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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 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

Data Science for Public Policy: Of the people, for the people, by the people 2.0 ?

In this paper, we explore the role of data science in the public policy lifecycle. We posit policy documents (bills, acts, regulations and directives) as forms of social objects and present a methodology to understand interactions between prior context in professional and personal social networks to a given public policy document release. We employ natural language processing tools along with recent advances in semantic reasoning to formulate document-level proximity metrics which we use to predict the relevance (and impact) of the policy artifacts. These metrics serve as a measure of excitation between people and the public policy initiatives.

semantic reasoning↗
DOE OSTI2022

Snowmass '21 Community Engagement Frontier 6: Public Policy and Government Engagement: Non-Congressional Government Engagement

This document has been prepared as a Snowmass contributed paper by the Public Policy & Government Engagement topical group (CEF06) within the Community Engagement Frontier. The charge of CEF06 is to review all aspects of how the High Energy Physics (HEP) community engages with government at all levels and how public policy impacts members of the community and the community at large, and to assess and raise awareness within the community of direct community-driven engagement of the US federal government (i.e. advocacy). The focus of this paper is HEP community engagement of government entities other than the U.S. federal legislature (i.e. Congress).

Diurba, Richie↗
DOE OSTI2022

Snowmass '21 Community Engagement Frontier 6: Public Policy and Government Engagement: Congressional Advocacy for Areas Beyond HEP Funding

This document has been prepared as a Snowmass contributed paper by the Public Policy & Government Engagement topical group (CEF06) within the Community Engagement Frontier. The charge of CEF06 is to review all aspects of how the High Energy Physics (HEP) community engages with government at all levels and how public policy impacts members of the community and the community at large, and to assess and raise awareness within the community of direct community-driven engagement of the US federal government (\textit{i.e.} advocacy). The focus of this paper is the potential for HEP community advocacy on topics other than funding for basic research.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Snowmass '21 Community Engagement Frontier 6: Public Policy and Government Engagement: Congressional Advocacy for HEP Funding (The "DC Trip'')

This document has been prepared as a Snowmass contributed paper by the Public Policy & Government Engagement topical group (CEF06) within the Community Engagement Frontier. The charge of CEF06 is to review all aspects of how the High Energy Physics (HEP) community engages with government at all levels and how public policy impacts members of the community and the community at large, and to assess and raise awareness within the community of direct community-driven engagement of the U.S. federal government (\textit{i.e.} advocacy). The focus of this paper is the advocacy undertaken by the HEP community that pertains directly to the funding of the field by the U.S. federal government.

Carneiro, Mateus↗
DOE OSTI2018

Economic viability of multiple algal biorefining pathways and the impact of public policies

This study presents an extensive systems-level multi-pathway sustainability assessment of algae biofuel production that demonstrates the necessity of high-value co-products, examines the impact of public policy scenarios, and identifies improvements and pathway directions required for economic viability. Engineering process models for several fuel and co-product pathways were leveraged to perform high fidelity techno-economic analysis. These pathways included: baseline hydrothermal liquefaction; protein extraction followed by hydro-thermal liquefaction; fractionation into high-value chemicals with fermentation followed by hydrothermal liquefaction for fuels; and a small-scale first-of-a-kind plant coupled with a wastewater treatment facility. From these models, it was shown that hydrothermal liquefaction as a fuel-only pathway is not economically viable. Likewise, the benefits of coupling with wastewater water treatment are insignificant compared to the impact ofreduced facility size resulting in increased capital costs. These models were also used to examine public policy scenarios, uniquely presenting their impact on the breakeven cost of fuel production and sensitivity to scenario assumptions. Specifically, depreciation type was shown to be irrelevant for write offs faster than 10 years. Due to discounting, short-term subsidies were found to capture 50% of the subsidy value in 6 years with an additional24 years required for full subsidy valuation. Integration of a carbon economy was shown to decrease biofuel production costs, particularly for the protein pathway due to the co-product accounting. Finally, a metric of normalized costs was used to compare algal biorefineries to corn and cellulosic ethanol production, showing that algal systems are uniquely different due to significantly higher capital costs, though operational costs are comparable. Overall, this work demonstrates that, to reach economic viability, algal biofuel production must either utilize higher value non-fuel co-products or achieve drastic reductions in capital costs.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Social Impact Management Plans: Innovation in corporate and public policy

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) has traditionally been practiced as a predictive study for the regulatory approval of major projects, however, in recent years the drivers and domain of focus for SIA have shifted. This paper details the emergence of Social Impact Management Plans (SIMPs) and undertakes an analysis of innovations in corporate and public policy that have put in place ongoing processes – assessment, management and monitoring – to better identify the nature and scope of the social impacts that might occur during implementation and to proactively respond to change across the lifecycle of developments. Four leading practice examples are analyzed. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standards require the preparation of Environmental and Social Management Plans for all projects financed by the IFC identified as having significant environmental and social risks. Anglo American, a major resources company, has introduced a Socio-Economic Assessment Toolbox, which requires mine sites to undertake regular assessments and link these assessments with their internal management systems, monitoring activities and a Social Management Plan. In South Africa, Social and Labour Plans are submitted with an application for a mining or production right. In Queensland, Australia, Social Impact Management Plans were developed as part of an Environmental Impact Statement, which included assessment of social impacts. Collectively these initiatives, and others, are a practical realization of theoretical conceptions of SIA that include management and monitoring as core components of SIA. The paper concludes with an analysis of the implications for the practice of impact assessment including a summary of key criteria for the design and implementation of effective SIMPs. -- Highlights: • Social impact management plans are effective strategies to manage social issues. • They are developed in partnership with regulatory agencies, investors and community. • SIMPs link assessment to ongoing management and address social and community issues. • SIMPs clarify responsibilities in the management of impacts, opportunities and risks. • SIMPs demonstrate a shift to include management as a core component of SIA practice.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Editorial: Achieving Water-Energy-Food Nexus Sustainability: A Science and Data Need or a Need for Integrated Public Policy?

The benefits of addressing the water, energy, and food sectors in an integrated manner is gaining significant recognition. An integrated approach can provide improved resource use efficiencies, more coherent environmental policies, and an overall strategy for achieving sustainability in the three sectors, as outlined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2 (Food), 6 (Water), and 7 (Energy). Societies are concerned with ensuring food security, avoiding wars over water, and creating opportunity by ensuring access to energy. To be effective, however, this approach needs to be adopted at all levels of societies including government, private and civil society and reinforced by management and planning methods. This special issue identifies different approaches that are either being conceptualized or tested to support the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus approach. The articles contribute to answering the question, “Is achieving Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus Sustainability a science and data need or an integrated public policy need?” In either case, both natural and social sciences will need to combine to support science issues or integrated policy issues. The papers explore the ways in which science, data, and policy development could help to define integrative principles and policies for the three sectors. This approach could expand beyond the water, energy, and food sectors to include health, environment, trade, commerce, and international assistance thereby providing broad support to the SDGs. Moreover, this issue demonstrates that data combined with new technologies (tools and models) can support better decision-making when adopted by governments and the sectors.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Construction of Blaze at the University of Illinois at Chicago: A Shared, High-Performance, Visual Computer for Next-Generation Cyberinfrastructure-Accelerated Scientific, Engineering, Medical and Public Policy Research

The Blaze high-performance visual computing system serves the high-performance computing research and education needs of University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Blaze consists of a state-of-the-art, networked, computer cluster and ultra-high-resolution visualization system called CAVE2(TM) that is currently not available anywhere in Illinois. This system is connected via a high-speed 100-Gigabit network to the State of Illinois' I-WIRE optical network, as well as to national and international high speed networks, such as the Internet2, and the Global Lambda Integrated Facility. This enables Blaze to serve as an on-ramp to national cyberinfrastructure, such as the National Science Foundation’s Blue Waters petascale computer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Department of Energy’s Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) at Argonne National Laboratory. DOE award # DE-SC005067, leveraged with NSF award #CNS-0959053 for “Development of the Next-Generation CAVE Virtual Environment (NG-CAVE),” enabled us to create a first-of-its-kind high-performance visual computing system. The UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) worked with two U.S. companies to advance their commercial products and maintain U.S. leadership in the global information technology economy. New applications are being enabled with the CAVE2/Blaze visual computing system that is advancing scientific research and education in the U.S. and globally, and help train the next-generation workforce.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2018

The Status and Outlook of Distributed Generation Public Policy in Mexico

Mexico is a regional leader in setting goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and distributed generation (DG) development is a key priority for the country's policymakers. Current DG policies have fostered growth but need to be modernized to serve current needs and accommodate higher penetration levels. In this report, NREL summarizes international DG policy experiences and best practices and identifies the potential opportunities for policy reform.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Public Health Policies on E-Cigarettes

Tobacco continues to kill about 0.48 million Americans per year and there are currently 34.3 million smokers in the USA. As a consequence of the First Surgeon General’s Report on Tobacco in 1964, tobacco control interventions on part of the government led to a significant decline in conventional tobacco product usage over the last few decades. However, more recently, a new entity in the form of electronic cigarettes has risen rapidly and has exposed a younger population to a plethora of dangerous consequences. Looking at e-cigarettes from the perspective of tobacco control however raises a lot of challenges. There is little doubt that existing smokers of combustible cigarettes who switch to e-cigarettes will be switching to a less harmful product. However, if the younger generation begins using e-cigarettes as a result of targeted marketing, appealing flavors and ‘safer alternative’ perception, decades of progress made in conventional tobacco control will be negated. Governments at the federal, state, and local levels have a mandate to once again implement new public health policies to ensure that non-conventional tobacco products like e-cigarettes are available as smoking cessation tools for existing smokers but at the same time do not play a role in ruining the health of future generations through addiction and disease. Purpose of Review: To review the present scenario of regulations and policies impacting public health with respect to electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) with the objective of providing a meaningful and balanced view of the challenges at hand with plausible recommendations. Recent Findings: Nicotine in tobacco is known to cause addiction and dependence. It is particularly potent in children and young adults. E-cigarettes can deliver high concentrations of nicotine, and these concentrations can vary depending on the numerous constituents within the e-cigarette which vary greatly from one another. Use of e-cigarettes is implicated as a risk factor for future cigarette use in young adults. Moreover, e-cigarette usage patterns also depend on several sociodemographic factors. Banning tobacco products has shown to reduce smoking risk in youth and as such, strong e-cigarette regulation measures are needed for prevention. Summary: Effective regulation of ENDS faces a multitude of challenges. One such challenge is to prevent youth and non-smokers from getting habituated to nicotine through e-cigarettes. The intention of tobacco companies to sustain sales through harmful marketing strategies that tone down the risks and highlight e-cigarettes as a “much safer alternative” while promoting flavors appealing to children should be immediately prohibited. Another hazard is the endorsement of ENDS as devices meant for enhancing social interaction which opens a path for youth to make erroneous choices under peer pressure. On the other hand, several studies have reported that e-cigarettes significantly reduce an existing smoker’s risk of being exposed to toxic tobacco smoke constituents that are normally present in cigarette smoke. This leads to the conclusions that e-cigarettes can be a tool for smoking cessation for current smokers. Public policy must take a multi-dimensional approach to balance these two extremes.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Ethical considerations in infectious disease modelling for public health policy: the case of school closures

Mathematical models of infectious diseases are frequently used as a tool to support public health policy and decisions around the implementation of interventions such as school closures. However, most publications on policy-relevant modelling lack an ethical framework and do not explicitly consider the ethical implications of the work. This creates a risk that the unintended consequences of interventions are overlooked or that models are used to justify decisions that are inconsistent with public health ethics. In this article, we focus on the case study of school closures as a commonly modelled intervention against pandemic influenza, COVID-19 and other infectious disease threats. We briefly review some of the key concepts in public health ethics and describe approaches to modelling the effects of school closures. We then identify a series of ethical considerations involved in modelling school closures. These include accounting for population heterogeneity and inequalities; including a diversity of viewpoints and expertise in model design; considering the distribution of benefits and harms; and model transparency and contextualization. Furthermore, we conclude with some recommendations to ensure that policy-relevant modelling is consistent with some key ethics values.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2018

Integrated CCS for Kansas (ICKan) (Final Technical Report)

The goal of the Phase I activity under CarbonSAFE was to evaluate and develop a plan and strategy to address the challenges and opportunities for commercial-scale Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in Kansas, ICKan (Integrated CCS for Kansas). The objectives of this project included identifying and addressing the major technical and nontechnical challenges of implementing CO 2 capture and transport and establishing secure geologic storage for CO 2 in Kansas capable of storing 50Mt. In order to achieve these objectives, it was necessary to establish CCS Coordination Team that consisted of professionals from multiple technical and nontechnical disciplines such as geoscience, policy and law, public relations, engineering and others. The Team conducted an integrated and multi-disciplinary assessment of CCS in Kansas. The assessment included: (1) high-level technical, sub-basinal evaluations of CO 2 storage; (2) high-level technical examination of three of Kansas' largest CO 2 point sources and considered other alternatives; (3) high-level evaluation of transportation systems required, 4) evaluation of energy, environmental, regulatory, business law, and public policy; (5) public outreach and acceptance; and (6) identification of economic, commercial, and financial challenges for deployment of commercial-scale CCS in Kansas.

02 PETROLEUM↗
DOE OSTI2012

Graduate Research Assistant Program for Professional Development at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Global Nuclear Security Technology Division (GNSTD)

The southeast is a highly suitable environment for establishing a series of nuclear safety, security and safeguards 'professional development' courses. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) provides expertise in the research component of these subjects while the Y-12 Nuclear Security Complex handles safeguards/security and safety applications. Several universities (i.e., University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK), North Carolina State University, University of Michigan, and Georgia Technology Institute) in the region, which offer nuclear engineering and public policy administration programs, and the Howard Baker Center for Public Policy make this an ideal environment for learning. More recently, the Institute for Nuclear Security (INS) was established between ORNL, Y-12, UTK and Oak Ridge Associate Universities (ORAU), with a focus on five principal areas. These areas include policy, law, and diplomacy; education and training; science and technology; operational and intelligence capability building; and real-world missions and applications. This is a new approach that includes professional development within the graduate research assistant program addressing global needs in nuclear security, safety and safeguards.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗