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At least 757 records · Page 42

Linkages from DOE’s Geothermal R&D to Commercial Power Generation

This study provides an evaluation of the Geothermal Technologies Program (GTP) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Specifically, for the period 1976 to 2008, it investigates the linkages between GTP's outputs and their downstream use by others to produce power from geothermal energy. The results are relevant for assessing DOE's past and future roles in the development and advancement of the nation's geothermal resources. In addition, the study investigates other applications of the GTP's outputs beyond power generation.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

Data Quality Objectives Supporting Radiological Air Emissions Monitoring for the PNNL Richland Campus

This is the second revision of the DQO Supporting Radiological Air Emissions Monitoring for the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Richland Campus. In January 2017, the PNNL Richland Campus expanded to the north by 0.35 km 2 (85.6 acres). Under the requirements of Washington State Department of Health Radioactive Air Emissions License (RAEL)-005, the PNNL Campus operates and maintains a radiological air monitoring program. This revision documents and evaluates the newly acquired acreage while also removing recreational land at the southwest, and also re-examines all active radioactive emission units on the PNNL Campus. No buildings are located on this new Campus land, which was transferred from the U.S. DOE Hanford Site. Additionally, this revision includes information regarding the background monitoring station PNL-5 in Benton City, Washington, which became active in October 2016. The key purpose of this revision is to determine the adequacy of the existing environmental surveillance stations to monitor radiological air emissions in light of this northern boundary change.

40 CFR 61 Subpart H↗

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: Final Report on Customer Acceptance, Retention, and Response to Time-Based Rates from Consumer Behavior Studies

Time-based rate programs, enabled by utility investments in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), are increasingly being considered by utilities as tools to reduce peak demand and enable customers to better manage consumption and costs. Under the Smart Grid Investment Grant Program (SGIG), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) partnered with several electric utilities to conduct consumer behavior studies (CBS). The goals involved applying randomized and controlled experimental designs for estimating customer responses more precisely and credibly to advance understanding of time-based rates and customer systems, and provide new information for improving program designs, implementation strategies, and evaluations. The intent was to produce more robust and credible analysis of impacts, costs, benefits, and lessons learned and assist utility and regulatory decision makers in evaluating investment opportunities involving time-based rates.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Verification and Validation of Optimization of Replacement Portal Monitoring Replay Tools

The Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) are both developing optimization software to fulfill the objective of Phase III of the Replacement Portal Monitoring (RPM) Program for the Department of Homeland Security. The objective of the Phase III of the RPM Program is to conduct an evaluation of three RPM systems designed to enhance mission effectiveness, gain operational efficiencies, and to address emerging mission needs against the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD ) nuclear threat basis and special nuclear material (SNM) used in performance testing. As such this task involves the use of global optimization algorithms.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗

3013 Inner Can Lid Leak Test System Development

Contained in this report is a description of the 3013 inner container lid leak detection system, a listing of the data collected to validate the system and a statistical analysis of collected data. The 3013 Container Surveillance Program provides assessment criteria and evaluates 3013 containers selected from the storage inventory for potential degradation mechanisms. The 3013 outer container is the boundary credited to prevent release of material to the environment. The integrity of the outer container is only at risk if the inner container loses its seal and allows corrosive gases to diffuse into the outer container. To date, the determination of potential outer container exposure to corrosive gases has been through comparison of the gas analysis of the annular space and the inner container. If the two volumes have the same gas composition and pressure, then the inner container may have leaked. The leak detection system described in this report will provide a direct measurement of the integrity of the inner container, and if approved, will provide for the elimination of gas analysis. The inner container lid leak testing system consists of two basic parts: the Agilent leak testing instrument and the leak test fixture. The test fixture base provides the connection between the leak test instrument and the test sample. This connection allows helium to flow into the leak detector when a leak path exists in the test sample allowing leak measurement to be performed. The tests reported here were conducted in a cold lab using a configuration very similar, but not identical to, the configuration anticipated when installed in a glove box. A total of sixty-five leak rate measurements were made on 10 containers and the data is included in the report. The data analysis shows that the leak detection system can identify leaks in the lid, including the weld and heat affected zone of 3013 inner containers, during destructive examination. The measurements taken support that a 3013 IC lid with a leak rate value greater than 2.0 x 10 -7 atm cc/sec will be identified using the leak test system prior to introduction into a glove box. These results from the baseline for future tests of the leak test system after it is installed in the glove box for use as part of surveillance DE.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

2017 Water Power Project Peer Review Summary Report - Volume 1

The Water Power Technologies Office Peer Review Report summarizes the findings from a 2017 peer review held in Arlington, Virginia, with nearly 300 representatives from our national laboratories, industry, academic institutions, and other stakeholder organizations. Volume I includes sections 1–5 of the report: the executive summary, synopses of the program- and project-level evaluation results, and WPTO’s response to the 2017 Peer Review findings. This report details the results of the Water Power Peer Review Meeting, which was held in February 2017 in Arlington, VA. The purpose of the review was to evaluate WPTO-funded projects for their contribution to the mission and goals of the WPTO and DOE, assess progress against stated objectives, and appraise WPTO’s overall management and performance.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

Course: 17664 TSQP - Evaluation [Slides]

The purpose of this course is to help you understand evaluation concepts, Kirkpatrick’s Evaluation Model, and to be able to apply basic evaluation techniques to training courses, programs, and processes.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗

Powered By ERAD [Slides]

Energy Resilience Analysis for Distribution Power System (ERAD) is a free, open-source Python toolkit for estimating the energy and service impacts of hazards like earthquakes and flooding. It uses a graph-based approach to capture high resolution connectivity among the grid, critical services, and customers and rapidly compute household level metrics and aggregated statistics across large distribution systems. It uses asset fragility curves that relate hazard severity to survival probability for power system equipment including cables, transformers, substations, etc. The tool is designed to be modular and extensible, allowing it to interface with third-party hazard simulators and integrate into broader resilience analysis workflows. ERAD enables researchers, students, communities, distribution utilities, and other stakeholders to understand hazard impacts and evaluate the effectiveness of different programs to improve energy resilience. The webinar was hosted by NLR researcher Aadil Latif.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

StructuredFuzzer: Fuzzing Structured Text-Based Control Logic Applications

Rigorous testing methods are essential for ensuring the security and reliability of industrial controller software. Fuzzing, a technique that automatically discovers software bugs, has also proven effective in finding software vulnerabilities. Unsurprisingly, fuzzing has been applied to a wide range of platforms, including programmable logic controllers (PLCs). However, current approaches, such as coverage-guided evolutionary fuzzing implemented in the popular fuzzer American Fuzzy Lop Plus Plus (AFL++), are often inadequate for finding logical errors and bugs in PLC control logic applications. They primarily target generic programming languages like C/C++, Java, and Python, and do not consider the unique characteristics and behaviors of PLCs, which are often programmed using specialized programming languages like Structured Text (ST). Furthermore, these fuzzers are ill suited to deal with complex input structures encapsulated in ST, as they are not specifically designed to generate appropriate input sequences. This renders the application of traditional fuzzing techniques less efficient on these platforms. To address this issue, this paper presents a fuzzing framework designed explicitly for PLC software to discover logic bugs in applications written in ST specified by the IEC 61131-3 standard. The proposed framework incorporates a custom-tailored PLC runtime and a fuzzer designed for the purpose. We demonstrate its effectiveness by fuzzing a collection of ST programs that were crafted for evaluation purposes. We compare the performance against a popular fuzzer, namely, AFL++. The proposed fuzzing framework demonstrated its capabilities in our experiments, successfully detecting logic bugs in the tested PLC control logic applications written in ST. On average, it was at least 83 times faster than AFL++, and in certain cases, for example, it was more than 23,000 times faster.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Legacy Well Leakage Risk Analysis at the Farnsworth Unit Site

This paper summarizes the results of the risk analysis and characterization of the CO 2 and brine leakage potential of Farnsworth Unit (FWU) site wells. The study is part of the U.S. DOE’s National Risk Assessment Partnership (NRAP) program, which aims to quantitatively evaluate long-term environmental risks under conditions of significant geologic uncertainty and variability. To achieve this, NRAP utilizes risk assessment and computational tools specifically designed to quantify uncertainties and calculate the risk associated with geologic carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) sequestration. For this study, we have developed a workflow that utilizes physics-based reservoir simulation results as input to perform leakage calculations using NRAP Tools, specifically NRAP-IAM-CS and RROM-Gen. These tools enable us to conduct leakage risk analysis based on ECLIPSE reservoir simulation results and to characterize wellbore leakage at the Farnsworth Unit Site. We analyze the risk of leakage from both individual wells and the entire field under various wellbore integrity distribution scenarios. The results of the risk analysis for the leakage potential of FWU wells indicate that, when compared to the total amount of CO 2 injected, the highest cemented well integrity distribution scenario (FutureGen high flow rate) exhibits approximately 0.01% cumulative CO 2 leakage for a 25-year CO 2 injection duration at the end of a 50-year post-injection monitoring period. In contrast, the highest possible leakage scenario (open well) shows approximately 0.1% cumulative CO 2 leakage over the same time frame.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

From Multileg Loops to Trees (by-passing Feynman's Tree Theorem)

We illustrate a duality relation between one-loop integrals and single-cut phase-space integrals. The duality relation is realised by a modification of the customary +i0 prescription of the Feynman propagators. The new prescription regularizing the propagators, which we write in a Lorentz covariant form, compensates for the absence of multiple-cut contributions that appear in the Feynman Tree Theorem. The duality relation can be extended to generic one-loop quantities, such as Green's functions, in any relativistic, local and unitary field theories. The physics program of LHC requires the evaluation of multi-leg signal and background processes at next-to-leading order (NLO). In the recent years, important efforts have been devoted to the calculation of many 2 {yields} 3 processes and some 2 {yields} 4 processes. We have recently proposed a method to compute multi-leg one-loop cross sections in perturbative field theories. The method uses combined analytical and numerical techniques. The starting point of the method is a duality relation between one-loop integrals and phase-space integrals. In this respect, the duality relation has analogies with the Feynman's Tree Theorem (FTT). The key difference with the FTT is that the duality relation involves only single cuts of the one-loop Feynman diagrams. In this talk, we illustrate the duality relation, and discuss its correspondence, similarities, and differences with the FTT.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

The Cementitious Barriers Partnership (CBP) Software Toolbox Capabilities In Assessing The Degradation Of Cementitious Barriers

The Cementitious Barriers Partnership (CBP) Project is a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional collaboration supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (US DOE) Office of Tank Waste and Nuclear Materials Management. The CBP program has developed a set of integrated tools (based on state-of-the-art models and leaching test methods) that help improve understanding and predictions of the long-term structural, hydraulic and chemical performance of cementitious barriers used in nuclear applications. Tools selected for and developed under this program have been used to evaluate and predict the behavior of cementitious barriers used in near-surface engineered waste disposal systems for periods of performance up to 100 years and longer for operating facilities and longer than 1000 years for waste disposal. The CBP Software Toolbox has produced tangible benefits to the DOE Performance Assessment (PA) community. A review of prior DOE PAs has provided a list of potential opportunities for improving cementitious barrier performance predictions through the use of the CBP software tools. These opportunities include: 1) impact of atmospheric exposure to concrete and grout before closure, such as accelerated slag and Tc-99 oxidation, 2) prediction of changes in Kd/mobility as a function of time that result from changing pH and redox conditions, 3) concrete degradation from rebar corrosion due to carbonation, 4) early age cracking from drying and/or thermal shrinkage and 5) degradation due to sulfate attack. The CBP has already had opportunity to provide near-term, tangible support to ongoing DOE-EM PAs such as the Savannah River Saltstone Disposal Facility (SDF) by providing a sulfate attack analysis that predicts the extent and damage that sulfate ingress will have on the concrete vaults over extended time (i.e., > 1000 years). This analysis is one of the many technical opportunities in cementitious barrier performance that can be addressed by the DOE-EM sponsored CBP software tools. Modification of the existing tools can provide many opportunities to bring defense in depth in prediction of the performance of cementitious barriers over time.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Will the Measurement Robots Take Our Jobs? An Update on the State of Automated M&V for Energy Efficiency Programs

Trustworthy savings calculations are critical to convincing regulators of both the cost-effectiveness of energy efficiency program investments and their ability to defer supply-side capital investments. Today’s methods for measurement and verification (M&V) of energy savings constitute a significant portion of the total costs of energy efficiency programs. They also require time-consuming data acquisition. A spectrum of savings calculation approaches is used, with some relying more heavily on measured data and others relying more heavily on estimated, modeled, or stipulated data. The rising availability of “smart” meters and devices that report near-real time data, combined with new analytical approaches to quantifying savings, offers potential to conduct M&V more quickly and at lower cost, with comparable or improved accuracy. Commercial energy management and information systems (EMIS) technologies are beginning to offer M&V capabilities, and program administrators want to understand how they might assist programs in quickly and accurately measuring energy savings. This paper presents the results of recent testing of the ability to use automation to streamline some parts of M&V. Here in this paper, we detail metrics to assess the performance of these new M&V approaches, and a framework to compute the metrics. We also discuss the accuracy, cost, and time trade-offs between more traditional M&V, and these emerging streamlined methods that use high-resolution energy data and automated computational intelligence. Finally we discuss the potential evolution of M&V and early results of pilots currently underway to incorporate M&V automation into ratepayer-funded programs and professional implementation and evaluation practice.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

The Cementitious Barriers Partnership (CBP) Software Toolbox Capabilities in Assessing the Degradation of Cementitious Barriers - 13487

The Cementitious Barriers Partnership (CBP) Project is a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional collaboration supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (US DOE) Office of Tank Waste and Nuclear Materials Management. The CBP program has developed a set of integrated tools (based on state-of-the-art models and leaching test methods) that help improve understanding and predictions of the long-term structural, hydraulic and chemical performance of cementitious barriers used in nuclear applications. Tools selected for and developed under this program have been used to evaluate and predict the behavior of cementitious barriers used in near-surface engineered waste disposal systems for periods of performance up to 100 years and longer for operating facilities and longer than 1000 years for waste disposal. The CBP Software Toolbox has produced tangible benefits to the DOE Performance Assessment (PA) community. A review of prior DOE PAs has provided a list of potential opportunities for improving cementitious barrier performance predictions through the use of the CBP software tools. These opportunities include: 1) impact of atmospheric exposure to concrete and grout before closure, such as accelerated slag and Tc-99 oxidation, 2) prediction of changes in K{sub d}/mobility as a function of time that result from changing pH and redox conditions, 3) concrete degradation from rebar corrosion due to carbonation, 4) early age cracking from drying and/or thermal shrinkage and 5) degradation due to sulfate attack. The CBP has already had opportunity to provide near-term, tangible support to ongoing DOE-EM PAs such as the Savannah River Saltstone Disposal Facility (SDF) by providing a sulfate attack analysis that predicts the extent and damage that sulfate ingress will have on the concrete vaults over extended time (i.e., > 1000 years). This analysis is one of the many technical opportunities in cementitious barrier performance that can be addressed by the DOE-EM sponsored CBP software tools. Modification of the existing tools can provide many opportunities to bring defense in depth in prediction of the performance of cementitious barriers over time. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

EPRI Project Update on International Nuclear Power Plant Waste Classification - 16224

Countries around the globe use varying schemes for the characterization of radioactive waste. Many countries use adaptations of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) waste classification scheme. Other countries use the Class A, B, and C waste classification scheme that was developed in the United States. General comparisons have been made between the IAEA and the United States (U.S.) classification schemes, but a clear and well researched comparison of the two schemes was not evident in the available research data sets. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) Radiation Safety (RS) Program has conducted a technical evaluation that compares these two waste characterization schemes. EPRI developed a set of reference wastes that are representative of nuclear power plant low-level radioactive waste in form and radioactivity concentrations (e.g. dry active waste, high activity resin, low activity resin, high activity filters and low activity filters). These reference wastes were then classified using the waste classification systems in place in several countries around the world. This paper and presentation will provide a summary of that research, show where strong comparisons and correlations can be made, and provide a discussion on how this information might inform the harmonization of global waste classification standards. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Enabling Dynamic Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Physical Security Using EMRALD and MAAP (Presentation)

The optimization of physical security in nuclear power plants requires sophisticated methodologies that integrate operator actions and plant behavior through advanced simulation tools. Idaho National Laboratory has developed the Modeling and Analysis for Safety and Security using the Dynamic EMRALD Framework (MASS-DEF) methodology, an approach that integrates force-on-force simulations, dynamic probabilistic risk assessment, and thermal hydraulics modeling to enhance security planning while reducing costs. A reduced order model for thermal hydraulic simulations performed by the Modular Accident Analysis Program (MAAP) was developed to evaluate reactor core behavior during attack scenarios. MAAP simulations are computationally intensive and must be run in a secure environment, complicating analysis and validation. By pre-computed scenario outcomes for a small number of modified parameters, the reduced order model significantly decreases the computational cost and enables offsite review of the results.

22 - GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Evaluation of Co-precipitation Processes for the Synthesis of Mixed-Oxide Fuel Feedstock Materials

The focus of this report is the evaluation of various co-precipitation processes for use in the synthesis of mixed oxide feedstock powders for the Ceramic Fuels Technology Area within the Fuels Cycle R&D (FCR&D) Program's Advanced Fuels Campaign. The evaluation will include a comparison with standard mechanical mixing of dry powders and as well as other co-conversion methods. The end result will be the down selection of a preferred sequence of co-precipitation process for the preparation of nuclear fuel feedstock materials to be used for comparison with other feedstock preparation methods. A review of the literature was done to identify potential nitrate-to-oxide co-conversion processes which have been applied to mixtures of uranium and plutonium to achieve recycle fuel homogeneity. Recent studies have begun to study the options for co-converting all of the plutonium and neptunium recovered from used nuclear fuels, together with appropriate portions of recovered uranium to produce the desired mixed oxide recycle fuel. The addition of recycled uranium will help reduce the safeguard attractiveness level and improve proliferation resistance of the recycled fuel. The inclusion of neptunium is primarily driven by its chemical similarity to plutonium, thus enabling a simple quick path to recycle. For recycle fuel to thermal-spectrum light water reactors (LWRs), the uranium concentration can be {approx}90% (wt.), and for fast spectrum reactors, the uranium concentration can typically exceed 70% (wt.). However, some of the co-conversion/recycle fuel fabrication processes being developed utilize a two-step process to reach the desired uranium concentration. In these processes, a 50-50 'master-mix' MOX powder is produced by the co-conversion process, and the uranium concentration is adjusted to the desired level for MOX fuel recycle by powder blending (milling) the 'master-mix' with depleted uranium oxide. In general, parameters that must be controlled for co-precipitation processes include (1) feed solution concentration adjustment, (2) precipitant concentration and addition methods, (3) pH, temperature, mixing method and time, (4) valence adjustment, (5) solid precipitate separation from the filtrate 'mother liquor,' generally by means of centrifugation or filtration, and (6) temperatures and times for drying, calcination, and reduction of the MOX product powder. Also a recovery step is necessary because of low, but finite solubility of the U/TRU metals in the mother liquor. The recovery step usually involves destruction of the residual precipitant and disposal of by-product wastes. Direct denitrations of U/TRU require fewer steps, but must utilize various methods to enable production of MOX with product characteristics that are acceptable for recycle fuel fabrication. The three co-precipitation processes considered for evaluation are (1) the ammonia co-precipitation process being developed in Russia, (2) the oxalate co-precipitation process, being developed in France, and (3) the ammonium-uranyl-plutonyl-carbonate (AUPuC) process being developed in Germany. Two direct denitration processes are presented for comparison: (1) the 'Microwave Heating (MH)' automated multi-batch process developed in Japan and (2) the 'Modified Direct Denitration (MDD)' continuous process being developed in the USA. Brief comparative descriptions of the U/TRU co-conversion processes are described. More complete details are provided in the references.

Collins, Emory D↗