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All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

DOE OSTI2022

Simulating Energy and Security Interactions in Semiconductor Manufacturing: Insights from the Intel Minifab Model

Semiconductor manufacturing is a highly complex. Fabrication plants must deal with re-entrant flows to support multiple types of wafers being produced simultaneously, each with their own deadlines and specifications. The manufacturing process itself depends upon the ability to control and programmatically adjust a variety of environmental conditions including temperature, humidity, and air quality. In addition, wafer fabrication consumes large amounts of electricity. Emerging technologies may help reduce the energy footprint of such facilities but can introduce cybersecurity risks. Therefore, this paper presents a modeling and simulation framework to quantify tradeoffs between operational measures of performance, energy consumption, and cybersecurity controls. We augment the Intel Minifab model, with the Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture (PERA) for cybersecurity as well as tool-level energy consumption data from a real-world semiconductor manufacturing testbed. In this manner, we intend to provide stakeholders with a systematic, data-driven approach to evaluate emerging risks within the manufacturing process.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2022

Innovative Separations Research and Development Needs for Advanced Fuel Cycles

Deployment of advanced nuclear reactors will inevitably introduce new challenges for devising and implementing an efficient, safe, and economical nuclear fuel cycle that meets society’s need for clean energy and expectations for environmental stewardship. The growing urgency for decarbonizing the US and global economies makes such technological challenges all the more compelling. The Office of Materials and Chemical Technologies within US Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy stewards the capabilities and knowledge relied upon by government policy makers to make informed decisions regarding nuclear fuel cycle options. Such decisions in turn rely on the development of efficient and economical separation methods that can accept the used nuclear fuel containing actinides and fission products (FPs) to recycle selected actinides, recover valuable by-products, and deliver waste streams that are suitable for disposal. To help guide the future direction of fuel cycle separations research, taking into account emerging technologies, the Office of Materials and Chemical Technologies sponsored the Innovative Separations R&D Needs for Advanced Fuel Cycles workshop, held virtually August 30–September 1, 2021. Based upon 60 contributed white papers, 6 plenary lectures, and 3 days of discussions, the outcome of the workshop and subsequent deliberations was the generation of this report identifying seven future research directions (FRDs) plus three crosscutting areas of research.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

DOE OSTI2020

Integrated and Advanced Lighting Controls: The Next Frontier in Energy Savings?

Lighting energy use has significantly declined as a portion of overall building energy usage due largely to the uptake of more efficient light-emitting diode technology. Although the per unit cost of lighting controls has declined, the installation and use of lighting controls are low and the installation and use of advanced controls are abysmally low. Increased use of advanced and connected lighting controls, and the ability to integrate lighting with other building systems (e.g., heat and air, plug loads, miscellaneous loads) that make the building “smarter,” offer the potential for additional energy savings. Studies into the performance of new, advanced lighting control technologies in commercial buildings have generated new findings. Although each field evaluation has interesting results individually, an analysis of their collective findings across a spectrum of commercial building types will help establish the current state of the technology and implications related to market readiness. This paper will analyze results from available field evaluation studies (recently completed as well as ongoing) of retrofit sites and share findings and insights including: • The amount of energy savings that may be expected from these systems. • Cost effectiveness, monetization, and cost points of these systems. • Ideal characteristics of these systems the most viable. • Lessons learned from the installation, commissioning, and occupant response of these systems. The results will support Department of Energy research investments and help inform efficiency programs of the potential of these emerging technologies and how they may fit within the clean energy future.

Myer, Michael↗

DOE OSTI2025

Through the lens of bioenergy crops: advances, bottlenecks, and promises of plant engineering

Advances in engineering of bioenergy crops were driven over the past years by adapting technological breakthroughs and accelerating conventional applications but also exposed intriguing challenges. New tools revealed rich interconnectivity in the exponentially growing and dynamic 'big' omics data' of metabolomes, transcriptomes, and genomes at previously inaccessible magnitude (global, cross-species, meta-) and resolution (single cell). Insights enabled fresh hypotheses and stimulated disciplines such as functional genomics with discovery of broad regulatory networks and their determinants, that is, DNA parts, including promoters, regulatory elements, and transcription factors. Their rational design, assembly into increasingly complex blueprints, and installation into diverse chassis is an existing frontier that may benefit from emerging technologies to address bottlenecks. Interweaving nature-inspired to fully synthetic parts has already allowed building of fine-tuned regulatory circuits, or new-to-nature metabolic routes insulated from the biological context of the chassis species. Similarly, developments and the evolving need for unifying principles in plant transformation and species-agnostic technologies highlight future opportunities for engineering the next generation of bioenergy plants.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2020

A Review of Existing Test Methods for Occupancy Sensors

One of the key new features of connected lighting systems (CLS) is their ability to collect data from various types of integral sensors and share that data with other lighting or building systems. Occupancy and vacancy sensors have been widely adopted as an energy-saving strategy in buildings, yet published test methods for reproducibly characterizing their performance remain few and limited in their sophistication. As a result, it has been difficult to predict the performance of such sensors in a specific application, and in practice, they frequently do not meet energy-savings expectations. Occupants at times remove or otherwise bypass occupancy sensors that hinder their work or otherwise do not perform as expected, thereby compromising the sensors’ potential to reduce energy consumption. Poor performance can result from multiple causes – ranging from fundamental limitations of the sensor technology, to misconfiguration, to poor placement in the room or space. Innovative occupancy sensors, some of them combining multiple sensing technologies (i.e., multimodal), have come on the market over the years, with claims of improved performance compared to their predecessors. However, in practice, their performance has neither differed enough from the performance of previous products to necessitate a test method that facilitated comparison between them, nor has it led to high deployment or high user satisfaction in human-occupied spaces with persistent presence. While the performance of both common and novel occupancy sensors has been the subject of many published research articles, the test methods that have been employed for them typically have been loosely described and have incorporated custom equipment or techniques that render them difficult to reproduce, or have been limited in their ability to fairly characterize devices that utilize varying sensor technology. The lack of a fully described, technology-agnostic test method that yields reproducible results across different implementations has been a barrier to the commercial success of new occupancy-sensor products, as users and specifiers who have been disappointed with previous products are often unwilling to take a chance with new ones. Motivated by a desire to fairly characterize new technologies that continue to enter the market and claim not only improved occupancy detection but, in some cases, additional capabilities (e.g., the ability to measure traffic or discern between different object types), this report presents the results of a literature review of recently published fully described test methods for characterizing occupancy-sensor performance, as well as research articles containing ad-hoc test methods. The review also identifies and consolidates test conditions for characterizing sensor performance in indoor spaces and identifies apparent test method gaps that need to be filled in order to evaluate emerging technologies and products. The identified test-method conditions are intended to enable the development of a future technology-agnostic test method that facilitates occupancy-sensor performance characterization more-accurately representing performance in buildings.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2020

A Review of Existing Test Methods for Occupancy Sensors

One of the key new features of connected lighting systems (CLS) is their ability to collect data from various types of integral sensors and share that data with other lighting or building systems. Occupancy and vacancy sensors have been widely adopted as an energy-saving strategy in buildings, yet published test methods for reproducibly characterizing their performance remain few and limited in their sophistication. As a result, it has been difficult to predict their performance in a specific application, and in practice, they frequently do not meet energy-savings expectations. Occupants at times remove or otherwise bypass occupancy sensors that hinder their work or otherwise do not perform as expected, thereby compromising the sensors’ potential to reduce energy consumption. Poor performance can result from multiple causes – ranging from fundamental limitations of the sensor technology, to misconfiguration, to poor placement in the room or space. Innovative occupancy sensors, some of them combining multiple sensing technologies, have come on the market over the years, with claims of improved performance compared to their predecessors; yet in practice, their performance has led to neither high deployment nor high user satisfaction in any significant application, nor has it differed enough from the performance of previous products to necessitate a test method that facilitated comparison between them. While the performance of both common and novel occupancy sensors has been the subject of many published research articles, the test methods that have been employed for them have typically been loosely described and incorporated custom equipment or techniques that render them difficult to reproduce, or have been limited in their ability to fairly characterize devices that utilize varying sensor technology. The lack of a well-described, technology-agnostic test method that yields reproducible results across different implementations has been a barrier to the commercial success of new occupancy sensor products, as users and specifiers who have been disappointed with previous products are often unwilling to take a chance with new ones. Motivated by a desire to fairly characterize new technologies that continue to enter the market and claim not only improved occupancy detection but, in some cases, also additional capabilities (e.g., the ability to measure traffic or discern between different object types), this report presents the results of a literature review of recent published, well-described test methods for characterizing occupancy sensor performance, as well as research articles containing ad-hoc test methods. The review also identifies and consolidates the best techniques for characterizing sensor performance in indoor spaces and identifies test method gaps that need to be filled in order to evaluate emerging technologies and products.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

DOE OSTI2026

Microbial spies and bloggers: programming cells to convert environmental information into discernible signals

Microbes regulate their dynamic behaviors using the chemical and physical characteristics of their environment. The ability of microbes to continuously convert this physicochemical information into biochemical information and to use organic matter in the environment as a power source makes these organisms attractive as chassis for building sensors. However, most biosensors have severe limitations when considering applications in hard-to-image settings like soils, sediments, and wastewater. Emerging technologies at the interface of biomolecular design, microbiome engineering, and synthetic biology offer new tools to program cells and communities as biosensors for these settings. Here, in this review, we describe innovations in biosensor outputs that are enabling new applications in complex environments, including reporters that are read out using electrochemical, gas chromatography, hyperspectral imaging, and next-generation sequencing methods. We also discuss computational advances that are accelerating the diversification of sensing components by mining metagenomics data for new transcriptional regulators and by designing allosteric protein switches that directly regulate reporter outputs using analytes. We highlight emerging opportunities for programming undomesticated microbes in communities to function as distributed sensors in the environment. Finally, we discuss the need for responsible biosensor development and to modernize regulatory frameworks to support evidence-based assessment of environmental biosensors.

analyte↗

NASA NTRS2018

Blockchain Application Within a Multi-Sensor Satellite Architecture

With the thrust towards multi-sensor satellite architectures for earth and space exploration, such as constellations and swarms, new technologies are required to enable the transition to this future capability. One of the areas of interest is establishing secure, efficient and prioritized data and command communication pathways among ground and space-based sources for such systems. This paper presents early research results on the potential role, capabilities and value of blockchain usage within constellation and swarm satellite architectures. It demonstrates the use of blockchain's smart contract and distributed ledger capabilities for secure and prioritized multi-sensor satellite collaborative data exchanges, as well as the logging and tracking of command and control events. Adapting and utilizing this emerging technology will aid in addressing technology gaps expected from future constellation flight architectures, such as managing collective computational operations (correlation), dynamic and autonomous observation planning, time-critical events, and provenance tied to ground and space-based autonomous operations and control recordkeeping. In this scenario blockchain is applied in encrypted command transmittal to multiple, yet specific, entities enabling acknowledgement transmittals, performance scalability, and automatic event-based triggering.

Mital, Rohit↗

NASA NTRS2011

Advanced Life Support Technologies and Scenarios

As NASA looks beyond the International Space Station toward long-duration, deep space missions away from Earth, the current practice of supplying consumables and spares will not be practical nor affordable. New approaches are sought for life support and habitation systems that will reduce dependency on Earth and increase mission sustainability. To reduce launch mass, further closure of Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) beyond the current capability of the ISS will be required. Areas of particular interest include achieving higher degrees of recycling within Atmosphere Revitalization, Water Recovery and Waste Management Systems. NASA is currently investigating advanced carbon dioxide reduction processes that surpass the level of oxygen recovery available from the Sabatier Carbon Dioxide Reduction Assembly (CRA) on the ISS. Improving the efficiency of the recovery of water from spacecraft solid and liquid wastes is possible through use of emerging technologies such as the heat melt compactor and brine dewatering systems. Another significant consumable is that of food. Food production systems based on higher plants may not only contribute significantly to the diet, but also contribute to atmosphere revitalization, water purification and waste utilization. Bioreactors may be potentially utilized for wastewater and solid waste management. The level at which bioregenerative technologies are utilized will depend on their comparative requirements for spacecraft resources including mass, power, volume, heat rejection, crew time and reliability. Planetary protection requirements will need to be considered for missions to other solar system bodies.

Barta, Daniel J.↗

NASA NTRS2002

Flow and Noise Control: Review and Assessment of Future Directions

Technologies for developing radically new aerovehicles that would combine quantum leaps in cost, safety, and performance benefits with environmental friendliness have appeared on the horizon. This report provides both an assessment of the current state-of-the-art in flow and noise control and a vision for the potential gains to be made, in terms of performance benefit for civil and military aircraft and a unique potential for noise reduction, via future advances in flow and noise technologies. This report outlines specific areas of research that will enable the breakthroughs necessary to bring this vision to reality. Recent developments in many topics within flow and noise control are reviewed. The flow control overview provides succinct summaries of various approaches for drag reduction and improved maneuvering. Both exterior and interior noise problems are examined, including dominant noise sources, physics of noise generation and propagation, and both established and proposed concepts for noise reduction. Synergy between flow and noise control is a focus and, more broadly, the need to pursue research in a more concurrent approach involving multiple disciplines. Also discussed are emerging technologies such as nanotechnology that may have a significant impact on the progress of flow and noise control.

Thomas, Russell H.↗

NASA NTRS2015

The Feasibility of Wearables in an Enterprise Environment and Their Impact on IT Security

This paper is intended to explore the usability and feasibility of wearables in an enterprise environment and their impact on IT Security. In this day and age, with the advent of the Internet of Things, we must explore all the new technology emerging from the minds of the new inventors. This means exploring the use of wearables in regards to their benefits, limitations, and the new challenges they pose to securing computer networks in the Federal environment. We will explore the design of the wearables, the interfaces needed to connect them, and what it will take to connect personal devices in the Federal enterprise network environment. We will provide an overview of the wearable design, concerns of ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information and the challenges faced by those doing so. We will also review the implications and limitations of the policies governing wearable technology and the physical efforts to enforce them.

wearables↗

DOE OSTI2024

Decarbonizing the US Energy System

Recent rapid and unexpected cost reductions in decarbonization technologies have accelerated the cost-effective decarbonization of the US economy, with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions falling by 20% from 2005 to 2020. The literature on US economy-wide decarbonization focuses on maximizing long-term GHG emissions reduction strategies that rely mostly on renewable energy expansion, electrification, and efficiency improvements to achieve net-zero GHG emissions by 2050. While these studies provide a valuable foundation, further research is needed to properly support decarbonization policy development and implementation. In this review, we identify key decarbonization analysis gaps and opportunities, including issues related to cross-sectoral linkages, spatial and temporal granularity, consumer behavior, emerging technologies, equity and environmental justice, and political economy. We conclude by discussing the implications of these analysis gaps for US decarbonization pathways and how they relate to challenges facing major global emitters.

08 HYDROGEN↗

DOE OSTI2025

A roadmap to understanding and anticipating microbial gene transfer in soil communities

Engineered microbes are being programmed using synthetic DNA for applications in soil to overcome global challenges related to climate change, energy, food security, and pollution. However, we cannot yet predict gene transfer processes in soil to assess the frequency of unintentional transfer of engineered DNA to environmental microbes when applying synthetic biology technologies at scale. This challenge exists because of the complex and heterogeneous characteristics of soils, which contribute to the fitness and transport of cells and the exchange of genetic material within communities. Here, we describe knowledge gaps about gene transfer across soil microbiomes. Here, we propose strategies to improve our understanding of gene transfer across soil communities, highlight the need to benchmark the performance of biocontainment measures in situ, and discuss responsibly engaging community stakeholders. We highlight opportunities to address knowledge gaps, such as creating a set of soil standards for studying gene transfer across diverse soil types and measuring gene transfer host range across microbiomes using emerging technologies. By comparing gene transfer rates, host range, and persistence of engineered microbes across different soils, we posit that community-scale, environment-specific models can be built that anticipate biotechnology risks. Such studies will enable the design of safer biotechnologies that allow us to realize the benefits of synthetic biology and mitigate risks associated with the release of such technologies.

bioccontainment↗

DOE OSTI2024

Life-Cycle Assessment Integration into Scalable Open-Source Numerical Models (LiAISON) for Prospective Impact Analysis of Novel Technologies

Decarbonizing the industrial sector is a significant challenge in achieving a net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions economy by 2050 and the Paris Agreement, i.e., a global climate change mitigation target of achieving a maximum average temperature change potential of 1.5 Degrees Celsius or less by 2100 with respect to pre-industrial levels. In the United States (US), the industrial sector accounts for 23% of total GHG emissions and is home to a number of hard-to-electrify activities. The chemicals subsector has the single largest subsector emissions profile after direct emissions from fossil fuel combustion and leakage from fossil fuel distribution systems. Within the chemicals subsector, many processes depend on hydrogen or ammonia precursors. Decarbonizing these two commodities would contribute significantly to decarbonizing the industrial sector as hydrogen could also be used for low carbon steel production (e.g., hydrogen-based direct reduction of iron) and other industrial applications. Emerging technologies require the application of prospective life cycle assessment (LCA), which can account for technology (foreground) scaling and process improvements via learning-by-doing, among others. In many cases, the future system context (background) in which the technologies are assumed to operate in is equally relevant. Background scenarios generated by integrated assessment models (IAM) can coherently incorporate potential future dynamics of the energy-climate-human-land system. Further, IAM scenarios are harmonized across socioeconomic and climate change mitigation pathways, which facilitates the comparability of prospective LCAs using different IAMs. We introduce an open source prospective LCA framework, the Life-cycle Assessment Integration into Scalable Open-source Numerical models (LiAISON), to analyze the non-linear relationships between technology foreground and the future energy system background across a series of midpoint and resource use metrics. The integration of LCA and IAM data is achieved using prospective environmental Impact assessment (PREMISE). We showcase it by assessing two Power-to-Hydrogen (PtH2) processes, namely Solid Oxide Electrolysis (SOE) and Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Electrolysis (PEME). We compare the technologies to a baseline of hydrogen production via natural gas-based Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) in a US context of multiple energy system and climate change mitigation futures. Besides providing an analysis that specifies the LCA results ranges with temporal and geospatial explicitness across the two technologies, metrics, and impact assessment methods, this research also aims to establish a base framework that can be expanded to use other IAM generated scenarios and US open-source life cycle inventory (LCI) databases. We find that the temporal environmental performance of either technology or their difference to SMR is directly influenced by the underlying background dynamics. Additionally we compare our results by linking two other prospective models with LiAISON - GCAM (Global Change Assessment Model) and ReEDS (Regional Energy Deployment System) to analyze the effect of changing background scenarios using varying predictions in life cycle analysis.

decarbonizing↗

NASA NTRS2024

Wildland Fire Management Interim ConOps v1.0

This document outlines a concept of operations (ConOps) for a future state of wildland fire prevention, mitigation, and suppression offered as a recommendation and initial guidance for updating current methodologies, technologies, or standards to fit the growing scope of wildland fire. This document serves to collect and summarize the research and work of NASA and other U.S. federal agencies, partner groups, and private industry in envisioning ways, backed by expertise, that could bolster and increase support for firefighting personnel such that overall effectiveness, safety, and efficiency is drastically increased. This document will start with the background of the joint efforts and methods of research and collaboration, followed by a detailed discussion of the current state of wildland fire efforts. In contrast to the current state, the vision for the future state reveals specific areas of improvement with suggestions for potential emerging technologies. With such changes in mind, there is a brief discussion on the impacts of these changes from the systems, organizational, and procedural perspectives, as well as measures by which the effectiveness of this ConOps could be evaluated upon adoption. This is commenced with a general discussion on the various trade-offs considered and areas of improvements. Note, this is the first iteration of this document intended for initial peer review.

transportation↗

NASA NTRS1991

NASA aeropropulsion research in support of propulsion systems of the 21st century

A review is given of the NASA's ongoing and planned research and technology programs leading to advanced air breathing propulsion systems of the next century. The primary focus is on efforts being performed or sponsored by NASA-Lewis, with emphasis on civil, subsonic, and supersonic transportation systems which should begin to enter service within 10 to 20 years. Subsonic transport propulsion program elements, including ducted UltraHigh Bypass (UHB) engines and high efficiency cores are discussed in terms of goals, technical issues and problems, approaches and plans. Similarly, The Supersonic Cruise Propulsion Program is reviewed via discussion of near term and far term goals; barrier issues such as NOx and noise reduction and the consequent Phase 1 (near term) research plans are described; and finally, emerging technologies such as the supersonic through-flow fan are considered for their potential long term impact.

Ziemianski, Joseph A.↗

DOE OSTI2023

Navier: Dataflow Architecture for Computation Chemistry

Navier’s objectives were two evaluate the use of emerging technologies, especially dataflow accelerators, for high-performance computing (HPC) applications, specifically in the domain of chemistry, and to develop a prototype software stack to support such applications. Navier builds on capabilities previously developed by synergistic projects, such as PNNL Data Model Convergence (DMC) LDRD Hardware Advanced Workflows (HAW) and DuOMO, as well as DOE ARIAA. Throughout its 18 months, the Navier team developed new capabilities and artifacts at all levels of the HW/SW stack, provided a seamless way to integrate novel computing architectures (Sambanova SN10 and Xilinx Versal AI) into an existing software stack, developed chemistry workflows, data analytics tools, and HPC molecular dynamics workflows that leverage the developed stack and PNNL institutional investments in emerging architectures. Navier also explored the use of active learning to accelerate a computational chemistry workflow for organic molecules on PNNL Junction cluster (in collaboration with AMD/Xilinx). Navier developed tools, methodologies, and studies for hardware software co-design and (sparse) dataflow accelerators that are composable and can be used together or separately. These methodologies are now used in other projects, such as DOE AMAIS and HPDA. This report describes Navier’s achievement, the developed tools and methodologies, and the research findings and conclusions.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

NASA NTRS2001

Advanced RF Front End Technology

The ability to achieve low-mass low-cost micro/nanospacecraft for Deep Space exploration requires extensive miniaturization of all subsystems. The front end of the Telecommunication subsystem is an area in which major mass (factor of 10) and volume (factor of 100) reduction can be achieved via the development of new silicon based micromachined technology and devices. Major components that make up the front end include single-pole and double-throw switches, diplexer, and solid state power amplifier. JPL's Center For Space Microsystems - System On A Chip (SOAC) Program has addressed the challenges of front end miniaturization (switches and diplexers). Our objectives were to develop the main components that comprise a communication front end and enable integration in a single module that we refer to as a 'cube'. In this paper we will provide the latest status of our Microelectromechanical System (MEMS) switches and surface micromachined filter development. Based on the significant progress achieved we can begin to provide guidelines of the proper system insertion for these emerging technologies. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.

Herman, M. I.↗