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DOE OSTI2021

Geothermal Heat Recovery Complex: Large-Scale, Deep Direct-Use System in a Low-Temperature Sedimentary Basin (Final Report)

A feasibility study of using deep direct-use (DDU) geothermal energy to heat agricultural research facilities (ARFs) was conducted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (U of IL) and its similar application to military facilities in the Illinois Basin (ILB). The geothermal energy system (GES) investigated utilizes low-temperature (30–90°C; 90–190°F) geothermal fluid (i.e., brine) from an extraction well that is part of a deep, two-well (doublet) system that extends to the bottom of the ILB. The geothermal reservoir modeled, the Mt. Simon Sandstone (MSS), is about 1,280 m (4,200 feet) deep and 457 m thick (1,500 feet) beneath the U of IL. The DDU GES surface infrastructure includes heat exchangers connected in-parallel to pipelines carrying the geothermal fluid and fresh cold and hot water. Analysis of the GES indicated that the MSS can provide a baseload of 2 MMBtu/hr to heat the ARFs by extracting 954 m³/d (6,000 barrels/day [bbl/d]) of geothermal fluid that has a temperature of 44–46 °C (111–115 °F). In addition to analyzing the levelized cost of heat (LCOH) and life cycle costs, the environmental effects of the DDU GES were evaluated, including reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and water consumption. Multiple system designs were evaluated and then ranked based on their maximum heating performance, energy efficiency, and cost recovery. This feasibility study identified the key components of the fully-integrated DDU technology that can be implemented, both technically and economically. The results and information from this study provides end-users and policy makers with guidance for additional research on the specific components of DDU technology such that its widespread use can provide an uninterruptible energy source, increase resilience from extreme weather conditions, reduce U.S. dependency on fossil fuels, and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The site-specific part of this study gives U of IL administrators a realistic and pragmatic assessment of the financial resources necessary to add a DDU GES in the MSS to the campus’ energy portfolio.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2021

Initial framework for engineering-scale statistical creep-fatigue modeling

This report describes the integration of new solid and interface-cohesive mechanics systems into MOOSE. The purpose of these new systems is to support the ability of MOOSE to run full-field crystal plasticity finite element method simulations of key material processes in high temperature metallic materials. These simulations could be used to help accurately predict the performance of key high temperature structural materials in future advanced nuclear reactor components. Previous work implemented preliminary versions of many of these systems in MOOSE Apps. The current work reports on their integration into the main MOOSE tensor mechanics module along with associated improvements to the basic formulations and numerical implementations. Finally, the report provides an example of the full-field crystal plasticity simulations now possible in MOOSE, including examples of realistic geometries requiring millions of degrees of freedom to resolve the microstructural features and macroscale geometry.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2021

Self-Cleaning Cathodes for Endurance to Chromium Poisoning

Chromium (Cr) poisoning remains a significant issue in long-term solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) operation. While the addition of Cr in the interconnect and balance-of-plant (BOP) materials is effective in improving their resistance to oxidation, it also causes the deposition of resistive phases in the air electrode and thus cell performance loss. Previous work has investigated the mitigation of chromium deposition using getters, Cr diffusion resistant coatings, and more chromium-tolerant air electrode materials. However, these mitigation strategies merely postpone the degradation of performance due to Cr poisoning. Additionally, some strategies require the replacement of components, e.g., use of getters. Here we investigated a new, in-situ Cr poisoning mitigation strategy.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗

DOE OSTI2022

LAMP Manufacturing Survey (Final Report)

This report presents the results of a market manufacturing survey performed for fabricating radiofrequency quadrupoles (RFQ) and Drift Tube Linear Accelerator (DTL) components needed for the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) Modernization Project (LAMP). A review on existing RFQs and DTLs with their parameters, a summary of specific capabilities needed to manufacture them, the common issues during the fabrication process, their consequences, and resolutions to these problems is presented in this report. The goal of this study is to identify potential collaborators and companies capable of manufacturing the necessary accelerator equipment, while minimizing cost and schedule risks that could impact the future modernization of the LANSCE facility.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2022

Affordable Solid Panel “Perfect Wall” System

This report, Affordable Solid Panel “Perfect Wall” System , reviews and analyzes a novel building assembly—which features an innovative large format Solid Panel Structure and utilizes the “perfect wall” concept of having high-performance moisture and thermal control layers on the exterior of the structural components.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2023

Technologist in Residence for Advanced Manufacturing and Materials in Unconventional Oil and Gas Equipment and Infrastructure

The DOE Technologist in Residence (TIR) program pairs a senior technical staff member from a National Laboratory (Lab Technologist), and a senior technical staff member(s) from a clean energy manufacturing company or consortium of companies (Industry Technologist). Each technologist may represent single or multiple national laboratories, or single or multiple companies. These pairs of Lab and industry technologists work together for a period of 18 to 24 months to accomplish several goals: 1) Identify the participating company’s (or companies’) technical priorities and challenges, and the resources and capabilities in DOE’s National Laboratories that may be highly suitable to address them; 2) Propose collaborative R&D efforts to develop science-based solutions to the company’s (or companies’) most strategic scientific, technological, and business issues; and 3) Develop a general framework agreement and begin developing specific scopes of work for the proposed collaborative R&D efforts. The proposed R&D will then take place outside of the program and will not use TIR program funds. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Pioneer Natural Resources were awarded a TIR project by DOE in late 2016 and the CRADA component of the project was initiated in 2017. This report describes work performed under the CRADA agreement between 2017 and 2020.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2023

MARVEL Hazard Evaluation ECAR-6440

MARVEL Hazards Evaluation evaluated the impacts of MARVEL operations, hazards, and postulated accidents. The hazard evaluation of MARVEL events and associated operations was performed for selection and evaluation of safety classification of systems, structures, and components (SSCs) and SSC safety functions, and for selection of design basis accidents (DBAs) applicable to the MARVEL microreactor design.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Working with Multiple MPIs: Overcoming ABI Incompatibility

Scientific applications rely on third-party libraries, which may have multiple implementations. While sharing an application programming interface (API), many of these implementations do not have a shared application binary interface (ABI) and require recompiling. Recompiling can be a long and complex process and sometimes not even an option when the application is shipped binary only. ABI incompatibility strikes at the heart of portability, productivity, and performance by (1) impeding application execution across different HPC and Cloud systems; (2) adding developer hours rebuilding an application; and (3) not taking advantage of host-optimized libraries. This tutorial teaches attendees a portable way to address ABI incompatibility in MPI using the Wi4MPI library. Wi4MPI translates the ABI dynamically from the MPI library used to build the application to a different MPI library available at run time. With Wi4MPI, HPC practitioners can break the portability barrier imposed by ABI incompatibility, potentially increase performance, and increase user productivity. The tutorial is broken down in three components: (1) Understanding ABI compatibility in MPI; (2) Translating MPI libraries dynamically; and (3) Applying dynamic translation to key use cases in HPC, including Containers. If you use more than one MPI library or supercomputer, this tutorial is for you.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2024

EMP Testing of NAE Magnetic Motor Starters

Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) performed a high-altitude nuclear electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) critical generation station component vulnerability test campaign with a focus on high-frequency, conducted early-time (E1) HEMP for the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER). This report provides vulnerability test results to investigate component response and/or damage thresholds to reasonable HEMP threat levels that will help to inform site vulnerability assessments, mitigation planning, and modeling calibrations. This work details testing of North American Electric (NAE) magnetic motor starters to determine the effects of conducted HEMP environments. Motor starters are the control elements that provide power to motors throughout a generating plant; a starter going offline would cause loss of power to critical pumps and compressors, which could lead to component damage or unplanned plant outages. Additionally, failed starters would be unable to support plant startup. Six industrial motor starters were tested: two 2 horsepower (HP) starters with breaker disconnects and typical protection equipment, two 20 HP starters with breaker disconnects, and two 20 HP starters with fused disconnects. Each starter was placed in a circuit with a generator and inductive motor matching the starter rating. The conducted EMP insult was injected on the power cables passing through the motor starter, with separate tests for the generator and motor sides of the starter.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2025

Fused Deposition Modeling Additive Manufacturing of Carbonized Structures via Waste-Enhanced Filaments

This report details the development, characterization, and use of coal-enhanced composite materials in additive manufacturing applications. High coal loading formulations—containing up to 70 wt.% coal—were successfully extruded and processed using commercially available 3D printers. Extensive experimental testing was conducted to assess the mechanical, thermal, and microstructural properties of the composites. In parallel, multi-scale computational modeling was employed to elucidate atomistic interactions and evaluate the effects of printing-induced defects on structural performance. Large-scale printability trials demonstrated the feasibility of fabricating complex components for tooling and construction applications, including wind turbine blade molds and modular wall sections. Techno-economic analyses demonstrated the cost-effectiveness and scalability of coal-enhanced composites for large-scale additive manufacturing applications such as wind turbine blade tooling.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

DOE OSTI2025

ASEAN Technical Exchange Workshop for System Operators, Regulators, and Policymakers

This presentation provides an in-depth exploration of power system planning, cross-border electricity trading, and battery energy storage systems (BESS), offering actionable insights for system operators, regulators, and policymakers. The first section delves into power system planning and analysis, focusing on capacity expansion models and resource adequacy studies, including their role in optimizing system efficiency, managing emissions, and addressing system reliability risks. Key considerations, such as integration of transmission into generation planning and the forecasting versus optimization of customer distributed energy resources (DER) technologies, are explored. The session highlights critical trade-offs in spatial granularity and model runtimes, as well as the feasibility of aligning distribution investments with capacity expansion efforts. The second section examines cross-border electricity trading, with an emphasis on resource adequacy concepts such as reliability targets, loss of load expectation (LOLE), and planning reserve margins (PRM). Case studies on reserve market design and coordination across US regions provide insights into improving reserve deliverability and managing interregional power balance and congestion. This section also addresses market-to-market congestion management, including advanced strategies for high-voltage direct current (HVDC) optimization and ancillary service delivery. Finally, the presentation covers the rapid evolution of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), highlighting their operational growth, regulatory frameworks, and use cases in grid flexibility, energy storage, and reliability. The discussion focuses on the benefits of BESS for system stability, resilience, and integration of renewable energy, offering insights into its role as a vital component in the transition toward a more sustainable and flexible grid. Key performance parameters, such as throughput, round-trip efficiency, and state of charge, are also examined.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

DOE OSTI2026

Plasma Surface Interactions: Predicting the Performance and Impact of Dynamic PFC Surfaces

This project focused on the development and integration of high-performance simulation tools to predict the operating behavior of Plasma-Facing Components in magnetic confinement fusion systems. A key objective at Illinois was to assess the impact of the dynamic interplay between the evolving material surface and the magnetized plasma sheath, and characterize the impact of tungsten-based PFCs on plasma contamination, including phenomena such as surface erosion, dynamic recycling of fuel species, and tritium retention, which are critical for the success of future magnetic fusion devices.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2026

High-Resolution Large-Eddy Simulations of Historical U.S. Gulf Coast Hurricanes

This dataset provides coupled mesoscale and microscale (large-eddy simulation; LES) atmospheric simulations of five historical U.S. Gulf Coast hurricanes. Meso-microscale coupled simulations of Hurricanes Harvey (2017), Nate (2017), Michael (2018), Laura (2020), and Delta (2020) were performed with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model v4.1.5. The mesoscale component captures the multi-day evolution of each storm's track, intensity, and large-scale structure across the Gulf of Mexico, while the LES component explicitly resolves the dominant turbulent eddies in the hurricane boundary layer at a horizontal grid spacing of 33.33 m. Together, these simulations characterize tropical cyclone wind fields across atmospheric scales ranging from ~100 km down to ~100 m, spanning storm intensities from Category 2 through Category 4 on the Saffir–Simpson scale. This dataset contains the Large-Eddy simulations. The data will be divided according to the storm intensity level at the simulation time. Category 2: Harvey, Nate Category 3: Michael, Delta Category 4: Michael, Laura

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2026

High-Resolution Mesoscale Simulations of Historical U.S. Gulf Coast Hurricanes

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2021

Techno-Economic Analysis of a Concentrating Solar Power Plant Using Redox-Active Metal Oxides as Heat Transfer Fluid and Storage Media

We present results for a one-dimensional quasi-steady-state thermodynamic model developed for a 111.7 MW e concentrating solar power (CSP) system using a redox-active metal oxide as the heat storage media and heat transfer agent integrated with a combined cycle air Brayton power block. In the energy charging and discharging processes, the metal oxide CaAl 0.2 Mn 0.8 O 2.9-δ (CAM28) undergoes a reversible, high temperature redox cycle including an endothermic oxygen-releasing reaction and exothermic oxygen-incorporation reaction. Concentrated solar radiation heats the redox-active oxide particles under partial vacuum to drive the reduction extent deeper for increased energy density at a fixed temperature, thereby increasing storage capacity while limiting the required on sun temperature. Direct counter-current contact of the reduced particles with compressed air from the Brayton compressor releases stored chemical and sensible energy, heating the air to 1,200°C at the turbine inlet while cooling and reoxidizing the particles. The cool oxidized particles recirculate through the solar receiver subsystem for another cycle of heating and reduction (oxygen release). We applied the techno-economic model to 1) size components, 2) examine intraday operation with varying solar insolation, 3) estimate annual performance characteristics over a simulated year, 4) estimate the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), and 5) perform sensitivity analyses to evaluate factors that affect performance and cost. Simulations use hourly solar radiation data from Barstow, California to assess the performance of a 111.7 MW e system with solar multiples (SMs) varying from 1.2 to 2.4 and storage capacities of 6–14 h. The baseline system with 6 h storage and SM of 1.8 has a capacity factor of 54.2%, an increase from 32.3% capacity factor with no storage, and an average annual energy efficiency of 20.6%. Calculations show a system with an output of 710 GWh e net electricity per year, 12 h storage, and SM of 2.4 to have an installed cost of $329 million, and an LCOE of 5.98 ¢/kWh e . This value meets the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot 2020 target of 6.0 ¢/kWh e ( U. S Department of Energy, 2012 ), but falls just shy of the 5.0 ¢/kWh e 2030 CSP target for dispatchable electricity ( U. S Department of Energy, 2017 ). The cost and performance results are minimally sensitive to most design parameters. However, a one-point change in the weighted annual cost of capital from 8 to 7% (better understood as a 12.5% change) translates directly to an 11% decrease (0.66 ¢/kWhe) in the LCOE.

Gorman, Brandon T.↗

DOE OSTI2020

Fe-Exchanged Small-Pore Zeolites as Ammonia Selective Catalytic Reduction (NH 3 -SCR) Catalysts

Cu-exchanged small-pore zeolites have been extensively studied in the past decade as state-of-the-art selective catalytic reduction (SCR) catalysts for diesel engine exhaust NOx abatement for the transportation industry. During this time, Fe-exchanged small-pore zeolites, e.g., Fe/SSZ-13, Fe/SAPO-34, Fe/SSZ-39 and high-silica Fe/LTA, have also been investigated but much less extensively. In comparison to their Cu-exchanged counterparts, such Fe/zeolite catalysts display inferior low-temperature activities, but improved stability and high-temperature SCR selectivities. Such characteristics entitle these catalysts to be considered as key components of highly efficient emission control systems to improve the overall catalyst performance. In this short review, recent studies on Fe-exchanged small-pore zeolite SCR catalysts are summarized, including (1) the synthesis of small-pore Fe/zeolites; (2) nature of the SCR active Fe species in these catalysts as determined by experimental and theoretical approaches, including Fe species transformation during hydrothermal aging; (3) SCR reactions and structure-function correlations; and (4) a few aspects on industrial applications.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

DOE OSTI2023

Air Conditioning Systems Fault Detection and Diagnosis-Based Sensing and Data-Driven Approaches

The air conditioning (AC) system is the primary building end-use contributor to the peak demand for energy. The energy consumed by this system has grown as fast as it has in the last few decades, not only in the residential section but also in the industry and transport sectors. Therefore, to combat energy crises, urgent actions on energy efficiency should be taken to support energy security. Consequently, the faults in AC system components increase energy consumption due to the degradation of the system’s performance and the losses in the energy conversion procedure. In this work, AC system fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) methods are investigated to propose analytic tools to identify faults and provide solutions to those problems. The analysis of existing work shows that data-driven approaches are more accurate for both soft and hard fault detection and diagnosis in AC systems. Therefore, the proposed methods are not accurate for simultaneous fault detection, while in some works, authors tested the method with several faults separately without investigating scenarios that combine more than one fault. Moreover, this study shows that integrating data-driven approaches requires deploying an optimal sensing and measurement architecture that can detect a maximum number of faults with minimally deployed sensors. The new sensing, information, and communication technologies are discussed for their integration in AC system monitoring in order to optimize system operation and detect faults.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2025

Energy efficient integrated photonic systems based on inverse design

The energy footprint of modern information processing and communications systems is immense and utilizes a significant fraction of total global energy usage. Data centers alone consume over 70 billion kilowatt-hours per year. Much of this energy usage is intrinsic to the use of electronic wiring, making optical-based technologies a necessary and promising route to mitigating energy consumption in short- to medium-distance communication links. In this project, we developed and implemented a framework for the design of optical components, based on machine learning, which enables optical components relevant to optical information processing to be realized at their physical performance limits.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗