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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 343 records · Page 19
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Dynamics and drivers of land use and land cover changes in Bangladesh

Abstract Bangladesh has undergone dramatic land use and land cover changes (LULCC) in recent years, but no quantitative analysis of LULCC drivers at the national scale exists so far. Here, we quantified the drivers of major LULCC in combination with biophysical and socioeconomic observations at the sub-district level. We used Landsat satellite data to interpret LULCC from 2000 to 2010 and employed a Global Surface Water Dataset to account for the influences of water seasonality. The results suggest that major LULCC in Bangladesh occur between agricultural land and waterbodies and between forest and shrubland. Exclusion of seasonal waterbodies can improve the accuracy of our LULCC results and driver analysis. Although the gross gain and loss of agricultural land are large on the local scale, the net change (gross gain minus gross loss) at a country scale is almost negligible. Climate dynamics and extreme events and changes in urban and rural households were driving the changes from forest to shrubland in the southeast region. The conversion from agricultural land to standing waterbodies in the southwest region was mainly driven by urban household dynamics, population growth, distance to cities and major roads, and precipitation dynamics. This study, which is the first effort accounting for water seasonality and quantifying biophysical and socioeconomic drivers of LULCC at the national scale, provides a perspective on overall LULCC and underlying drivers over a decadal time scale and national spatial scale and can serve as a scientific basis for developing land policies in Bangladesh.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1989

Lubricant Coating Process

"Peen Plating," a NASA developed process for applying molybdenum disulfide, is the key element of Techniblast Co.'s SURFGUARD process for applying high strength solid lubricants. The process requires two machines -- one for cleaning and one for coating. The cleaning step allows the coating to be bonded directly to the substrate to provide a better "anchor." The coating machine applies a half a micron thick coating. Then, a blast gun, using various pressures to vary peening intensities for different applications, fires high velocity "media" -- peening hammers -- ranging from plastic pellets to steel shot. Techniblast was assisted by Rural Enterprises, Inc. Coating service can be performed at either Techniblast's or a customer's facility.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2009

A Landsat-Based Assessment of Mobile Bay Land Use and Land Cover Change from 1974 to 2008

The Mobile Bay region has experienced noteworthy land use and land cover (LULC) change in the latter half of the 20th century. Accompanying this change has been urban expansion and a reduction of rural land uses. Much of this LULC change has reportedly occurred since the landfall of Hurricane Frederic in 1979. The Mobile Bay region provides great economic and ecologic benefits to the Nation, including important coastal habitat for a broad diversity of fisheries and wildlife. Regional urbanization threatens the estuary s water quality and aquatic-habitat dependent biota, including commercial fisheries and avian wildlife. Coastal conservation and urban land use planners require additional information on historical LULC change to support coastal habitat restoration and resiliency management efforts. This presentation discusses results of a Gulf of Mexico Application Pilot project that was conducted in 2008 to quantify and assess LULC change from 1974 to 2008. This project was led by NASA Stennis Space Center and involved multiple Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA) partners, including the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program (NEP), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration s (NOAA s) National Coastal Data Development Center (NCDDC), and the NOAA Coastal Services Center. Nine Landsat images were employed to compute LULC products because of their availability and suitability for the application. The project also used Landsat-based national LULC products, including coastal LULC products from NOAA s Coastal Change & Analysis Program (C-CAP), available at 5-year intervals since 1995. Our study was initiated in part because C-CAP LULC products were not available to assess the region s urbanization prior to 1995 and subsequent to post Hurricane Katrina in 2006. This project assessed LULC change across the 34-year time frame and at decadal and middecadal scales. The study area included the majority of Mobile and Baldwin counties that encompass Mobile Bay. In doing so, each date of Landsat data was classified using an end-user defined modified Anderson level 1 classification scheme. LULC classifications were refined using a decision rule approach in conjunction with available C-CAP products. Individual dates of LULC classifications were validated by image interpretation of stratified random locations on raw Landsat color composite imagery in combination with higher resolution remote sensing and in-situ reference data. The results indicate that during the 34-year study period, urban areas increased from 96,688 to 150,227 acres, representing a 55.37% increase, or 1.63% per annum. Most of the identified urban expansion results from conversion of rural forest and agriculture to urban cover types. Final LULC mapping and metadata products were produced for the entire study area as well as watersheds of concern within the study area. Final project products, including LULC trend information, were incorporated into the Mobile Bay NEP State of the Bay report. Products and metadata were transferred to NOAA NCDDC to allow free online accessibility and use by GOMA partners and by the public.

Spruce, Joseph↗
DOE OSTI2026

RDPP: Accelerating Diversity in DOE Climate Science and Resilience Research (Final Report)

The scope of the project was set out to accelerate the inclusion of diversity into the Department of Energy (DOE) Earth and Environmental Systems Sciences Division (EESSD) relevant climate science and resilience research to inclusively advance solutions. The Project Objectives were to usher in equitable use-inspired climate-related research with underrepresented Minorities of which this project helped fund 7 HU graduate students work with the DOE (three of which will graduate in Spring 2025). The two key aims underpinning that core goal were AIM1: developing partnerships (18 organized engaged, see partners list) and AIM2: Developing capabilities (3 visits to DOE facilities, 5 DOE partners visits to HU, increased visiting faculty participation in BNL-DOE lab, secured 5 grants together totaling 1.2 million in funds for HU). The project objectives were highly successful as they were designed to ambitiously pull together DOE lab researchers with the long-standing and successful transdisciplinary climate science research programs of the PI and local DC groups. The major outcomes of this RDPP program will be in the new fundamentally inclusive partnerships with DOE and HU tasked to understand the urban-rural impacts due to climate change in the US, Eastern South Atlantic (ESA) Region, related to energy issues driven by heat stress and the water cycle. Overall, this project contributes to the DOE and science community vision for catalyze connections for project-ready underrepresented minorities (URMs) at a prominent HBCU to DOE projects supported by the Biological and Environmental research (BER) Program; particularly, the Earth and Environmental Systems Sciences Division (EESSD).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Assessing the National Off-Cycle Benefits of 2-Layer HVAC Technology Using Dynamometer Testing and a National Simulation Framework

Some CO2-reducing technologies have real-world benefits not captured by regulatory testing methods. This paper documents a two-layer heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system that facilitates faster engine warmup through strategic increased air recirculation. The performance of this technology was assessed on a 2020 Hyundai Sonata. Empirical performance of the technology was obtained through dynamometer tests at Argonne National Laboratory. Performance of the vehicle across multiple cycles and cell ambient temperatures with the two-layer technology active and inactive indicated fuel consumption reduction in nearly all cases. A thermally sensitive powertrain model, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's FASTSim Hot, was calibrated and validated against vehicle testing data. The developed model included the engine, cabin, and HVAC system controls. Validation of component thermal models and engine efficiency ensured accurate thermal dynamics, fuel consumption, and two-layer benefit. The real-world benefit of the two-layer technology was calculated by simulating the validated powertrain model across a representative test matrix comparing performance with and without the two-layer system. Simulation across the test matrix revealed a real-world representative benefit of 0.0835%. Analysis of test matrix results at the regional level revealed the most benefit in cold climates and rural regions. Mean results across cycle length sensitivity simulations revealed a larger real-world benefit of 0.0872%. These benefit values can be considered a more accurate assessment of real-world technology performance. Future work is planned to explore the requisite number of drive cycles to ensure the full technology benefit is captured.

2-layer↗
DOE OSTI2025

Finding gaps in the national electric vehicle charging station coverage of the United States

Abstract The United States federal government has invested $7.5 billion into charging infrastructure, including the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program, to build fast charging stations along designated highways for long-distance car travel. We develop a consecutive coverage metric to compute the percent of United States roads (traffic-weighted) that are consecutively accessible within 500 miles of each county. We answer (1) what the state of consecutive coverage is in each county and (2) what the increase in coverage is when designated highways receive fast chargers. In 2023, 10% of counties had at least 75% minimum viable coverage. We find that if all designated highways receive fast-charging stations, 94% of United States counties will reach at least 75% fast charger coverage. However, the remaining counties are rural. This demonstrates that federal funding for fast chargers will help connect most—but not all—counties to the national network of continuously accessible charging stations.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
NASA NTRS1990

Earth benefits from space life sciences

Contributions of space exploration which are widely recognized are those dealing with the impact of space technology on public health and medical services in both urban and remote rural areas. Telecommunications, image enhancement, 3-dimensional image reconstructions, miniaturization, automation, and data analysis, have transformed the delivery of medical care and have brought about a new impetus to the field of biomedicine. Many areas of medical care and biological research have been affected. These include technological breakthroughs in such areas as: (1) diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cardiovascular diseases, (2) new approaches to the understanding of osteoporosis, (3) early detection of genetic birth defects, (4) emergency medical care, and (5) treatment of chronic metabolic disorders. These are but a few examples where technology originally developed to support space medicine or space research has been applied to solving medical and health care delivery problems on Earth.

NASA Center HQS↗
NASA NTRS1978

Emergency Communications Console

NASA has applied its communications equipment expertise to development of a communications console that provides, in a compact package only slightly larger than an electric typewriter, all the emergency medical services communications functions needed for a regional hospital. A prototype unit, built by Johnson Space Center, has been installed in the Odessa (Texas) Medical Center Hospital. The hospital is the medical control center for the 17-county Permian Basin Emergency Medical System in west Texas. The console project originated in response to a request to NASA from the Texas governor's office, which sought a better way of providing emergency medical care in rural areas. Because ambulance travel time is frequently long in remote areas of west Texas, it is important that treatment begin at the scene of the emergency rather than at the hospital emergency room. A radio and telephone system linking ambulance emergency technicians and hospital staff makes this possible. But earlier equipment was complex, requiring specialized operators. A highly reliable system was needed to minimize breakdowns and provide controls of utmost simplicity, so that the system could be operated by physicians and nurses rather than by communications specialists. The resulting console has both radio and telephone sections. With the radio equipment, hospital personnel can communicate with ambulance drivers and paramedics, receive incoming electrocardiagrams, consult with other hospitals, page hospital staff and set up a radio-to-telephone "patch." The telephone portion of the system includes a hotline from the Permian Basin Emergency Medical Service's resource control center, an automatic dialer for contacting special care facilities in the Permian Basin network, a hospital intercom terminal and a means of relaying cardioscope displays and other data between hospitals. The integrated system also provides links with local disaster and civil defense organizations and with emergency "Dial 911" control points.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2020

Use of Multi-Attribute Utility Analyses to Assess Transportation Routes from ISFSIs - 20535

With two consolidated interim storage facilities for used nuclear fuel (UNF) having applied for storage licenses, there is the potential need to transport UNF in the U.S. from shutdown reactor sites to complete the site cleanup and from operating reactor sites who may be running out of storage options (e.g., spent fuel pools are nearly full and dry storage facilities are reaching licensed capacity). At some of the shutdown reactor sites, only the independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) exists and often there remains a degraded transportation infrastructure for performing shipments from these sites. At other sites (e.g., operating reactor plants), the existing transportation infrastructure on the site is unchanged and sufficient for moving UNF, but the environment around the route may have changed (e.g., what was once a rural setting has transformed into a more urban setting) and/or local stakeholders want their input taken into consideration in UNF transportation activities. So, although preliminary evaluations have been performed to identify viable modes of transport from these sites using rail, barge, and/or heavy haul truck, if multiple options exist for moving the UNF from the site (e.g., multiple truck routes or a truck and a barge route both exist) then an evaluation that takes input from multiple stakeholders should be considered to identified the preference (e.g., ranking) of routes from a site. Orano has supported the development of several studies examining the viable routes for removing UNF from some of these sites and has utilized a multi-attribute utility analysis (MUA) to establish a ranking of routes and associated modes to move the UNF from the ISFSIs to a Class I rail carrier. The ultimate result from the MUA is a list(s) of the most to the least favored/preferred routes from the site. This paper provides an overview of the MUA methodology and provides an example of its application to a site with a shutdown reactor. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2022

Community Planning for Solar: Conducting a Community Solar Survey

This guide is designed to assist community officials, volunteers, and regional planning agency staff in conducting a survey of residents to learn about attitudes and development preferences towards solar energy within the community. The guide will provide the key steps, timelines, distribution options, ethics, and considerations that should be made in developing a survey distribution strategy. The guide also contains an overview of various question types and response categories, with considerations for the type of data that are needed for the study. The guide concludes with recommendations for managing data and databases, data visualization, and reporting results. The appendix includes samples of materials used in a solar energy survey, from invitation letters to the survey. This document is intended to provide a practical guide for implementing a survey in communities that are proactively planning for solar development. The guide offers a practical “how-to” plan for conducting a survey. It may be advantageous to consult with an expert in survey development who will be familiar with any methods and techniques described in this guide, but this is not necessary. This guide offers basic considerations and examples of questions and analyses to help a community understand preferences of the community.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Exploring Multiscale Earth System and Human-Earth System Dynamics in the Puget Sound Region

With its mountain-to-coast hydroclimate, strong influence of Pacific Ocean weather systems and climate patterns, and unique land use history with strong rural-to-urban gradients, the Puget Sound region is a natural laboratory for studying a number of complex processes in, and interactions among, different Earth and human systems. A 1-year scoping study was initiated by the Earth and Environmental Systems Modeling program of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research. It was intended to elucidate and highlight the rich opportunities Puget Sound offers to advance our understanding of and ability to simulate Earth system changes and human-Earth system interactions. A literature review, multi-day community workshop, and external input were used to develop this scoping study report. The report first summarizes scientific understanding and knowledge gaps associated with major regional systems, including atmosphere and climate, the land surface, coastal and marine processes, and human systems, as well as how these systems are changing over time. It then highlights some of the most notable extreme events in the region, including heat waves, atmospheric rivers, droughts, and wildfires. Finally, key research opportunities for Earth and environmental systems modeling in, above, and around Puget Sound are highlighted.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1991

A telemedicine health care delivery system

The Interactive Telemedicine Systems (ITS) system was specifically developed to address the ever widening gap between our medical care expertise and our medical care delivery system. The frustrating reality is that as our knowledge of how to diagnose and treat medical conditions has continued to advance, the system to deliver that care has remained in an embryonic stage. This has resulted in millions of people being denied their most basic health care needs. Telemedicine utilizes an interactive video system integrated with biomedical telemetry that allows a physician at a base station specialty medical complex or teaching hospital to examine and treat a patient at multiple satellite locations, such as rural hospitals, ambulatory health centers, correctional institutions, facilities caring for the elderly, community hospital emergency departments, or international health facilities. Based on the interactive nature of the system design, the consulting physician at the base station can do a complete history and physical examination, as if the patient at the satellite site was sitting in the physician's office. This system is described.

Sanders, Jay H.↗
DOE OSTI2026

Imputation of urban environmental sensor data using gated attention bidirectional long short-term memory (GA-BiLSTM): methods, performance, and implications

Urban environmental monitoring networks frequently encounter significant data gaps due to sensor malfunctions, environmental disturbances, and communication failures. Reliable approaches to address these gaps are essential for ensuring the continuity and quality of environmental data streams. In this study, we developed a gated attention bidirectional long short-term memory (GA-BiLSTM) model to impute missing data in a dense urban monitoring network. Using observations from the CROCUS network in Chicago, we evaluated GA-BiLSTM against widely used approaches (XGBoost and K-nearest neighbors) under scenarios of both short-term intermittent gaps and prolonged outages. GA-BiLSTM consistently outperformed comparative methods, particularly during extended outages of up to ten days, demonstrating its ability to capture spatiotemporal dependencies across sensor nodes. Beyond performance metrics, feature importance and spatial network analyses highlighted the unexpected but critical predictive role of peripheral rural nodes, underlining their strategic value for maintaining robust urban monitoring systems. These results emphasize that advanced imputation methods can substantially improve the reliability of environmental monitoring networks and support more resilient data infrastructures for urban sustainability.

Data imputation↗
DOE OSTI2022

Provider Perspectives: Identification and Follow-up of Infants who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

Objective Without timely screening, diagnosis, and intervention, hearing loss can cause significant delays in a child's speech, language, social, and emotional development. In 2019, Texas had nearly twice the average rate of loss to follow-up (LFU) or loss to documentation (LTD; i.e., missing documentation of services received) among infants who did not pass their newborn hearing screening compared to the United States overall (51.1 vs. 27.5%). We aimed to identify factors contributing to LFU/LTD among infants who do not pass their newborn hearing screening in Texas. Study Design Data were collected through semistructured qualitative interviews with 56 providers along the hearing care continuum, including hospital newborn hearing screening program staff, audiologists, primary care physicians, and early intervention (EI) program staff located in three rural and urban public health regions in Texas. Following recording and transcription of the interviews, we used qualitative data analysis software to analyze themes using a conventional content analysis approach. Results Frequently cited barriers included problems with family access to care, difficulty contacting patients, problems with communication between providers and referrals, lack of knowledge among providers and parents, and problems using the online reporting system. Providers in rural areas more often mentioned problems with family access to care and contacting families compared to providers in urban areas. Conclusion These findings provide insight into strategies that public health professionals and health care providers can use to work together to help further increase the number of children identified early who may benefit from EI services. Key Points

Obstetrics & Gynecology↗
DOE OSTI2025

Learning from Arctic Microgrids: Cost and Resiliency Projections for Renewable Energy Expansion with Hydrogen and Battery Storage

Electricity in rural Alaska is provided by more than 200 standalone microgrid systems powered predominantly by diesel generators. Incorporating renewable energy generation and storage to these systems can reduce their reliance on costly imported fuel and improve sustainability; however, uncertainty remains about optimal grid architectures to minimize cost, including how and when to incorporate long-duration energy storage. This study implements a novel, multi-pronged approach to assess the techno-economic feasibility of future energy pathways in the community of Kotzebue, which has already successfully deployed solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, and battery storage systems. Using real community load, resource, and generation data, we develop a series of comparison models using the HOMER Pro software tool to evaluate microgrid architectures to meet over 90% of the annual community electricity demand with renewable generation, considering both battery and hydrogen energy storage. We find that near-term planned capacity expansions in the community could enable over 50% renewable generation and reduce the total cost of energy. Additional build-outs to reach 75% renewable generation are shown to be competitive with current costs, but further capacity expansion is not currently economical. We additionally include a cost sensitivity analysis and a storage capacity sizing assessment that suggest hydrogen storage may be economically viable if battery costs increase, but large-scale seasonal storage via hydrogen is currently unlikely to be cost-effective nor practical for the region considered. While these findings are based on data and community priorities in Kotzebue, we expect this approach to be relevant to many communities in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic regions working to improve energy reliability, sustainability, and security.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2024

The Electric Grid, Distributed Generation, and Grid Interconnection

This fact sheet is part of the Community Planning for Solar toolkit designed to help Massachusetts municipalities and others proactively plan for solar development in their communities. This fact sheet will walk you through the electricity system, and help you understand how the grid is changing as distributed generation (DG) electricity sources become more common.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Renewable Energy Integration in Remote Alaska Communities

This guide was developed through the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project (ETIPP) technical assistance (TA) projects for Nikolski and St. George. Both communities had wind turbine projects that failed due to integration and maintenance issues. Due to these failures, Nikolski and St. George sought help to investigate renewable energy alternatives and associated integration strategies, with a focus on technologies that could be easily maintained within the community. The primary objective of this guide was to interview subject matter experts and document lessons learned to address potential renewable energy and storage integration issues in remote Alaskan communities. This guide is intended to provide information to rural Alaskan communities considering renewables with the purpose of sharing best practices and case studies to facilitate the successful implementation of future renewable energy projects.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗