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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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The primary objective of this report was to provide an overview of the variety of industrial refrigerated facilities, refrigeration systems, and control systems found throughout California.
The LIFE target design incorporates many considerations to generate the desired fusion gain including the physics design, the cost of manufacturing of the target, the injectability of the target, the aerodynamic flight characteristics of the target, the ability to track and engage the target and to maintain the structural and thermal integrity of the target. This document describes the effort that was made in support of issues of survivability of the target during injection which included issues massmanufactural materials and processes which could be used in the target.
NREL will assist 3M in evaluating the application of 3M encapsulant materials on industry-supplied, flexible CIGS minimodules.
The possibility of a reflecting electrochromic device is very attractive, and the 'Buried Anode' architecture developed at NREL could yield such a device. The subject of this cooperative agreement will be the development and refinement of a Buried Anode device process. This development will require the active involvement of NREL and US e-Chromic personnel, and will require the use of NREL equipment as much as possible. When this effort is concluded, US e-Chromic will have enough information to construct a pilot production line, where further development can continue.
NREL and Solar Junction Corp. will perform cooperative research on materials and devices that are alternatives to standard approaches with the goal of improving solar cell efficiency while lowering cost. The general purpose of this work is to model the performance of a multi-junction concentrator cell of Solar Junction, Inc. design under normal concentrator operating conditions.
Freshwater is a vital resource for human survival as well as a key component of a wide range of industrial and agricultural needs. However, only 0.65% of the world’s water resources are available as freshwater, and the demand on the world’s water reserves continues to increase, with the demand beginning to outpace the supply in many areas. A water-energy nexus is being reached that requires low –cost and –energy solutions for various degrees of treated water. In a 2012 survey, 88% of Americans were concerned about potential water shortages and approximately two-thirds of the world’s population will be suffering a water shortage over the next few years. Seawater and other saline water materials make up around 98% of the available water, representing an almost unlimited supply of water. The energy, cost and maintenance to remove salts and other unwanted compounds is a barrier to widespread implementation of salt-to-freshwater facilities. These facilities most commonly use reverse osmosis (RO) systems. Due to the high required pressures and moving parts these facilities consume much grid energy and require constant maintenance leading to high capital and operational costs. RO also generates highly concentrated brine that is costly to safely return to the ocean. Capacitive desalination (or capacitive deionization [CDI]) has no moving parts (aside from a low pressure pump and valves), operates at low pressure and does not generate brine that is hazardous to marine life. Not only can the capacitive charge/discharge be cycled almost indefinitely but the system uses low energy and capacitive discharge electrical current can be co-generated back to the system. However, CDI has not seen widespread use for large- or small- scale desalination because electrode efficiency limits the extraction rate below what is useful for most applications. Mainstream Engineering Corporation (MEC) has demonstrated an innovative new electrode structure for the high efficiency desalination of brackish water by capacitive deionization. Electrode manufacturing (nanomanufacturing) is a highly scalable and low-cost electrochemical self-assembly method using a templated process that Mainstream has pioneered and leveraged for several energy technologies over the last decade. The primary accomplishment for Phase I is the fabrication and demonstration of CDI electrode structures are: • Demonstrating the linear scalability of templated approach to the fabrication scaling the electrode structure. • Demonstrated the ability to tune the fabrication of the electrode structures to produce electrodes with a highly controllable aligned nanopore diameter and nanopore depth. • Demonstrated the efficient removal of a sodium chloride salt from brackish water with a 60 times improvement in mg-salt removed/g-carbon compared to a commercial system under the same conditions. • Demonstrated good reproducibility and stability of the electrode structure under realistic CDI operating conditions. • Demonstrated charge efficiency as high as 93% with an expected system level energy requirement of 0.7 to 1.5 kWh/m3 of water; significantly lower than the 2.9 to 3.7 kWh/m3 observed for RO systems Based on the performance characteristics of the electrodes, Mainstream was able to propose a modular and scalable capacitive deionization design that can be adapted to a wide range of conditions providing energy efficient desalination of brackish water.
The City of Montpelier, in collaboration with the State of Vermont, developed a central heat plant fueled with locally harvested wood-chips and a thermal energy distribution system. The project provides renewable energy to heat a complex of state buildings and a mix of commercial, private and municipal buildings in downtown Montpelier. The State of Vermont operates the central heat plant and the system to heat the connected state buildings. The City of Montpelier accepts energy from the central heat plant and operates a thermal utility to heat buildings in downtown Montpelier which elected to take heat from the system.
This report is to provide a statement on the objectives, progress, and milestones of the research conducted to develop innovative advanced porous materials for the storage of natural gas for vehicular applications. These innovative porous materials will significantly increase the feasibility of natural gas fueled vehicles by decreasing costs associated with the storage and filling of natural gas tanks through enhanced packing of gas molecules within micropores. The adsorption of natural gas will be substantially increased by designing materials that optimally pack methane (the primary component of natural gas) and reduce unusable (dead) space within the structure. This was accomplished through a multi-organizational and multi-disciplinary effort that includes computational studies, laboratory-scale synthesis, scale-up and cost-reduction, and thorough characterization.
The project was aimed at demonstrating that the geothermometric predictions can be improved through the application of multi-element reaction path modeling that accounts for lithologic and tectonic settings, while also accounting for biological influences on geochemical temperature indicators. The limited utilization of chemical signatures by individual traditional geothermometer in the development of reservoir temperature estimates may have been constraining their reliability for evaluation of potential geothermal resources. This project, however, was intended to build a geothermometry tool which can integrate multi-component reaction path modeling with process-optimization capability that can be applied to dilute, low-temperature water samples to consistently predict reservoir temperature within ±30 °C. The project was also intended to evaluate the extent to which microbiological processes can modulate the geochemical signals in some thermal waters and influence the geothermometric predictions.
Sylvan Grove is located in western Lincoln County, approximately 60 mi west of Salina, Kansas (Figure 1.1). From 1954 to 1966, the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), operated a grain storage facility at the northeastern edge of Sylvan Grove. During this time, commercial grain fumigants containing carbon tetrachloride were in common use to preserve grain in storage. In 1998, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) found carbon tetrachloride above the maximum contaminant level (MCL) of 5 μg/L in groundwater from one private well used for livestock and lawn and garden watering. The 1998 KDHE sampling at Sylvan Grove was conducted under the USDA private well sampling program. To determine whether the former CCC/USDA facility at Sylvan Grove is a potential contaminant source and its possible relationship to the contamination in groundwater, the CCC/USDA proposed to conduct an environmental site investigation, in accordance with the Intergovernmental Agreement between the KDHE and the Farm Service Agency (FSA) of the USDA. Argonne National Laboratory, on behalf of the CCC/USDA, developed a work plan (Argonne 2012) for the site investigation and a supplemental work plan for indoor and ambient air sampling (Appendix A). The proposed work was approved by the KDHE (2012a, 2013). The investigations were performed by the Environmental Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory, on behalf of the CCC/USDA. The main activities for the site investigation were conducted in June 2012, and indoor and ambient air sampling was performed in February 2013. This report presents the findings of the investigations at Sylvan Grove.
Boeing and its partner, PJM Interconnection, teamed to bring advanced “defense-grade” technologies for cyber security to the US regional power grid through demonstration in PJM’s energy management environment. Under this cooperative project with the Department of Energy, Boeing and PJM have developed and demonstrated a host of technologies specifically tailored to the needs of PJM and the electric sector as a whole. The team has demonstrated to the energy industry a combination of processes, techniques and technologies that have been successfully implemented in the commercial, defense, and intelligence communities to identify, mitigate and continuously monitor the cyber security of critical systems. Guided by the results of a Cyber Security Risk-Based Assessment completed in Phase I, the Boeing-PJM team has completed multiple iterations through the Phase II Development and Phase III Deployment phases. Multiple cyber security solutions have been completed across a variety of controls including: Application Security, Enhanced Malware Detection, Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM) Optimization, Continuous Vulnerability Monitoring, SCADA Monitoring/Intrusion Detection, Operational Resiliency, Cyber Range simulations and hands on cyber security personnel training. All of the developed and demonstrated solutions are suitable for replication across the electric sector and/or the energy sector as a whole. Benefits identified include; Improved malware and intrusion detection capability on critical SCADA networks including behavioral-based alerts resulting in improved zero-day threat protection; Improved Security Incident and Event Management system resulting in better threat visibility, thus increasing the likelihood of detecting a serious event; Improved malware detection and zero-day threat response capability; Improved ability to systematically evaluate and secure in house and vendor sourced software applications; Improved ability to continuously monitor and maintain secure configuration of network devices resulting in reduced vulnerabilities for potential exploitation; Improved overall cyber security situational awareness through the integration of multiple discrete security technologies into a single cyber security reporting console; Improved ability to maintain the resiliency of critical systems in the face of a targeted cyber attack of other significant event; Improved ability to model complex networks for penetration testing and advanced training of cyber security personnel
This project aims to understand how radiation accelerates corrosion of reactor core materials. The combination of high temperature, chemically aggressive coolants, a high radiation flux and mechanical stress poses a major challenge for the life extension of current light water reactors, as well as the success of most all GenIV concepts. Of these four drivers, the combination of radiation and corrosion places the most severe demands on materials, for which an understanding of the fundamental science is simply absent. Only a few experiments have been conducted to understand how corrosion occurs under irradiation, yet the limited data indicates that the effect is large; irradiation causes order of magnitude increases in corrosion rates. Without a firm understanding of the mechanisms by which radiation and corrosion interact in film formation, growth, breakdown and repair, the extension of the current LWR fleet beyond 60 years and the success of advanced nuclear energy systems are questionable. The proposed work will address the process of irradiation-accelerated corrosion that is important to all current and advanced reactor designs, but remains very poorly understood. An improved understanding of the role of irradiation in the corrosion process will provide the community with the tools to develop predictive models for in-reactor corrosion, and to address specific, important forms of corrosion such as irradiation assisted stress corrosion cracking.
The grandest challenge facing human society today is providing large amounts of energy and industrial chemicals that are renewable and carbon-neutral. An outstanding opportunity lies in employing photosynthetic microorganisms, which have the potential to generate energy and chemical feedstock from sunlight and CO 2 at rates 10 to 100 times greater than plants. Major challenges for solar-powered production using photosynthetic microorganisms are associated with the harvesting and downstream processing of biomass to yield the usable energy or material feedstock e.g. The technical challenges and costs of downstream processing could be avoided if, powered by solar energy, the photosynthetic microorganisms were to convert CO 2 directly to the desired product, which they release for direct harvesting. This approach creates a true photosynthetic factory, our goal for Photosynthetic Factory Direct! Our team is able to genetically modify the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 so that it produces and excretes a range of renewable energy and chemical products directly from CO 2 and sunlight. Essential to realizing the potential of the photosynthetic factory is an engineered Advanced Photobioreactor (APBR) for reliable synthesis and harvest of the products.
The overall goal of the work was the development of a watershed scale model of hydrological function for application to the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Savannah River Site (SRS). The primary outcomes is a grid based hydrological modeling system that captures near surface runoff as well as groundwater recharge and contributions of groundwater to streams. The model includes a physically-based algorithm to capture both evaporation and transpiration from forestland.
The Spectroscopic Planar Germanium (SPG) has been demonstrated at the IAEA Physical Inventory Verification (PIV) in South Korea, as well as at the Joint Fuel Cycle Study at Idaho National Laboratory. These field tests were successful and provided valuable feedback from KINAC, IAEA, and national laboratory staff. This feedback was used to direct efforts to improve the instrument this year.
Polymer derived ceramic route is an attractive approach to make structural materials with unique nanostructures that have very desirable high temperature properties. Processing techniques to make a variety of needed shapes and forms (e.g. coatings, matrices for fiber reinforced composites, porous ceramics) have been developed. With appropriate high temperature processing, the precursors can be converted to nano-crystalline materials. In this collaborative project, we investigated the processing, stability and properties of nanostructured Si-C materials, derived from polymeric precursors, and their performance under conditions appropriate for nuclear energy applications. All the milestones of the project were accomplished. Some of the results are being currently analyzed and additional papers being prepared in which support from NEUP will be acknowledged. So far, eight peer-reviewed papers have been published and one invention disclosure made. In this report, we summarize the major findings of this project.
Drilling and temperature logging campaigns between the late 1970's and early 1980’s measured temperatures at Pilgrim Hot Springs in excess of 90°C. Between 2010 and 2014 the University of Alaska used a variety of methods including geophysical surveys, remote sensing techniques, heat budget modeling, and additional drilling to better understand the resource and estimate the available geothermal energy.
Drilling and temperature logging campaigns between the late 1970's and early 1980’s measured temperatures at Pilgrim Hot Springs in excess of 90°C. Between 2010 and 2014 the University of Alaska used a variety of methods including geophysical surveys, remote sensing techniques, heat budget modeling, and additional drilling to better understand the resource and estimate the available geothermal energy.