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Policy and Technical Issues Facing a Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty. Chapter 14

We report the largest obstacle to creating nuclear weapons, starting with the ones that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has been to make sufficient quantities of fissile materials – highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium – to sustain an explosive fission chain reaction.1 Recognition of this fact has, for more than fifty years, underpinned both the support for and the opposition to adoption of an international treaty banning at a minimum the production of more fissile materials for nuclear weapons, commonly referred to as a fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT).

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗

Pan-spectral observing system simulation experiments of shortwave reflectance and long-wave radiance for climate model evaluation

Abstract. Top-of-atmosphere (TOA) spectrally resolved shortwave reflectances and long-wave radiances describe the response of the Earth's surface and atmosphere to feedback processes and human-induced forcings. In order to evaluate proposed long-duration spectral measurements, we have projected 21st Century changes from the Community Climate System Model (CCSM3.0) conducted for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) A2 Emissions Scenario onto shortwave reflectance spectra from 300 to 2500 nm and long-wave radiance spectra from 2000 to 200 cm –1 at 8 nm and 1 cm –1 resolution, respectively. The radiative transfer calculations have been rigorously validated against published standards and produce complementary signals describing the climate system forcings and feedbacks. Additional demonstration experiments were performed with the Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate (MIROC5) and Hadley Centre Global Environment Model version 2 Earth System (HadGEM2-ES) models for the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) scenario. The calculations contain readily distinguishable signatures of low clouds, snow/ice, aerosols, temperature gradients, and water vapour distributions. The goal of this effort is to understand both how climate change alters reflected solar and emitted infrared spectra of the Earth and determine whether spectral measurements enhance our detection and attribution of climate change. This effort also presents a path forward to understand the characteristics of hyperspectral observational records needed to confront models and inline instrument simulation. Such simulation will enable a diverse set of comparisons between model results from coupled model intercomparisons and existing and proposed satellite instrument measurement systems.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Commercialization of Reflected Target Non-Intrusive Assessment (ReTNA) Tool, for Indoor Optical Analysis of Heliostats

Under HelioCon, NLR began developing a new optical measurement system, called Reflected Target Non-Intrusive Assessment (ReTNA). ReTNA has shown promise towards addressing metrology gaps for heliostat used in concentrated solar thermal (CST) plant. This project is focused on advancing this measurement system from the laboratory into industry, where it can provide valuable information for heliostat developers during research, development, and qualification of a heliostat design, and be used for quality assurance during heliostat manufacture. Over the course of this project, ReTNA was deployed at several commercial heliostat facilities. The system developed and deployed with the primary project partner, Solar Dynamics LLC, is described in detail. The report discusses each project Milestone, the ending status, the achieved value, and how these Milestones improve and qualify the ReTNA measurement tool. Finally, the final report covers the market advancements, path forward, commercial successes, and lessons learned. Final Technical report for TCF Base Technology-Specific project TCF-23-20118, Commercialization of Reflected Target Non-Intrusive Assessment (ReTNA) tool, for indoor optical analysis of Heliostats.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Guideline for Characterizing and Evaluating a Candidate Project Site for Solar Thermal Applications

This document presents a structured procedure for characterizing and evaluating candidate project sites for concentrating solar power (CSP) and solar heat for industrial processes (SHIP) applications. The objective is to provide project developers, researchers, and other stakeholders with a consistent, technology-agnostic framework for early-stage site assessment, enabling informed decision-making prior to significant investment in project development. Site selection is a critical factor in project success or failure for both CSP and SHIP projects. Key factors such as solar resource availability, land characteristics, environmental and regulatory constraints, infrastructure availability, and community context are determined by the choice of project site and can materially impact project performance, cost, schedule, and overall viability. This procedure is designed to systematically evaluate these factors, identify potential fatal flaws, and prioritize the most favorable candidate sites for further development. The process begins with rapid screening-level evaluation, using publicly available data to assess solar resource, land availability and suitability, zoning and land-use compatibility, and exclusion zones such as protected lands or sensitive habitats. Sites that meet the minimum screening criteria advance to a more detailed characterization. Subsequent sections of this report provide guidance for a next-level assessment of the most important technical and environmental parameters, including: 1) Solar resource quality, variability, and uncertainty using multiyear datasets and, where appropriate, on-site measurement campaigns; 2) Meteorological conditions such as wind, temperature, extreme weather events, and soiling impacts; 3) Land characteristics including slope, shading, and geotechnical conditions; and 4) Environmental and regulatory considerations, including permitting processes, endangered species, cultural resources, and visual impacts. The procedure also addresses infrastructure and integration considerations, including: 1) Grid interconnection requirements for CSP power generation projects; 2) Electrical and operational integration for SHIP facilities; 3) Water availability, quality, and permitting constraints, which are particularly critical for CSP in arid regions; and 4) Site access, construction logistics, and availability of workforce and supporting services. Recognizing the importance of social and economic context, the procedure includes evaluation of community engagement factors, such as stakeholder sentiment, proximity to sensitive visual receptors, workforce development opportunities, and local economic incentives. The outputs of these assessments are synthesized in a cost and risk evaluation, translating site characteristics into expected impacts on capital cost, operating cost, schedule, and technical risk. This is complemented by screening-level performance modeling, including 8760 simulations and long-term projections, to quantify expected energy or thermal output, assess variability thereof, and support comparison between candidate sites. Finally, the procedure provides high-level guidance on a structured go/no-go decision framework, categorizing sites based on identified risks and constraints, and outlining a clear path forward to feasibility studies and front-end engineering design for viable projects. By standardizing the site characterization process across both CSP and SHIP applications, this guideline aims to: 1) Improve consistency and transparency in early-stage project evaluation; 2) Reduce development risk and avoid investment in nonviable project sites; 3) Support collaboration between developers, researchers, and public agencies; and 4) Accelerate successful deployment of concentrating solar technologies for both power generation and industrial process heat.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Stellarator Research Opportunities: A Report of the National Stellarator Coordinating Committee

This document is the product of a stellarator community workshop, organized by the National Stellarator Coordinating Committee and referred to as Stellcon, that was held in Cambridge, Massachusetts in February 2016, hosted by MIT. The workshop was widely advertised, and was attended by 40 scientists from 12 different institutions including national labs, universities and private industry, as well as a representative from the Department of Energy. The final section of this document describes areas of community wide consensus that were developed as a result of the discussions held at that workshop. Areas where further study would be helpful to generate a consensus path forward for the US stellarator program are also discussed. The program outlined in this document is directly responsive to many of the strategic priorities of FES as articulated in ‘‘Fusion Energy Sciences: A Ten-Year Perspective (2015–2025)’’ [1]. The natural disruption immunity of the stellarator directly addresses ‘‘Elimination of transient events that can be deleterious to toroidal fusion plasma confinement devices’’ an area of critical importance for the US fusion energy sciences enterprise over the next decade. Another critical area of research ‘‘Strengthening our partnerships with international research facilities,’’ is being significantly advanced on the W7-X stellarator in Germany and serves as a test-bed for development of successful international collaboration on ITER. This report also outlines how materials science as it relates to plasma and fusion sciences, another critical research area, can be carried out effectively in a stellarator. Additionally, significant advances along two of the Research Directions outlined in the report; ‘‘Burning Plasma Science: Foundations—Next-generation research capabilities’’, and ‘‘Burning Plasma Science: Long pulse—Sustainment of Long-Pulse Plasma Equilibria’’ are proposed.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)--Surface Biogeochemical Research (SBR) 6th Annual PI Meeting: Abstracts

On behalf of the Subsurface Biogeochemical Research (SBR) program managers in the Climate and Environmental Sciences Division (CESD), Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER), welcome to the 2011 SBR Principal Investigators meeting. Thank you in advance for your attendance and your presentations at this year's meeting. As the events in Japan continue to unfold, we are all reminded that the research we perform on radionuclide behavior in the environment has implications beyond legacy waste cleanup and in fact has its place in the discussion on the expanded use of nuclear power. As in the past, there are three broad objectives to the Principal Investigators meeting: (1) to provide opportunities to share research results and promote interactions among the SBR scientists and other invited guests; (2) to evaluate the progress of each project within the program; and (3) to showcase the scientific expertise and research progress over the past year to senior managers within the DOE Office of Science, the technology offices within DOE, and other invited attendees from other Federal Agencies. This past year has seen a few significant changes within BER and within the SBR program. In November, our Associate Director for BER, Anna Palmisano, retired from Federal service. Just this month, Dr. Sharlene Weatherwax (Division Director for Biological Systems Sciences) has been named as the new Associate Director for BER. In August, BER welcomed Dr. Gary Geernaert as the new Division Director for CESD. Gary joins the division from Los Alamos National Laboratory with a background in atmospheric science. Within the SBR program, a new Strategic Plan was completed last June (currently posted on the SBR and the Office of Science website). The new strategic plan is intended to foster integration within the Environmental Systems Science portion of the BER budget that includes both SBR and Terrestrial Ecosystem Sciences (TES). Both these programs share a goal of advancing a predictive understanding of environmental processes and utilizing iterative, multidisciplinary approaches to understand complex environmental systems of relevance to DOE. CESD in general is undergoing continued discussions on integration among its programs in an effort to develop a new strategic plan for the division. This effort also includes identifying opportunities for integration with BER's Biological Systems Science Division (BSSD). The program this year includes three poster presentation sessions, six plenary sessions, and three breakout sessions. The plenary session on Tuesday morning will feature introductory presentations by BER program staff and three keynote addresses from Dr. Ken Bencala (USGS), Dr. Michael (Mick) Follows (MIT) and Dr. Sue Brantley (PSU) that will lead into three breakout sessions Tuesday afternoon. The breakout sessions are intended to highlight key developments in SBR research and foster a dialog among session participants on scientific paths forward in each particular area. The SBR program managers are asking for input from the SBR community at these sessions to help guide future efforts and/or identify areas of integration within BER programs. On Wednesday, plenary sessions will continue in the morning, followed by an early afternoon poster session. After an extended break for lunch, plenary sessions will continue in the afternoon, followed by an evening poster session. Thursday's plenary session will focus on selected highlights of research efforts at the IFRC sites and on a new potential TES field effort in the Arctic. This new field site is an obvious point of integration between the SBR and TES programs.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization - KVM-based infrastructure services at BNL

Over the past 18 months, BNL has moved a large percentage of its Linux-based servers and services into a Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) environment. This presentation will address our approach to virtualization, critical decision points, and a discussion of our implementation. Specific topics will include an overview of hardware and software requirements, networking, and storage; discussion of the decision of Red Hat solution over competing products (VMWare, Xen, etc); details on some of the features of RHEV - both current and on their roadmap; Review of performance and reliability gains since deployment completion; path forward for RHEV at BNL and caveats and potential problems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Managing Inventories of Heavy Actinides

The Department of Energy (DOE) has stored a limited inventory of heavy actinides contained in irradiated targets, some partially processed, at the Savannah River Site (SRS) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The 'heavy actinides' of interest include plutonium, americium, and curium isotopes; specifically 242Pu and 244Pu, 243Am, and 244/246/248Cm. No alternate supplies of these heavy actinides and no other capabilities for producing them are currently available. Some of these heavy actinide materials are important for use as feedstock for producing heavy isotopes and elements needed for research and commercial application. The rare isotope 244Pu is valuable for research, environmental safeguards, and nuclear forensics. Because the production of these heavy actinides was made possible only by the enormous investment of time and money associated with defense production efforts, the remaining inventories of these rare nuclear materials are an important part of the legacy of the Nuclear Weapons Program. Significant unique heavy actinide inventories reside in irradiated Mark-18A and Mark-42 targets at SRS and ORNL, with no plans to separate and store the isotopes for future use. Although the costs of preserving these heavy actinide materials would be considerable, for all practical purposes they are irreplaceable. The effort required to reproduce these heavy actinides today would likely cost billions of dollars and encompass a series of irradiation and chemical separation cycles for at least 50 years; thus, reproduction is virtually impossible. DOE has a limited window of opportunity to recover and preserve these heavy actinides before they are disposed of as waste. A path forward is presented to recover and manage these irreplaceable National Asset materials for future use in research, nuclear forensics, and other potential applications.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Assessing Risk and Driving Risk Mitigation for First-of-a-Kind Advanced Reactors

Planning and decision making amidst programmatic and technological risks represent significant challenges for projects. This presentation addresses the four step risk-assessment process needed to determine clear path forward to mature needed technology and design, license, and construct advanced nuclear power plants, which have never been built before, including Small Modular Reactors. This four step process has been carefully applied to the Next Generation Nuclear Plant. STEP 1 - Risk Identification Risks are identified, collected, and categorized as technical risks, programmatic risks, and project risks, each of which result in cost and schedule impacts if realized. These include risks arising from the use of technologies not previously demonstrated in a relevant application. These risks include normal and accident scenarios which the SMR could experience including events that cause the disablement of engineered safety features (typically documented in Phenomena Identification Ranking Tables (PIRT) as produced with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) and design needs which must be addressed to further detail the design. Product - Project Risk Register contained in a database with sorting, presentation, rollup, risk work off functionality similar to the NGNP Risk Management System . STEP 2 - Risk Quantification The risks contained in the risk register are then scored for probability of occurrence and severity of consequence, if realized. Here the scoring methodology is established and the basis for the scoring is well documented. Product - Quantified project risk register with documented basis for scoring. STEP 3 - Risk Handling Strategy Risks are mitigated by applying a systematic approach to maturing the technology through Research and Development, modeling, test, and design. A Technology Readiness Assessment is performed to determine baseline Technology Readiness Levels (TRL). Tasks needed to mature the technology are developed and documented in a roadmap. Product - Risk Handling Strategy. STEP 4 - Residual Risk Work off The risk handling strategy is entered into the Project Risk Allocation Tool (PRAT) to analyze each task for its ability to reduce risk. The result is risk-informed task prioritization. The risk handling strategy is captured in the Risk Management System, a relational database that provides conventional database utility, including data maintenance, archiving, configuration control, and query ability. The tool's Hierarchy Tree allows visualization and analyses of complex relationships between risks, risk mitigation tasks, design needs, and PIRTs. Product - Project Risk Allocation Tool and Risk Management System which depict project plan to reduce risk and current progress in doing so.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Modeling the near-term risk of climate uncertainty : interdependencies among the U.S. states.

Decisions made to address climate change must start with an understanding of the risk of an uncertain future to human systems, which in turn means understanding both the consequence as well as the probability of a climate induced impact occurring. In other words, addressing climate change is an exercise in risk-informed policy making, which implies that there is no single correct answer or even a way to be certain about a single answer; the uncertainty in future climate conditions will always be present and must be taken as a working-condition for decision making. In order to better understand the implications of uncertainty on risk and to provide a near-term rationale for policy interventions, this study estimates the impacts from responses to climate change on U.S. state- and national-level economic activity by employing a risk-assessment methodology for evaluating uncertain future climatic conditions. Using the results from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) as a proxy for climate uncertainty, changes in hydrology over the next 40 years were mapped and then modeled to determine the physical consequences on economic activity and to perform a detailed 70-industry analysis of the economic impacts among the interacting lower-48 states. The analysis determines industry-level effects, employment impacts at the state level, interstate population migration, consequences to personal income, and ramifications for the U.S. trade balance. The conclusions show that the average risk of damage to the U.S. economy from climate change is on the order of $1 trillion over the next 40 years, with losses in employment equivalent to nearly 7 million full-time jobs. Further analysis shows that an increase in uncertainty raises this risk. This paper will present the methodology behind the approach, a summary of the underlying models, as well as the path forward for improving the approach.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

The New MCNP6 Depletion Capability

The first MCNP based inline Monte Carlo depletion capability was officially released from the Radiation Safety Information and Computational Center as MCNPX 2.6.0. Both the MCNP5 and MCNPX codes have historically provided a successful combinatorial geometry based, continuous energy, Monte Carlo radiation transport solution for advanced reactor modeling and simulation. However, due to separate development pathways, useful simulation capabilities were dispersed between both codes and not unified in a single technology. MCNP6, the next evolution in the MCNP suite of codes, now combines the capability of both simulation tools, as well as providing new advanced technology, in a single radiation transport code. We describe here the new capabilities of the MCNP6 depletion code dating from the official RSICC release MCNPX 2.6.0, reported previously, to the now current state of MCNP6. NEA/OECD benchmark results are also reported. The MCNP6 depletion capability enhancements beyond MCNPX 2.6.0 reported here include: (1) new performance enhancing parallel architecture that implements both shared and distributed memory constructs; (2) enhanced memory management that maximizes calculation fidelity; and (3) improved burnup physics for better nuclide prediction. MCNP6 depletion enables complete, relatively easy-to-use depletion calculations in a single Monte Carlo code. The enhancements described here help provide a powerful capability as well as dictate a path forward for future development to improve the usefulness of the technology.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Ceramic-based fuel technologies: scope and status

This presentation is an overview of the approach, status and path forward for ongoing tasks under the ceramic fuel development part of the program. Experimental work is focused on fundamental studies employing depleted urania-based compositions and mixed oxide (MOX) and minor actinide-bearing MOX. Contributions are included from researchers at LANL, ORNL and BNL. The audience for this presentation consists of the various participants in the FCRD program. Those participants include representatives from: DOE-NE, other national laboratories, DOE funded university researchers, DOE funded industry teams, FCRD funded advisors, and occasionally NRC.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Semantic Features for Classifying Referring Search Terms

When an internet user clicks on a result in a search engine, a request is submitted to the destination web server that includes a referrer field containing the search terms given by the user. Using this information, website owners can analyze the search terms leading to their websites to better understand their visitors needs. This work explores some of the features that can be used for classification-based analysis of such referring search terms. We present initial results for the example task of classifying HTTP requests countries of origin. A system that can accurately predict the country of origin from query text may be a valuable complement to IP lookup methods which are susceptible to the obfuscation of dereferrers or proxies. We suggest that the addition of semantic features improves classifier performance in this example application. We begin by looking at related work and presenting our approach. After describing initial experiments and results, we discuss paths forward for this work.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Industrial Wireless Sensors: A User's Perspective on the Impact of Standards on Wide-spread Deployment

The role of wireless sensing technologies in industrial instrumentation will undoubtedly become more important in the years ahead. . Deployment of such instrumentation in an industrial setting with its heightened security and robustness criteria hinges on user acceptance of verified performance as well as meeting cost requirements. Today, industrial users face many choices when specifying a wireless sensor network, including radio performance, battery life, interoperability, security, and standards compliance. The potential market for industrial wireless sensors is literally millions of wireless instruments and it is imperative that accurate information for applying the technology to real-world applications be available to the end-user so that they can make informed deployment decisions. The majority of industrial wireless automation designs now being deployed or being considered for deployment are based on three different standards . The HART Communications Foundation s WirelessHART (IEC 62591), the International Society of Automation s ISA100.11a, and the offering from the Industrial Wireless Alliance of China known as WIA-PA (IEC 62601). Aside from these industrial automation standards, users must also be cognizant of the underlying wireless network standards IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.15.4, and IEEE 802.15.3a and their interactions with the three principal industrial automation protocols mentioned previously. The crucial questions being asked by end users revolve around sensor network performance, interoperability, reliability, and security. This paper will discuss potential wireless sensor applications in power plants, barriers to the acceptance of wireless technology, concerns related to standards, and provide an end user prospective on the issues affecting wide-spread deployment of wireless sensors. Finally, the authors conclude with a discussion of a recommended path forward including how standards organizations can better facilitate end user decision making and how end users can locate and use objective information for decision making.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Requirements for Computer Based-Procedures for Nuclear Power Plant Field Operators Results from a Qualitative Study

Although computer-based procedures (CBPs) have been investigated as a way to enhance operator performance on procedural tasks in the nuclear industry for almost thirty years, they are not currently widely deployed at United States utilities. One of the barriers to the wide scale deployment of CBPs is the lack of operational experience with CBPs that could serve as a sound basis for justifying the use of CBPs for nuclear utilities. Utilities are hesitant to adopt CBPs because of concern over potential costs of implementation, and concern over regulatory approval. Regulators require a sound technical basis for the use of any procedure at the utilities; without operating experience to support the use CBPs, it is difficult to establish such a technical basis. In an effort to begin the process of developing a technical basis for CBPs, researchers at Idaho National Laboratory are partnering with industry to explore CBPs with the objective of defining requirements for CBPs and developing an industry-wide vision and path forward for the use of CBPs. This paper describes the results from a qualitative study aimed at defining requirements for CBPs to be used by field operators and maintenance technicians.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Los Alamos National Laboratory: science and technology update

The update will focus on issues that occurred during the first quarter of FY 2011. These include the Senate Confirmation of the New Start Treaty, the pay freeze for the next two years, impact of the Continuing Resolution for FY 2011 , and the planned retirement of the Laboratory Director. The Laboratory plans to reinvest the 'savings' from the pay freeze in LDRD, sustainability, and infrastructure. The large holdbacks in funds during the Continuing Resolution are causing stop work on many projects and uncertainty in the path forward for MaRIE.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

DOE Hanford Network Upgrades and Disaster Recovery Exercise Support the Cleanup Mission Now and into the Future

In 2013, the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Hanford Site, located in Washington State, funded an update to the critical network infrastructure supporting the Hanford Federal Cloud (HFC). The project, called ET-50, was the final step in a plan that was initiated five years ago called "Hanford's IT Vision, 2015 and Beyond." The ET-50 project upgraded Hanford's core data center switches and routers along with a majority of the distribution layer switches. The upgrades allowed HFC the network intelligence to provide Hanford with a more reliable and resilient network architecture. The culmination of the five year plan improved network intelligence and high performance computing as well as helped to provide 10 Gbps capable links between core backbone devices (10 times the previous bandwidth). These improvements allow Hanford the ability to further support bandwidth intense applications, such as video teleconferencing. The ET-50 switch upgrade, along with other upgrades implemented from the five year plan, have prepared Hanford's network for the next evolution of technology in voice, video, and data. Hand-in-hand with ET-50's major data center outage, Mission Support Alliance's (MSA) Information Management (IM) organization executed a disaster recovery (DR) exercise to perform a true integration test and capability study. The DR scope was planned within the constraints of ET-50's 14 hour datacenter outage window. This DR exercise tested Hanford's Continuity of Operations (COOP) capability and failover plans for safety and business critical Hanford Federal Cloud applications. The planned suite of services to be tested was identified prior to the outage and plans were prepared to test the services ability to failover from the primary Hanford data center to the backup data center. The services tested were: Core Network (backbone, firewall, load balancers); Voicemail; Voice over IP (VoIP); Emergency Notification; Virtual desktops; and, Select set of production applications and data. The primary objective of the exercise was to test COOP around the emergency operations at Hanford to provide information on capabilities and dependencies of the current system to insure improved focus of emergency, safety and security capacity in a disaster situation. The integration of the DR test into the ET-50 project allowed the testing of COOP at Hanford and allowed the lessons learned to be defined. These lessons learned have helped improve the understanding of Hanford's COOP capabilities and will be critical for future planning. With the completion of the Hanford Federal Cloud network upgrades and the disaster recovery exercise, the MSA has a clearer path forward for future technology implementations as well as network improvements to help shape the usability and reliability of the Hanford network in support of the cleanup mission.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Early Market TRL/MRL Analysis

he focus of this report is TRL/MRL analysis of hydrogen storage; it documents the methodology and results of an effort to identify hydrogen storage technologies’ technical and manufacturing readiness for early market motive and non-motive applications and to provide a path forward toward commercialization. Motive applications include materials handling equipment (MHE) and ground support equipment (GSE), such as forklifts, tow tractors, and specialty vehicles such as golf carts, lawn mowers and wheel chairs. Non-motive applications are portable, stationary or auxiliary power units (APUs) and include portable laptops, backup power, remote sensor power, and auxiliary power for recreational vehicles, hotels, hospitals, etc. Hydrogen storage technologies assessed include metal hydrides, chemical hydrides, sorbents, gaseous storage, and liquid storage. The assessments are based on a combination of Technology Readiness Level (TRL) and Manufacturing Readiness Level (MRL) designations that enable evaluation of hydrogen storage technologies at varying levels of development. The manufacturing status could be established from eight risk elements: Technical Maturity, Design, Materials, Cost & Funding, Process Capability, Personnel, Facilities and Manufacturing Planning. This approach provides a logical methodology and roadmap to enable the identification of hydrogen storage technologies, their advantages/disadvantages, gaps and R&D needs on an unbiased and transparent scale that is easily communicated to interagency partners. This technology readiness assessment (TRA) report documents the process used to conduct the TRA/MRA (technology and manufacturing readiness assessment), reports the TRL and MRL for each assessed technology and provides recommendations based on the findings. To investigate the state of the art and needs to mature the technologies, PNNL prepared a questionnaire to assign TRL and MRL for each hydrogen storage technology. The questionnaire was sent to identified hydrogen storage technology developers and manufacturers who were asked to perform a self-assessment. We included both domestic and international organizations including U.S. national laboratories, U.S. companies, European companies and Japanese companies. PNNL collected the data and performed an analysis to deduce the level of maturity and to provide program recommendations.

early market↗