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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 397 records · Page 22
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Intrabasin Comparison of the Microbiology and Geochemistry of Produced Fluid From Hydraulically Fractured Wells in the Permian Region

The Permian Basin is the highest producing oil reservoir in the United States. Hydrocarbon extraction methods in this region are often associated with frac hits, or interwell communication events where an established well is affected by the pumping of fracture fluid into a new well. Our previous work revealed a geochemical signal indicating the presence of frac hits in the Permian Basin. We returned to this area with the goal of expanding our understanding of subsurface interactions common in this region. To do so, we collected produced water from 25 unique sites across the Permian Basin, 10 of which had previously been characterized during an active frac hit. For each sample, we measured the pH, alkalinity, geochemistry, microbial load, and microbial community composition. Permian Basin produced water is characterized by higher sulfate and lower total dissolved solids (TDS) concentrations compared to other regions. Interestingly, wells impacted by frac hits have a geochemical profile that resembles that of fracture fluid, with both lowered sulfate and lowered TDS concentrations compared to unaffected wells. Due to the year-long recovery window between sample collection periods, we anticipate that all our data will be characterized by the typical high sulfate, low TDS concentrations.

geochemistry↗
DOE OSTI2025

Assessing Dynamic Time Warping Techniques for Discriminating Seismic Sources at Local and Regional Distances

Effective monitoring of seismic explosions and hazard assessment relies heavily on the accurate discrimination of underground seismic sources. This study investigates the application of novel nonlinear alignment techniques, specifically Dynamic Time Warping (DTW), for event-type discrimination at regional and local distances. Building on prior research that used DTW and Elastic Shape Analysis (ESA) in discrimination at regional distances, we evaluate the performance of recently developed variants of DTW, including a method that employs Pearson cross-correlation as a measure of warping distance and a time distortion coefficient that quantifies the type and degree of time distortion between signals. By analyzing observational datasets that include different source types, we assess the performance of these approaches for realistic monitoring scenarios. Specifically, we consider a dataset recorded at regional distances in the Korean Peninsula and a local-distance subset from the Unconstrained Utah Event Bulletin catalog to evaluate DTW-based discrimination across multiple distance scales. Additionally, we introduce the maximum cross-correlations of warped waveforms as a similarity metric for event classification. Through hierarchical cluster analysis and dendrogram interpretation, we present our findings, highlighting the strengths and limitations of these techniques in seismic event classification.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
DOE OSTI2025

A Regional Approach to Offshore Wind Energy Manufacturing in the Central Atlantic: Supply Chain

Growth of the offshore wind industry in the United States is likely to require growth in the nation's manufacturing capacity and additional resources and investments to meet energy project demands. Such growth has the potential to provide positive economic impacts for local communities, workers, and entire states. To realize the benefits of developing a domestic offshore wind supply chain, the states of Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia are working together under the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic Regional Transformative Partnership for Offshore Wind Resources (SMART-POWER) regional collaboration to advance the industry, with Delaware as a supporting state. This report is part of the SMART-POWER Workforce and Supply Chain Analysis study, funded by the National Offshore Wind Research and Development Consortium. The study assesses challenges and opportunities for the four Central Atlantic states to understand key regional strengths and identify supply chain investments that could effectively leverage their resources and provide benefits to both the member states and the offshore wind sector as a whole.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Colorado (Pueblo) Regional DAC Hub TA-1: Feasibility (Phase 0a) (Final Technical Report)

This project supports the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) mission to reduce the environmental and climate impacts of fossil fuels and industrial processes, contributing to the goal of achieving net-zero emissions across the U.S. economy. The primary objective is to conduct a feasibility study for a Regional Direct Air Capture (DAC) Hub in the Southern Colorado region, northeast of Pueblo. The geographic construct of this hub is based on the Denver-Julesburg Basin – a geological area where a significant number of geological storage studies have been conducted (See Figure 1). The project will leverage the work of Project Eos, a CarbonSAFE Phase III study led by the Colorado School of Mines and CarbonAmerica. The DAC Hub aims to capture, store, and/or utilize at least 1,000,000 tonnes of CO 2 from the atmosphere annually. To achieve this, the project team is designing a system with an initial capacity of 100,000 tonnes per year. This feasibility-stage project will formulate the Regional DAC Hub concept and team to conduct the relevant analysis, networking and community stakeholder engagement necessary to advance the project to the design stage.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2026

Photovoltaics and Energy Security in the Greater Arctic Region

The greater Arctic region (>60°N latitude) has been largely overlooked as a promising location for photovoltaic (PV) installations, with lower latitude and warmer regions receiving more attention. While few large PV installations currently exist in the Arctic, a closer examination of the region's geography, climate, PV technology characteristics, and energy needs reveals that PV systems can significantly contribute to energy security in high-latitude areas. This report examines both the opportunities and significant challenges for such a vision.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Exploring Offshore Regional Atlantic Carbon Storage and Infrastructure for Eastern USA (Supporting Communities and Industry for Mid-Atlantic Offshore Carbon Storage Hub)

This final technical report presents a summary of work completed for the project Supporting Communities and Industry for Mid-Atlantic Offshore Carbon Storage Hub (FE0032407), which has been designated EXPLORE-ACS (Exploring Potential Long-Term Offshore Regional Atlantic Carbon Storage). The project is part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) funding opportunity announcement 2799 for Regional Initiatives to Accelerate Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) Deployment. The objective of the DOE 2799 program is to identify and address the challenges facing commercial deployment of carbon capture, transport, and storage in specific regions of the United States.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Southeast Regional CO 2 Utilization and Storage Acceleration Partnership (SECARB-USA): Needs Assessment Framework for Storage Complexes Contributed to EDX (Work Product 2.1.c)

On September 30, 2021, a Needs Assessment Framework for Storage Complexes was completed for the SECARB-USA region by the Southern States Energy Board (SSEB) and The University of Texas at Austin Bureau of Economic Geology (UT-BEG). The Needs Assessment Framework for Storage Complexes documented a region-wide assessment to identify data needed to advance storage projects at sites of relevance to industrial, academic, and government stakeholders. The region-wide assessment addresses the needs of CO2 source, storage, and utilization stakeholders, finance and insurance institutions, state and local government agencies, local stakeholders at prospective storage complexes, environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and others as identified by the Partners. This assessment was tested against various potential storage sites and modified to include site-specific issues, such as surface or pore space rights. The framework was provided to stakeholders for review and then used in other tasks, such as the ML initiative (Subtask 3.4) and storage complex readiness evaluation (Subtask 4.2). In accordance with the SOPO, this assessment satisfied completion of Work Product 2.1.b. The OSTI ID is 3015803, and the DOI link is https://doi.org/10.2172/3015803. On February 28, 2022, SSEB uploaded Work Product 2.1.b to NETL’s Energy Data eXchange (EDX). As such, Work Product 2.1.c is completed as documented below.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2026

Northern Region Coal Prospects

This presentation was delivered to the audience attending the U.S. DOE/USEA Northern Regional Coal Workshop in Bismarck, ND on March 11, 2026. The presentation highlights the opportunity for coal plants in the region to provide power to military installations and data centers. There is also an analysis on how coal-fired power stations maintain regional supply during extreme cold weather events. Finally, a summary slide is presented that highlights a recent business case analysis on diverting captured carbon dioxide for use in enhanced oil recovery in the Bakken.

Bakken↗
DOE OSTI2023

Regional Carbon Emission Reduction Prediction via Retrofits of Commercial Buildings with a Case Study of US School Buildings in Hot Climates

Retrofitting commercial buildings has great potential to reduce carbon emissions as demonstrated by previous studies in some specific cities, but their regional carbon emission reduction potential is still unknown. Thus, we develop a method to predict the long-term regional carbon emission reduction potential by retrofitting commercial buildings. School buildings in hot climate zones in the continental U.S. are selected as an example. The results show that the aggregated carbon emission reduction potential of school buildings in that region reduces from 3.33 to 2.01 megatons from 2024 to 2050 due to the increased penetration of renewable energy.

building energy simulation↗
DOE OSTI2024

Rare earth element enrichment in coal and coal-adjacent strata of the Uinta Region, Utah and Colorado

This study aims to quantify rare earth element enrichment within coal and coal-adjacent strata in the Uinta Region of central Utah and western Colorado. Rare earth elements are a subset of critical minerals as defined by the U.S. Geological Survey. These elements are used for a wide variety of applications, including renewable energy technology in the transition toward carbon-neutral energy. While rare earth element enrichment has been associated with Appalachian coals, there has been a more limited evaluation of western U.S. coals. Here, samples from six active mines, four idle/historical mines, four mine waste piles, and seven stratigraphically complete cores within the Uinta Region were geochemically evaluated using portable X-ray fluorescence ( n = 3,113) and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry ( n = 145) elemental analytical methods. Results suggest that 24%–45% of stratigraphically coal-adjacent carbonaceous shale and siltstone units show rare earth element enrichment (>200 ppm), as do 100% of sampled igneous material. A small subset (5%–8%) of coal samples display rare earth element enrichment, specifically in cases containing volcanic ash. This study proposes two multi-step depositional and diagenetic models to explain the enrichment process, requiring the emplacement and mobilization of rare earth element source material due to hydrothermal and other external influences. Historical geochemical evaluations of Uinta Region coal and coal-adjacent data are sparse, emphasizing the statistical significance of this research. These results support the utilization of active mines and coal processing waste piles for the future of domestic rare earth element extraction, offering economic and environmental solutions to pressing global demands.

Coe, Haley H.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Future marine biofuels in the port of Seattle region

Marine transportation, a vital global sector, emits 3% of global annual greenhouse gas emissions, which are predicted to increase in the future. Marine biofuels derived from biomass or waste sources like wood residue, waste oil and municipal solid waste can be used for decarbonization. However, limited studies have explored if sufficient marine biofuels could be produced and supplied to major regional ports given feedstock, supply chain and technological constraints. We fill this gap by evaluating the feasibility of supplying marine biofuels to the Port of Seattle. The Regional Bio-Economy Model (RBEM) and the Freight and Fuel Transportation Optimization Tool (FTOT) are used to build scenarios for simulating marine biofuel production in the Port region. We harmonized technoeconomic assumptions for RBEM and FTOT, input FTOT feedstock utilization and routing outputs into RBEM, and modelled conversion, feedstock, and policy scenario variations in RBEM. In RBEM, overall biofuel production was constrained primarily by the biofuel cost, and then by feedstock availability. Providing policy incentives and reducing permitting time frames alleviated these constraints and spurred the buildout of a robust industry through industrial learning dynamics in the initial years. With these measures in place, the RBEM results show that 100% of fuel demand at the Port can be supplied by biofuels with policy incentives and suitable technoeconomic conditions, but the addition of transportation cost considerations using FTOT led to 27.8% of demand being able to be met by biofuels at reasonable fuel delivery cost.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Performance Evaluation of Weather@home2 Simulations over West African Region

Weather and climate forecasting, using climate models, have become essential tools and life-savers in the West African region; in spite of the fact that climate models do not fully comply with attributes of forecast qualities—RASAP: reliability, association, skill, accuracy, and precision. The objective of this paper is to quantitatively evaluate, in comparison to CRU and ERA5 datasets, the RASAP compliance-level of the weather@home2 modeling system (w@h2). Findings from some statistical evaluations show that, to a moderately significant extent, w@h2 model provides useful information during the monsoon seasons; skills to capture the Little Dry Season over the Guinea zone; predictive skills for the onset season; ability to reproduce all the annual characteristics of the surface maximum air temperature over the region; as well as skill to detect heat waves that usually ravage West Africa during the boreal spring. The model displays traces of attributes that are needed for seasonal climate predictions and applications. Deficiencies in the quantitative reproducibility point to the facts that the model does provide a reliability akin to that of regional climate models. This paper further furnishes a prospective user with information on whether the model might be “useful or not” for a particular application.

West Africa↗
DOE OSTI2025

Impact of Regional and Seasonal Characteristics on Battery Electric Vehicle Operational Costs in the U.S.

This study investigates the operational cost competitiveness of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in the United States, considering regional climates, energy prices, and driving patterns. By comparing BEVs with plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), and the alternative use of BEVs and conventional vehicles (Convs), the analysis incorporates thermal dynamometer tests, real-world vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and state-specific energy prices. Using detailed simulations, the study evaluates energy consumption across varying temperatures and driving distances. The findings reveal that, while BEVs remain cost-effective for short trips in moderate climates, PHEVs are more economical for long-range trips and cold environments, due to the excessive cost of using external direct current fast chargers (DCFCs) and reduced BEV efficiency at low temperatures. HEVs are identified as the most cost-efficient option in regions like New England, characterized by high residential electricity prices. These insights are critical for shaping vehicle electrification strategies, particularly under diverse regional and seasonal conditions, and for advancing policies on alternative energy and fuels.

Kim, Kyung-Ho (ORCID:0009000450851732)↗
DOE OSTI2023

Deoptimization of FMDV P1 Region Results in Robust Serotype-Independent Viral Attenuation

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), caused by the FMD virus (FMDV), is a highly contagious disease of cloven-hoofed livestock that can have severe economic impacts. Control and prevention strategies, including the development of improved vaccines, are urgently needed to effectively control FMD outbreaks in endemic settings. Previously, we employed two distinct strategies (codon pair bias deoptimization (CPD) and codon bias deoptimization (CD)) to deoptimize various regions of the FMDV serotype A subtype A12 genome, which resulted in the development of an attenuated virus in vitro and in vivo, inducing varying levels of humoral responses. In the current study, we examined the versatility of the system by using CPD applied to the P1 capsid coding region of FMDV serotype A subtype, A24, and another serotype, Asia1. Viruses carrying recoded P1 (A24-P1Deopt or Asia1-P1Deopt) exhibited different degrees of attenuation (i.e., delayed viral growth kinetics and replication) in cultured cells. Studies in vivo using a mouse model of FMD demonstrated that inoculation with the A24-P1Deopt and Asia1-P1Deopt strains elicited a strong humoral immune response capable of offering protection against challenge with homologous wildtype (WT) viruses. However, different results were obtained in pigs. While clear attenuation was detected for both the A24-P1Deopt and Asia1-P1Deopt strains, only a limited induction of adaptive immunity and protection against challenge was detected, depending on the inoculated dose and serotype deoptimized. Our work demonstrates that while CPD of the P1 coding region attenuates viral strains of multiple FMDV serotypes/subtypes, a thorough assessment of virulence and induction of adaptive immunity in the natural host is required in each case in order to finely adjust the degree of deoptimization required for attenuation without affecting the induction of protective adaptive immune responses.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Stream Temperature Predictions for River Basin Management in the Pacific Northwest and Mid-Atlantic Regions Using Machine Learning

Stream temperature (Ts) is an important water quality parameter that affects ecosystem health and human water use for beneficial purposes. Accurate Ts predictions at different spatial and temporal scales can inform water management decisions that account for the effects of changing climate and extreme events. In particular, widespread predictions of Ts in unmonitored stream reaches can enable decision makers to be responsive to changes caused by unforeseen disturbances. In this study, we demonstrate the use of classical machine learning (ML) models, support vector regression and gradient boosted trees (XGBoost), for monthly Ts predictions in 78 pristine and human-impacted catchments of the Mid-Atlantic and Pacific Northwest hydrologic regions spanning different geologies, climate, and land use. The ML models were trained using long-term monitoring data from 1980–2020 for three scenarios: (1) temporal predictions at a single site, (2) temporal predictions for multiple sites within a region, and (3) spatiotemporal predictions in unmonitored basins (PUB). In the first two scenarios, the ML models predicted Ts with median root mean squared errors (RMSE) of 0.69–0.84 °C and 0.92–1.02 °C across different model types for the temporal predictions at single and multiple sites respectively. For the PUB scenario, we used a bootstrap aggregation approach using models trained with different subsets of data, for which an ensemble XGBoost implementation outperformed all other modeling configurations (median RMSE 0.62 °C).The ML models improved median monthly Ts estimates compared to baseline statistical multi-linear regression models by 15–48% depending on the site and scenario. Air temperature was found to be the primary driver of monthly Ts for all sites, with secondary influence of month of the year (seasonality) and solar radiation, while discharge was a significant predictor at only 10 sites. The predictive performance of the ML models was robust to configuration changes in model setup and inputs, but was influenced by the distance to the nearest dam with RMSE <1 °C at sites situated greater than 16 and 44 km from a dam for the temporal single site and regional scenarios, and over 1.4 km from a dam for the PUB scenario. Our results show that classical ML models with solely meteorological inputs can be used for spatial and temporal predictions of monthly Ts in pristine and managed basins with reasonable (<1 °C) accuracy for most locations.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Demonstration of multi-active region p-down green LEDs with high quantum efficiency

Abstract Longer wavelength emitters such as green LEDs display a pronounced efficiency drop at higher current densities, resulting in relatively low wall-plug efficiency (WPE). Multi-active region approach can improve the WPE significantly and tackle the “green gap” challenge. This work reports multi-active region p-down LEDs with high external efficiency operating entirely in the green wavelength. Devices were developed using p-down topology, where the PN junction is oriented such that electric fields from depletion and built-in polarization dipoles are aligned. Ga-polar multi-active region green LEDs with excellent voltage and external quantum efficiency scaling, and significantly higher WPE is demonstrated in this work.

Physics↗
DOE OSTI2020

A Random Forest Approach to Identifying Young Stellar Object Candidates in the Lupus Star-forming Region

The identification and characterization of stellar members within a star-forming region are critical to many aspects of star formation, including formalization of the initial mass function, circumstellar disk evolution, and star formation history. Previous surveys of the Lupus star-forming region have identified members through infrared excess and accretion signatures. We use machine learning to identify new candidate members of Lupus based on surveys from two space-based observatories: ESA’s Gaia and NASA’s Spitzer. Astrometric measurements from Gaia's Data Release 2 and astrometric and photometric data from the Infrared Array Camera on the Spitzer Space Telescope, as well as from other surveys, are compiled into a catalog for the random forest (RF) classifier. The RF classifiers are tested to find the best features, membership list, non-membership identification scheme, imputation method, training set class weighting, and method of dealing with class imbalance within the data. We list 27 candidate members of the Lupus star-forming region for spectroscopic follow-up. Most of the candidates lie in Clouds V and VI, where only one confirmed member of Lupus was previously known. These clouds likely represent a slightly older population of star formation.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

The Dynamics of Interstellar Asteroids and Comets within the Galaxy: An Assessment of Local Candidate Source Regions for 1I/’Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov

The low velocity of interstellar asteroid 1I/’Oumuamua with respect to our galaxy’s local standard of rest implies that it is young. Adopting the young age hypothesis, we assess possible origin systems for this interstellar asteroid and for 2I/Borisov, though the latter’s higher speed means it is unlikely to be young. First, their past trajectories are modeled under gravitational scattering by galactic components (“disk heating”) to assess how far back one can trace them. The stochastic nature of disk heating means that a back integration can only expect to be accurate to within 15 pc and 2 km s{sup −1} at −10 Myr, dropping steeply to 400 pc and 10 km s{sup −1} at −100 Myr, sharply limiting our ability to determine a precise origin. Nevertheless, we show that ’Oumuamua’s origin system likely is currently within 1 kpc of Earth, in the local Orion Arm. Second, we back integrate ’Oumuamua’s trajectory in order to assess source regions, emphasizing young systems and moving groups. Though disk heating allows for only a statistical link to source regions, ’Oumuamua passed through a considerable subset of the Carina and Columba moving groups when those groups were forming. This makes them perhaps the most plausible source region, if ’Oumuamua was ejected during planet formation or via intra-cluster interactions. We find three stars in the Ursa Major group, one brown dwarf, and seven other stars to have plausible encounters with 2I/Borisov, within 2 pc and 30 km s{sup −1}. These encounters’ high relative speeds mean none are likely to be the home of 2I/Borisov.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗