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Community Centered Solar Development (CCSD) Case Study Interviews [Slides]

Large-scale solar (LSS, defined here as ground-mounted photovoltaic projects ≥1 MWDC) has grown rapidly in the U.S., accounting for nearly half of new electric generating capacity added to the U.S. grid in 2022. All sources of electricity bring positive and negative impacts to hosting communities and the rapid growth of LSS has increased the urgency to understand those impacts. Yet, information about the potential positive and negative impacts of LSS on host communities, and the factors or drivers leading to support or opposition to a project, is lacking. This information gap limits how project developers, municipalities, and local siting authorities can address community concerns and appropriately align proposed projects to best suit and benefit local communities. As part of Berkeley Lab’s Community-Centered Solar Development (CCSD) project, this research set out to explore deep insights and perceptions from LSS stakeholders that only qualitative data can provide to identify key factors driving project success or threatened failure. Case studies, such as those utilized in this research, are uniquely adept at capturing the subjective experience of individuals and at identifying variables, structures, and interactions between stakeholders. Our case studies included 54 semi-structured interviews across 7 different LSS sites, representing a diversity of geographies, project sizes (MW), site types (i.e., greenfield, agrivoltaic, and brownfield / contaminated sites), zoning jurisdiction types, and more (Table 1). In addition to local residents living in close proximity to these LSS sites, we interviewed other key stakeholders involved in the projects such as developers, decision-makers, utility representatives, landowners, and individuals from community-based organizations. The overarching aim of this case study research was two-fold: (1) to inform subsequent tasks in the CCSD research project (including an upcoming national survey of LSS neighbors), and (2) to provide insights into the following set of research questions: -What are the key positive and negative drivers leading to support and opposition to LSS projects? -To what extent do LSS projects exacerbate or mitigate perceived inequities and marginalization within hosting communities and how can those inequities be mitigated going forward? -What strategies can communities employ to align LSS development with local land-use plans and community needs and values? The research findings and next steps are described in this slide deck report.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Hazard and Operability Study for the Ammonia Fuel Systems at the National Transportation Research Center

Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL’s) Buildings and Transportation Science Division (BTSD) plans to operate research engines fueled by ammonia in two engine test cells at the National Transportation Research Center (NTRC). A scientific need has recently emerged to evaluate the suitability of liquid anhydrous ammonia as a low-lifecycle-carbon fuel source for difficult-to-electrify transportation sectors, including the marine sector. Therefore, BTSD plans to install an ammonia storage and delivery system to 2360 HVC engine research labs L125 (Cell 3) and L111 (Cell 7) capable of delivering 35 and 75 lb/h, respectively. These laboratories are specifically designed to allow for engine and fuels research and development, and they have existing safety systems for mitigating risks associated with toxics and flammables. Anhydrous ammonia is toxic and flammable, and the system will use relatively large quantities compared with standard gas bottles. Ammonia is one of the most widely produced chemicals in the world, and the hazards associated with toxicity and flammability are well understood. Ammonia storage for use in engine research at NTRC is anticipated to take the form of an ammonia tank with capacity of 1,000 water gallons; this quantity will remain below the threshold quantity of 10,000 lb (~2,000 gal) used both by the US Environmental Protection Agency for reporting under the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act and for Risk Management Program requirements, and also by the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration for Process Safety Management requirements. ORNL’s Environmental Protection Services Division was also consulted to verify that the quantities of ammonia anticipated to be used would be in compliance with environmental regulations. The Environmental Protection Services Division staff confirmed that the anticipated quantities fall below ORNL’s permit thresholds. However, because of the hazards associated with anhydrous ammonia, the quantities to be used, and the limited experience with similar quantities of ammonia at ORNL, BTSD decided to perform a hazard and operability (HazOp) study on the ammonia storage and delivery system.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Industrial Assessment Center Program Final Progress Report

During September 1, 2016 to March 31, 2022 period, the University of Massachusetts’ Industrial Assessment Center completed 59 industrial assessments at plants across New England. Total annual sales for those plants, which employed 8,861 people, was close to $\$ 2.59$ billion. Our 317 recommendations amounted to potential savings of $\$ 6,866,009$, which represented 14.11% of the total energy costs these facilities incurred. By the time this report was prepared implementation information was available for all plants. A total of 132 recommendations, or 41.64%, were implemented, with annual savings totaling $\$ 1,856,921$, or 3.82% of total plant energy costs.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

High Energy Theory and Cosmology Workshops at the Leinweber Center for Theoretical Physics at the University of Michigan

This award partially supported a workshop and a summer school held at the Leinweber Center for Theoretical Physics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Funds were primarily used to support the travel of external participants. The programs were substantially delayed owing to the pandemic. The symposium was initially slated for Spring 2020. The 2023 Michigan Cosmology Summer School was held June 5-9 2023 in Ann Arbor Michigan. There were about 150 in-person international participants (of whom about 35Nine external lecturers listed below delivered a series of lectures ranging on topics from “Measuring and Mapping Cosmic Shear” to “Dark Dark Energy and Modified Gravity.” Many archived version of the slides and videos of the lectures may be found at https://johannesulf.github.io/cosmology-school-2023/program.html

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

NEAMS Model Contributions in 2023 to the National Reactor Innovation Center Virtual Test Bed for Use by Industry and Other Stakeholders

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy’s Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) Program develops models of advanced reactor phenomena to demonstrate code applicability to challenging physics problems, drive code development through user assessment, and perform code verification and validation. Meanwhile, the U.S. DOE’s National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) hosts an open-source website and associated GitHub repository called the Virtual Test Bed (VTB) on which computational models for advanced reactors are documented and shared with the reactor community. This work documents NEAMS efforts to support industry adoption of advanced modeling tools through contribution of 10 NEAMS models to the NRIC Virtual Test Bed including models for the High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF), TRISO fuel failure in a microreactor, and multiphysics models of a molten chloride fast reactor, among others. The open sharing of these models benefits the reactor community by providing “best practice” examples using NEAMS tools for advanced reactor physics problems. In particular, the HTTF model is being used for code validation and benchmarking activities. The microreactor and molten chloride fast reactor models are representative of analysis that may be useful for current candidates of DOME and LOTUS, NRIC’s physical testbeds. This report summarizes and provides links to these new models, among others.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

Nanoporous Materials Genome Center Final Technical Report

Nanoporous materials (NPMs), including zeolites/zeotypes, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), covalent organic frameworks, polymers with intrinsic microporosity, and molecular cages, possess enormous potential in diverse areas relevant to the DOE Office of Science Basic Energy Sciences (BES) mission and objectives. The Nanoporous Materials Genome Center (NMGC) has developed exascale-ready software, computational/theoretical chemistry methods, and data-driven science approaches that enable (i) the de-novo design of functional NPMs for chemical separation and catalysis tasks of increasing complexity, (ii) the discovery of the most promising functional NPMs from databases of synthesized and hypothetical adsorbent structures and the optimization of process conditions for specific applications, and (iii) the microscopic-level understanding of the fundamental interactions underlying the function of NPMs including hierarchical architectures, composite materials, responsive frameworks that may undergo phase transitions or post-synthetic modifications, and materials containing defects, partial disorder, or interfaces. A pivotal part of the NMGC project has been a tight collaboration between leading experimental groups for synthesis and characterization of NPMs and of computational groups that allowed for iterative feedback. The NMGC project has resulted in the publication of more than 290 research and review articles including more than 60 publications in high-impact journals and more than 15 journal covers. NMGC publications have already received more than 20,000 citations (with more than 3,000 citations per year in 2021, 2022, and 2023) and contribute to an h-index of more than 72. The NMGC award has supported collaborative research involving 28 research groups and contributed to the training of more than 40 postdocs, more than 60 graduate students, and more than 20 undergraduate students with broad expertise in data-driven science approaches, computational chemistry methods, and high-performance computing, in addition to the skills to thrive in an integrated experimental and computational research environment.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Center For Actinide Science and Technology (CAST)

CAST encompassed 17 senior researchers in its first funding cycle and added two additional theorists briefly in the final two years. Approximately 37 graduate students and post-doctoral associates were supported by CAST. Within the 19 senior researchers there were changes in composition since the center was first funded. One researcher left associated with a move to another university. Two were phased out because they did not meet the expectations of CAST in terms of research performance. These decisions were always made in consultation with our External Advisory Committee (EAC) and DOE management. In fact, the phasing out of the two PI’s was suggested first by the EAC. Two new researchers were also brought in response to feedback at our midterm review where it was suggested that we needed increased theory support in CAST. No further changes were implemented since then, and CAST researchers thought that stability and optimal productivity was achieved.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Final Report for Center for Tokamak Transient Simulations at USU

Providing plasma fluid codes like NIMROD with continuum drift kinetic (CDK) physics that is quantitatively valid and computationally feasible throughout the spatial domain is difficult. Work at Utah State University (USU), in collaboration with the Center for Tokamak Transient Simulations (CTTS), focused on applying CDK closures in disruption-related calculations. Three examples where kinetic physics is paramount are (1) the electron stress tensor closure in Ohms law for accurately describing neoclassical tearing mode (NTM) evolution, (2) runaway electron (RE) density (nRE) and current (jRE) moments in NIMROD’s extended MHD model for self-consistent evolution of RE populations during disruptions and, (3) energetic ion effects on a myriad of MHD instabilities. While NTM simulations and continuum and PIC approaches to energetic ions in NIMROD have been a major goals of USU’s closure work for several years, the development of self-consistent CDK RE capability in NIMROD was started and extended considerably during the CTTS effort. Some goals of CDK RE in NIMROD are to explore the effects of the 2D relativistic phase space in 4D simulations and compare with NIMROD’s fluid RE model. Four publications and two PhD theses came out of the USU CTTS effort.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

A Collaborative Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) for Expanded Outreach within the Southeast

This GA-FL IAC had impacts on workforce development and economic impact for regional small- and medium-sized enterprises. Qualified faculty and campus staff educated and trained cohorts of students regarding state-of-the-art industrial assessments. Students gained hands-on experiences in learning about manufacturing processes, energy systems, developing assessment recommendations/calculations, and client interaction. These skills were complemented by the incorporation of IAC themes into some course curricula. As far as economic impact, the center conducted 66 assessments over 5 years primarily in Georgia and Florida. These represented hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential annual resource savings to the clients and region.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Extreme Efficiency 240 Vac to Load Data Center Power Delivery Topologies and Control

The research explored innovative new circuit topologies and power converter architectures for data center power delivery, from the 240 V ac voltage at the input of a server rack, down to the less than 1 V dc power supply of the latest microprocessors. The research pursued three parallel tracks to increase the power conversion efficiency and to reduce the overall size of the servers: 1) An innovative new ac-dc power converter topology which enables improved efficiency through use of a novel direct step-down topology, well suited for the popular 48V dc power distribution. 2) A new series-stacked power delivery approach for servers comprising a large number of similar loads, such as hard drives in storage servers. The approach greatly reduces the power conversion losses, and achieves efficiency well over 99%. 3) A new family of hybrid switched-capacitor power converters that enable improved efficiency and reduced size through the use of dense ceramic capacitors and new circuit topologies that leverage GaN and low-voltage Si transistor technology. Together, the accomplished research achieved the goal of reducing the power conversion losses in datacenters, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions, operating costs, and overall electricity consumption.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

ORNL Campus Sustainability and Decarbonization using Waste Heat Recovery from the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s High-Performance Computing Data Center

Heat pumps are a clean and efficient technology that can be powered by renewable electricity to transfer heat using a refrigerant from one place to another by different heat sources, making buildings clean and environmentally friendly. With the support of the ORNL Laboratory Modernization Division, this project explored and evaluated an innovative solution that uses water-water cost-effective midtemperature heat pump (MTHP) technology to leverage the low-grade waste heat from ORNL Frontier and the data center to deliver 85°C hot water, which replaces hot steam generated using natural gas combustion boilers for water heating or space heating in the buildings of ORNL campus. Two scenarios were studied. In the first scenario, which considered the 5600-5700-5800 complex only, Carrier’s commercial 1,000 kW MTHP technology achieves more than 6,640 MWh/year energy savings, an emission reduction of 858 TCO2e/year CO2, and a payback time of 4.85 years. In the second scenario, which considered the 5600-5700-5800 complex and Buildings 5100, 5200, and 5300, the CO2 emission reduction is 1,483 TCO2e/year, the operating cost savings are $0.21 million annually, and the payback time is 3.74 years. Additionally, a comprehensive HP ShowCase Tool was developed for evaluating the optimal solution to improve sustainability and decarbonization of the buildings on the ORNL campus. The tool is an Excel-based tool integrated with VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) coding. The tool includes collected ORNL campus building information and an MTHP library, which comprises collected commercial and ORNL-defined MTHPs. The tool was used to evaluate the sustainability and decarbonization of the ORNL campus. The tool can be widely used or referenced for heat pump solutions and building decarbonization renovation strategies to modernize ORNL facilities and energy use–intensive equipment to enable efficient, sustainable, and resilient operations in the future.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

National Criticality Experiments Research Center (NCERC) [Slides]

The National Criticality Experiments Research Center (NCERC) is a general-purpose critical assembly facility located within the Device Assembly Facility at the Nevada National Security Site. The NCERC is operated by Los Alamos National Laboratory.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Radiation Safety Information Computational Center (RSICC) [Slides]

This presentation touches on the Radiation Safety Information Computational Center (RSICC). This Lecture provides general mission, statistics, and strategies. A general background is provided of the tool. Licensee agreements and export control agreements are discussed. The presentation finishes with a look at the most in demand and requested software packages.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Data Driven Approach to Dislocation-Based Plasticity Models of Face-Centered Cubic Metals

Dislocation dynamics controls plastic deformation, mechanical strength, and failure of crystalline materials. It also governs fatigue resistance under cyclic loading, creep resistance at elevated-temperature, and radiation resistance for reactor applications. There is a compelling need for understanding fundamental dislocation mechanisms for deformation because virtually all structural metals used in energy systems are fabricated to desired forms and shapes by deformation processes. To date, the most outstanding problem in a physics-based multiscale model of crystal plasticity is the lack of quantitative connections between continuum plasticity (CP) models with the lower scale dislocation models. As a result, existing CP models used in engineering applications are still phenomenological, while evidence continues to mount that they can make inaccurate predictions under realistically complex scenarios. This project takes advantage of the recent advances in high-performance discrete dislocation dynamics (DDD) simulations and data science approaches to establish the first fully connected multiscale plasticity model for pure face-centered cubic (FCC) single crystals.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

NETL DAC Center Test Report

Sample of testing and analysis reports for breakthrough testing conducted at the NETL Direct Air Capture (DAC) Center on Lewatit resin.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Summary of Massachusetts Clean Energy Center's Workforce Needs Assessment for the City of Lawrence

In July 2023, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) published an employment report titled “Powering the Future: A Massachusetts Clean Energy Workforce Needs Assessment.” This report was intended to support the State in meeting its 2030 decarbonization goals by identifying both existing workforce and training resources as well as gaps and barriers that need to be addressed in order to scale the State’s workforce to meet future demand. The following is a summary of the content that is relevant to Lawrence, MA. This was completed as part of the US Department of Energy’s Communities LEAP (Local Energy Action Program) Pilot supporting the Lawrence Stakeholders Coalition (LSC) led by Browning the Green Space in partnership with Groundwork Lawrence, All In Energy, and the City of Lawrence.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗