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To be presented April 5 at the National Radiological Emergency Preparedness Conference: https://www.nationalrep.org/ - an annual conference of federal, state, utility and other stakeholders who plan and prepare for nuclear power plant emergencies. Co-author/presenter is Brennen Brunner (New Hampshire Dept of Public Health).
The 14th International Particle Accelerator Conference (IPAC’23) will be held in Venice, Italy from 7 to 12 May 2023 at the Venice Convention Centre. Website: https://www.ipac23.org/ Presenter: Mark Raphaelian Dear Mark, we acknowledge reception of your abstract #1268 for IPAC'23 - 14th International Particle Accelerator Conference. Here follow the details: Title: The Design of the Emittance Diagnostic for the Scorpius Accelerator Classification: MC6.T03: Beam Diagnostics and Instrumentation Type of presentation: Poster Presentation Submitter: Mark Raphaelian Authors: Mark Raphaelian Co-Authors: Daniel Dzenitis, Franz Weber, Nathaniel Pogue, Sean Littleton, Steven Falabella, Patrick Duffy, William Stem
Conference: 14th International Particle Accelerator Conference Date: May 7th-12th, 2023 Location: Lido di Venezia, Italy Presenter: Evan R Scott
Sugarcane (Saccharum) is among the world’s leading bioenergy crops. However, modern sugarcane cultivars are derived from a relatively small set of founder genotypes, which has contributed to cultivar susceptibility to diseases. Miscanthus is a close relative of sugarcane that is genetically diverse and a potential source of genes for improving sugarcane. We found that Miscanthus is a source of resistance to four major diseases of sugarcane and we crossed these disease-resistance genes into a predominantly sugarcane genetic background (BC1 generation). Additionally, we found that Miscanthus could also confer genes for chilling-tolerant photosynthesis to sugarcane, which would be highly advantageous for production of energycane in subtropical environments, like the southern coastal plain of the US. Using advanced modeling techniques, we found that standard marker-assisted selection could be effective for breeding resistance conferred by a small number of genes each with large effect (i.e. vertical resistance), but to breed for many genes each of small effect (i.e. horizontal resistance), genomic selection would be the better strategy. Lastly, we learned that Miscanthus can be induced to flower sooner by giving the plants short days (long nights) but that the ideal day length for a given accession depends on its adaptation to its latitude of origin, with tropical accessions requiring shorter days to flower than accessions from high latitudes. This information will facilitate plant breeders’ ability to make crosses between Miscanthus and sugarcane, and enable greater use of Miscanthus as a genetic resource to improve sugarcane.
Presented by Conner Hatton at SIAM UQ Conference in Trieste, Italy, on February 27th, 2024. Conference details available online at https://www.siam.org/conferences/cm/conference/uq24
Bacterial Nitrate Reduction by Paraburkholderia yinzercillus Contributes to Iron Bioremediation in Abandoned Coal Mine Drainage presentation given at the Gordon Research Conference on Renewable Energy: Solar Fuels Conference held February 4-9, 2024, in Ventura, California.
This Final Technical Report (FTR) summarizes the work conducted at the Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES) under the Wide-Bandgap Generation (WBGen) fellowship and traineeship program established by the Advanced Manufacturing and Technologies Office (AMMTO) of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) at Virginia Tech, which had as main objective to train the next generation of U.S. citizen power engineers with wide-bandgap (WBG) power semiconductor expertise, with the intent to aid in fulfilling the future workforce needs in this field. The latter was deemed of strategic importance given the fast-paced growth observed—and predicted—in the demand of this technical expertise, whose practitioners have become the enablers and executioners of the electrification transformation process that not just the U.S., but the whole world, is currently undergoing as it seeks for more effective and efficient ways to use energy. As such, the WBGen program set forth to achieve its educational goals, which in addition sought to broaden the range of WBG-based power electronics by conducting research and development on high-efficiency grid apparatus and high-efficiency electrical power systems, and to also enhance the power engineering curriculum by formalizing WBG-oriented design procedures replacing existent yet now obsolete design procedures developed for Silicon (Si) based power electronics. This effort led CPES to spearhead the development of a new major within The Bradley Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at Virginia Tech, namely Electronic Power and Energy Systems (EPES), which coalesced power electronics and power systems courses to provide undergraduate students with a strong formation in the power engineering field, while creating a pipeline of graduate students that could pursue the WBG-based curriculum and conduct research at CPES. In all, in what is considered a true success, eight of the twenty WBGen fellows that graduated program were recruited from the ECE department undergraduate cohort. The traineeship emphasized as well, from its beginning, the partnership with industry and national laboratories, which took advantage of the successful industry consortium at CPES that has historically been formed by 80–90 power and energy companies working in close collaboration with the center. This gave WBGen fellows the accessibility and possibility to conduct internships at partner facilities during the summer months, focused solely on the evaluation, testing, and adoption of WBG devices, which were many times tightly related to their respective research work and plans. In addition, WBGen fellows conducted their main research work within the confines of research programs at CPES conducted with these industry partners, providing them with a unique opportunity to develop not just their technical expertise—while advancing their knowledge, but to also learn and practice a slew of skills needed for their professional growth. As such, the fellows tackled a variety of WBG-related research topics, from device reliability and capability aspects as well as packaging and integration, encompassing the use of advanced materials and new structures, current sharing challenges, and insulation systems, to advanced gate-drivers with integrated sensors and protection mechanisms and active current- and voltage-based control, to optimized layouts seeking to maximize the switching and power processing performance of these devices, to power processing solutions adopting Gallium-Nitride (GaN) and Silicon-Carbide (SiC) power semiconductors for a variety of applications; including radiation-hardened converters for space dc distribution systems, direct three-phase ac-to-ac power converters for aerospace systems, dc-ac inverters for automotive traction drives, high-frequency isolated dc-dc battery chargers also for heavy transportation systems, and medium-voltage dc-dc and dc-ac converters for distribution systems and future power grids. The WBGen program ultimately graduated a total of 20 power engineers, all experts on WBG-based power electronics, awarding 18 M.S. and 2 PhD degrees in the process. These fellows, all U.S. citizens, allowed CPES to increase the number of citizens students to 33 % at the peak of the program, as the traineeship made possible the recruitment of talent with more attractive graduate research assistantship (GRA) contracts. Unfortunately, the present U.S. citizen enrollment at CPES has declined back to historic levels—approximately 10 %, as the regular GRA rates are not competitive enough when compared with entry-level industry jobs. In all, WBGen fellows published a total of 7 peer-reviewed journal articles, 44 papers at international technical conferences, made 42 presentations at international technical conferences, and filed 4 invention disclosures and patent applications, which have since then been granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Their contribution to CPES, Virginia Tech, the United States, and the world, has been significant, and continues to yield results thanks to the exemplary career that the fellows have initiated at many of the partners of the program, which include Wolfspeed, Raytheon Technologies, Infineon, Lockheed Martin, Dominion Energy, Northrop Grumman, Rivian, Aerospace Corporation, Sandia National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, John Hopkins University, and Virginia Tech.
Nuclear Safety is a journal that covers significant issues in the field of nuclear safety. Its primary scope is safety in the design, construction, operation, and decommissioning of nuclear power reactors worldwide and the research and analysis activities that promote this goal, but it also encompasses the safety aspects of the entire nuclear fuel cycle, including fuel fabrication, spent-fuel processing and handling, and nuclear waste disposal, the handling of fissionable materials and radioisotopes, and the environmental effects of all these activities. Table of Contents for this issue follows. THE CHORNOBYL ACCIDENT: 195 The Chornobyl Accident Revisited, Part III: Chernobyl Source Term Release Dynamics and Reconstruction of Events During the Active Phase, A. R. Sich; GENERAL SAFETY CONSIDERATIONS: 218 Second ANS Workshop on the Safety of Soviet-Designed Nuclear Power Plants, R. A. Bari; 234 Elements of a Nuclear Criticality Safety Program, C. M. Hopper; 243 Rickover, Excellence, and Criticality Safety Programs, R. E. Wilson; ACCIDENT ANALYSIS: 249 Transient Analysis of the PIUS Advanced Reactor Design with the TRAC-PF1/MOD2 Code, B. E. Boyack, J. L Steiner, S. C. Harmony, H. J. Stumpf, and J. F. Lime; 278 The Hierarchy-By-Interval Approach to Identifying Important Models that Need Improvement in Severe-Accident Simulation Codes, T. J. Heames, M. Khatib-Rahbar, J. E. Kelly, R. P. Jenks-Johnson, and Y.-S. Chen; 290 RELAP5/MOD3 Code Coupling Model, R. P. Martin; 299 Missiles Caused by Severe Pressurized-Water Reactor Accidents, R. Krieg; DESIGN FEATURES: 310 Validation of COMMIX with Westinghouse AP-600 PCCS Test Data, J. G. Sun, T. H. Chien, J. Ding, and W T. Sha; ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS: 321 Spent Nuclear Fuel Characterization for a Bounding Reference Assembly for the Receiving Basin for Off-Site Fuel, S. D. Kahook, R. L. Garrett, L. R. Canas, and M J. Beckum; OPERATING EXPERIENCES: 332 Reactor Shutdown Experience, Compiled by J. W. Cletcher; U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION INFORMATION AND ANALYSES: 335 Reactor Coolant System Blowdown at Wolf Creek on September 17, 1994, J. V. Kauffman and S. L. Israel; RECENT DEVELOPMENTS: 344 Reports, Standards, and Safety Guides, D. S. Oueener; 349 Proposed Rule Changes as of June 30, 1995; ANNOUNCEMENTS: 320 Symposium on Acceptability of Risk From Radiation—Application to Manned Space Flight; 320 24th DOE/NRC Nuclear Air Cleaning and Treatment Conference; 361 Radiation Biology and Radiation Protection— Modern Developments and Tendencies in Radiation Biology; 362 1997 IEEE Sixth Conference on Human Factors and Power Plants; 354 The Authors; 360 Reviewers of Nuclear Safety, Vol. 36.
This progress report (Level 3 Milestone Number M3SF-24LL010302062) summarizes research conducted at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) within the Crystalline International Collaborations Work Package Number SF-24LL01030206. The activity is focused on our long-term commitment to engaging our partners in international nuclear waste repository research. This includes participation in the Nuclear Energy Agency Thermochemical Database (NEA-TDB) Project and development of methodologies for integrating US and international thermodynamic databases for use in SFWST Generic Disposal System Assessment (GDSA) efforts. A continuing focus for FY24 efforts is to support the US participation in the NEA-TDB effort. The focus of FY24 activities was the development of an agreement for a Phase 7 activity that will start in Q1 of 2025. Mavrik Zavarin is now the US representative on both the Management Board and the Executive group to the NEA-TDB. He is also the POC for the Cements State of the Art Report that is undergoing peer review in FY24. In FY24, we used our position on the NEA-TDB MB and EG to facilitate the integration of NEA-TDB thermochemical data with LLNL’s SUPCRTNE thermodynamic database that supports the SFWST GDSA activities. This effort is coordinated with the Argillite work package SUPCRTNE database development efforts (Wolery, 2024). The goal is to provide a downloadable database that will be hosted on LLNL’s thermodynamics website which incorporates NEA-TDB data into the LLNL database where appropriate. We also began engagement with the EURAD2 program that was initiated in FY24 by our European collaborators at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany. The primary focus of the engagement is with WP20: DITUSC Thermodynamic database evaluation program. A kickoff meeting for this activity is planned for early FY25. Finally, we have been selected to co-host (with Clemson University) the International Conference on Chemistry and Migration Behaviour of Actinides and Fission Products in the Geosphere in 2025 (Migration2025). The meeting will be held September 21-26, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana, and will focus on international efforts to understand the risks of radionuclide releases into the environment. This central focus of this conference is on international efforts to develop safe disposal options for nuclear wastes. As such, we are developing a theme focused on US underground nuclear waste repository science.
This poster describes large-scale CO2 storage and reservoir management case studies for presentation at the AGU2024 conference. The analysis in this study provides a wealth of details on the designs and strategies that can lead to an optimal solution for pressure and CO2 plume management under critical constraints. These findings not only promise a reduction in the CO2 storage footprint but also hold the potential to create a more environmentally friendly ecosystem. Furthermore, this research offers valuable insights into the decision-making process when considering multi-project deployment in a shared basin for large-scale and gigatons of CO2 storage, paving the way for a more sustainable future. Poster presented (virtual) at the 2024 AGU Conference, December 9-13, 2024, Washington, D.C.
This project, funded by DOE Atmospheric System Research (DE-SC0020050), focused on improving the representation of mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) in numerical weather and climate models by leveraging high-resolution observations from the DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program. The research aimed to evaluate model sensitivities to grid spacing, microphysics, and planetary boundary layer (PBL) schemes, with a particular emphasis on improving convection parameterization for high-resolution modeling. Findings from this work highlight several key advancements. Model validation against ARM radar wind profiler data from the Southern Great Plains (SGP) and Manaus (MAO) sites revealed systematic biases in simulated convective mass flux profiles, leading to the development of an observationally constrained evaluation framework for diagnosing and improving model performance. Sensitivity analyses demonstrated that the representation of Amazonian MCSs was highly dependent on PBL scheme selection, while mid-latitude MCSs were more strongly influenced by microphysics parameterizations. A series of high-resolution WRF simulations, ranging from 4 km to 125 m grid spacing, provided insight into the behavior of convective drafts across scales. While updraft properties converged at sub-kilometer resolutions, biases in downdraft intensity persisted even at the finest resolution tested, emphasizing the need for further refinements in model physics. Additionally, comparisons of MCS vertical structures between mid-latitude and tropical environments revealed stronger updrafts and larger mass flux in mid-latitude MCSs, providing critical insights for improving climate model representations of storm-scale dynamics. The project’s findings have already contributed to advancing numerical modeling capabilities, particularly in WRF, MPAS, ICON, and DOE’s SCREAM model, by refining how convective processes are represented in high-resolution climate simulations. Results were disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and ARM/ASR Research Highlights, engaging the broader scientific community. The project also provided valuable training opportunities for two postdoctoral researchers, who played central roles in model development, analysis, and dissemination of results. Their work contributed to several publications and conference presentations, helping prepare them for careers in atmospheric modeling. By improving the simulation of MCSs, this research directly supports the development of next-generation climate models capable of more accurately representing extreme precipitation and convective processes. The insights gained will inform future improvements in convective parameterization and guide the design of high-resolution weather and climate simulations, ultimately enhancing the reliability of climate projections and weather forecasts.
The symposium "Advances in Nitrogen Fixation" was part of the 45th International Conference on Coordinate Chemistry (ICCC45) in Fort Collins, Colorado. It was organized by Patrick Holland (US) and Sven Schneider (Germany). The symposium was one of four parallel sessions on the first full day of the conference (Monday July 29, 2024). There were also three posters associated with the symposium.
Urban areas, including Detroit and Pittsburgh, have suffered significant dual outages of the electrical and water infrastructure in the past decade due, in part, to the increasing number of extreme weather events. With increasing temperatures and rainfall intensity, these regions need to prepare for increasing extreme events through community-based energy and water resilience analysis, planning, and enhancement. This project developed a suite of open-source, open-access, community-centered, data-driven assessment and distributed energy resource (DER) and planning tools for energy and water resilience enhancement in urban areas. Through establishing a multi-level community awareness and engagement mechanism and a comprehensive collection of power outage and flooding data, an innovative group of community energy and water resilience assessment and planning tools have been developed for a wide range of users with differing and variable sets of data available to them. The developed tools include (1) DOE EAGLE-I data-driven, deep-learning assisted resilience assessment and DER planning tools at the county level with socioeconomic factors incorporated; (2) Utility annual power outage data-driven tools for long term resilience assessment and DER planning and 15-min power outage data-driven tools for short term resilience assessment and planning; (3) Detailed engineering tools for energy and water systems resilience assessment and planning when the system topology and component fragility curves are available; (4) Alternative Resiliency Metric Calculation that extracts and separates outage and restoration processes; and (5) Co-optimization tools that evaluate the resilience of the power and sewage system and allow users to conduct joint planning with energy and wastewater systems. The developed tools provide planners, decision-makers, and stakeholders with powerful capabilities to systematically evaluate system/community resilience and optimal and actionable guidance for enhancing resilience while prioritizing DER investments. The tools have been used and validated in Detroit and Pittsburgh and can be used in other areas of the nation. In addition, this project will (1) advance the knowledge and applications of machine-learning methods in analyzing and fusing different layers of information and generating meaningful data points such as generating rare weather events; (2) significantly improve the energy and water resilience of the identified communities in Detroit and Pittsburgh and prepare for more frequent and severe weather conditions; (3) help communities assess extreme weather event impacts and address short-term and long-term resilience-related issues The developed tools have been made public via GitHub and demonstrated to community stakeholders and utility companies via the two annual workshops and numerous community engagement meetings. The project outcomes are also disseminated through publications in various journals and conference proceedings, and presentations at top conferences.
Over the course of this project, we have successfully carried out proposed studies and reported our findings in leading peer-reviewed journals and national/international conferences. So far, we have published 7 peer-reviewed articles reporting these findings and contributed to 1 additional peer-reviewed article. One additional manuscript resulting from this project is currently under review. We have made 22 presentations at national and international conferences about the results from this project. We have also given 3 presentations at the E3SM all-hands or PI meetings to update the E3SM community on our results.
Conference presentation at TechConnect World Innovation Conference & Expo, Washington, D.C., June 13–15, 2022. The University of North Dakota (UND) through the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) and the Institute for Energy Studies teamed with the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research, Microbeam Technologies Inc., the Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS), the North Dakota Geological Survey (NDGS), and the mining industry to execute a contract with the U.S. Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to obtain and characterize samples of U.S. domestic precombustion coal and coal-related materials with a minimum concentration of 300 parts per million (ppm) total rare-earth elements (TREEs) as the material is removed from the ground, with no processing other than drying.
Conference presentation for American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) Conference, Houston, TX, April 25–27, 2023. This geochemical modeling study investigates the evolution of geochemical reactions among CO 2 , formation water, and rocks of the two confining units above and below the CO 2 storage unit at one of the permitted CO 2 storage sites in the Williston Basin. The model is built on PHREEQC-coded chemical equilibrium thermodynamics.
During the reporting period, research at PNNL focused on two tasks within the DOE Fusion Blanket and Fuel Cycle Program. Research on Task 1, Tritium Extraction from Pb-Li and He Using a Vacuum Permeator, focused on atomistic modeling to better understand tritium transport in Pd-coated V vacuum permeators. As a lower cost alternative to Pd permeators, thin coatings of Pd (or other noble metals) can be deposited over a substrate like V. However, the permeation performance of composite metal membranes degrades over time, due to the formation of intermetallics at the coating-substrate interface. Computational studies were performed to better understand tritium transport through these Pd-V intermetallics. The results of the FY22 Pd-V modeling study were recently submitted for publication in Computational Materials Science and presented at the Technology of Fusion Energy conference. Future work in this area will focus on interdiffusion barriers to prevent intermetallic formation that is deleterious to tritium transport. There are opportunities for collaboration with researchers at the Colorado School of Mines, who are manufacturing and testing candidate interdiffusion barriers. Research on Task 3, Solid Breeder Materials, included ion irradiation and post-irradiation characterization of lithium orthosilicate (Li 4 SiO 4 ) and lithium metasilicate (Li 2 SiO 3 ) to improve fundamental understanding of irradiation effects, in combination with atomistic modeling focused on the energetics of He clustering in these two ceramic phases. The results of the study suggested that the Li 4 SiO 4 phase, which is more desirable as a solid breeder due to its higher Li density, was amorphized during ion irradiation while the Li 2 SiO 3 phase appeared to be more resistant to irradiation damage. It is possible that Li loss contributed to the poor irradiation performance of the Li 4 SiO 4 , and some thoughts are provided regarding coatings that could be applied to solid breeders like this to prevent Li loss at elevated temperature while not hindering tritium diffusion. The results of the FY22 ion irradiation study were recently submitted for publication in Journal of Nuclear Materials and presented at the 22nd International Conference on Ion Beam Modification of Materials. Future work in this area will focus on Li-rich ceramics such as Li 5 AlO 4 and Li 8 ZrO 6 that have high Li density and should provide rapid tritium release based on previous work with less Li-rich ceramics.
Conference poster presented at Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) Conference 2024, Houston, Texas, March 11–13, 2024. The Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) is researching novel carbon storage-monitoring techniques at an approved North Dakota geologic carbon storage site. One of the research objectives is to design an autonomous, integrated, and modular (AIM) monitoring network that is compliant with monitoring requirements across multiple carbon capture and storage (CCS) policy frameworks, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) underground injection control (UIC) Class VI permitting program.