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Aerial Detection and Measurements analysis concept to be presented at the 11th Annual International Aerial Measuring System (iAMS) Technical Exchange workshop in Berne, Switzerland in September, 2023.
Highlights: • Environmental licensing procedures (ELP) line up by projects instead of environments. • The ELP of four countries was compared according to the generic EIA stages. • The study relies upon the revision of EIA legislation and technical guidelines. • Seven EIA good practices were extracted from the ELP analysis of the four countries. • A changing approach is proposed for the EPL performance on coastal interventions. - Abstract: Environmental licensing is the regulatory procedure that enforces the environmental impact assessment (EIA) of human activities inside a given country. Despite worldwide acceptance of EIA as a valid tool, its application in coastal environments is still too diverse and limited regarding the specificity of the natural processes influencing the shore. This paper compares the Environmental Licensing Procedure (ELP) of four countries, focusing on the activities that could affect the coastal geomorphology. The acquisition and validation of information were done through interviews with EIA representatives in each country, who signalized the official documents of environmental licensing and coastal management to be considered in the documentary review. The results present those differences and similarities among ELP stages in each country, based on the principles of the International Association of Impact Assessment and the national documents analyzed. In sum, 59 interventions associated with human uses and activities in the coastal zone were compared according to the prescriptive character of the environmental licensing in Italy, Spain, Cuba and Colombia. The natural processes influencing coastal geomorphology were also analyzed within the technical criteria included in the official guidelines for the EIA, finding a generalized weakness in processes associated with geochemical courses on coastal environments. By way of discussion, seven good practices are illustrated, according to their pertinence to the impact assessment of the coastal zone: 1) The integration of screening and scoping; 2) Evaluation focusing on the environment rather than the intervention; 3) Binding the coastal zone delimitation; 4) Institutional articulation; 5) Accreditation of environmental consultancies; 6) Official guidelines by types of environment; 7) The integration of environmental geographic information. Finally, general conclusions to assist EIA practitioners operating in the four countries and recommendations to lead further research are provided, introducing a novel process-oriented approach for ELP.
The webtool displays the following types of data: Wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) with anaerobic digestion Facilities with anaerobic digestion onsite other than WWTP Combustion plants. Manure locations. Manure (non points) Municipal solid waste locations Crop locations Processor residue (non points) District energy systems Mixed use developments (non points) Process heating and cooling locations Basic Usage Users can interact with the map in the following ways: Select the year of the analysis from a drop-down menu. Set the background layer as biomass availability or thermal consumption density from a drop-down menu. Select whether the facility of interest is an Anaerobic Digestion or a Therochemical facility from a drop-down menu. This filters the biomass data by moisture and only shows the relevant portions based on the facility selection. Select from a drop-down menu whether the biomass amounts will be shown as gross amounts or technical amounts. Set the radius for the search buffer in which the analysis will be performed. Click on any point data on the map to get more information. Click on the map, to given the signal of the query point location, from where the algorithmic process is going to initiate. This will show the available biomass locations and amounts that fall within the predefined buffer zone. Download the data in a csv format for the entire county or the selected biomass that is inside the predefined buffer. Report whether there are errors in the data to us and we will work to the best of our abilities to confirm and fix any issues. The outputs of the algorithmic process are going to appear on the screen after the computation is done. The outputs consist of the locations of all available biomass that are within the buffer zone from the clicked location. By clicking on any point the user can get more information on the nature and amounts of the biomass.
Selected reaction monitoring (SRM), also known as multiple reaction monitoring (MRM), is a data acquisition technique used in targeted analysis of molecules, including targeted proteomic studies. It exploits the unique capability of triple-quadrupole (QQQ) mass spectrometers to monitor the predefined precursor and fragment ion pairs of specific molecules of interest throughout a liquid chromatography (LC) elution profile. Compared to shotgun proteomics, targeted proteomics using SRM has high selectivity, high sensitivity, and a wide linear dynamic range,(1-3) which makes it especially useful in the accurate and reproducible quantification of low-abundance proteins in highly complex biological samples. SRM has been widely used in the fields of biomarker discovery,(4-7) analysis of protein post-translational modifications(8) and characterization of biological protein networks.(4,9) In the recent years, multiple technical advances have greatly improved the throughput of SRM analyses, allowing for the quantification of hundreds of peptides in a single analysis.(6,7,10) For example, a single 800-plex SRM assay (e.g., 400 unlabeled and heavy-labeled peptide pairs and 2400 transitions with retention time scheduling) using ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) has been developed to quantify proteins in plasma.(11) Advanced labeling techniques utilizing in vitro proteome-assisted MRM for protein absolute quantification (iMPAQT) demonstrated the capability of SRM in genome-wide protein quantification of over 18?000 human proteins.(12) Moreover, the scan speed of QQQ instrumentation has been greatly improved in recent releases of commercial instrumentation. The newly developed TSQ Altis (released in 2017) can scan more than 600 transitions per second, which is 6 times more than a traditional QQQ scan speed of 100 transitions per second. The breadth of measurement enabled by these technological improvements to QQQ mass spectrometry has increased the feasibility and popularity of large scale targeted proteomics studies,(13) a major application of which will be in clinical studies in which up to hundreds of protein candidates need to be quantified in hundreds of clinical specimens.(14) Quantitative accuracy is a primary motivating factor for utilizing a targeted proteomics protocol. The precise and reproducible absolute quantification produced by SRM assays is essential to many clinical and laboratory experiments.(15,16) Because the abundance of an endogenous peptide is calculated from the measurement of the spiked-in reference standard, it is essential to assess the data quality of these references.(17) In early applications of targeted proteomics, when instrument speed greatly limited the number of transitions that could be monitored, much of this quality assessment was done manually. However, recent improvements in instrument performance and experimental design have enabled a dramatic increase in the number of target peptides and associated SRM transitions, which makes manual quality assessment an untenable and laborious task. A variety of computational tools assist in SRM experiment design and data analysis. The first task in creating an SRM experiment is the choice of proteins and representative peptides to monitor. Achieving a reliable protein abundance requires appropriately choosing peptides that have a strong signal and are free from interferences in the biological matrix. Numerous computational tools exist to facilitate assay design by identifying peptides and refining SRM transitions.(18-21) To help share these assays and eliminate time spent designing the same transitions at multiple institutions, community portals have begun to host well-designed and vetted assays.(22-24) Analyzing the experimental data requires significant computational effort to align files across replicates and experimental conditions, pick peaks and produce quantitative values, normalize data and perform statistical tests, etc.(25-27)
In June 2004 the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) amended its fire protection requirements to permit existing nuclear power reactor licensees to voluntarily adopt fire protection requirements contained in National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Standard 805. NFPA 805 is a performance-based standard for nuclear power plant fire protection that is an alternative to the deterministic, prescriptive fire protection requirements, such as 10 CFR 50 Appendix R, that was issued in 1980. One aspect of implementing NFPA 805 is that the licensee adopts the performance goals, objectives, and criteria for nuclear safety specified in the Standard. These goals, objectives, and criteria can be met through the implementation of deterministic approaches or performance-based approaches, including engineering analyses, probabilistic risk assessment, and fire modeling. Licensees voluntarily adopting the fire protection requirements in NFPA 805 must submit a license amendment request (LAR) to the NRC. The LAR provides the new proposed fire protection licensing basis, including the methodology and results of required evaluations and analyses that show how the NFPA 805 performance criteria are met. As of August 2014, licensees have submitted LARs for 26 nuclear power plants, representing 42 nuclear reactor units. Of these, 7 nuclear power plants, representing 10 nuclear reactor units, have been issued a safety evaluation (SE) by the NRC approving transition of their fire protection licensing basis to one that complies with NFPA 805. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) supports the NRC staff’s technical review of the LARs in the areas of fundamental fire protection, safe shutdown analysis, and Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA). PNNL, of course, cannot speak for the nuclear industry and its choice of implementation strategies or the NRC staff’s assessment of the approaches being taken to adopt NFPA 805. However, as a reviewer of the technical details of these submittals, PNNL is in a position to observe the array of implementation tactics taken in these submittals, and observe different ways licensees are making the NFPA 805 process work. For example, we see differences in how fire areas are being transitioned, the kinds of plant modifications being implemented, the changes being made to plant procedures, the number and types of recovery actions being credited, and the kinds and extent of detailed modeling being performed in support of the Fire PRAs. As a caveat, we note that it is probably too early to comment on the overall success or limitations of the NFPA 805 process or provide lessons learned for the future. Furthermore, it is not our intention to endorse any particular approach taken in a submittal over another or to critique the industry or the regulator. Rather our goal in this paper is to summarize a set of interesting and useful differences across submittals that may provide context for further future discussions about what we (i.e., reviewers, industry, and regulators) have learned in being part of the NFPA process; and how to best use that information to inform future NFPA 805 activities or other risk-informed endeavors.
Presented by NETL at Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission - 2019 Integrated Resource Planning Contemporary Issues Technical Conference, 04/19
One critical aspect of mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) is the need to con?dently identify detected analytes. While orthogonal tandem MS (e.g., LC-MS2) experiments from sample extracts can assist in annotating ions, the spatial information about these molecules is lost. Accordingly, this could cause mislead conclusions, especially in cases where isobaric species exhibit di?erent distributions within a sample. In this Technical Note, we employed a multimodal imaging approach, using matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI)-MSI and liquid extraction surface analysis (LESA)-MS2I, to con?dently annotate and One critical aspect of mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) is the need to con?dently identify detected analytes. While orthogonal tandem MS (e.g., LC-MS2) experiments from sample extracts can assist in annotating ions, the spatial information about these molecules is lost. Accordingly, this could cause mislead conclusions, especially in cases where isobaric species exhibit di?erent distributions within a sample. In this Technical Note, we employed a multimodal imaging approach, using matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI)-MSI and liquid extraction surface analysis (LESA)-MS2I, to con?dently annotate and localize a broad range of metabolites involved in a tripartite symbiosis system of moss, cyanobacteria, and fungus. We found that the combination of these two imaging modalities generated very congruent ion images, providing the link between highly accurate structural information onfered by LESA and high spatial resolution attainable by MALDI. These results demonstrate how this combined methodology could be very useful in di?erentiating metabolite routes in complex systems.
Water scarcity has driven interest in rainwater harvesting, especially for U.S. industries like power and manufacturing, which dedicate a large percentage of their water needs to cooling towers. This paper provides a comprehensive systematic review of studies on the use of rainwater in cooling tower applications, along with an assessment of the regional feasibility of integrating RWH in U.S. manufacturing cooling towers. The systematic review examines the technical, economic, environmental, and policy feasibility of utilizing harvested rainwater, and the regional feasibility analysis evaluates the practical implementation of RWH in manufacturing cooling towers, considering factors such as regional RWH potential, water costs, state policies, and the industrial water use of manufacturing facilities per state. This study supports the hypothesis that RWH for cooling towers is technically feasible, economically viable, and environmentally beneficial. Harvested rainwater is naturally less conductive and soft, and rainwater reuse minimizes the ecological footprint. Supportive state policies, regional RWH potential, and rising water costs across the U.S. are important variables that may impact RWH adoption. The review highlights rooftop RWH as the most studied method and notes that implementing RWH requires infrastructure changes and filtration techniques. While initial investment costs may be high, operational and maintenance costs are low, making RWHS economically feasible over time. Regions with higher water costs and supportive policies are more likely to benefit from RWH adoption. The study provides a foundation for understanding the potential for using RWH in industrial cooling towers.
The IMMPE project, DE-FE0032284, was to enhance methane monitoring technologies and their applications across various natural gas asset classes. The scope included deploying advanced methane detection and monitoring technologies to identify and mitigate fugitive methane emissions, measuring emission rates, and assessing impacts. The findings included the successful mitigation of identified emissions and quantification of emission rates. A key outcome was the development of a comprehensive template and summary of recommendations for methane emissions monitoring, which is replicable for both upstream and downstream applications. Furthermore, the project emphasized the importance of education by providing training opportunities for technicians and regulators, thereby fostering awareness and promoting the adoption of cost-effective methane emissions monitoring and management techniques.
This set of slides provides a description of research performed to date on spent fuel NDA: Next Generation Safeguards Initiative Spent Fuel Project, and NDA analysis and research planned for CLINK. The general purpose is strengthening the technical toolkit of safeguard inspectors. Data mining is being applied to determine the optimal mathematical structure to match the complexity of spent fuel NDA signals and to enable a range of quantities to be estimated.
Nuclear Safety is a journal that covers significant issues in the field of nuclear safety. Its primary scope is safety in the design, construction, operation, and decommissioning of nuclear power reactors worldwide and the research and analysis activities that promote this goal, but it also encompasses the safety aspects of the entire nuclear fuel cycle, including fuel fabrication, spent-fuel processing and handling, and nuclear waste disposal, the handling of fissionable materials and radioisotopes, and the environmental effects of all these activities. Table of Contents for this issue follows. THE CHORNOBYL ACCIDENT: 1 The Chornobyl Accident Revisited, Part II: The State of the Nuclear Fuel Located Within the Chornobyl Sarcophagus, A A. Borovoi and A. R. Sich; GENERAL SAFETY CONSIDERATIONS: 33 Nuclear Power Safety in Central and Eastern Europe, R. Wilson; 46 Safety of Nuclear Power Reactors in the Former Eastern European Countries, S. Chakraborty; 53 Technical Note: On the Definition of Common-Cause Failures, H. Paula; ACCIDENT ANALYSIS: 58 Modeling and Analysis of Core-Debris Recriticality During Hypothetical Severe Accidents in the Advanced Neutron Source Reactor, S.-H. Kim, V. Georgevich, D. B. Simpson, C. O. Slater, and R. P. Taleyarkhan; 68 Ignitability of Hydrogen/Oxygen/Diluent Mixtures in the Presence of Hot Surfaces, R. K. Kumar and G. W. Koroll; 94 Coupled RELAP5 and CONTAIN Accident Analysis Using PVM, K. A. Smith, A. J. Baratta, and G. E. Robinson; CONTROL AND INSTRUMENTATION: 109 Application of Fuzzy Logic in Nuclear Reactor Control Part I: An Assessment of State-of-the-Art, A. S. Heger, N. K. Alang-Rashid, and M. Jamshidi; DESIGN FEATURES: 122 Twenty-Third DOE/NRC Nuclear Air-Cleaning and Treatment Conference, R. R. Bellamy, J. J. Hayes, and M. W. First; ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS: 135 Atmospheric Dispersion and the Radiological Consequences of Normal Airborne Effluents from a Nuclear Power Plant, D. Fang, C. Z. Sun, and L. Yang; 142 Calculation of Distribution Coefficients for Radionuclides in Soils and Sediments, I. Puigdomenech and U. Bergstrom: OPERATING EXPERIENCES: 155 Reactor Shutdown Experience, Compiled by J. W. Cletcher; U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION INFORMATION AND ANALYSES: 158 Operating Experience Feedback Report—Reliability of Safety-Related Steam Turbine-Driven Standby Pumps Used in U.S. Commercial Nuclear Power Plants, J. R. Boardman; 166 Turbine Building Hazards, H. L Ornstein; RECENT DEVELOPMENTS: 169 Reports, Standards, and Safety Guides, D. S. Queener; 175 Proposed Rule Changes as of Dec. 31,1994; ANNOUNCEMENTS: 32 Harvard School of Public Health In-Place Filter Testing Workshop; 134 International Conference on Advances in the Operational Safety of Nuclear Power Plants; 193 30th Tennessee Industries Week; 193 DOE Technical Standards Program 1995 Workshop; 194 Multiphase Flow Experiments and Instrumentation; 180 The Authors; 185 Indexes to Nuclear Safety, Volumes 34 and 35.
Flexibility in inverter-based loads could be used to support the converter-dominated power grid by offering a rapid, autonomous, and adjustable power reserve during system transients to help maintain system stability. Based on technical potential, ancillary service (AS) value, and implementation costs, this study illustrates the cost-benefit analysis of grid-supportive loads (GSLs) for the supply of fast frequency response (FFR). The net benefit for each GSL is demonstrated using a case study and relevant data sources. The findings suggest that implementation costs for enabling GSL features are low compared to the value that grid operators get from the acquisition of responsive reserve services. The authors believes that, given the rising popularity of renewable energy sources, GSLs can be a useful tool for grid stability in low-inertia systems.
Abstract Spatially resolved analysis of uranium (U) isotopes in small volumes of actinide-bearing materials is critical for a variety of technical disciplines, including earth and planetary sciences, environmental monitoring, bioremediation, and the nuclear fuel cycle. However, achieving subnanometer-scale spatial resolution for such isotopic analysis is currently a challenge. By using atom probe tomography—a three-dimensional nanoscale characterisation technique—we demonstrate unprecedented nanoscale mapping of U isotopic enrichment with high sensitivity across various microstructural interfaces within small volumes (~100 nm 3 ) of depleted and low-enriched U alloyed with 10 wt% molybdenum that has different nominal enrichments of 0.20 and 19.75% 235 U, respectively. We map enrichment in various morphologies of a U carbide phase, the adjacent γ-UMo matrix, and across interfaces (e.g., carbide/matrix, grain boundary). Results indicate the U carbides were formed during casting, rather than retained from either highly enriched or depleted U feedstock materials. The approach presented here can be applied to study nanoscale variations of isotopic abundances in the broad class of actinide-bearing materials, providing unique insights into their origins and thermomechanical processing routes.
The Korean government together with the Korean nuclear society completed the development of technologies for the design, manufacturing, and performance verification test of the APR1400's Reactor Coolant Pump (RCP) as one of the national programs for the localization of deficient nuclear technology. The RCP localization program was driven by KAERI, which was responsible for the development of the performance verification and evaluation technology, and by DOOSAN heavy industrial company, which was in charge of the design and manufacturing of the RCP. The test facility for the localized APR1400's RCP was constructed at the KAERI site at the end of 2012. The thermal hydraulic and electric capability of the RCP test facility (RCPTF) covers up to 18.5 MPa, 343 deg. C, 11.7 m{sup 3}/s, and 14.0 MW for the design pressure, temperature, flow rate, and maximum electric power, respectively. In 2013, a commissioning test was performed to verify its designed capability, followed by several modifications in the RCPTF including signal processing and control logic to enhance the verification and evaluation capability of the RCP performance. After finishing the commissioning and modification of the RCPTF, a type test for the new-type of RCP was performed successfully. In 2014 and 2015, eight production tests for the localized RCPs, which will be installed in a commercial nuclear power plant in Korea, were successfully completed. As a final stage of the localization program of the RCP, KAERI will perform a seal LOCA test to verify the leakage characteristics and produce experimental data on the localized seal assembly for a safety analysis during a station black out (SBO) condition. In this summary, several technical issues developed through a series of research processes for a performance verification test of the localized RCP are described.
Particulate isotopic analysis in nuclear forensics has developed rapidly during the past two decades due to technical advances in determining the isotopic composition of individual particles. This paper introduces basic statistical concepts that can be applied by analysts to understand the importance of statistical adequacy when interpretating particle data. While these basic statistical methods provide a useful point-of-entry to particle data analysis, more sophisticated statistical and modeling approaches are needed to extract maximal information from such datasets in the future.
Developers have identified many non-technical barriers to geothermal power development, including access to land. Activities required for accessing land, such as environmental review and private and public leasing can take a considerable amount of time and can delay or prevent project development. This paper discusses the impacts to available geothermal resources and deployment caused by land access challenges, including tribal and cultural resources, environmentally sensitive areas, biological resources, land ownership, federal and state lease queues, and proximity to military installations. In this analysis, we identified challenges that have the potential to prevent development of identified and undiscovered hydrothermal geothermal resources. We found that an estimated 400 MW of identified geothermal resource potential and 4,000 MW of undiscovered geothermal resource potential were either unallowed for development or contained one or more significant barriers that could prevent development at the site. Potential improvement scenarios that could be employed to overcome these barriers include (1) providing continuous funding to the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) for processing geothermal leases and permit applications and (2) the creation of advanced environmental mitigation measures. The model results forecast that continuous funding to the USFS could result in deployment of an additional 80 MW of geothermal capacity by 2030 and 124 MW of geothermal capacity by 2050 when compared to the business-as-usual scenario. The creation of advanced environmental mitigation measures coupled with continuous funding to the USFS could result in deployment of an additional 97 MW of geothermal capacity by 2030 and 152 MW of geothermal capacity by 2050 when compared to the business-as-usual scenario. The small impact on potential deployment in these improvement scenarios suggests that these 4,400 MW have other barriers to development in addition to land access. In other words, simply making more resources available for development does not increase deployment; however, impacts to deployment could increase when coupled with other improvements (e.g., permitting, market and/or technology improvements).
Highlights: • Technical specifications for agricultural plastic wastes (APWs) recycling proposed. • Specifications are the base for best economical and environmental APW valorisation. • Analysis of APW reveals inherent characteristics and constraints of APW streams. • Thorough survey on mechanical recycling processes and industry as it applies to APW. • Specifications for APW recycling tested, adjusted and verified through pilot trials. - Abstract: Technical specifications appropriate for the recycling of agricultural plastic wastes (APWs), widely accepted by the recycling industry were developed. The specifications establish quality standards to be met by the agricultural plastics producers, users and the agricultural plastic waste management chain. They constitute the base for the best economical and environmental valorisation of the APW. The analysis of the APW streams conducted across Europe in the framework of the European project “LabelAgriWaste” revealed the inherent characteristics of the APW streams and the inherent constraints (technical or economical) of the APW. The APW stream properties related to its recycling potential and measured during pilot trials are presented and a subsequent universally accepted simplified and expanded list of APW recycling technical specifications is proposed and justified. The list includes two sets of specifications, applied to two different quality categories of recyclable APW: one for pellet production process (“Quality I”) and another one for plastic profile production process (“Quality II”). Parameters that are taken into consideration in the specifications include the APW physical characteristics, contamination, composition and degradation. The proposed specifications are focused on polyethylene based APW that represents the vast majority of the APW stream. However, the specifications can be adjusted to cover also APW of different materials (e.g. PP or PVC) that are found in very small quantities in protected cultivations in Europe. The adoption of the proposed specifications could transform this waste stream into a labelled commodity traded freely in the market and will constitute the base for the best economical and environmental valorisation of the APW.
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.