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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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This group of data models include the 2024 NETL models for the NETL Coal Baseline Lifecycle Model in both open LCA and Excel, in addition to basin and transportation inventory data files in Excel supporting the overall model.
Wood fiber insulation is an emerging material known for its effective thermal performance and moisture management properties, making it a compelling alternative to conventional insulation. Its vapor permeability and ability to regulate indoor humidity contribute to improved building durability and comfort, particularly in varying climate conditions. The goal of this project is to characterize the hygrothermal performance of a new wood fiber insulation product line in U.S. climate zones and to facilitate the design and construction of the product in residential and light commercial building envelopes. This study investigates the thermal and hygrothermal performance of wood fiber insulation, both as continuous and cavity insulation. The research employs an exhaustive simulation task and an environmental chamber test of a wood fiber insulation. Over 400 simulations were conducted to study the hygrothermal characteristics of bio-based wood fiber insulation in various building envelope configurations across four climate zones. Environmental chamber tests were conducted under controlled winter conditions representative of Climate Zone 5A (Chicago, IL) to complement the simulation results. The chamber tests focused on the hygrothermal performance of the wood fiber insulation and the sheathing board to assess the insulation's ability to manage moisture in a cold climate. Simulation and environmental chamber test results were analyzed to evaluate the insulation's consistency and efficacy across diverse climatic zones. Results show that with a proper moisture control strategy, both cavity and continuous wood fiber insulation can work properly in both new and retrofit constructions.
Wood fiber insulation is an emerging material known for its effective thermal performance and moisture management properties, making it a compelling alternative to conventional insulation. Its vapor permeability and ability to regulate indoor humidity contribute to improved building durability and comfort, particularly in varying climate conditions. The goal of this project is to characterize the hygrothermal performance of a new wood fiber insulation product line in U.S. climate zones and to facilitate the design and construction of the product in residential and light commercial building envelopes. This study investigates the thermal and hygrothermal performance of wood fiber insulation, both as continuous and cavity insulation. The research employs an exhaustive simulation task and an environmental chamber test of a wood fiber insulation. Over 400 simulations were conducted to study the hygrothermal characteristics of bio-based wood fiber insulation in various building envelope configurations across four climate zones. Environmental chamber tests were conducted under controlled winter conditions representative of Climate Zone 5A (Chicago, IL) to complement the simulation results. The chamber tests focused on the hygrothermal performance of the wood fiber insulation and the sheathing board to assess the insulation's ability to manage moisture in a cold climate. Simulation and environmental chamber test results were analyzed to evaluate the insulation's consistency and efficacy across diverse climatic zones. Results show that with a proper moisture control strategy, both cavity and continuous wood fiber insulation can work properly in both new and retrofit constructions.
In the early 2010s, efforts to restart production in the U.S. of plutonium-238 heat source (HSPu) material for NASA deep space missions were initiated. Processes, procedures, hardware, and chemical separations were developed and implemented to enable the production of heat source material at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Here, this review provides an overview of the timeline and efforts associated with the restart of production, as well as upcoming efforts to increase production.
Irradiation experiments and post-irradiation examinations, together referred to as irradiation testing (IRT), are prerequisites for nuclear fuel and material qualification for the deployment of new and advanced reactors, as well as radioisotope production, thereby ensuring regulatory compliance. Qualified research and test reactors (RTRs) and testing facilities are essential to enable IRT to verify performance and safety under prototypical reactor conditions. In the past, qualification of new fuels or structural materials required about 20 years. Synergist strategies, advanced tools, and qualified methods are needed to greatly reduce this timeframe of IRT and radioisotope production. This study, termed accelerated-IRT, focuses on identifying gaps and leveraging U.S.-based RTRs and material testing capabilities, leveraging the preliminary evaluation and qualification of selected RTRs to provide a generic as well as specific-case solution paths forward, ensuring adherence to stringent regulatory standards. Furthermore, IRT and radioisotope production utilizing qualified RTRs necessarily includes modeling and simulation to support the design (i.e. neutronics, thermal, and structural aspects) and manufacturing of irradiation test specimens, vehicles, capsules, apparatuses, and flow loops. In addition, IRT can be improved by applying advanced manufacturing techniques and in-pile sensors and instrumentation, as discussed in this study.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) places the health and well-being of our nation’s veterans as its top priority. VA is dedicated to offering timely access to high-quality, evidence-based mental health care that meets the needs of veterans and supports their reintegration into society. One of our core missions is to prevent suicide among veterans through innovative approaches and resources. With funding from the VA Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention (OMHSP), the Community Determinants of Health (EDH) Data project has developed innovative datasets associated with specific health outcomes, a methodology for transforming spatiotemporal data from one spatial reference (e.g., a 1 km grid) to another (e.g., U.S. Census Tracts), and capabilities for modeling health outcomes. These datasets represent an enhancement of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), addressing key gaps by introducing finer spatial resolution (Census Tract) and additional geographical covariates into existing data. The curation and standardization of these datasets is a complex task since they often originate from various sources and are measured at different spatial and temporal resolutions. For example, U.S. Census data products typically use census blocks, block groups, or counties, while data like weather data are available on 1 km grids. Some economic data may only be available at the ZIP code level. In this context, ‘standardized’ means that all datasets share the same spatial extent (e.g., U.S. Census Tract and/or County), and ‘curated’ implies a repeatable process with data provenance and the use of appropriate methodologies for covariate conversion. The Community Determinants of Health datasets draw from multiple sources, resulting in variables with varying degrees of availability, patterns of missing data, and methodological considerations across different sources, geographies, and years.
The 2025 U.S. Geothermal Market Report updates and expands on the 2021 U.S. Geothermal Power Production and District Heating Market Report with the inclusion of geothermal heat pumps (GHPs) for both distributed and centralized heating and cooling applications. The report updates technology and cost trends in the geothermal power generation industry as well as an uptick in market activities, especially those of next-generation geothermal power technologies, including enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) and closed-loop geothermal (CLG). This report also tracks policy and market drivers that have influenced the direction and growth pace of the U.S. geothermal industry over the years, and especially since 2020.
Chemical manufacturing is a large and diverse sector of the U.S. economy, with products, fuels, and a wide assortment of materials used daily by both the public and businesses. Currently, several of the largest volume chemicals produced in the United States rely on fossil fuels as a feedstock, energy source, or both. The list of chemicals includes steam cracking products such as ethylene, propylene, benzene, and xylenes as well as products such as ammonia and methanol. The focus for this work is on platform chemicals that are both produced in the largest volume and have a high potential for subsequent processing into more specialized products. In this study, we explore several new pathways that reduce the overall energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for each product. These pathways include energy efficiency measures applied to existing production methods, the use of bio‐based fuels and/or feedstocks as new production methods, and electrification of high‐energy‐input stages within current production methods. Scenarios for energy demand and GHG reduction were conducted with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Materials Flows through Industry tool. Projections of the energy demand and GHG emissions in 2030 and 2050 are included, using grid composition projections from the NREL ReEDS model. The alternative scenarios selected showcase the effect of realistic changes the industry could make, focusing on technologies with a high level of technical readiness.
Strategic biorefinery siting is critical for a diversified bioeconomy, yet industry, policy, and research often focus on either large-scale biofuel plants or smaller-scale specialty bioproduct facilities, with limited coordination across scales. We address this gap by modeling biorefinery deployment spanning a 28-fold difference in capacity. We developed an open-source, spatially explicit framework integrating techno-economic analysis with logistics and refinery cost surrogate models to evaluate multiscale miscanthus-derived biorefineries across the rainfed U.S. for the production of ethanol, succinic acid, lactic acid, potassium sorbate, and acrylic acid. Overall costs change little as feedstock density increases, while transport distances decrease by ∼30 to 67% (∼100 km) and siting flexibility improves. Specifically, a 5-fold feedstock density increase (2% to 10% of suitable land) reduces minimum selling prices by <10% (e.g., 0.27 USD·gal –1 for ethanol). This limited economic sensitivity suggests dense planting is not required for competitive deployment, particularly for smaller-scale facilities. Representing collection areas as irregular rather than circular expands the feasible space under low-density scenarios. While large-scale refineries anchor regional supply chains, smaller facilities retain spatial flexibility even when large refineries are established. These findings highlight the importance of spatial representation and multiscale coordination for robust, regionally tailored biomanufacturing networks to advance renewable carbon integration without extensive land conversion.
University research process values as distinct from product values, evaluating U.S. federal support funding system
This paper seeks to addresses the significant gap in the literature regarding the installation and adoption of geothermal heat pump (GHP) systems in the United States. While the "2021 U.S. Geothermal Power Production and District Heating Market Report" published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) focused on direct-use geothermal district heating systems, it did not include an analysis of GHP installations (Robins et al. 2021). To bridge this gap, NREL has compiled a novel database currently containing 70,470 records of GHP installations, primarily sourced from state well permits and small-scale studies. Our methodology emphasizes the collection, cleaning, and standardization of data, addressing challenges such as inconsistent reporting formats and privacy concerns. Despite limitations in data on capacity, costs, and performance, our preliminary geospatial analysis reveals insights into the distribution of GHP systems across urban and rural areas and climate zones. The paper highlights the importance of publicly accessible data for advancing GHP technology adoption with a discussion of existing data sources and their limitations, advocating for improved collaboration between NREL and industry stakeholders.
In 2010 the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility procured 3- and 5-cm wavelength radars for documenting the macrophysical, microphysical, and dynamical structure of precipitating systems. To maximize the scientific impact, ARM supported the development of an application chain to correct for various phenomena in order to retrieve the “point” values of moments of the radar spectrum and polarimetric measurements. We have now used the lessons learned from the processing of the 3- and 5-cm wavelength radars obtained by ARM to help process X-band radar data from the Surface Atmospheric Integrated Field Laboratory (SAIL) field campaign. This report details the motivation, science, and progress to date as well as charting a path forward.
An econometric investigation into the markets for agricultural commodities is summarized. An overview of the effort including the objectives, scope, and architecture of the analysis and the estimation strategy employed is presented. The major empirical results and policy conclusions are set forth. These results and conclusions focus on the economic importance of improved crop forecasts, U.S. exports, and government policy operations. A number of promising avenues of further investigation are suggested.
The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 supports biofuel production expansion through the 45Z clean fuel production tax credit, replacing previous 40A and 40B credits. This follows on the Renewable Fuel Standard from the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and its expansion in 2007. States like California, Oregon, and Washington also offer clean fuel credits. Meanwhile, federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Energy, have advanced alternative fuel technologies through research and development funding. The surging interest in the biofuel industry has spurred the demand for biofuel supplies in the markets, although achieving profitability for advanced biofuels and low-carbon e-fuels remains challenging. This study aims to track U.S. alternative fuel production capacity expansion plans over the next 10 years and estimate impacts on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. By tracking built capacity and industry announcements of planned expansion, this study complements other studies which use models to predict changes in energy technologies and the associated GHG implications. Modeled projections of future technologies are often criticized for over or underestimating the cost and potential role of new technologies. The study focuses on sustainable aviation fuel, renewable diesel, ethanol, biodiesel, and renewable natural gas. Using facility-level data, we conducted a bottom-up analysis linking biofuel production pathways with corresponding pathways and parameterizations in the Argonne R&D GREET model. Results indicate that biofuel capacity could reach 3.8 exajoules in 2035, potentially reducing U.S. GHG emissions by 179 million tonnes, including the full life cycle. This corresponds to a 20% reduction in transportation and 5% in industry sector emissions by 2035, or a 3.6% reduction in economy-wide emissions. Overall, this study shows that while biofuel production capacity in the U.S. is expanding, the capacities remain limited compared to fuel demand. Uncertainty regarding the durability and extension of incentives may be dampening the pace of growth. Meanwhile, demonstrating the commercial potential for alternative fuels and climbing the learning curve for new technologies could lead to an increased pace of expansion in later years. This study offers insights for bioenergy stakeholders, highlighting biofuel technologies' contribution to U.S. energy system and emissions reduction over time based on producers' plans.
Local renewable ammonia production using electrolytic hydrogen is an emerging approach to alleviate emissions attributed to synthetic nitrogen fertilizer production while also insulating against fluctuations in fertilizer prices and mitigating transportation costs and emissions. However, replacing ammonia currently produced using fossil fuels will not be immediate. To this end, we develop a supply chain transition model, which first optimizes the design and hourly operation of new renewable ammonia facilities to minimize production costs and then optimizes the annual installation timing, production scale, and location of these new renewable facilities along with ammonia transportation to meet county resolution demands. The objective is to augment and eventually replace conventional ammonia market imports in an economically competitive manner. We performed a case study for Minnesota's ammonia supply chain and found that a full transition to in-state renewable production by 2032 is optimal. This is incentivized by the U.S. federal government's clean hydrogen production credits. This transition results in 99 % reduction in carbon intensity along with stable supply costs below $475 per metric tonne. New renewable production facilities are an order of magnitude smaller than existing conventional plants. They use both wind and solar resources and operate dynamically to minimize expensive battery and hydrogen storage capacities.
The goal is to develop a technological process for converting U.S. coals into high-value solid carbon products such as graphene and high-quality graphite.
High-speed thermokinetic mixers (K-mixers) represent an advanced compounding technology that employs intense shear and friction to convert kinetic energy directly into thermal energy. This mechanism enables rapid mixing cycles, often under one minute, facilitating exceptional filler dispersion while minimizing the material’s thermal history. This is particularly effective for compounding challenging materials, including heat-sensitive biopolymers, wet filler feedstocks, and nanofillers prone to agglomeration. As the first comprehensive review of this technology, this article synthesizes the fundamental principles of thermokinetic mixing (K-mixing) and surveys recent advances in polymer composite fabrication. We contrast the working principles of K-mixers with conventional twin-screw extrusion, highlighting distinct advantages in dispersing nanoscale fillers, exfoliating layered materials, and processing wet cellulosic feedstocks and ultra-high filler loadings (e.g., 85 wt%). Furthermore, strategies to optimize filler–matrix interfacial bonding under rapid-processing constraints, such as the kinetic selection of compatibilizers and fiber surface treatments, are evaluated. Finally, we analyze key structure-processing-property relationships and outline future directions in scaling up, reactive processing, and hybrid material development.
During the past decade, there has been a rapid expansion of remote sensing research and technology development related to coastal wetlands. As a result of this research, all of the 23 coastal states have ongoing or completed wetland inventories, most utilizing aerial photographs as the data source for producing a variety of map products with varying scales, formats, classification systems and intended uses. The U.S. Geological Survey is increasing emphasis on map production and revision for the coastal zone. The new U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wetland Inventory is intended to provide a standardized method for comparison of wetlands on a national basis - it too will use available aerial photographs as a basic data source. At present, satellite data is not used for operational mapping of coastal wetlands because of resolution and geometric constraints. In the future, however, satellite data may provide an accurate reliable and economical source to update wetland inventories and to monitor or evaluate coastal wetlands. The technological improvements accompanying the development and launch of Landsat C and D and the space shuttle promise to make satellite digital data a more powerful tool to supply information for future management decisions for coastal wetlands.