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This is the AmeriFlux version of the carbon flux data for the site US-Mi1 LTAR UCB (Upper Chesapeake Bay) Miscanthus 1. Site Description - This Farm was a privately owned farm in Ohio Leased to Aloterra Energy Corporation out of Texas, The crop was Miscanthus grown continually originally for alternative Ethanol production but eventually for fiber as absorbant material. Miscanthus grows upwards of 15 ft tall each year.
This is the AmeriFlux version of the carbon flux data for the site US-Mi2 LTAR UCB (Upper Chesapeake Bay) Miscanthus 2. Site Description - This Farm was a privately owned farm in Ohio Leased to Aloterra Energy Corporation out of Texas, The crop was Miscanthus grown continually originally for alternative Ethanol production but eventually for fiber as absorbant material. Miscanthus grows upwards of 15 ft tall each year.
This is the AmeriFlux version of the carbon flux data for the site US-Mi3 LTAR UCB (Upper Chesapeake Bay) Miscanthus 3. Site Description - This Farm was a privately owned farm in Ohio Leased to Aloterra Energy Corporation out of Texas, The crop was Miscanthus grown continually originally for alternative Ethanol production but eventually for fiber as absorbant material. Miscanthus grows upwards of 15 ft tall each year.
The project Characterization of the Triassic Newark Basin of New York and New Jersey for Geologic Storage of Carbon Dioxide is one of 9 site characterization projects that were implemented as part of ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act). Data from this project was used to improve resolution of data in NATCARB in the area of study. Data related to this study has already been incorporated in NATCARB Atlas. Sandia Technologies, LLC, and co-investigator Conrad Geoscience Corporation, examined the potential for large-scale, permanent CO2 storage in sedimentary strata within the Newark Rift Basin. The Newark Rift Basin underlies an industrialized, developed region comprising parts of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The project characterized and investigated the suitability of Triassic age sedimentary formations for potential geologic CO2 storage. The project team drilled and cored two test wells to define the sedimentary geologic formations underlying the basin and to document or reach basement rock. With this geologic characterization phase, an integration of seismic, geologic, borehole, and formation core results provided a higher resolution assessment of CO2 storage potential. The Stockton Formation is known to be a potentially favorable geologic storage formation in the basin. In 2011, the 1-NYSTA Tandem Lot stratigraphic test well was drilled to a depth of 6,855 feet in the northern portion of the Newark Basin in southern New York State. Approximately 9 miles south-southeast on the Lamont Doherty Campus, TW-4 was drilled and cored in 2013 to a depth of 1,802 feet and contacted apparent igneous basement at a depth of 1,712 feet. Both wells penetrated the Palisades Sill ranging from 800 feet thick in the eastern well to approximately 1,800 feet in thickness at the 1-NYSTA Tandem Lot deep drill site. A diabase sill can provide an excellent seal and dense confining layer for potential CO2 storage reservoirs and flow layers that are situated beneath it within the Stockton Sandstone. The Stockton Sandstone was encountered beneath the sill in the TW-4 well on the Lamont campus, and data integration suggests that it was likely observed near total depth in the deep 1-NYSTA Tandem Lot well. The test wells confirm and define reservoirs are present beneath the sill and offer CO2 storage potential. The integration of geologic and reservoir characterization of well logs, formation cores, and formation fluids indicated Triassic age lacustrine playa lake and mudbank shales of the Upper Passaic Group can provide an effective seal for the porous and permeable underlying sandstone reservoir layers. This project acquired seismic data, drilled borehole well logs, acquired core samples, and integrated these findings to provide a better understanding of the subsurface geologic formations in the Newark Rift Basin. These findings have contributed to a higher degree of accuracy in predicting potential geologic storage opportunities, while refining geologic storage capacity estimates for the indicated reservoirs and flow units.
The industrial control systems (ICSs) that manage our critical infrastructure are increasingly converging with corporate networks and the Internet as technology and businesses prioritize digital connectivity. These connections make them more vulnerable and available to malicious cyber actors who traditionally targeted the companies’ more public-facing information technology (IT) networks. This paper will review select publicly reported cyber incidents to highlight the continued and growing threat to ICS devices and operational technology (OT) environments. It will summarize the incident and when available, will provide information on the cyber actors, the vulnerabilities they exploited, and any publications the U.S. Government (USG) provided in response. Data belonging to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will be used to highlight quantitative trends concerning ICS incidents. This paper builds on “History of Industrial Control System Cyber Incidents” (Hemsley & Fisher 2018), a paper that highlighted select noteworthy threats and incidents to ICS systems up to 2017. This paper will similarly review select incidents occurring after the last previously reviewed incident, Triton/HatMan, December 2017, and will note ICS incident trends including IT/OT convergence and advances in cyber-threat actors’ capabilities in observed in the examined incidents.
The best performance of niobium SRF accelerating cavities is obtained with surfaces smoothed with electropolishing chemical finishing. Jefferson Lab has recently specified, procured, installed, and commissioned a new versatile production electropolishing (EP) tool. Experience with EP research and operations at JLab as well as vendor interactions and experience guided development of the system specification. Detailed design and fabrication was awarded by contract to Semiconductor Process Equipment Corporation (SPEC). The delivered system was integrated into the JLab chemroom infrastructure and commissioned in 2020. The new EP tool provides much improved heat exchange from the circulating H₂SO₄/HF electrolyte and also the cavity via variable temperature external cooling water flow, resulting in quite uniform cavity wall temperature control and thus improved removal uniformity. With the JLab infrastructure, stabilized process temperature as low as 5 C is available. We describe the system and illustrate operational modes in this contribution.
The PIP-II Injector Test (PIP2IT) has successfully accelerated ionized hydrogen up to 17MeV through a superconducting, single spoke resonator (SSR1) cryomodule at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL). Each of the SSR1 cavities is tuned to 325MHz and requires up to 6 kW of RF power to accelerate 2mA of ionized hydrogen at the design gradients. RF power amplifiers, specialized for SRF cavity beam operations, were designed by Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) and constructed in a collaboration between the BARC in Mumbai, India and the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) in Hyderabad, India. The RF amplifiers meet the specifications and requirements mutually approved between BARC and FNAL. They operate at 325 MHz with a linear power output of 7 kW in both CW and pulse mode. The amplifiers are compatible with the FNAL accelerator personnel safety system and the cavity protection interlocks. Access to controls and internal diagnostic instrumentation are compatible with EPICS control standards. This paper gives details about RF power amplifier development within the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), India and the operational details with PIP2IT at FNAL.
Trimeric performed a technoeconomic analysis for a proposed 5 MWe gross modular gasification power generation facility. The cost estimate was used to determine the economic advantages of the proposed modular, staged-OMB gasifier in comparison to other modular gasifier designs. The project, Staged OMB for Modular Gasifier/Burner, is led by The University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research (UK CAER) and supported by East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST) and Trimeric Corporation. A high-level summary of the findings from this project are presented below.
In 1975, Congress passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), requiring standards for corporate average fuel economy (CAFE), and charging the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) with the establishment and enforcement of these standards. The Secretary of Transportation has delegated these responsibilities to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
This report details work performed at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in support of an interlaboratory uranium (U) benchmarking collaboration between LANL, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa). The goal of this interlaboratory benchmarking exercise is to compare analytical methods and data obtained on uranium reference materials CUP-2 and New Brunswick Laboratory (NBL) certified reference material (CRM) 124-2. The LANL commitments for this project include performing microwave digestion of fresh CUP-2 and CRM 124-2 powders, measuring the U isotope composition of CUP-2 and CRM 124-2 by both single-collector and multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (SC-ICP-MS and MC-ICP-MS, respectively), and determining trace-element abundances in CUP-2 and CRM 124-2 by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). This report details the methods employed by LANL in support of these objectives and presents the data obtained during this collaborative exercise.
Sandia National Laboratories, California (SNL/CA) is a Department of Energy (DOE) facility. The management and operations of the facility are under a contract with the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). On May 1, 2017, the name of the management and operating contractor changed from Sandia Corporation to National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC (NTESS). The DOE, NNSA, Sandia Field Office administers the contract and oversees contractor operations at the site. DOE and its management and operating contractor for Sandia are committed to safeguarding environmental protection, compliance, and sustainability and to ensuring the validity and accuracy of the monitoring data presented in this Annual Site Environmental Report. This Site Environmental Report for 2020 was prepared in accordance with DOE Order 231.1B, Environment, Safety and Health Reporting (DOE 2012). The report provides a summary of environmental monitoring information and compliance activities that occurred at SNL/CA during calendar year 2020, unless noted otherwise. General site and environmental program information is also included.
Aging coal-fired power plants are retiring across the United States. Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory studied coal-fired power plant decommissioning business models to support program development for the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) to engage with communities affected by power plant retirement processes. Evaluating and reducing the impact on coal-dependent communities from phasing out coal production is a crucial piece of nationwide economic development and community-directed engagement in the clean energy future. This report describes the steps in the typical coal-fired power plant decommissioning process, including analysis of the following key factors: Drivers including policy and regulations, competition with other fuels, and corporate responsibility goals; Types of coal plant decommissioning including plant retirement without full decommissioning, repurposing with fuel switch, redeveloping to utilize existing transmission, and decommissioning and repurposing with other commercial activities; and, Costs of coal plant decommissioning, including variations across regulated and deregulated markets and the funding resources to support decommissioning activities. The details described in this report relied heavily on the availability of local news reports and communications regarding plant retirements, as the researchers identified a lack of formal literature surrounding business models for coal plant decommissioning and a need for a more robust source material collection. In addition, a lack of oversight entities responsible for decommissioning processes may have led to this shortfall of information. Future research regarding coal plant decommissioning can include quantitative studies on power plant retirement drivers, procedures, and costs, qualitative assessments on affects decommissioning has on surrounding communities, investors, and other stakeholders, and identifying best practices to engage community stakeholders in the decommissioning process.
The original project proposal submitted from NovaTorque Inc (NovaTorque) in 2016 was to improve the existing motor with 95% efficiency by reducing the losses by 21% to achieve 96%. A few months after the proposal was submitted, NovaTorque lost funding and went out of business. The assets of NovaTorque were then acquired by Regal Beloit Corporation (“Regal Beloit” or “Regal”). When the NovaTorque proposal was selected, the project was transferred to Regal Beloit. Once we had production samples from the new Regal production line, they were tested at the Regal Beloit test lab in Wausau, WI. The original NovaTorque motor had an efficiency of 95%, but when the technology was transferred to Regal Beloit, there were multiple manufacturing improvements made, even though the basic electromagnetic design did not change. The test results in Wausau showed that the motors made at the Regal Beloit plant had an efficiency of 96%. Since the goal of the project was to reduce the losses by 21%, a new efficiency target of 96.8% became the project objective. In the first budget period, motors were tested to get the baseline performance. We then used FEA modeling with ANSYS Maxwell to model the existing motor to get correlation between the FEA simulations and the actual test results. Once the model was validated, we evaluated some changes that could be made to the stator to reduce the losses and improve efficiency without changing the rotor or stator housing, keeping the modifications easy to implement. The changes were primarily in the area of making the stator axially shorter and adding Soft Magnetic Composite (SMC) tooth tips. In the second budget period, we proceeded to design and build the new stator that was identified above and identified additional improvements in the process that included a stator machining modification and the use of rectangular wire. When we actually built the motor, the choice of rectangular wire turned out to be a problem. The wire was made by squishing round wire to get the rectangular shape, which caused work hardening, making the wire too stiff to make the desired coils. We shifted to annealed square wire which was better, but we still could not maintain the proper coil envelope. The result was that we had reduced cross section area for stator laminations. We also had to have a radial offset resulting in a radial misalignment between the stator and rotor because of the oversized coils. After the motor was completed, it was shipped to Texas A&M University for testing. With the loss of flux from these issues, the measured motor efficiency was only 96.3%. The primary focus of this motor was to make sure our FEA simulation model predicted the measured losses and overall efficiency, this we moved on to the FEA simulation. The FEA simulations of the motor “as built” with misalignments had good correlation with the test results, so the next step was to use that model to optimize the design of the motor for a final build. This time we considered changes to the stator and rotor and also minor changes to the housing diameter. In the third budget period, we did the detailed design and construction of the final prototypes. The final prototypes had a slight increase in the stator diameter to fit in a standard Regal Beloit housing. We shortened the stator and use more layers of wire in the coils. We also increased the cone angle of the rotor and stator from the original 110 degrees to 130 degrees to get some additional efficiency and optimized the stator cross section. The predicted efficiency from the FEA simulations was 96.9%. When completed, the motors were tested. We were a little short of reaching our target efficiency goal of 96.8%. We were only able to get to 96.7% efficiency. While it may be possible with additional iterations in designs and future builds to gain that additional 0.1%, we believe that we are close to the best we can achieve from a practical viewpoint, and additional iterations would be more work than the potential gains would be worth. No other motor in this class can even reach the 96% that we started with.
While computer systems, software applications, and operational technology (OT)/Industrial Control System (ICS) devices are regularly updated through automated and manual processes, there are several unique challenges associated with distributed energy resource (DER) patching. Millions of DER devices from dozens of vendors have been deployed in home, corporate, and utility network environments that may or may not be internet-connected. These devices make up a growing portion of the electric power critical infrastructure system and are expected to operate for decades. During that operational period, it is anticipated that critical and noncritical firmware patches will be regularly created to improve DER functional capabilities or repair security deficiencies in the equipment. The SunSpec/Sandia DER Cybersecurity Workgroup created a Patching Subgroup to investigate appropriate recommendations for the DER patching, holding fortnightly meetings for more than nine months. The group focused on DER equipment, but the observations and recommendations contained in this report also apply to DERMS tools and other OT equipment used in the end-to-end DER communication environment. The group found there were many standards and guides that discuss firmware lifecycles, patch and asset management, and code-signing implementations, but did not singularly cover the needs of the DER industry. This report collates best practices from these standards organizations and establishes a set of best practices that may be used as a basis for future national or international patching guides or standards.
The project objective is to develop a compact and tunable quadrupole using Electron Energy Corporation (EEC)’s PM materials for cryogenic accelerator applications. To achieve this objective, EEC and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) will collaborate to develop a cost-effective quadrupole and optimize the conventional manufacturing process. Based on previous experience, EEC designed an innovative field adjustment capability using tuning magnets which is able to achieve all the requirements for SLAC’s cold copper collider (C3 ) application. These novel ideas enable us to develop a compact and tunable quadrupole magnet superior to the current designs. Our approach is to leverage EEC's over 50 years of experience in magnet manufacturing and SLAC’s beamline test capabilities.
The United States has witnessed multiple attempts to improve fuel economy and reduce pollutant emissions in the transportation sector, guided chiefly via technological interventions by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and by specific policies of the U.S. Federal Government, like Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) norms (Burnham et al., 2006; U.S. DoT, 2013). These efforts have resulted in the growing adoption of alternatives to conventional materials, fuels, and vehicle propulsion technologies across various transportation modes, while also helping to lower global pollution (greenhouse gas, or GHG, emissions). Yet, a holistic evaluation of the ecofriendliness of these alternatives, particularly their energy use and emissions, merits detailed focus on their entire life-cycle, and thereby, on the life-cycle of associated transport modes. This is vital since alternative fuels and materials can differ vastly in energy sources and production methods employed for their processing vis-à-vis their existing counterparts — and this difference causes significant variation in their respective upstream emissions.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) team conducted a site visit during January 23-25, 2019 with the Igiugig Village Council (IVC) and other stakeholders to assist the community of Igiugig in refining their long-term energy strategy. The agenda included a tour of the village, data collection, presentations, long-term visioning exercises, identification of energy scenarios, and a school presentation. Participants in the site visit activities spanned a range of local, regional, government, and industry participation. There were 24 attendees at the all-day community workshop on Thursday, January 24th, with participants from the IVC, NREL, Bristol Bay Native Association (BBNA), Bristol Bay Native Corporation (BBNC), Lake and Peninsula Borough, Alaska Energy Authority, Intergrid, ORPC, Deer Stone Consulting, the Southwest Alaska Municipal Conference, and University of Alaska Fairbanks - Alaska Center for Energy and Power. Igiugig is a well-organized rural Alaskan community, with a leadership team that appears to have broad community support. The use of consensus-based decision making is one tangible example of how the leadership team actively invokes and promotes community-focused thinking. The NREL team observed anecdotal evidence of how this approach seems to be strengthening the community: active participation in the visioning exercise, a student hosted fund-raiser dinner at the school, a clean and organized landfill, and well-maintained roads and buildings. Igiugig has wind, solar, and river hydrokinetic resources readily available within the community. Wind has shown to be a promising resource in the region, and has been integrated into microgrids around the state, but the community has had mixed success with wind technologies: some devices failed quickly and others continue to operate. The economics of solar energy are improving in Alaska, and economical solar projects are being installed around the state. Considering that economic activity in Igiugig peaks during the summer sport fishing season, solar could prove to be a valuable supplement to the electrical system. Igiugig has been a test site for two different river hydrokinetic devices, and they have began a third project to operate ORPC's RivGen device, which is delivering valuable device performance data, operations and maintenance experience, and design refinement information. Already, this device has made over 7-million revolutions, and delivered over 8 MWh of power to the community. Igiugig's river resource is fairly unique because it is available year-round and has the potential to provide reliable base-load power for months at a time. A preliminary investigation of this diverse resource mix suggests that Igiugig could achieve very high levels (70% or more) of annual renewable generation contributions. A critical step in pursuing this path is identifying the mix of energy assets (generation and storage) that best meets the community's budget, needs, and goals. The assets that a community installs early in their grid-modernization initiative can constrain the options that are economical at later stages, which may lead to sub-optimal solutions. This is where technical and economic analysis of potential scenarios (i.e., distinct mixes of energy assets) can be useful in identifying the most promising pathways so that a community can make informed and strategic decisions about the assets they install. These analyses are most accurate and informative when they are based on actual technology performance and cost data. As the RivGen project continues to operate and generate this data, we will be better prepared to evaluate the technology's long-term viability and to identify research areas that would improve it. Igiugig's energy projects are at the cutting edge of two intersecting technology areas: 1) deploying an operational river hydrokinetic turbine, and 2) integrating renewable energy sources to achieve very high percent renewables. If these projects are successful, the lessons learned and technologies developed could be valuable for other microgrids around the world. Igiugig's unique resource mix make it an ideal location for this work, and the community's organizational strength make it an ideal partner in this ground-breaking work. Ongoing support for technical assistance to manage and address technical challenges along the way will maximize the probability of project success.
This final report summarized the research efforts and major findings of the Phase I Project “Development of Corrosion- and Erosion-Resistant Coatings for Advanced Ultra-Supercritical Materials”, for the period of October 1, 2019 – Sept. 30, 2021. This project is a collaborative endeavor between Tennessee Tech University, Purdue University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Siemens Corporation, and Eastern Plating, LLC, aiming at improving the durability and lifetime of high-pressure (HP) steam turbine blades in advanced ultra-supercritical (A-USC) coal-fired power plants through the development of corrosion/erosion-resistant coatings manufactured via a low-cost electrolytic codeposition process. While Tribaloy alloy T-400C was identified by the U.S. A-USC Materials Consortium as a promising coating composition, further composition optimization is needed to enhance its corrosion and erosion resistance for protecting the A-USC Ni-base turbine components. An integrated computational and experimental approach was employed to optimize coating composition/microstructure and processing parameters. In order to identify candidate coating compositions that could offer balanced properties, thermodynamic calculations were performed to explore the γ+Laves composition space in the Co-Ni-Cr-Mo-Si system with different alloying additions at 600-800 °C. Guided by the calculation results, experimental assessment of selected alloys led to the development of a new generation of Tribaloy compositions with the optimal levels of Cr, Mo and Si, reactive element (e.g., 0.4-0.6 wt.% Y) and other alloying additions. The low-cost and non-line-of-sight electro-codeposition process was employed to deposit a Ni(Co)-CrMoSiY composite coating on commercial Haynes 282 (H282) Ni-base alloy. A diffusion treatment was subsequently applied to convert the composite to the Tribaloy-type coating. Both the codeposition parameters and heat treatment conditions were varied to achieve the desired coating composition, microstructure and phase constituents. In addition, since additive manufacturing (AM) may be an alternative cost-saving option for potential A-USC turbine repair, laser direct deposition was explored to fabricate the H282 alloy with minimal defects. The electro-codeposited Tribaloy coating was also applied to the AM H282 substrate to demonstrate the viability of the coating process in improving the surface finish of AM alloys. Both high-temperature oxidation performance and solid particle erosion (SPE) resistance of model alloys and electro-codeposited coatings were evaluated. About 25 model alloys with various Cr/Mo ratios and reactive element levels, as well as partial substitution of Mo with Nb were evaluated with regard to their oxidation resistance in both air and pure steam at 760-800°C. Compositions based on Ni(Co)-20Cr-18Mo-2.6Si-0.6Y (wt.%) showed significantly improved oxidation resistance over the baseline T400-C. Based on the alloy development results, three generations of new Tribaloy coatings (Gen-1, Gen-2, and Gen-3) with various Mo/Cr contents and Y levels were prepared via electro-codeposition and their microstructure/performance were evaluated. Outstanding air and steam oxidation resistance was achieved for the Gen-2 and Gen-3 coatings. Furthermore, while the SPE resistance of the coatings depended on many factors such as temperature, environment, erodent, velocity and impact angle, the coated samples exhibited similar or better SPE resistance compared to the H282 substrate when magnetite was used as erodent (which is a realistic erodent in A-USC steam turbines). The new Tribaloy coatings also had good long-term compatibility with the H282 alloy substrate. The two large-sized rotating barrels were designed, constructed, and employed to coat dummy HP blades. Uniform coating thickness and microstructure were achieved at various blade locations. Also, a preliminary techno-economic analysis of the proposed coating process was conducted to quantify the cost-effectiveness and to assess the commercial viability of the corrosion- and erosion-resistant coatings. It is estimated that a cost reduction of ~30% could be achieved with the electro-codeposition coating process over the state-of-the-art high velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) thermal spray. Compared to the leading Tribaloy coating technologies such as HVOF and plasma transfer alloying, electro-codeposition based process has advantages such as low-cost process equipment, uniform deposition even for complex shapes, low levels of contaminants/porosities, reduction of powder waste, and potentially better surface finish and longer turbine service life. The Phase 1 study has demonstrated that it is feasible to develop an electro-codeposited Tribaloy coating with balanced corrosion and erosion properties, even though additional research efforts such as further coating process scale-up and longer-term performance evaluation under realistic A-USC conditions are clearly needed.