Results for “program design” — Page 49

DOE OSTI2015

WE-D-207-01: Background and Clinical Implementation of a Screening Program

In the United States, Lung Cancer is responsible for more cancer deaths than the next four cancers combined. In addition, the 5 year survival rate for lung cancer patients has not improved over the past 40 to 50 years. To combat this deadly disease, in 2002 the National Cancer Institute launched a very large Randomized Control Trial called the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST). This trial would randomize subjects who had substantial risk of lung cancer (due to age and smoking history) into either a Chest X-ray arm or a low dose CT arm. In November 2010, the National Cancer Institute announced that the NLST had demonstrated 20% fewer lung cancer deaths among those who were screened with low-dose CT than with chest X-ray. In December 2013, the US Preventive Services Task Force recommended the use of Lung Cancer Screening using low dose CT and a little over a year later (Feb. 2015), CMS announced that Medicare would also cover Lung Cancer Screening using low dose CT. Thus private and public insurers are required to provide Lung Cancer Screening programs using CT to the appropriate population(s). The purpose of this Symposium is to inform medical physicists and prepare them to support the implementation of Lung Screening programs. This Symposium will focus on the clinical aspects of lung cancer screening, requirements of a screening registry for systematically capturing and tracking screening patients and results (such as required Medicare data elements) as well as the role of the medical physicist in screening programs, including the development of low dose CT screening protocols. Learning Objectives: To understand the clinical basis and clinical components of a lung cancer screening program, including eligibility criteria and other requirements. To understand the data collection requirements, workflow, and informatics infrastructure needed to support the tracking and reporting components of a screening program. To understand the role of the medical physicist in implementing Lung Cancer Screening protocols for CT, including utilizing resources such as the AAPM Protocols and the ACR Designated Lung Screening Center program. UCLA Department of Radiology has an Institutional research agreement with Siemens Healthcare; Dr. McNitt-Gray has been a recipient of Research Support from Siemens Healthcare in the past. Dr. Aberle has been a Member of Advisory Boards for the LUNGevity Foundation (2011-present) and Siemens Medical Solutions. (2013)

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2015

WE-D-207-02: Capturing Data Elements and the Role of Imaging Informatics

In the United States, Lung Cancer is responsible for more cancer deaths than the next four cancers combined. In addition, the 5 year survival rate for lung cancer patients has not improved over the past 40 to 50 years. To combat this deadly disease, in 2002 the National Cancer Institute launched a very large Randomized Control Trial called the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST). This trial would randomize subjects who had substantial risk of lung cancer (due to age and smoking history) into either a Chest X-ray arm or a low dose CT arm. In November 2010, the National Cancer Institute announced that the NLST had demonstrated 20% fewer lung cancer deaths among those who were screened with low-dose CT than with chest X-ray. In December 2013, the US Preventive Services Task Force recommended the use of Lung Cancer Screening using low dose CT and a little over a year later (Feb. 2015), CMS announced that Medicare would also cover Lung Cancer Screening using low dose CT. Thus private and public insurers are required to provide Lung Cancer Screening programs using CT to the appropriate population(s). The purpose of this Symposium is to inform medical physicists and prepare them to support the implementation of Lung Screening programs. This Symposium will focus on the clinical aspects of lung cancer screening, requirements of a screening registry for systematically capturing and tracking screening patients and results (such as required Medicare data elements) as well as the role of the medical physicist in screening programs, including the development of low dose CT screening protocols. Learning Objectives: To understand the clinical basis and clinical components of a lung cancer screening program, including eligibility criteria and other requirements. To understand the data collection requirements, workflow, and informatics infrastructure needed to support the tracking and reporting components of a screening program. To understand the role of the medical physicist in implementing Lung Cancer Screening protocols for CT, including utilizing resources such as the AAPM Protocols and the ACR Designated Lung Screening Center program. UCLA Department of Radiology has an Institutional research agreement with Siemens Healthcare; Dr. McNitt-Gray has been a recipient of Research Support from Siemens Healthcare in the past. Dr. Aberle has been a Member of Advisory Boards for the LUNGevity Foundation (2011-present) and Siemens Medical Solutions. (2013)

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2014

Effect of Gasoline Properties on Exhaust Emissions from Tier 2 Light-Duty Vehicles (Final Report: Phase 3)

This report covers work the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Office of Automotive Engineering has conducted for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and the Coordinating Research Council (CRC) in support of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct). Section 1506 of EPAct requires EPA to produce an updated fuel effects model representing the 2007 light - duty gasoline fleet, including determination of the emissions impacts of increased renewable fuel use. This report covers the exhaust emissions testing of 15 light-duty vehicles with 27 E0 through E20 test fuels, and 4 light-duty flexible fuel vehicles (FFVs) on an E85 fuel, as part of the EPAct Gasoline Light-Duty Exhaust Fuel Effects Test Program. This program will also be referred to as the EPAct/V2/E-89 Program based on the designations used for it by the EPA, NREL, and CRC, respectively. It is expected that this report will be an attachment or a chapter in the overall EPAct/V2/E-89 Program report prepared by EPA and NREL.

02 PETROLEUM↗

DOE OSTI2021

CMM Sequential Analysis Program

This report documents a design agency (DA) method to evaluate coordinate measuring machine (CMM) data by constructing an algorithm that is equivalent to the production agency (PA) algorithm for processing the raw CMM data. Several refinements of the CMM analyses were implemented at both the PA and the DA to process inherent limitations of the raw data, such as the absence of measurements at the exact ends of the connector-adapter assembly (CAA) and the recovery from these limitations through (worst-case) adjustments to the the positional errors. Also, inherent errors of the CMM measurements were accommodated by introducing a guard band, which effectively lowered the tolerance so that the CMM code could not pass bad parts. The DA and the PA showed remarkable agreement in all areas of analysis. The ultimate comparison is shown in Figures 13a and 13b, where the effect of using a guard band and end adjustments to the CMM measurements were clearly shown.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2020

Advanced Materials Program Summary

Materials solutions - enabling design, construction, and operation of licensable Advanced Nuclear Material, design, fabrication, installation, examination, testing, overpressure protection, inspection, stamping, and certification

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

DOE OSTI2010

Next Generation Nuclear Plant Methods Technical Program Plan

One of the great challenges of designing and licensing the Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) is to confirm that the intended VHTR analysis tools can be used confidently to make decisions and to assure all that the reactor systems are safe and meet the performance objectives of the Generation IV Program. The research and development (R&D) projects defined in the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) Design Methods Development and Validation Program will ensure that the tools used to perform the required calculations and analyses can be trusted. The Methods R&D tasks are designed to ensure that the calculational envelope of the tools used to analyze the VHTR reactor systems encompasses, or is larger than, the operational and transient envelope of the VHTR itself. The Methods R&D focuses on the development of tools to assess the neutronic and thermal fluid behavior of the plant. The fuel behavior and fission product transport models are discussed in the Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR) program plan. Various stress analysis and mechanical design tools will also need to be developed and validated and will ultimately also be included in the Methods R&D Program Plan. The calculational envelope of the neutronics and thermal-fluids software tools intended to be used on the NGNP is defined by the scenarios and phenomena that these tools can calculate with confidence. The software tools can only be used confidently when the results they produce have been shown to be in reasonable agreement with first-principle results, thought-problems, and data that describe the “highly ranked” phenomena inherent in all operational conditions and important accident scenarios for the VHTR.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

DOE OSTI2010

Next Generation Nuclear Plant Methods Technical Program Plan

One of the great challenges of designing and licensing the Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) is to confirm that the intended VHTR analysis tools can be used confidently to make decisions and to assure all that the reactor systems are safe and meet the performance objectives of the Generation IV Program. The research and development (R&D) projects defined in the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) Design Methods Development and Validation Program will ensure that the tools used to perform the required calculations and analyses can be trusted. The Methods R&D tasks are designed to ensure that the calculational envelope of the tools used to analyze the VHTR reactor systems encompasses, or is larger than, the operational and transient envelope of the VHTR itself. The Methods R&D focuses on the development of tools to assess the neutronic and thermal fluid behavior of the plant. The fuel behavior and fission product transport models are discussed in the Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR) program plan. Various stress analysis and mechanical design tools will also need to be developed and validated and will ultimately also be included in the Methods R&D Program Plan. The calculational envelope of the neutronics and thermal-fluids software tools intended to be used on the NGNP is defined by the scenarios and phenomena that these tools can calculate with confidence. The software tools can only be used confidently when the results they produce have been shown to be in reasonable agreement with first-principle results, thought-problems, and data that describe the “highly ranked” phenomena inherent in all operational conditions and important accident scenarios for the VHTR.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

DOE OSTI2017

AN INFORMATION-THEORETIC APPROACH TO OPTIMIZE JWST OBSERVATIONS AND RETRIEVALS OF TRANSITING EXOPLANET ATMOSPHERES

We provide an example of an analysis to explore the optimization of observations of transiting hot Jupiters with the James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST ) to characterize their atmospheres based on a simple three-parameter forward model. We construct expansive forward model sets for 11 hot Jupiters, 10 of which are relatively well characterized, exploring a range of parameters such as equilibrium temperature and metallicity, as well as considering host stars over a wide range in brightness. We compute posterior distributions of our model parameters for each planet with all of the available JWST spectroscopic modes and several programs of combined observations and compute their effectiveness using the metric of estimated mutual information per degree of freedom. From these simulations, clear trends emerge that provide guidelines for designing a JWST observing program. We demonstrate that these guidelines apply over a wide range of planet parameters and target brightnesses for our simple forward model.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Co-design optimization of combined heat and power-based microgrids

With the emergent need for clean and reliable energy resources, hybrid energy systems, such as the microgrid, are widely adopted in the United States. A microgrid can consist of various distributed energy resources, for instance, combined heat and power (CHP) systems. Here, the CHP module is a distributed cogeneration technology that produces electricity and recaptures heat generated as a by-product. It is an energy-efficient technology converting heat that would otherwise be wasted to valuable thermal energy. For an optimal system configuration, this study develops a novel co-design optimization framework for CHP-based cogeneration microgrids. The framework provides the stakeholder with a method to optimize investments and attain resilient operations. The proposed co-design framework has a mixed integer programming (MIP) model that outputs decisions for both plant designs and operating controls. The microgrid considered in this study contains six components: the CHP, boiler, heat recovery unit, thermal storage system, power storage system, and photovoltaic plant. After solving the MIP model, the optimal design parameters of each component can be found to minimize the total installation cost of all components in the microgrid. Furthermore, the online costs from energy production, operation, maintenance, machine startup, and disruption-induced unsatisfied loads are minimized by solving the optimal control decisions for operations. Case studies based on designing a CHP-based microgrid with empirical data are conducted. Moreover, we consider both nominal and disruptive operational scenarios to validate the performance of the proposed co-design framework in terms of a cost-effective, resilient system.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2018

ASC CSSE Level 2 Milestone #6362: Resilient Asynchronous Many Task Programming Model

This report is an outcome of the ASC CSSE Level 2 Milestone 6362: Analysis of Re- silient Asynchronous Many-Task (AMT) Programming Model. It comprises a summary and in-depth analysis of resilience schemes adapted to the AMT programming model. Herein, performance trade-offs of a resilient-AMT prograrnming model are assessed through two ap- proaches: (1) an analytical model realized by discrete event simulations and (2) empirical evaluation of benchmark programs representing regular and irregular workloads of explicit partial differential equation solvers. As part of this effort, an AMT execution simulator and a prototype resilient-AMT programming framework have been developed. The former permits us to hypothesize the performance behavior of a resilient-AMT model, and has undergone a verification and validation (V&V) process. The latter allows empirical evaluation of the perfor- mance of resilience schemes under emulated program failures and enabled the aforementioned V&V process. The outcome indicates that (1) resilience techniques implemented within an AMT framework allow efficient and scalable recovery under frequent failures, that (2) the abstraction of task and data instances in the AMT programming model enables readily us- able Application Program Interfaces (APIs) for resilience, and that (3) this abstraction enables predicting the performance of resilient-AMT applications with a simple simulation infrastruc- ture. This outcome will provide guidance for the design of the AMT programming model and runtime systems, user-level resilience support, and application development for ASC's next generation platforms (NGPs).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2013

The American Board of Radiology Holman Research Pathway: 10-Year Retrospective Review of the Program and Participant Performance

Introduction: In 1999, the American Board of Radiology (ABR) implemented an innovative training program track in diagnostic radiology (DR) and radiation oncology (RO) designed to stimulate development of a cadre of future academic researchers and educators in the 2 disciplines. The program was designated the Holman Research Pathway (HRP). An in-depth retrospective review of initial certification examination performance, post-training career choices, and academic productivity has not been written. This report represents a 10-year retrospective review of post-training performance of a cohort of trainees who have had sufficient time to complete their training and initial certification process and to enter practice. Methods and Materials: All pertinent proceedings of the ABR and Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Residency Review Committees for DR and RO between 1997 and May 2011 were reviewed. Thirty-four HRP candidates who fulfilled the established evaluation criteria were identified, and their ABR data files were analyzed regarding performance on the qualifying and certifying examinations. All candidates were contacted directly to obtain a current curriculum vitae. Results: Twenty candidates in RO and 14 candidates in DR were identifiable for review. All candidates attained initial certification. At the time of analysis, 23 of 33 (66.6%) candidates were employed in full-time academic practice (1 DR candidate remained in a fellowship and was not evaluated regarding employment status). Fifteen of 20 (75%) RO candidates were in faculty positions compared with 7 of 13 (53.8%) DR trainees. Additional academic productivity metrics are reported. Conclusions: A high percentage of HRP trainees remained in academic practice and demonstrated significant academic productivity as measured by manuscript authorship and research support. Additional time and observation will be needed to determine whether these findings will be sustained by past, current, and future HRP trainees.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2025

Tantalum Experiments in Fully-Reflected Water-Moderated Triangular-Pitched U(6.90)O 2 Fuel Rod Lattices (1.02 cm Pitch)

The United States (US) Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Energy Research Initiative funded the design and construction of the Seven Percent Critical Experiment (7uPCX) at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). The start-up of the experiment facility and the execution of the experiments described here were funded by the DOE Nuclear Criticality Safety Program. The 7uPCX is designed to investigate critical systems with fuel for light water reactors in the enrichment range above 5 % 235 U. The 7uPCX assembly is a water moderated and — reflected array of aluminum-clad U(6.90 %)O 2 fuel rods. Other critical experiments performed in the 7uPCX assembly are documented in LEU-COMP-THERM-078, LEU-COMP-THERM-080, LEU-COMP-THERM 096, LEU- COMP-THERM-097, LEU-COMP-THERM-101, LEU-COMP-THERM-102, and LEU-COMP-THERM-111. Applied interests in neutron-absorbing elements at epithermal and intermediate neutron energy ranges at DOE’s Hanford Site and Savannah River Site were identified through DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) workshops and needs surveys performed in conjunction with the National Nuclear Security Administration/Nuclear Criticality Safety Program. In response, a team lead by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) performed a study evaluating the use of 7uPCX for testing the epithermal cross sections of materials at SNL. This marked the inception of the set of experiments described here. The purpose of these experiments was to measure the effects of tantalum in nearly-critical systems. The tantalum was introduced into the fuel arrays as experiment rods within a central test region. The central test region was designed to target the epithermal neutron energy range by providing a dry cylindrical cavity constructed of aluminum and lined with 0.04 in (0.1016 cm) thick cadmium sheet. The central test region has an outer diameter of 3.75 in (9.525 cm) length of 31 in (78.74 cm) and can hold 85 tantalum rods nominally 0.25 in (0.635 cm) outside diameter and 31.25 in (79.375 cm) long. The critical experiments were done using a set of triangular-pitched grid plates fabricated for these experiments. The grid plate set accommodated a fuel array of a total of 2016 fuel rod positions on a pitch of 0.4 in (1.016 cm) in a series of 21 hexagonal rings positioned around the central test region. The fuel used in these experiments was fabricated using unirradiated 6.90 % enriched UO 2 fuel pellets from fuel elements designed to be used in the internal nuclear superheater section of the Pathfinder boiling water reactor operated in South Dakota by the Northern States Power Company in the 1960s. The fuel elements were obtained from The Pennsylvania State University where they had been stored for many years. The fuel pellets in those fuel elements were removed from the original Incoloy cladding and reclad in 3003 aluminum tubes and end caps for use in the experiments reported here. The eight cases in this experiment series were performed in 2024 in the Sandia Critical Experiments (SCX) at the Sandia Pulsed Reactor Facility by varying the number of fuel rods in the critical assembly. The personnel involved in conducting these experiments included David Ames, Elijah Lutz, Beth Hanson, Patrick Ward, Jason Soares, and Augie Chapa from SNL, as well as Mathieu Dupont and B.J. Marshall from ORNL. Case 1 had no tantalum experiment rods. Case 2 had seven tantalum rods in the center of the central test region. Case 3 had 18 tantalum rods in the third hexagonal ring of the central test region. Case 4 had 19 tantalum rods in the center of the central test region. Case 5 had 30 tantalum rods in the outer most positions of the central test region. Case 6 had 37 tantalum rods in the center of the central test region. Case 7 had 61 tantalum rods in the center of the central test region. Case 8 had 85 tantalum rods filling all positions in the central test region. All eight critical experiments are judged to be acceptable as benchmark experiments.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2014

Studies of exotic nuclei with few-nucleon transfer reactions (Final Report)

This document serves as the final report on work done on the research supported by U. S. DOE Grant DE-FG02-ER-41320, A. H. Wuosmaa Principal Investigator, supporting institution Western Michigan University. The grant was first funded in 2004, and continued until the PI officially terminated his employ at Western Michigan University and moved to the University of Connecticut in August of 2014. Throughout its course, the goals of this project have been to determine the properties of exotic nuclei using few nucleon transfer reactions, and to develop new technical approaches to study such transfer reactions in inverse kinematics, in particular with rare-isotope beams. The work focused primarily on light-exotic nuclei studied using beams of rare-isotope beams produced at the ATLAS facility at Argonne National Laboratory. Additional research was conducted at the Michigan State University National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, and the Western Michigan University Tandem Van de Graaff accelerator laboratory. A major goal and significant accomplishment of the program was the conceptual design, development, construction, commissioning and utilization of the HELIOS (HELIcal Orbit Spectrometer) device at Argonne National Laboratory. The concept of the solenoid spectrometer was presented in the first proposal submitted for this grant program, and with the close of this grant project the device is operating routinely and has been used in more than 20 experiments since its initial commissioning in 2008. The main physics goals of this project included producing new data for p and light-sd shell nuclei to test the predictions of ab-initio theoretical methods, as well as shell-model calculations for sd nuclei. Over its course, the project has generated data for (d,p), (d, 3 He) and (d, 4 He) reactions on many nuclei far from stability, and the data have informed both ab-initio and shell-model approaches.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2016

SNAPSHOT: A MODERN, SUSTAINABLE HOLDUP MEASUREMENT SYSTEM

SNAPSHOT is a software platform designed to eventually replace Holdup Measurement System 4 (HMS 4), which is the current state-of-the-art for acquisition and analysis of nondestructive assay measurement data for in situ nuclear materials, holdup, in support of criticality safety and material control and accounting. HMS 4 is over 10 years old and is currently unsustainable due to hardware and software incompatibilities that have arisen from advances in detector electronics, primarily updates to multi-channel analyzers (MCAs), and both computer and handheld operating systems. SNAPSHOT is a complete redesign of HMS 4 that addresses the issue of compatibility with modern MCAs and operating systems and that is designed with a flexible architecture to support long-term sustainability. It also provides an updated and more user friendly interface and is being developed under an NQA 1 software quality assurance (SQA) program to facilitate site acceptance for safety-related applications. This paper provides an overview of the SNAPSHOT project including details of the software development process, the SQA program, and the architecture designed to support sustainability.

Rowe, Nathan C↗

DOE OSTI2012

Transient Testing of Nuclear Fuels and Materials in United States

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has been engaged in an effort to develop and qualify next generation LWR fuel with enhanced performance and safety and reduced waste generation since 2010. This program, which has emphasized collaboration between the DOE, U.S. national laboratories and nuclear industry, was refocused from enhanced performance to enhanced accident tolerance following the events at Fukushima in 2011. Accident tolerant fuels have been specifically described as fuels that, in comparison with standard UO2-Zircaloy, can tolerate loss of active cooling in the reactor core for a considerably longer time period (depending on the LWR system and accident scenario) while maintaining or improving the fuel performance during normal operations, operational transients, as well as design-basis and beyond design-basis events. The program maintains an ambitious goal to insert a lead test assembly (LTA) of the new design into a commercial power reactor by 2022 .

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Universal Polarization Transformations: Spatial Programming of Polarization Scattering Matrices Using a Deep Learning‐Designed Diffractive Polarization Transformer

Abstract Controlled synthesis of optical fields having nonuniform polarization distributions presents a challenging task. Here, a universal polarization transformer is demonstrated that can synthesize a large set of arbitrarily‐selected, complex‐valued polarization scattering matrices between the polarization states at different positions within its input and output field‐of‐views (FOVs). This framework comprises 2D arrays of linear polarizers positioned between isotropic diffractive layers, each containing tens of thousands of diffractive features with optimizable transmission coefficients. After its deep learning‐based training, this diffractive polarization transformer can successfully implement N i N o = 10 000 different spatially‐encoded polarization scattering matrices with negligible error, where N i and N o represent the number of pixels in the input and output FOVs, respectively. This universal polarization transformation framework is experimentally validated in the terahertz spectrum by fabricating wire‐grid polarizers and integrating them with 3D‐printed diffractive layers to form a physical polarization transformer. Through this set‐up, an all‐optical polarization permutation operation of spatially‐varying polarization fields is demonstrated, and distinct spatially‐encoded polarization scattering matrices are simultaneously implemented between the input and output FOVs of a compact diffractive processor. This framework opens up new avenues for developing novel devices for universal polarization control and may find applications in, e.g., remote sensing, medical imaging, security, material inspection, and machine vision.

Optical neural networks↗

DOE OSTI2015

Building a Bright Future. The Hydro Research Foundation's Fellowship Program

The Hydro Fellowship Program (program) began as an experiment to discover whether the hydropower industry could find mechanisms to attract new entrants through conducting relevant research to benefit the industry. This nationwide, new-to-the-world program was started through funding from the Wind and Water Power Technologies Office of the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Office of the Department of Energy (DOE). Between 2010-2015, the Hydro Research Foundation (HRF) designed and implemented a program to conduct valuable research and attract new entrants to the hydro workforce. This historic grant has empowered and engaged industry members from 25 organizations by working with 91 students and advisors at 24 universities in 19 states. The work funded answered pressing research needs in the fields of civil, mechanical, environmental, and electrical engineering, as well as law, energy engineering and materials innovation. In terms of number of individuals touched through funding, 148 individuals were supported by this work through direct research, mentorship, oversight of the work, partnerships and the day-to-day program administration. Based on the program results, it is clear that the funding achieved the hoped-for outcomes and has the capacity to draw universities into the orbit of hydropower and continue the conversation about industry research and development needs. The Foundation has fostered unique partnerships at the host universities and has continued to thrive with the support of the universities, advisors, industry and the DOE. The Foundation has demonstrated industry support through mentorships, partnerships, underwriting the costs and articulating the universities’ support through in-kind cost sharing. The Foundation recommends that future work be continued to nurture these graduate level programs using the initial work and improvements in the successor program, the Research Awards Program, while stimulating engagement of academia at the community college level for operations and maintenance workforce development.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2016

Innovative Commercialization Efforts Underway at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory

New clean energy and energy efficiency technology solutions hold the promise of significant reductions in energy consumption. However, proven barriers for these technologies, including the technological and commercialization valleys of death, result in promising technologies falling to the wayside. To address these gaps, NREL's Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center designs and manages advanced programs aimed at supporting the development and commercialization of early stage clean energy technologies with the goal of accelerating new technologies to market. These include: Innovation Incubator (IN2) in partnership with Wells Fargo: this technology incubator supports energy efficiency building-related startups to overcome market gaps by providing access to technical support at NREL; Small Business Voucher Pilot: this program offers paid vouchers for applicants to access a unique skill, capability, or facility at any of the 17 DOE National Laboratories to bring next-generation clean energy technologies to market; Energy Innovation Portal: NREL designed and developed the Energy Innovation Portal, providing access to EERE focused intellectual property available for licensing from all of the DOE National Laboratories; Lab-Corps: Lab-Corps aims to better train and empower national lab researchers to understand market drivers and successfully transition their discoveries into high-impact, real world technologies in the private sector; Incubatenergy Network: the Network provides nationwide coordination of clean energy business incubators, share best practices, support clean energy entrepreneurs, and help facilitate a smoother transition to a more sustainable clean energy economy; Industry Growth Forum: the Forum is the perfect venue for clean energy innovators to maximize their exposure to receptive capital and strategic partners. Since 2003, presenting companies have collectively raised more than $5 billion in growth financing.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗