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This is the conference paper accompanying an oral presentation at the 58th US Rock Mechanics/Geomechanics Symposium (ARMA) June 23 to 26 in Golden, CO. The paper highlights using machine learning to quantify fracture network for carbon storage and is part of the SMART Initiative project applications.
Savannah River Remediation (SRR) is evaluating changes to its current Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) flowsheet to improve processing cycle times. This will enable the facility to support higher canister production while maximizing waste loading. Higher throughput is needed in the Chemical Process Cell (CPC) since the installation of the bubblers into the melter has increased melt rate. Due to the significant maintenance required for the DWPF gas chromatographs (GC) and the potential for production of flammable quantities of hydrogen, reducing or eliminating the amount of formic acid used in the CPC is being developed. Earlier work at Savannah River National Laboratory has shown that replacing formic acid with an 80:20 molar blend of glycolic and formic acids has the potential to remove mercury in the SRAT without any significant catalytic hydrogen generation. This report summarizes the research completed to determine the feasibility of processing without formic acid. In earlier development of the glycolic-formic acid flowsheet, one run (GF8) was completed without formic acid. It is of particular interest that mercury was successfully removed in GF8, no formic acid at 125% stoichiometry. Glycolic acid did not show the ability to reduce mercury to elemental mercury in initial screening studies, which is why previous testing focused on using the formic/glycolic blend. The objective of the testing detailed in this document is to determine the viability of the nitric-glycolic acid flowsheet in processing sludge over a wide compositional range as requested by DWPF. This work was performed under the guidance of Task Technical and Quality Assurance Plan (TT&QAP). The details regarding the simulant preparation and analysis have been documented previously.
Last year, experts from CO 2 Sciences, Columbia University and Valence Strategic came together to develop a roadmap. That document, Carbon Dioxide Utilization ICEF Roadmap 1.0, released at the UNFCCC Marrakesh Climate Change Conference in 2016, surveyed the commercial and technical landscape of CO 2 conversion and use. The document provided extensive background and analysis and has helped to provide a foundation for additional studies, including this one.This roadmap is meant to complement and expand upon the work of its predecessor. Based in part on a workshop at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy in July 2017, it explores three distinct categories of CO 2 -based products, the technologies that can be harnessed to convert CO2 to these products, and the associated research and development needs. It also explores the complicated topic of life cycle analysis—critically important when considering the climate impacts of CO 2 conversion and use—as well as policy tools that could be used to promote CO 2 -based products.
This guide is a compilation of best practices and resources from three of Sandia's leading strategic intern programs which make up the Technical Internships to Advance National Security (TITANS) program. TITANS consist of the Center for Analysis Systems and Applications (CASA), the Center for Cyber Defenders (CCD), and the Monitoring Systems & Technology Intern Center (MSTIC).
This Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico Environmental Restoration Operations (ER) Consolidated Quarterly Report (ER Quarterly Report) fulfills all quarterly reporting requirements set forth in the Compliance Order on Consent. Table I-1 lists the six sites remaining in the corrective action process. This ER Quarterly Report presents activities and data as follows: SECTION I: Environmental Restoration Operations Consolidated Quarterly Report, January — March 2019 SECTION II: Because there is no perchlorate sampling collection to report this quarter, this edition of the ER Quarterly Report does not include any analysis of data in Section II "Perchlorate Screening Quarterly Groundwater Monitoring Report." SECTION III: Technical Area-V In-Situ Bioremediation Treatability Study Full-Scale Operation, January — March 2019.
The 95 Zr manuscript describing our experimental approach to measure branching ratios of long-lived fission products has been completed and successfully published in NIM A. This article is an important milestone in this effort and will serve as a great reference in any future reports describing results of other measurements we plan to perform. We have also expended our team, and Daniel Hoff joined us as a postdoc. We have been training him on how to use our analysis and simulation tools, as well as bringing him up to speed on the technical details of our experiment.
This Operational Assessment Report describes how the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) met or exceeded every one of its goals for calendar year (CY) 2021 as an advanced scientific computing center. In CY 2021, the ALCF operated its production resource, Theta, an Intel-based Cray XC40 system (11.7-petaflops) augmented with 24 NVIDIA DGX A100-based nodes (3.9-petaflops) that supports diverse workloads, integrating data analytics with artificial intelligence (AI) training and learning in a single platform. In 2021, we began deploying Polaris, our newest 40- petaflops system, and augmented this powerful testbed system with an additional 28 nodes to support the integration of real-time experiments and HPC resources. We also deployed our two largest storage systems yet, named Grand and Eagle, that will bring new services to our users and will power data-driven research for years to come. Last year, Theta delivered a total of 20.8 million node-hours to 16 Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) projects and 7.2 million node-hours to ASCR Leadership Computing Challenge (ALCC) projects (32 awarded during the 2020–2021 ALCC year and 17 awarded during the 2021–2022 ALCC year), as well as substantial support to Director’s Discretionary (DD) projects (5.5 million node-hours). As Table ES.1 shows, Theta performed exceptionally well in terms of overall availability (95.1 percent), scheduled availability (99.4 percent), and utilization (98.1 percent; Table 2.1). As of the submission date of this document, ALCF’s user community has published 249 papers in high-quality, peer-reviewed journals and technical proceedings. At the 2021 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC’21), Argonne researchers won two HPCwire Readers’ Choice Awards and were part of a Gordon Bell Prize finalist team recognized for developing an AI-enabled, multi-resolution simulation framework for studying complex biomolecular machines. Their framework was used to observe the SARS-CoV-2 replication-transcription machinery in action, by directly integrating experimental data. ALCF also provided a comprehensive program of high-performance computing (HPC) support services to help our community make productive use of the facility’s diverse and growing collection of resources. We are now entering the exascale era, with exascale machines being planned for national laboratories across the country, including Aurora at Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) in 2023. ALCF researchers have been leading and guiding numerous strategic activities that will push the boundaries of what’s possible in computational science and engineering and allow us to deliver science on day one.
This presentation presents the findings of our study, including an analysis of federal, state, and local geothermal regulatory and permitting processes, case studies analyzing site-specific attributes that may impact project development at four selected geothermal project sites, an analysis of cost and timeline implications for geothermal project development, and the results of a qualitative study focused on inter-agency coordination and collaboration efforts between federal, state, and/or local agencies for geothermal projects located in California and Nevada. Our analysis found that development timelines may be impacted by multiple federal and state environmental review processes and duplicative permitting requirements as well as coordination efforts between numerous federal, state, and local agencies involved in issuing authorizations and permits necessary for project development. In addition, projects in California and Nevada may face site-specific environmental challenges due to the presence of sensitive resources (e.g., biological species and species habitat, cultural resources) that may result in project construction delays. Our study results also indicate that protracted geothermal development timelines caused by delays in acquiring necessary permits and environmental reviews may result in loss of generated electricity revenue and additional financing costs, which may increase economic uncertainty associated with project development. Through our qualitative analysis, we found that utilization of best practices, including tiering to existing environmental review documents and developing memoranda of understanding, which clearly delineate agency roles and responsibilities may reduce overall project timelines, costs, and uncertainties associated with geothermal project development in California and Nevada.
This work introduces a rules-based deconfliction methodology for resolving conflicting device control commands issued by advanced power applications considering a range of technical, economic, environmental, and social objectives. The methodology is designed to serve as one of multiple alternative implementations (along with application cooperation and global optimization) for the numerical component of the Deconfliction Pipeline. Development of the methodology is divided into two parts. This first document introduces the requirements, context, and methods for decomposing the deconfliction problem using the Laminar Coordination Framework and Variable Grid Structures. The deconfliction problem is decomposed into a distributed optimization problem based on the concept of quasi-static grid segments, which form independent distributed areas for control and coordination. Selection of the optimal number of decompositions of the deconfliction problem should be made based on a tradeoff analysis between computational speed and global optimality. This second document will define an initial set of technical, economic, and environmental criteria, as well as thirty specific qualitative rules that are used as part of the deconfliction methodology to eliminate non-viable setpoint alternatives. The deconfliction optimization problem is converted into a ranking of individual discrete setpoints, which are scored by the extent to which they satisfy specific decision criteria. The ranking is determined through the concepts of deconfliction exclusivity, priority, and preference. Several multi-criteria decision-making frameworks are examined with the simple multi-attribute rating technique exploiting ranks (SMARTER) recommended as a simple implementation alternative that aligns with the steps of the rules-based deconfliction methodology.
This presentation demonstrates a spatial analysis workflow to assess data availability for the many components of geologic carbon storage technical viability. The workflow relies upon a knowledge-data framework that links the different components of GCS technical viability to the data types needed for evaluation. Using this contextual information, a combination of data science methods (e.g., natural language processing) and spatial analyses are applied to identify areas where sufficient data exists for a given component. The results are aggregated into maps illustrating data density and spatial gaps across all technical viability factors and data categories, as well as the individual component and category level for a more nuanced understanding. Presented at the FECM NETL Carbon Management Program Review Meeting 2024.
This presentation demonstrates a spatial analysis workflow to assess data availability for the many components of geologic carbon storage technical viability. The workflow relies upon a knowledge-data framework that links the different components of GCS technical viability to the data types needed for evaluation. Using this contextual information, a combination of data science methods (e.g., natural language processing) and spatial analyses are applied to identify areas where sufficient data exists for a given component. The results are aggregated into maps illustrating data density and spatial gaps across all technical viability factors and data categories, as well as the individual component and category level for a more nuanced understanding. Presented at the Geological Society of America Connects 2024 Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California, 22-25 September 2024.
Reliable, high-intensity operation of the Fermilab Accelerator Complex is critical to the success of the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility and Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. We describe the requirements and infrastructure necessary to support routine use of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) in the accelerator control system. Three capabilities are identified: a machine learning operations (MLOps) framework standardizing the lifecycle of AI/ML automation from data management through deployment and monitoring; a data quality framework defining and enforcing standards required to build trustworthy AI/ML applications; and workflow integration with large language models to assist physicists, engineers, and operators with information retrieval, code development, and routine analysis. Use cases spanning beam diagnostics, beam control, and support system automation illustrate the technical requirements across the complex.
While industrial emissions research has historically focused on energy-intensive sectors like steel, cement, and chemicals, this study addresses a critical gap by examining barriers across all the manufacturing industry in the U.S. Sectors like food processing, retail, plastics, and transportation face unique challenges distinct from heavy industry, operating on thin margins with limited bargaining power while experiencing heightened consumer and stakeholder pressure for improved environmental responsibility. Through structured interview data collection process and using quantitative ratings and qualitative analysis, this research identifies and categorizes emission reduction barriers across four key themes: financial, technical, organizational, and regulatory. Unlike energy-intensive industries that may pursue hydrogen or carbon capture technologies, discrete manufacturing industry like automotive, electrical and electronics, and machine manufacturers typically focus on energy efficiency, electrification of thermal processes, and alternate fuel switching, solutions better aligned with their lower-temperature processes and distributed facility profiles. The study’s primary contribution lies in documenting specific barrier manifestations within organizations and identifying proven mitigation strategies that companies have successfully implemented or observed among peers.
The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Communities Local Energy Action Program (Communities LEAP) provided customized technical assistance to the Northwest Colorado region to assist in developing strategies that facilitate long-term economic benefits through locally driven energy planning and development. The region sought technical assistance to model alternatives energy projects in response to the expected retirement of coal-fired powers plant and associated coal mines by 2030. Northwest Colorado faces a potential economic gap due to the loss of tax revenue, labor income, and jobs within the region due to the impending closure of the Craig and Hayden Power Stations and related mining operations at Trapper and Colowyo mines.
High-throughput sequencing libraries are typically limited by the requirement for nanograms to micrograms of input DNA. This bottleneck impedes the microscale analysis of ecosystems and the exploration of low biomass samples. Current methods for amplifying environmental DNA to bypass this bottleneck introduce considerable bias into metagenomic profiles. For this study, we describe and validate a simple modification of the Illumina Nextera XT DNA library preparation kit which allows creation of shotgun libraries from sub-nanogram amounts of input DNA. Community composition was reproducible down to 100 fg of input DNA based on analysis of a mock community comprising 54 phylogenetically diverse Bacteria and Archaea. The main technical issues with the low input libraries were a greater potential for contamination, limited DNA complexity which has a direct effect on assembly and binning, and an associated higher percentage of read duplicates. We recommend a lower limit of 1 pg (~100–1,000 microbial cells) to ensure community composition fidelity, and the inclusion of negative controls to identify reagent-specific contaminants. Applying the approach to marine surface water, pronounced differences were observed between bacterial community profiles of microliter volume samples, which we attribute to biological variation. This result is consistent with expected microscale patchiness in marine communities. We thus envision that our benchmarked, slightly modified low input DNA protocol will be beneficial for microscale and low biomass metagenomics.
The current plan for treating radioactive iodine-129 ({sup 129}I) at the 200-UP-1 operable unit (OU) within the Central Plateau at the Hanford Site is to hydraulically contain the groundwater plume using injection wells placed at the leading edge of the plume. In the previous feasibility study for the OU, no treatment technologies were identified that could achieve the federal drinking water standard of 1 pCi/L. In addition to further study to identify viable remediation technology options, efforts were initiated to assess the potential human health and environmental risks associated with using hydraulic containment of {sup 129}I, and to refine transport estimates based on evidence of attenuation. An initial step was to develop and apply a waste-site scale integrated vadose zone-aquifer model. Because viable {sup 129}I remediation technologies for the OU may not be identified in current efforts, a process to facilitate examining the suitability of a technical impracticability waiver for the OU conditions was initiated by defining the monitoring data analysis, documentation, and simulation support that would be needed for obtaining a waiver. (authors)
With the goal of maximizing plant reliability and availability, complex systems such as nuclear power plants continuously monitor and record the performance and the health status of many components, assets, and systems. Such data may take the form of online monitoring data, condition reports, and maintenance reports and it carries the potential to provide system engineers with insights into anomalous behaviors or degradation trends as well as the possible causes behind them and to predict their direct consequences. The analysis of such data poses however few challenges. While some of these challenges are technical in nature (i.e., data are often distributed over several physical servers or databases), others are conceptual in nature (i.e., data elements come in different formats, numeric or textual), and measured values have different scales (e.g., vibration spectra and oil temperature). This paper directly tackles these challenges, and it focuses on the integration of all these data elements in order to assist plant system engineers in analyzing component, assets, and systems performances and optimize maintenance activities. This is performed by 1) extracting knowledge from textual data via technical language processing methods, and 2) quantifying system, asset, and component health from numeric condition-based data. We rely on model-based system engineering (MBSE) models of systems and assets to identify their architecture and functional (i.e., cause and effect) relations. Numeric and textual data elements are then associated with an MBSE graph element, based on their nature. This bonding of MBSE models and data elements constitutes a first-of-its-kind knowledge graph of a nuclear power plants system, with data elements being organized in a structured manner that enables system engineers to identify cause-effect trends in data elements and carry out appropriate actions in response.
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: 195 The Chornobyl Accident Revisited, Part III: Chernobyl Source Term Release Dynamics and Reconstruction of Events During the Active Phase, A. R. Sich; GENERAL SAFETY CONSIDERATIONS: 218 Second ANS Workshop on the Safety of Soviet-Designed Nuclear Power Plants, R. A. Bari; 234 Elements of a Nuclear Criticality Safety Program, C. M. Hopper; 243 Rickover, Excellence, and Criticality Safety Programs, R. E. Wilson; ACCIDENT ANALYSIS: 249 Transient Analysis of the PIUS Advanced Reactor Design with the TRAC-PF1/MOD2 Code, B. E. Boyack, J. L Steiner, S. C. Harmony, H. J. Stumpf, and J. F. Lime; 278 The Hierarchy-By-Interval Approach to Identifying Important Models that Need Improvement in Severe-Accident Simulation Codes, T. J. Heames, M. Khatib-Rahbar, J. E. Kelly, R. P. Jenks-Johnson, and Y.-S. Chen; 290 RELAP5/MOD3 Code Coupling Model, R. P. Martin; 299 Missiles Caused by Severe Pressurized-Water Reactor Accidents, R. Krieg; DESIGN FEATURES: 310 Validation of COMMIX with Westinghouse AP-600 PCCS Test Data, J. G. Sun, T. H. Chien, J. Ding, and W T. Sha; ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS: 321 Spent Nuclear Fuel Characterization for a Bounding Reference Assembly for the Receiving Basin for Off-Site Fuel, S. D. Kahook, R. L. Garrett, L. R. Canas, and M J. Beckum; OPERATING EXPERIENCES: 332 Reactor Shutdown Experience, Compiled by J. W. Cletcher; U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION INFORMATION AND ANALYSES: 335 Reactor Coolant System Blowdown at Wolf Creek on September 17, 1994, J. V. Kauffman and S. L. Israel; RECENT DEVELOPMENTS: 344 Reports, Standards, and Safety Guides, D. S. Oueener; 349 Proposed Rule Changes as of June 30, 1995; ANNOUNCEMENTS: 320 Symposium on Acceptability of Risk From Radiation—Application to Manned Space Flight; 320 24th DOE/NRC Nuclear Air Cleaning and Treatment Conference; 361 Radiation Biology and Radiation Protection— Modern Developments and Tendencies in Radiation Biology; 362 1997 IEEE Sixth Conference on Human Factors and Power Plants; 354 The Authors; 360 Reviewers of Nuclear Safety, Vol. 36.