the data chosen to share with stakeholders, many of the model elements used in the report, the review process stakeholders followed, the comments received from the stakeholders, and the lessons ExMC learned through producing this HTML report.

J. Cohen↗

NASA NTRS2020

UAM Vision Concept of Operations (ConOps) UAM Maturity Level (UML) 4

This Vision ConOps is intended as a foundation to engage members of the UAM community and provide a consensus on the future vision of UAM operations. It provides a concept for more detailed discussion and a basis for the exploration of ideas using a common framework to inform the continued development and integration of UAM as part of the broader transportation system. Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) encompasses a range of innovative aviation technologies (small drones, electric aircraft, automated air traffic management, etc.) that are transforming aviation’s role in everyday life, including the movement of goods and people. Urban Air Mobility (UAM) represents one of the most exciting and complex AAM concepts with highly automated aircraft, providing commercial services to the public over densely populated cities. This concept has generated tremendous interest and industry investment. UAM envisages a future in which advanced technologies and new operational procedures enable practical, cost-effective air travel as an integral mode of transportation in metropolitan areas. It represents one of the most exciting and complex AAM concepts with highly automated aircraft providing commercial services to the public over densely populated cities. For this reason, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) selected UAM as the initial goal of its AAM efforts and the focus of this Vision Concept of Operations (ConOps) document. UAM Community Vision ConOps: This Vision ConOps effort was led by experts from NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) in collaboration with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Deloitte’s Ecosystem Advisory Group (a cohort of advisers with aviation, aerospace, and regulatory expertise). To develop this Vision ConOps, NASA, FAA, and Deloitte built upon the current body of aeronautical research and consulted with more than 100 stakeholder organizations. This UAM community includes entities ranging from legacy aviation leaders to innovators and new market entrants. Stakeholders consulted included the federal government, state and local government, aerospace original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), local transportation organizations, prospective UAM operators, academia, industry standards-setting bodies, airports, service suppliers, and others (as described in Appendix G). This input was captured through the following methods: • A series of more than two dozen interviews with industry experts, federal regulators, state and local governments, and industry trade groups provided insight into the challenges of UAM integration into the National Airspace System (NAS), as well as technology developments and a variety of perspectives as to how UAM systems will integrate. • A series of two-day community workshops enabling active, detailed engagement of nearly 100 industry, academic, federal, and state stakeholder individuals. These workshops, hosted by NASA and Deloitte, explored UAM concepts in detail, and stakeholders were invited to collaboratively analyze and propose solutions to some of the greatest conceptual challenges behind UAM at an intermediate state. • A review of more than 160 sources of UAM literature from across government, industry, and academia, which are listed in Appendix H. • The public sharing of workshop input and document drafts for review and input across the UAM community. Feedback in the form of more than 1,000 comments and inputs on the document was received from industry groups, individual companies, academia, and government (federal, state, and local), among others. Although effort was made to incorporate inputs from across the UAM stakeholder group, not all comments could ultimately be incorporated in this version. The team resolved conflicting comments or ideas while maintaining consistency with the known direction of regulators and ensuring the document was coherent and consistent. It is recognized that this is a rapidly evolving area and that concepts will likely change over time; as such, this Vision ConOps is a living document and is expected to evolve as concepts mature. The ConOps does, however, provide a vision of UAM concepts and solutions based on the broad insights from across the UAM stakeholder community at the time of its publication and is intended to serve as a UAM North Star for continued research and development of UAM. As a broad Vision ConOps, is not a detailed engineering document; rather, it focuses primarily on outlining a broad, high-level vision across all aspects of a UAM transportation system.

Urban Air Mobility↗

NASA NTRS2023

Identifying and Closing Medical Capability Gaps for Human Spaceflight Missions Beyond Low Earth Orbit

BACKGROUND: Features of human space missions beyond low Earth orbit such as increasing distance from Earth, lack of real-time communication, and limited or no evacuation or resupply capability are expected to drive an increase in medical risk and require crews to operate in an increasingly autonomous fashion. A diverse set of stakeholders at NASA are seeking to fund the development of concepts of operations, medical requirements, and medical capabilities for such missions. However, a systematic approach to identification of current medical capability gaps and a strategic framework to gap closure is needed. OVERVIEW: The Exploration Medical Integrated Product Team (XMIPT) has developed a list of nine high-level medical capability gaps and associated activities required for gap closure. The list was derived based on inputs from subject matter experts at NASA including flight surgeons, other clinical providers, as well as operational and research communities regarding medical capabilities required to support human missions to the Moon and the Mars surface. Responses were reviewed and distilled to identify common themes across capabilities. To ensure alignment with established human system risks, the gap list was further refined based on inputs from NASA’s Human System Risk Board. Relevant medical gap closure activities outside of those funded by the XMIPT were identified through solicitation of inputs from Elements of NASA’s Human Research Program (particularly Exploration Medical Capability), the broader medical operations community, and other stakeholders. This medical capability gap list is reviewed and updated regularly as new information becomes available or new stakeholders are identified. DISCUSSION: The medical capability gap list has matured to include a large group of NASA stakeholders and development activities. This has enabled articulation of priorities to funding entities and programmatic stakeholders, while serving as an accessible resource summarizing gap closure activities, relevant programmatic infusion points, and opportunities for collaboration between stakeholders. This presentation will provide an overview of the nine NASA medical capability gaps and their associated gap closure activities.

Moriah Thompson↗

DOE OSTI2013

Societal-Equity-Enhancing Criteria and Facility-Host Incentives Supporting Five Key Elements in the January 2012 Blue Ribbon Commission Report - 13015

In February 2009, the Obama Administration announced it would abandon USA's only candidate SNF/HLW-disposal facility since 1987. In 2010, all related activities were stopped and the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future was established 'to recommend a new strategy for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle', which it did in January 2012, emphasizing eight key elements. However, Key Element 1, 'A new, consent-based approach to siting future nuclear facilities', is qualitative/indeterminate rather than quantitative/measurable. It is thus highly-susceptible to semantic permutations that could extend rather than, as intended, expedite the siting of future nuclear facilities unless it also defines: a) Whose consent is needed?; and b) What constitutes consent? The following 'generic', radiation-risk- and societal-equity-based criteria address these questions: 1. Identify areas affected by projected radiation and other health risks from: a. The proposed nuclear facility (facility stakeholders); and b. The related nuclear-materials-transportation routes (transportation stakeholders); then 2. Surround each stakeholder area with a buffer zone and use this enlarged foot print to identify: a. Stakeholder hosts; and b. Areas not hosting any stakeholder category (interested parties). 3. Define 'consent-based' as being at least 60 percent of the 'population' in the respective stakeholder category and apply this yardstick to both 'in favor' and 'against' votes. Although criteria 1 and 2 also need facility-based definitions to make Key Element 1 measurable, the described siting approach, augmented by related facility-host incentives, would expedite the schedule and reduce the cost for achieving Key Elements 4-6 and 8, politics permitting. (authors)

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

DOE OSTI2016

A Literature Review and Compilation of Nuclear Waste Management System Attributes for Use in Multi-Objective System Evaluations - 16618

The purpose of this work was to compile a comprehensive initial set of potential nuclear waste management system attributes. This initial set of attributes is intended to serve as a starting point for additional consideration by system analysts and planners to facilitate the development of a waste management system multi-objective evaluation framework based on the principles and methodology of multi-attribute utility analysis. The compilation is primarily based on a review of reports issued by the Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) and the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future (BRC), but also an extensive review of the available literature for similar and past efforts as well. Numerous system attributes found in different sources were combined into a single objectives-oriented hierarchical structure. This study provides a discussion of the data sources and the descriptions of the hierarchical structure. A particular focus of this study was on collecting and compiling inputs from past studies that involved the participation of various external stakeholders. However, while the important role of stakeholder input in a country's waste management decision process is recognized in the referenced sources, there are only a limited number of in-depth studies of the stakeholders' differing perspectives. Compiling a comprehensive hierarchical listing of attributes is a complex task since stakeholders have multiple and often conflicting interests. The BRC worked for two years (January 2010 to January 2012) to 'ensure it has heard from as many points of view as possible'. The Canadian NWMO study took four years and ample resources, involving national and regional stakeholders' dialogs, internet-based dialogs, information and discussion sessions, open houses, workshops, round-tables, public attitude research, web site, and topic reports. The current compilation effort benefited from the distillation of these many varied inputs conducted by the previous studies. The initial set of attributes is intended to provide a starting point for considering potential objectives for evaluating nuclear waste management system options. It is envisioned that this initial set will evolve and be revised as new and additional input is received from stakeholders on various attributes and their relative importance. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

DOE OSTI2017

The human dimensions of energy use in buildings: A review

The “human dimensions” of energy use in buildings refer to the energy-related behaviors of key stakeholders that affect energy use over the building life cycle. Stakeholders include building designers, operators, managers, engineers, occupants, industry, vendors, and policymakers, who directly or indirectly influence the acts of designing, constructing, living, operating, managing, and regulating the built environments, from individual building up to the urban scale. Among factors driving high-performance buildings, human dimensions play a role that is as significant as that of technological advances. However, this factor is not well understood, and, as a result, human dimensions are often ignored or simplified by stakeholders. This work presents a review of the literature on human dimensions of building energy use to assess the state-of-the-art in this topic area. The paper highlights research needs for fully integrating human dimensions into the building design and operation processes with the goal of reducing energy use in buildings while enhancing occupant comfort and productivity. This research focuses on identifying key needs for each stakeholder involved in a building's life cycle and takes an interdisciplinary focus that spans the fields of architecture and engineering design, sociology, data science, energy policy, codes, and standards to provide targeted insights. Greater understanding of the human dimensions of energy use has several potential benefits including reductions in operating cost for building owners; enhanced comfort conditions and productivity for building occupants; more effective building energy management and automation systems for building operators and energy managers; and the integration of more accurate control logic into the next generation of human-in-the-loop technologies. The review concludes by summarizing recommendations for policy makers and industry stakeholders for developing codes, standards, and technologies that can leverage the human dimensions of energy use to reliably predict and achieve energy use reductions in the residential and commercial buildings sectors.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2014

Spheres of public conversation: Experiences in strategic environmental assessment

This paper draws on earlier research, a national review of Scottish SEA practice and a survey of practitioners and stakeholders engaged in SEA and spatial planning in one Scottish city-region, to explore claims being made in the academic literature for Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) as a tool for deliberative plan-making. We consider whether there is evidence that Scottish SEA practice is helping create more inclusive plan-making processes in light of recent legislative changes, thereby fulfilling one of the expectations of Scottish Government. The macro analysis found that although there are opportunities for stakeholders to engage in the Scottish SEA process the level in practice is extremely low, a finding which mirrors experience in England and elsewhere. The more detailed micro analysis reveals a more nuanced picture within the spatial planning system, however, suggesting the existence of two distinct spheres of public conversations, one characterised by active dialogue about the environmental effects of alternative strategies amongst public sector stakeholders and the other involving non-governmental stakeholders and community groups in a much more limited way. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible explanations for this outcome, concerning asymmetric incentive structures and the application of power, and a consideration of the implications in relation to the competing discourses of SEA. -- Highlights: • We examine the extent to which Scottish SEA is helping promote inclusive plan-making. • Low levels of stakeholder engagement generally in Scottish SEA. • Stronger SEA dialogue amongst public agencies than with the wider community. • Importance of incentive structures and power capture in framing SEA public conversations.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2023

Quantitative Universal Option Prioritizer (QUOP) v1.0.0

Quantitative Universal Option Prioritizer (QUOP) is a three-layer analytical hierarchy process (AHP) based multi-criteria decision-making option evaluation and prioritization tool. Decision-making often entails evaluation of options. Such competing options can either be mutual substitutes or cumulative means to achieve an objective. The options themselves can be methods, tools, technologies, processes, etc. Stakeholders involved in achieving the objective may view each option characteristic differently, depending on their needs and preferences. The QUOP tool enables a streamlined quantitative collaborative process of weighing the opinion of each stakeholder in evaluating the options. The evaluation may also be performed under different scenarios, for instance, various option potential estimates, prices, or end-user demand projections. The QUOP tool can find application in both public and private sectors, as well as on an individual level. The major advantage of using the QUOP decision-making tool is in documenting the quantified stakeholder opinion, therefore the background to each decision made, while simultaneously maintaining high transparency and stakeholder involvement. The tool is particularly suitable for decisions involving a high number of options and option characteristics, that is, aspects of each option that matter to the stakeholders

Grahovac, Milica↗