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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) Study for Vernon County, Wisconsin [Slides]

Viroqua is a town in Wisconsin with a population of approximately 4,500. The Vernon County Energy district is a local nonprofit in Viroqua that provides energy education, individualized energy consulting and coaching to residents and businesses. They have a very good relationship with our county government and wish to support their efforts. The Vernon County government is currently working on a comprehensive plan and would like to include planning for electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure in the plan. They are seeking guidance on logical phases for implementation and identifying the best locations for Level 2 and Level 3 EV chargers. NREL provided technical input on strategic planning for electric vehicle (EV) adoption and electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) expansion in Vernon County through the Clean Energy to Communities (C2C) Expert Match technical assistance program. NREL provided strategic planning support for EV expansion planning in Vernon County and siting considerations for locating EVSE.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Energy to Communities (E2C)

The Energy to Communities (E2C) program provides innovative, cross-cutting technical analysis to support community-level efforts to secure abundant, reliable, and affordable energy systems. E2C provides three pathways for assistance: in-depth partnerships, peer-learning cohorts, and expert match. E2C is managed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory with support from Argonne National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2025

AI Benchmark Democratization and Carpentry

Benchmarks are a cornerstone of modern machine learning, enabling reproducibility, comparison, and scientific progress. However, AI benchmarks are increasingly complex, requiring dynamic, AI-focused workflows. Rapid evolution in model architectures, scale, datasets, and deployment contexts makes evaluation a moving target. Large language models often memorize static benchmarks, causing a gap between benchmark results and real-world performance. Beyond traditional static benchmarks, continuous adaptive benchmarking frameworks are needed to align scientific assessment with deployment risks. This calls for skills and education in AI Benchmark Carpentry. From our experience with MLCommons, educational initiatives, and programs like the DOE's Trillion Parameter Consortium, key barriers include high resource demands, limited access to specialized hardware, lack of benchmark design expertise, and uncertainty in relating results to application domains. Current benchmarks often emphasize peak performance on top-tier hardware, offering limited guidance for diverse, real-world scenarios. Benchmarking must become dynamic, incorporating evolving models, updated data, and heterogeneous platforms while maintaining transparency, reproducibility, and interpretability. Democratization requires both technical innovation and systematic education across levels, building sustained expertise in benchmark design and use. Benchmarks should support application-relevant comparisons, enabling informed, context-sensitive decisions. Dynamic, inclusive benchmarking will ensure evaluation keeps pace with AI evolution and supports responsible, reproducible, and accessible AI deployment. Community efforts can provide a foundation for AI Benchmark Carpentry.

von Laszewski, Gregor [Virginia U.]↗
DOE OSTI2026

Intern-Artificial Intelligence Benchmarking

Benchmarks provide a standardized method for evaluating different AI models, enabling reproducibility and comparison between models, and facilitating scientific progress. As AI models continue to develop rapidly, incorporating new datasets, capabilities, and architectures becomes more complicated. Therefore, the current static benchmarks become increasingly irrelevant. The MLCommons team argues that to make AI benchmarks more relevant, it involves making the benchmarks themselves more dynamic, as well as technical innovations that make it easier for scientists and researchers at all levels to use and contribute to the benchmarks. The current progress in technical innovation is a software that allows for a detailed view of a collection of AI benchmarks to be output in various formats that are easily readable and accessible.

Krishnan, Anjay [Fermilab]↗
DOE OSTI2025

Terra-Populus v0.1: A Python Library for LandScan High-Definition Population Analysis and Modeling

The terra-populus library is designed for use by the LandScan HD technical team, offering a streamlined set of tools for generating and updating LandScan HD datasets from foundational building-level data, referred to as 'molecules,' provided by the building-level attribution team. This document serves as the primary technical documentation for terra-populus. Version 0.1 of the library includes the core modeling components necessary for LandScan HD production. It enables the generation of the LandScan HD Baseline dataset as well as corresponding confidence measures for the occupancy rates used. Parameters have been included for incorporating damaged building indicators and changes in population, to faciliate the creation of rapid updates for LandScan HD. Future iterations of terra-populus will introduce tools for creating a confidence index, and quantifying and propagating uncertainty, facilitating the creation of probabilistic LandScan HD outputs. This report provides an overview of the tools available in the library and the corresponding code implementations. One of the key advancements implemented in terra-populus is a redefinition of the atomic modeling unit for LandScan HD. Traditionally, the LandScan HD vector analytical framework has generated population estimates at the building sub-component (molecule) level. However, terra-populus adopts a building-level modeling approach. This shift is an operational decision aimed at aligning LandScan HD outputs with confidence measures, which are computed and validated at the building level (confidence measures are not included in this version of terra-populus, aside from those associated with the occupancy rates). Additional advancements to the LandScan HD modeling, as implemented by terra-populus, include a minimum population value parameter and an auto assignment of building floor counts. The population minimum value was implemented to prevent buildings and subsequent LandScan HD pixels that contained small values that may not rasterize in production. An 'auto' value has been included as a method for dealing with buildings lacking floor count information, where it is the average floor count of all other buildings with a residential building use type tag. The logic behind this is to remain consistent with the current logic employed for dealing with building use type null instances, where a null use type is defaulted to residential since it is the most common building type. The auto logic is intended to apply the most common building floor count of the most common type of buildings. The tools provided in terra-populus represent a significant step forward in improving the efficiency, reproducibility, and transparency of the LandScan HD modeling process. As the library evolves, it will continue to serve as a foundational resource for high-resolution population modeling.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Presentation on the INL Remote-Handled Low-Level Waste Disposal Facility FY-2024 Annual Summary Report

The abstract below is from the report INL/RPT-24-82600. The powerpoint presentation contains information taken from the report. This Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 annual summary report (ASR) documents the continued adequacy of the performance assessment (PA), the composite analysis (CA), and associated operating disposal authorization statement (ODAS) technical basis documents for the Remote Handled Low Level Waste (RHLLW) Disposal Facility at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Annual review of the adequacy of the PA and CA for RHLLW Disposal Facility ensures that conclusions of the analyses remain valid in accordance with requirements of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Order 435.1, “Radioactive Waste Management.” In FY 2024, no significant operational changes or other activities occurred that would cause deviation from the assumptions in the PA and CA pertaining to disposal geometry, verification of waste characteristics, tracking disposal inventories against total limits, facility closure design, or institutional controls. Nineteen waste canister shipments were received at the RHLLW Disposal Facility, and all nineteen waste canisters were emplaced in disposal vaults.

12 - MGMT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Annual Summary Report for the Remote-Handled Low-Level Waste Disposal Facility—FY 2024

This Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 annual summary report (ASR) documents the continued adequacy of the performance assessment (PA), the composite analysis (CA), and associated operating disposal- authorization statement (ODAS) technical-basis documents for the Remote-Handled (RH) Low-Level Waste (LLW) Disposal Facility at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Annual review of the adequacy of the PA and CA for the Remote-Handled Low-Level Waste (RHLLW) Disposal Facility ensures that conclusions of the analyses remain valid in accordance with requirements of Department of Energy (DOE) Order 435.1, “Radioactive Waste Management.” In FY 2024, no significant operational changes or other activities occurred that would cause deviation from the assumptions in the PA and CA pertaining to disposal geometry, verification of waste characteristics, tracking disposal inventories against total limits, facility-closure design, or institutional controls. Nineteen waste canister shipments were received at the RHLLW Disposal Facility, and all nineteen waste canisters were emplaced in disposal vaults.

12 - MGMT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTE↗
DOE OSTI2026

Performance contracting centers of expertise: a framework for federal implementation

This report examines the establishment and operation of Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) Centers of Expertise (COEs) within the federal government. EPCs, including Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPCs) and Utility Energy Service Contracts (UESCs), are critical mechanisms for advancing energy efficiency, resilience, and infrastructure modernization without the need for significant upfront appropriations. However, EPCs require specialized knowledge in project development, contracting, financing, legal parameters and technical project oversight. Currently federal agencies have varying levels of expertise and institutionalized policy to effectively and consistently use congressionally authorized EPCs which have decades of proven and impactful use. To address these challenges, several federal agencies have created COEs to centralize expertise, standardize practices, and streamline implementation. This report reviews statutory and policy drivers, highlights the benefits and challenges and presents case studies from the General Services Administration (GSA), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center Huntsville (HNC). Recommendations are also provided for agencies considering the establishment of EPC COEs, which will bring much needed structure, consistency and lead to implementation of these energy and infrastructure building projects to save costs for U.S. taxpayers.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2026

Asynchronous Grid Connections Providing Fast-Frequency Response: System Integration Study

This paper presents an integration study for the recent power electronic-based fast-frequency response technology, "asynchronous grid connection" which operates as an aggregator for behind-the-meter resources and distributed generators. Both technical feasibility and techno-economic viability studies are presented. The fast-frequency response characteristics, validated against Power Hardware-in-the-Loop experiments, are integrated into an IEEE 9- bus system in DigSilent PowerFactory for system-level dynamic analysis. It demonstrates that droop-based control enhancements to local distributed generators allow their aggregation to provide grid-supporting functionalities and participate in the ancillary service markets. To this end, a long-term simulation embedding the system within the ancillary service market framework of PJM has been performed. The fast-frequency response regulation is subsequently used to calculate the potential revenue and project the results on a 15-year investment horizon. Finally, the techno-economic analysis provides recommendations for enhancements to access the full potential of distributed generators on a technical and regulatory level.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Synergies and trade-offs between storage, transmission, and sector coupling in high renewable energy systems

Energy storage, transmission, and sector coupling are some prominent flexibility solutions to support variable renewable energy (VRE) integration. However, investment cost uncertainties and public acceptance could hamper the deployment of these flexibility solutions. This raises questions about the development and cost-effectiveness of future energy systems, especially on how the dependence on local and cross-border solutions of flexibility would evolve if the uptake of these solutions is restricted. In this context, this paper identifies the synergies among flexibility options under restrictions on transmission expansion or increased costs of energy storage. It contributes to determining whether investments in energy storage and/or transmission expansion offer the least-cost transition and investigates the impact of sector coupling on these solutions. A long-term energy system planning and optimisation model towards 2050 is developed using the open-source energy system optimisation tool Balmorel, and a case study of the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea and the North Sea is established. Five cases with restrictions imposed on transmission expansion and higher energy storage technology costs are analysed at different levels of sector coupling. The results highlight the importance of transmission expansion at all levels of sector coupling. As the level of sector coupling increases, uncertainties around the cost of energy storage drive the least-cost pathways. Optimal investment solutions are found to have a mix of transmission and energy storage in capacity expansion at all levels of sector coupling.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Techno-economic design of a linear Fresnel reflector for industrial process heat

A techno-economic model of a Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST) system using a Linear Fresnel Reflector (LFR) has been developed. LFRs can deliver process heat suitable for a range of industries, including food and beverage production. This model uses an adaptive algorithm to calculate the optimal secondary reflector shape given the geometry and optical properties of the rest of the system. A ray-tracing program is used to calculate optical efficiency over a wide range of longitudinal and transversal incidence angles and subsequently evaluate the annual efficiency at a given geographical location. A specific LFR design developed by Hyperlight Energy was modelled, and this industrial partner provided a detailed cost breakdown which was used as the basis of an economic model. Combining the technical and economic data facilitates the calculation of the Levelized Cost of Heat (LCOH). The influence of a number of parameters on the annual efficiency and LCOH is explored; notable parameters include the absorber height, the number, width, and spacing of the primary mirrors, the aim point, and the secondary reflector shape and width. By identifying an optimal combination of these parameters, we reduce the LCOH of the industry partner’s system design by 9.2%, from 14.4 $\$/MWh_{th}$ to 13.0 $\$/MWh_{th}$. In comparison, the LCOH of a natural gas boiler delivering the same annual quantity of heat is 29 $\$/MWh_{th}$, which indicates that LFRs can be a competitive heat source for industrial processes.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Complete Degradation of Be 2 C at Conditions Expected in Molten Salt Environments

This technical report is in submission of completion of the Level 3 milestone number M3AT24OR1101032, titled “Complete Degradation of Be 2 C at conditions expected in molten salt environments,” for the AT-24OR110103 “Beryllium Carbide as moderator for MSRs—ORNL” WBS number 2.04.11.01 within the larger Advanced Reactor Technologies program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This effort is an initial study of the viability of Be 2 C as a future neutron moderator for molten salt reactors and other high-temperature reactors. The research was awarded funding in September 2022, and this Level 2 milestone presents the work that completed by the end of July 2023. This work is a collaboration between Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Michigan. This report discusses the status of this effort and planned work before the final reporting.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Degradation of Be 2 C at conditions expected in molten salt environments

This technical report is in submission of completion of the Level 4 milestone number M4AT-25OR1101021, titled “Degradation of Be 2 C at conditions expected in molten salt environments”, for the AT-25OR110102 “Beryllium Carbide as moderator for MSRs—ORNL” WBS number 2.04.11.01 within the larger Advanced Reactor Technologies program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This effort is an initial study of the viability of Be 2 C as a future neutron moderator for molten salt reactors and other high-temperature reactors. The research was awarded funding in September 2022, and this Level 4 milestone presents the work that completed by the end of July 2025. This work is a collaboration between Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Michigan.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Democratizing uncertainty quantification

Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) is vital to safety-critical model-based analyses, but the widespread adoption of sophisticated UQ methods is limited by technical complexity. In this paper, we introduce UM-Bridge (the UQ and Modeling Bridge), a high-level abstraction and software protocol that facilitates universal interoperability of UQ software with simulation codes. It breaks down the technical complexity of advanced UQ applications and enables separation of concerns between experts. UM-Bridge democratizes UQ by allowing effective interdisciplinary collaboration, accelerating the development of advanced UQ methods, and making it easy to perform UQ analyses from prototype to High Performance Computing (HPC) scale. In addition, we present a library of ready-to-run UQ benchmark problems, all easily accessible through UM-Bridge. These benchmarks support UQ methodology research, enabling reproducible performance comparisons. We demonstrate UM-Bridge with several scientific applications, harnessing HPC resources even using UQ codes not designed with HPC support.

Benchmarks↗
DOE OSTI2026

Multilevel Analysis of Electrochemically Mediated Methanolysis of Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET)

Here, this study presents a multilevel analysis of electrochemically mediated methanolysis as a promising method for reducing the environmental impacts of plastic recycling, with a focus on depolymerizing poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) into dimethyl terephthalate (DMT). Instead of conventional chemical PET depolymerization, this electrochemical approach provides distinct technical advantages in process control and efficiency. At the process level, key operational parameters, including applied current and reaction time, were systematically investigated to optimize PET conversion and DMT selectivity. The electrochemical approach was directly compared to equivalent chemical methanolysis systems and demonstrated superior performance in terms of PET conversion and DMT selectivity. Building on these findings, a technoeconomic assessment identified the current economic bottlenecks and revealed that improvements in process design, DMT selectivity, PET conversion, and energy efficiency are key to reducing the overall process cost and enabling future implementation. While further optimization is required for market competitiveness, these results establish a performance baseline for the electrochemically mediated PET methanolysis process and underscore the importance of combining process-level innovation with systems-level evaluation in the development of sustainable recycling technologies.

chemical recycling↗
DOE OSTI2024

Anticipating Technical Expertise and Capability Evolution in Research Communities Using Dynamic Graph Transformers

The ability to anticipate global technical expertise and capability evolution trends is essential for national and global security, especially in safety-critical domains such as nuclear nonproliferation (NN) and rapidly emerging fields like artificial intelligence (AI). Here, in this work, we extend traditional statistical relational learning approaches (e.g., link prediction in collaboration networks) and formulate a problem of anticipating technical expertise and capability evolution using dynamic heterogeneous graph representations. We develop novel capabilities to forecast collaboration patterns, authorship behavior, and technical capability evolution at different granularities (e.g., scientist and institution levels) in two distinct research fields. We implement a dynamic graph transformer (DGT) neural architecture, which pushes the state-of-the-art graph neural network models by: 1) forecasting heterogeneous (rather than homogeneous) nodes and edges; and 2) relying on both discrete- and continuous-time inputs. We demonstrate that our DGT models predict collaboration, partnership, and expertise patterns with 0.26, 0.73, and 0.53 mean reciprocal rank values for AI and 0.48, 0.93, and 0.22 for NN domains. DGT model performance exceeds the best-performing static graph baseline models by 30%–80% across AI and NN domains. Our findings demonstrate that DGT models boost inductive task performance when previously unseen nodes appear in the test data for the domains with emerging collaboration patterns (e.g., AI). Specifically, models accurately predict which established scientists will collaborate with early career scientists and vice versa in the AI domain.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2024

Consumer Benefits of Clean Energy: The resilience value of residential solar + storage systems in the continental U.S.

Meeting national and state decarbonization goals requires a transition to clean energy technologies. Energy efficiency, demand flexibility, renewable energy and storage can reduce consumers’ electricity bills, lower total electricity system costs, and provide health and resilience benefits. Berkeley Lab developed a series of briefs that explore these consumer benefits of a clean energy transition. Clean energy resources that are located behind the meter have the potential to benefit the hosting customers by providing affordability, environmental, and reliability and resilience value. Solar plus storage systems (PVESS) are clean energy resources that can supply backup power without requiring fuel resupply or increasing local emissions. This report examines the regional value of PVESS for resilience by calculating a benefit-cost ratio (BCR) that considers the annual resiliency benefits of PVESS and the annualized cost of the investment. In addition, we estimate the expected technical mitigation potential of PVESS systems at the county-level to these expected events, and characterize the customer interruption costs by determining the value of lost load at the state level.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Demonstration of Electroreduction Technology to Convert GNF Uranium Oxide Powder to Metal

Global Nuclear Fuel – Americas LLC (GNF) has partnered with Argonne National Laboratory to demonstrate electroreduction of uranium oxides produced by deconversion of UF 6 to uranium metal through the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) program under the U.S. Department of Energy to accelerate the domestic production of metallic advanced reactor fuels. Electroreduction of uranium oxide was first demonstrated and patented by Argonne in the early 2000s as a technology to convert used oxide nuclear fuel from light water reactors to metal for further fuel reprocessing. More recently, electroreduction has been proposed as a front-end technology for metallization of uranium oxides produced by deconversion of UF 6 and for scrap recovery of oxide materials. During the electroreduction process, UO 2 powder is contained in a stainless-steel mesh basket with a cathode lead located in the center of the UO 2 bed. The basket is immersed in lithium chloride molten salt electrolyte containing 1 wt% lithium oxide along with a platinum anode and a nickel/nickel oxide (Ni/NiO) reference electrode. Current is applied to the cell between the cathode and anode to reduce the UO 2 to metallic uranium via a solid-state reduction reaction. Oxide ions released from the UO 2 during reduction are transported through the salt to the anode where oxygen gas is evolved. Once reduction is complete, the basket containing the metallicized uranium is removed from the salt and can be processed to remove the salt and consolidate the uranium into an ingot for use in metallic fuel fabrication. This project was performed to provide evidence of the electroreduction technology readiness level for metallization of UO 2 powder, identify and retire technical risks for industrialization of electroreduction, and accelerate the path to commercialization for metallic fast reactor fuel production. To that end, five electroreduction tests were performed with UO 2 provided by GNF and the resulting product was analyzed for the extent of conversion to metal and for impurity contents of the metal product to verify that electroreduction does not introduce impurities that would prevent use of the product in metallic fuel fabrication.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗