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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 1,153 records · Page 64
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2013

Data Call to Support the Surplus Plutonium Disposition Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (Final Report)

Based on conclusions of a recent pit disassembly and conversion (PDC) Alternatives Study, the plutonium facility at Los Alamos (TA-55-4, “PF-4”) may be a viable location for converting pits into a feed material for making mixed oxide fuel rods at Savannah River Site (SRS). The alternatives study was separate from the on-going effort to develop a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for Surplus Plutonium Disposition (SPD). The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has decided to include the Los Alamos option in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis. An NNSA memorandum “Data Call to Support the Surplus Plutonium Disposition Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement” received on October 26, 2011 directed Los Alamos to gather data in support of this effort.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗
DOE OSTI2018

Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC)–U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Program on Research and Development for Fossil Energy-Related Resources

The EERC teamed with the DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory to conduct complementary research and development under the Joint Program on Research and Development for Fossil Energy-Related Resources (Cooperative Agreement No. DE-FC26-08NT43291). This 10-year program merged two previous 10-year agreements—DE-FC26-98FT40320 and DE-FC26-98FT40321—into a single follow-on agreement. The Fossil Energy cooperative agreement between DOE and the EERC was initiated in 1983 when the EERC was defederalized. This dynamic 35-year partnership has evolved to further research in areas that address DOE Office of Fossil Energy program goals while serving the missions and exploiting the strengths of both organizations through this agreement and a new 5-year Fossil Energy-Related Resources cooperative agreement established in 2015. As the 10-year program has ended, the purpose of this report is to summarize the activity and significant outcomes that were accomplished by the EERC. This program is an excellent model for research, development, demonstration, and commercialization partnerships between government, industry, and the applied science and engineering communities to bring cutting-edge science closer to commercial application. The overarching goal was to support DOE Fossil Energy goals by advancing the scientific knowledge and technical development essential to ensuring future sustainable supplies of affordable energy and clean water, protecting and restoring the environment, and reducing dependence on foreign energy sources, thereby increasing U.S. energy security. The strategic objective was to advance continued use of domestic fossil fuels as a mainstay of U.S. energy production by making fossil energy systems nonpolluting and more efficient, capturing and sequestering greenhouse gases, and integrating the use of fossil and renewable energy sources into the energy mix. The research achievements from this partnership have exceeded the goals and objectives by contributing substantially to the development of science-based energy and environmental policy, educational foundations for science and technology, and commercialization and international marketing of energy technologies. The program comprised 75 individual projects, which included basic/applied fossil energy research projects involving no cost share and development, demonstration, and commercialization projects (many derived from applied research projects) that included nonfederal cost share of approximately 40% (the contractually required minimum level of cumulative nonfederal cost share was 29%). In all, 32,798,698 of federal funding was leveraged with industry cash and in-kind cost share of 21,697,129 from 80 nonfederal partners for a total of 54,495,827 of funded research that 1) advanced the development of unconventional tight oil resources in the Bakken Formation; 2) demonstrated the application of CO 2 Storage and EOR in tight oil formations; 3) developed advanced carbon capture technology; 4) addressed key application and infrastructure concerns for commercial deployment of CO 2 ; 5) demonstrated innovative, integrated water management strategies for energy development projects; 6) developed novel pollution control technologies for mercury and hazardous air pollutants; and 7) performed world-class outreach and dissemination of research results to industry partners and other stakeholders. These outcomes speak to the valuable return on the substantial investment in this program.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS2013

SMC Message Browser Projects

I work directly with the System Monitoring and Control (SMC) software engineers who develop, test and release custom and commercial software in support of the Kennedy Space Center Spaceport Command and Control System. (SCCS). SMC uses Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Enterprise Management Systems (EMS) software which provides a centralized subsystem for configuring, monitoring, and controlling SCCS hardware and software used in the Control Rooms. There are multiple projects being worked on using the COTS EMS software. I am currently working with the HP Operations Manager for UNIX (OMU) software which allows Master Console Operators (MCO) to access, view and interpret messages regarding the status of the SCCS hardware and software. The OMU message browser gets cluttered with messages which can make it difficult for the MCO to manage. My main project involves determining ways to reduce the number of messages being displayed in the OMU message browser. I plan to accomplish this task in two different ways: (1) by correlating multiple messages into one single message being displayed and (2) to create policies that will determine the significance of each message and whether or not it needs to be displayed to the MCO. The core idea is to lessen the number of messages being sent to the OMU message browser so the MCO can more effectively use it.

OMU↗
DOE OSTI2014

Adventures in scientific nuclear diplomacy

A former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory offers a first-person perspective on the important contributions scientists can make toward improving the safety and security of nuclear materials and reducing the global nuclear dangers in an evolving world.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Fair and Equitable Clean Energy Transition in Alachua County

Alachua County, Florida is committed to transitioning to renewable energy in order to address the climate crisis and secure energy justice for low-income and underserved communities. Alachua County's community-led Project EMPOWER (Energy Modernization for People, Opportunity, Work, Equity, and Renewables) is focused on making the clean energy transition fair and equitable for everyone, and is partnering with the U.S. Department of Energy's Communities LEAP (Local Energy Action Program) Pilot.

Alachua County↗
DOE OSTI2024

Beginner's Guide to Understanding Power System Model Results for Long-Term Resource Plans

This presentation summarizes a recently published beginner's guide for understanding power system model results for long-term resource plans. This guide is designed to improve decision-making in the electricity planning process by strengthening dialogue between system planners and relevant stakeholders. It focuses on interpreting scenario results generated by power system planning models. These results are often used to inform integrated resource plans, which are long-term plans for a utility to meet future electricity requirements. Whether you are a state utility commissioner, commission staff, part of a state energy office, an intervenor in the planning process, or another stakeholder, this guide is designed to help you better weigh in on the modeling methods or interpret the model results to improve decision-making. This guide can enhance your understanding to ask the right questions, which can enable better understanding of results and key assumptions, data, and methods.

ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
NASA NTRS2004

Manufacturing Bms/Iso System Review

The Quality Management System (QMS) is one that recognizes the need to continuously change and improve an organization s products and services as determined by system feedback, and corresponding management decisions. The purpose of a Quality Management System is to minimize quality variability of an organization's products and services. The optimal Quality Management System balances the need for an organization to maintain flexibility in the products and services it provides with the need for providing the appropriate level of discipline and control over the processes used to provide them. The goal of a Quality Management System is to ensure the quality of the products and services while consistently (through minimizing quality variability) meeting or exceeding customer expectations. The GRC Business Management System (BMS) is the foundation of the Center's ISO 9001:2000 registered quality system. ISO 9001 is a quality system model developed by the International Organization for Standardization. BMS supports and promote the Glenn Research Center Quality Policy and wants to ensure the customer satisfaction while also meeting quality standards. My assignment during this summer is to examine the manufacturing processes used to develop research hardware, which in most cases are one of a kind hardware, made with non conventional equipment and materials. During this process of observation I will make a determination, based on my observations of the hardware development processes the best way to meet customer requirements and at the same time achieve the GRC quality standards. The purpose of my task is to review the manufacturing processes identifying opportunities in which to optimize the efficiency of the processes and establish a plan for implementation and continuous improvement.

Gomez, Yazmin↗
NASA NTRS2017

UAV Trajectory Modeling Using Neural Networks

Massive small unmanned aerial vehicles are envisioned to operate in the near future. While there are lots of research problems need to be addressed before dense operations can happen, trajectory modeling remains as one of the keys to understand and develop policies, regulations, and requirements for safe and efficient unmanned aerial vehicle operations. The fidelity requirement of a small unmanned vehicle trajectory model is high because these vehicles are sensitive to winds due to their small size and low operational altitude. Both vehicle control systems and dynamic models are needed for trajectory modeling, which makes the modeling a great challenge, especially considering the fact that manufactures are not willing to share their control systems. This work proposed to use a neural network approach for modelling small unmanned vehicle's trajectory without knowing its control system and bypassing exhaustive efforts for aerodynamic parameter identification. As a proof of concept, instead of collecting data from flight tests, this work used the trajectory data generated by a mathematical vehicle model for training and testing the neural network. The results showed great promise because the trained neural network can predict 4D trajectories accurately, and prediction errors were less than 2:0 meters in both temporal and spatial dimensions.

Neural Networks↗
DOE OSTI2025

Safe Physics-Informed Machine Learning for Dynamics and Control

This tutorial paper focuses on safe physics-informed machine learning in the context of dynamics and control, providing a comprehensive overview of how to integrate physical models and safety guarantees. As machine learning techniques enhance the modeling and control of complex dynamical systems, ensuring safety and stability remains a critical challenge, especially in safety-critical applications like autonomous vehicles, robotics, medical decision-making, and energy systems. We explore various approaches for embedding and ensuring safety constraints, including structural priors, Lyapunov and Control Barrier Functions, predictive control, projections, and robust optimization techniques. Additionally, we delve into methods for uncertainty quantification and safety verification, including reachability analysis and neural network verification tools, which help validate that control policies remain within safe operating bounds even in uncertain environments. The paper includes illustrative examples demonstrating the implementation aspects of safe learning frameworks that combine the strengths of data-driven approaches with the rigor of physical principles, offering a path toward the safe control of complex dynamical systems.

Drgona, Jan↗
DOE OSTI2019

EFCOG, IOSC Best Practices Guide

Members of the Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG), Safeguards and Security Working Group, Information Security Sub-Working Group Incidents of Security Concern (IOSC) Team prepared this best practice guide. For the purposes of this guide, “best practices” are “positive examples of work processes, procedures, good ideas, or effective solutions. The team made up of IOSC Subject Matter Experts (SME) identified these best practices as a result of actual operational experience and training. The guide describes best practices for categorizing incidents and managing inquiries. These practices may serve as guidelines for developing program plans, policy and procedures. These practices are suggestions for Department sites to consider while working in the IOSC subject area. The authors acknowledge that there may be alternatives to the practices identified in this guide. Subject matter Experts from the IOSC program across the Department developed this guide. Extensive discussion and document reviews were conducted to identify best practices relating to security inquiries. It was not within the scope of this study to assess individual site performance or evaluate compliance. Department of Energy’s (DOE), Order 470.4B, Chg.2, Safeguards and Security Program, July-21-2011, Chg 2, January-17-2017, Attachment 5, Incidents of Security Concern, contains the requirements for the IOSC program. In accordance with DOE directives and requirements established by DOE/National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) oversight, the working group evaluated elements of the IOSC program at each of the working group member’s sites such as categorizing events, conducting inquiries, and reporting events. Inconsistencies in categorization across the sites may be due to various factors, including each local field office having different reporting expectations, subjectivity in making determinations, and potential inherent deficiencies in the categorization tables and category descriptions. Many sites have adopted a sub reportable category for a security anomaly event that it believes does not meet the criteria as a reportable IOSC. The sites typically establish a local standardized process for reporting, analyzing, and trending sub-reportable events. Security incident program managers may need to discuss inconsistent categorization with other Inquiry Officials (IO) and suggest standardized solutions (ie…through policy changes or a forum attended by incident program managers and inquiry officials to discuss standardization solutions. At least one EFCOG IOSC team member’s site is currently using the best practices identified in this guide.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Foundations of an Electric Mobility Strategy for the City of Mexicali

The Foundations of an Electric Mobility Strategy for the city of Mexicali aligns with numerous energy, environmental, and transport plans and will help Mexicali meet multiple related goals. Mexicali’s energy mix, with 28% renewables, already enables plugin electric vehicles (PEVs) to reduce the mass of greenhouse gases (GHGs) per km driven 2/3 below that of their conventional counterparts. This GHG benefit will increase should Mexicali take steps to further increase their share of renewables in their electricity supply. Beyond increasing renewables, Mexicali could possibly deploy PEVs so that electric load is added in the right location (depending on further analysis of substations and feeders) and at the right time (between 21:00 and 11:00) in order to minimize grid upgrade costs. There are a handful of charge timing control mechanisms –at various stages of development– that Mexicali could implement. Transport electrification can facilitate mass transit by powering buses, trains, and small vehicles that get people from their homes or work to the transit stations and vice versa. Mexicali could utilize fleets as early PEV adopters in order to gain acceptance and add electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE). Recommended prioritization of different types of fleets are suggested in this report: transit buses, school buses, airport ground support equipment (GSE), refuse trucks, taxis, shuttle buses, campus vehicles, delivery trucks, utility trucks, and finally semitrailers. There are a handful of policy options that Mexicali could use to incentivize fleets to purchase PEVs, including mandates, economic incentives, energy performance contracts, waivers to access restrictions, electricity discounts, and EVSE requirements in building codes. Mexicali’s taxi fleet was an early adopter of PEVs and had experienced some challenges—mostly related to the insufficient range of the taxis due to hot weather. In this report, we strategize ways to extend the range of the current electric taxis, including ways to make charging more convenient to the drivers, and more suggestions for appropriate vehicles to purchase in the future. This report also includes the groundwork of geotracking Mexicali’s taxi fleet so that more detailed recommendations can be made in the future. Once fleets have increased PEV acceptance and EVSE installations, the market will be ready to expand to private vehicle owners. In order to do this, more EVSE needs to be installed in the right locations. This mobility strategy lays out general local areas where EVSE could be well utilized, based on traffic patterns, land use, and demographic data. Mexicali could approach businesses within these areas that would likely make suitable hosts, based on how well they can profit from the additional business that EVSE would bring. Mexicali could then adopt a series of purchase incentives (including sales tax waivers or access to high-occupancy vehicles [HOV] lanes) that would encourage private vehicle owners to purchase PEVs. Purchase incentives run the risk of creating equity issues, which can be countered by promoting electrification in mass transit, creating more HOV lanes that have PEV exemptions, and installing EVSEs in underserved communities. Private PEV ownership will require a set of experts that Mexicali can help train, including PEV repair technicians, EVSE installation electricians, and first responders.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Optimal carbon storage reservoir management through deep reinforcement learning

Model-based optimization plays a central role in energy system design and management. The complexity and high-dimensionality of many process-level models, especially those used for geosystem energy exploration and utilization, often lead to formidable computational costs when the dimension of decision space is also large. This work adopts elements of recently advanced deep learning techniques to solve a sequential decision-making problem in applied geosystem management. Specifically, a deep reinforcement learning framework was formed for optimal multiperiod planning, in which a deep Q-learning network (DQN) agent was trained to maximize rewards by learning from high-dimensional inputs and from exploitation of its past experiences. To expedite computation, deep multitask learning was used to approximate high-dimensional, multistate transition functions. Both DQN and deep multitask learning are pattern based. As a demonstration, the framework was applied to optimal carbon sequestration reservoir planning using two different types of management strategies: monitoring only and brine extraction. Both strategies are designed to mitigate potential risks due to pressure buildup. Results show that the DQN agent can identify the optimal policies to maximize the reward for given risk and cost constraints. Finally, experiments also show that knowledge the agent gained from interacting with one environment is largely preserved when deploying the same agent in other similar environments.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Climate science to inform adaptation policy: Heat waves over India in the 1.5°C and 2°C warmer worlds

Developing a better scientific understanding of anthropogenic climate change and climate variability, especially the prediction/projection of climate futures with useful temporal and geographical resolution and quantified uncertainties, and using that knowledge to inform adaptation planning and action will become crucially important in the coming years. Generating such policy-relevant knowledge may be particularly important for developing countries such as India. It is with this backdrop that, in this paper, we analyze future heat waves in India by using observations and a large number of model simulations of historical, + 1.5 °C, and + 2.0 °C warmer worlds. In both the future scenarios, there is an increased probability of heat waves during June and July when the Indian monsoon is in full swing and humidity is high, which makes the heat events even more of a health risk. While the highest temperatures in heat waves may not increase much in future climates, the duration and areal extent of the heat waves will most likely increase, leading to the emergence of new heat wave-prone zones in India. The results indicate that the joint frequencies of the longest duration and large area events could be nearly threefold greater in the + 1.5 °C and fivefold greater in the + 2.0 °C future scenarios compared to historical simulations. Thus, overall, the study indicates a substantial increase in the risk of heat events that typically elicit warnings from forecasters. The likely widespread and persistent nature of heat wave events in the future, as revealed by this study, will require planning and adaptation measures beyond the short-term disaster planning frameworks currently in place. Exploring what these measures might look like is beyond the scope of this study, but it underlines the importance of developing climate knowledge with high temporal and geographical resolution capable of informing adaptation policy and planning.

+1.5 °C and +2.0 °C↗
DOE OSTI2022

Evaluating the current perceived cost of ownership for buses and trucks in China

Decarbonizing commercial vehicles, including buses, trucks, and special purpose vehicles, is essential for China to achieve its carbon neutrality target by 2060. However, understanding the adoption barriers of alternative fuel technologies for commercial vehicles has largely been limited to the total cost of ownership approach that mainly considers tangible costs. Additionally, this study proposes a perceived cost of ownership (PCO) model, which monetizes both tangible and implicit costs, including charging annoyance for buses and trucks by size and classification under different use scenarios. In the case study for China's current bus and truck market, the PCO of alternative fuel technologies, such as battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) are 27%–129% and 31%–86% higher than the most economically competitive powertrains – the compressed natural/liquefied petroleum gas technology and hybrid electric technology. BEVs could be cost-effective in the mini/midsize bus segment or in the daily short-distance driving scenario, and FCEVs could firstly be deployed in cities with a low hydrogen price. Though the implicit costs caused by range anxiety and charging annoyance account for at least 27% of BEV's PCO, making BEV uncompetitive, the battery swapping technique could reduce the implicit cost and overall cash outflow for BEV owners.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2018

The cost of getting CCS wrong: Uncertainty, infrastructure design, and stranded CO 2

Carbon capture, and storage (CCS) infrastructure will require industry—such as fossil-fuel power, ethanol production, and oil and gas extraction—to make massive investment in infrastructure. The cost of getting these investments wrong will be substantial and will impact the success of CCS technology. Multiple factors can and will impact the success of commercial-scale CCS, including significant uncertainties regarding capture, transport, and injection-storage decisions. Uncertainties throughout the CCS supply chain include policy, technology, engineering performance, economics, and market forces. In particular, large uncertainties exist for the injection and storage of CO 2 . Even taking into account upfront investment in site characterization, the final performance of the storage phase is largely unknown until commercial-scale injection has started. We explore and quantify the impact of getting CCS infrastructure decisions wrong based on uncertain injection rates and uncertain CO 2 storage capacities using a case study managing CO 2 emissions from the Canadian oil sands industry in Alberta. We use Sim CCS, a widely used CCS infrastructure design framework, to develop multiple CCS infrastructure scenarios. Each scenario consists of a CCS infrastructure network that connects CO 2 sources (oil sands extraction and processing) with CO 2 storage reservoirs (acid gas storage reservoirs) using a dedicated CO 2 pipeline network. Each scenario is analyzed under a range of uncertain storage estimates and infrastructure performance is assessed and quantified in terms of cost to build additional infrastructure to store all CO 2 . We also include the role of stranded CO 2 , CO 2 that a source was expecting to but cannot capture due substandard performance in the transport and storage infrastructure. Results show that the cost of getting the original infrastructure design wrong are significant and that comprehensive planning will be required to ensure that CCS becomes a successful climate mitigation technology. Here, we show that the concept of stranded CO 2 can transform a seemingly high-performing infrastructure design into the worst case scenario.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Preparing Distribution Utilities for the Future - Evolving Customer Consumption in Renewable Rich Grids: A Novel Analytical Framework

The research collaboration between NREL and BYPL focuses on the challenges caused by renewable integration into the power grid at large. Since the challenges and opportunities vary depending on the point of interconnection (distribution or transmission) the research team identified two tracks for research as listed below: 1. Power procurement - This research track focuses on the challenges and opportunities caused by GW scale renewable integration at the transmission level. Specifically, this track focuses on the contribution that utility-scale renewable energy procurement provides to distribution utilities, both from energy and capacity perspectives. In this track of research, utility customers are only considered as traditional (one-directional) consumers of energy. 2. Distributed energy resources - This research track focuses on the challenges and opportunities caused by many small-scale distributed renewable resource integrations at the distribution systems. At the power distribution level, distribution utilities may face not only new solar energy technologies, but also battery energy storage and electric vehicles as well. These three technologies (solar PV, battery energy storage, and electric vehicles) combined, pose unique challenges to distribution utilities. This track focuses on assessing the net-load evolution that distribution utilities observe as these emerging technologies make their way to the grid.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Integration of the NCRC Database and Other INL Databases

The Nuclear Computational Resource Center provides a portal by which industry professionals, educational staff, students, national laboratory employees, and others may request access to certain engineering software tools. As the tools provided through the Nuclear Computational Resource Center portal are not open-source and freely available, a set of approvals are necessary before access is granted. All code recipients must be associated with an institution that has a license with Idaho National Laboratory for the code requested. Information about these licenses is controlled by Idaho National Laboratory’s Technology Deployment organization and housed in a Technology Deployment database. Those requesting code access who are not citizens of the United States must also have a security plan, mandated by Idaho National Laboratory policy. Security plans are managed by the International Access Program and are stored in an International Access Program database known as IFacts. Granting access to software thus depends on information stored in the Technology Deployment database and IFacts. In the past, no connection between the Nuclear Computational Resource Center portal and these databases existed, making checking the status of license agreements and security plans time consuming and error prone. This report demonstrates that the Nuclear Computational Resource Center portal now connects to both the Technology Deployment database and IFacts, greatly improving the ease of use of the Nuclear Computational Resource Center system for administrators, which leads to a better overall experience for those requesting code access.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
NASA NTRS1991

Maintaining the program balance, volumes 1 and 2

In March of 1990, the NASA Administrator asked the Academy to perform a study to address the following questions: (1) has NASA contracted too much of its technical work; (2) has NASA's in-house technical capability eroded over time; (3) is in-house engineering and scientific work important to the development of scientists and engineers; and (4) is NASA still able to attract quality scientists and engineers. A panel from the Academy addressed each question separately and came up with the following recommendations: (1) prepare and issue guidance on technical functional areas reserved for in-house performance; (2) convert contracted technical functions to in-house performance if critical to agency programs; (3) provide policy guidance to the centers to retain in-house projects; (4) examine the project mix at each center against agency goals and objectives; (5) institute an annual critical review for all technical disciplines; (6) modify the agency's contractor accountability process; and (7) seek opportunities for greater delegation of resources and technical decision making.

Finger, Harold↗