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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 OSTI2025

Enhancing the Value of Wasted and Stranded Natural Gas Resources Through Conversion Into Aromatics Using Microwaves

Natural gas flaring results in the waste of significant amounts of valuable domestic energy resources while also producing undesirable environmental impacts. Transforming natural gas into value-added chemicals via direct nonoxidative reactions presents a compelling alternative to flaring. However, traditional thermal reactor systems face challenges due to thermodynamic limitations and poor catalyst stability. Microwave-assisted reactions offer a sustainable, on-demand approach for chemical production from natural gas, suitable for compact, flexible reactor systems at the well-site that can be powered by renewable energy. This method offers a novel, non-traditional approach in catalyst activation and product selectivity compared to a conventional thermal method, potentially leading to faster rates, higher selectivities, and higher conversion efficiencies. Despite these advantages, challenges exist, such as the low microwave-sensitivity of the state-of-the-art zeolite catalyst that is highly active for the methane dehydroaromatization reaction. This presentation will discuss recent research from the National Energy Technology Laboratory concerning microwave-assisted natural gas conversion directly into aromatics. It will address the difficulties with microwave heating of traditional thermochemical catalysts, and the application of Multiphysics modeling to understand temperature and field strength in the reactor, to enhance chemical conversion. The presentation will also cover how heating aids can mitigate heating challenges and transform microwave catalysis into a quasi-thermal kinetic problem. Additionally, catalyst activation and deactivation under microwave conditions will be examined, along with the future outlook and needs for microwave enhanced catalysis applications.

catalysis↗
DOE OSTI2024

An Analysis of High Opportunity Geothermal Leasing Areas on BLM and USFS Lands

This analysis, conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) with support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO), models potential geothermal deployment on BLM and USFS land for the years 2025, 2030, 2035, and 2050 under various scenarios using the Renewable Energy Potential (reV) model and the Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) model. This report identifies potential future high opportunity geothermal leasing areas (i.e., Best, Middle, and Least identified opportunities) based on available data for geothermal resource potential, natural resource conflicts, and transmission access. In addition, this analysis considers the impacts of the Energy Policy Act of 2005's (EPAct 2005's) default competitive leasing provisions, specifically the impact this may have had on geothermal resource discovery outside of known geothermal resource areas.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Equity-Centered Engagement Through Climate Resilience Policy in Massachusetts

Communities who experience disproportionate climate change impacts tend to be excluded from resilience planning (Vale, 2014). Those efforts typically follow top-down processes within established governance practices that are inaccessible to marginalized folks and reinforce inequalities (Malloy & Ashcraft, 2020; Adger, 2003). Such participatory planning processes may offer the public little opportunity to influence the process itself or the outcomes (Smith & McDonough, 2001). They might ignore important public values or alternative ways of knowing which can be critical assets in resilience (Few et al., 2007). Designing communities for climate action and resilience means creating opportunities for everyone to meaningfully shape those decisions and experience related benefits. Having the opportunity to shape one’s community is necessary for human flourishing (Allen, 2016). Resilience planning that shifts power into communities and focuses on social vulnerability can affect how people survive and thrive in a climate changed world. The Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) 2.0 program is an attempt to change the status quo in resilience planning by bringing new voices into decision-making power, recognizing their labor, addressing root causes of vulnerability, and investing in social infrastructure. It aspires to build capacity for equity-focused community engagement within teams of municipal staff and community liaisons, and ultimately build social capital and community cohesion. My mixed methods research investigates implementation of this state grant program in several western Massachusetts towns. I am using document review, participant observation, and interviews to understand the MVP 2.0 process as written, how different towns navigate it, and how individuals make sense of their experiences in it. I seek to understand how those experiences explain relationships between engagement approaches, mediating factors, and process outcomes. I am interested in the conditions that allow for community empowerment and how a model like MVP 2.0 can shift conditions that hold systems in place. In a practical sense, our findings will help municipalities reflect on their work during MVP 2.0 and plan for future community engagement. They may be informative for designing future iterations of the MVP program and for other municipalities, offices of community engagement, and practitioners. The findings will also contribute to the participation, resilience, and climate justice literatures, by adding perspectives on equity-centered resilience and community engagement approaches in smaller towns and rural settings. References: Adger, W. N. (2003). Social capital, collective action, and adaptation to climate change. Economic Geography, 79, 387-404. Allen, D. (2016). Toward a connected society. Our compelling interests: The value of diversity for democracy and a prosperous society, 71-105. Few, R., Brown, K., & Tompkins, E. L. (2007). Public participation and climate change adaptation: avoiding the illusion of inclusion. Climate Policy, 7(1), 46–59. Malloy, J. T., & Ashcraft, C. M. (2020). A framework for implementing socially just climate adaptation. Climatic Change, 160(1), 1–14. Smith, P. D., & McDonough, M. H. (2001). Beyond public participation: Fairness in natural resource decision making. Society & natural resources, 14(3), 239-249. Vale, L. J. (2014). The politics of resilient cities: whose resilience and whose city? Building Research & Information, 42(2), 191–201.

Callaham, Shannon↗
DOE OSTI2024

Boundary spanning increases knowledge and action on invasive species in a changing climate

Abstract Challenges associated with global change stressors on ecosystems have prompted calls to improve actionable science, including through boundary‐spanning activities, which aim to build connections and communication between researchers and natural resource practitioners. By synthesizing and translating research and practitioner knowledge, boundary‐spanning activities could support proactive, research‐informed conservation practice, but the success of these efforts is rarely evaluated. Using repeat survey data from the Northeast Regional Invasive Species and Climate Change (NE RISCC) Management Network, a boundary‐spanning organization, we evaluate whether participating in NE RISCC affected practitioners' knowledge, actions and priorities related to invasive species management under a changing climate. Our survey results suggest that practitioners who participate in NE RISCC have greater knowledge about invasive species and climate change and are incorporating climate change in more ways into their invasive species management. We also found NE RISCC membership affected the perceived usefulness of informational resources, with NE RISCC members more frequently identifying research syntheses and targeted workshops (both are common products used by NE RISCC to translate science into practice and share manager knowledge) as useful compared to non‐members. Practitioners who participate in NE RISCC also identified somewhat different research priorities, with non‐members and short‐term members more frequently identifying range‐shifting neonative species and their impacts on native communities as higher priorities compared to long‐term NE RISCC members. NE RISCC research activities and outreach materials have consistently framed range‐shifting neonative species as comparatively low risk, suggesting that this information has influenced practitioner's perception of risk. Practical implication : Although real‐world impacts of applied ecology are notoriously difficult to quantify, this analysis illustrates that if research results are actively translated, they can affect the knowledge and actions of natural resource practitioners. These impacts illustrate the potential for boundary‐spanning efforts to address other global change challenges to conservation.

Evans, Annette E.↗
DOE OSTI2025

The mutation atlas of giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera): a mutation database resource for natural knockouts

Giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) is a paramount species of immense ecological and economic importance. It forms dense underwater forests, providing crucial habitat and serving as a foundation species for diverse marine ecosystems. Understanding the genetics of giant kelp is essential for conservation and sustainable farming, safeguarding these valuable ecosystems and their benefits. By analyzing mutations based on their impact, we can gain insights into the potential functional consequences and implications for the organism, helping to identify critical genes or regions that may play a significant role in adaptation, development, and environmental response. To achieve this, we annotated the effects and impact of spontaneous mutations in 559 giant kelp individuals from four different populations. We found over 15.9 million mutations in genes of giant kelp, and classified them into modifier, low, moderate, and high impact depending on their predicted effects. The creation of this mutation effect database, attached to the seedbank of these individuals, offers several applications, including enhancing breeding programs, aiding genetic engineering with naturally occurring mutations, and developing strategies to mitigate the impact of environmental changes.

Plant Sciences↗
DOE OSTI2025

Exploratory Investigation of Coal in Nonequilibrium Plasma

Coal is an abundant natural resource and there is motivation to find new uses for it that do not intrinsically involve combustion. One approach is to explore new ways of processing coal, and in this work, we focus on the transformation of coal in a nonequilibrium plasma generated from an equimolar mixture of nitrogen and hydrogen. The outcome of the nonequilibrium plasma reaction is fundamentally different than a thermal control reaction carried out using the same gas composition, pressure, and temperature range. The nonequilibrium plasma produces a gas mixture that is enriched in acetylene and its derivatives. Furthermore, when compared to the thermal control experiment, the solid char byproduct of the nonequilibrium plasma has a very reactive surface and is spontaneously combustible at ambient temperature. Experiments performed to characterize the reaction kinetics of coal in the plasma suggest that the mechanism proceeds through a sequential process by which the coal particle temperature rises to a point where devolatilization can occur, the devolatilization reaction happens, followed by parallel reactions of released organic vapors in the plasma phase and surface activation. In conclusion, the reaction rate appears to be limited by the time it takes for the coal particle temperature to rise, consistent with previous results reported for reactions of coal in thermal plasma.

Acetylene↗
DOE OSTI2025

Computed Tomography Scanning and Geophysical Measurements of the Clinton Formation in Ohio

Computed tomography and multi-sensor core logging of core material from twelve Ohio wells held by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological Survey to make publicly available core information from the Early Silurian Clinton Formation in Eastern Ohio. Describes data available can be accessed from NETL’s Energy Data eXchange (EDX) online system, https://edx.netl.doe.gov/dataset/ct-and-geophysical-data-of-ohio-clinton-sands.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Toward a standardization of cryostructure and cryogenic soil structure terminology for the field description of permafrost‐affected soils

This paper establishes standardized terminology and field documentation protocols for cryostructures and cryogenic soil structures in permafrost‐affected soils and provides brief guidance on descriptions of ground ice morphology and ice volume estimates. We consolidate permafrost terminology from Russian and North American literature, clarify long‐standing ambiguities, and provide explicit guidelines that align with US Department of Agriculture‐Natural Resources Conservation Service soil description standards. Our scheme makes critical distinctions between cryostructure, the distribution of ice within soil, and cryogenic soil structure, the morphological structure of soil resulting from ice formation. The scheme organizes cryostructures into three main categories: non‐segregated ice, visible segregated ice, and ice matrices. We introduce standardized codes and parameters for field descriptions of ice and soil that enable machine‐readable data collection compatible with existing soil information systems. This standardization will significantly enhance the integration of field observations into landscape‐scale assessments of permafrost stability, infrastructure vulnerability, and ecosystem response to permafrost thaw, addressing an urgent need for quantitative data to inform modeling and decision‐making in rapidly changing Arctic and subarctic environments.

Andersen, Megan L. [University of Minnesota, Saint↗
DOE OSTI2025

Ecological acclimation: A framework to integrate fast and slow responses to climate change

Ecological responses to climate change occur across vastly different time-scales, from minutes for physiological plasticity to decades or centuries for community turnover and evolutionary adaptation. Accurately predicting the range of ecosystem trajectories will require models that incorporate both fast processes that may keep pace with climate change and slower ones likely to lag behind and generate disequilibrium dynamics. However, the knowledge necessary for this integration is currently fragmented across disciplines. We develop ‘ecological acclimation’ as a unifying framework to emphasize the similarity of dynamics driven by processes operating on dramatically different time-scales and levels of biological organization. The framework focuses on ecoclimate sensitivities, measured as the change in an ecological response variable per unit of climate change. Acclimation processes acting at different time-scales cause these sensitivities to shift in magnitude and even direction over time. We highlight shifting ecoclimate sensitivities in case studies from diverse ecosystems, including terrestrial plant communities, coral reefs and soil microbiomes. Models predicting future ecosystem states inevitably make assumptions about acclimation processes; these assumptions must be explicit for users to evaluate whether a model is appropriate for a given forecast horizon. Similarly, decision frameworks that clearly account for multiple acclimation processes and their distinct time-scales will help natural resource managers plan for ecological impacts of climate change from years to many decades into the future. We outline a synthetic research programme focused on the time-scales of ecological acclimation to reduce uncertainty in ecological forecasts.

climate adaptation↗
DOE OSTI2025

U.S. Agrivoltaics Irradiance Database

This is a foundational data set for research and deployment of agrivoltaics, which is the co-location of agriculture and solar power plants on the same land. This irradiance and shading dataset can be utilized to determine the suitability of agrivoltaics configurations for a given region and crop-type. The data is hourly, 4x4 km resolution across the contiguous United States and Hawaii. It is calculated from the National Solar Radiation Database sites, using the System Advisor Model (SAM) to simulate the shading patterns for 10 common agrivoltaics configurations. Sunlight availability data is reported for 10 locations on the ground between adjacent rows of solar panels, as well as averaged across areas of interest such as the average irradiance in the edge-to-edge open area or across 3-6 planting beds. Other available metrics include the input meteorological data from the NSRDB (e.g. global horizontal irradiance, wind speed, etc.) and estimates for comparing energy and agricultural characteristic across the 10 configurations, including power output per acre or per kW installed capacity and farmable land area per acre.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Local Resource Assessment: Beetle-Killed Spruce in Alaska

This report synthesizes forest inventory and spatial data from federal and state sources to present a snapshot of beetle-killed spruce across Southcentral and Interior Alaska. This natural resource is under investigation for use in cellulose-based products, particularly building insulation. Research funded by the Department of Energy's ARPA-E program, has successfully developed insulation - Celium - using beetle-killed spruce combined with mycelium, the root network of fungi. The resulting insulation product can be manufactured locally and used across all Alaskan climate zones for residential, commercial, and shipping applications. Removing standing dead wood also contributes to wildfire risk reduction and mitigates associated public health impacts. This Local Resource Assessment, funded by the Denali Commission, contextualizes and reconciles unaligned forestry data sources, establishing a pathway to refined, replicable analysis and, ultimately, presenting estimates of beetle-killed spruce biomass to inform the potential scale and development of a Celium industry.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2024

Aromatic amino acid metabolism and active transport regulation are implicated in microbial persistence in fractured shale reservoirs

Abstract Hydraulic fracturing has unlocked vast amounts of hydrocarbons trapped within unconventional shale formations. This large-scale engineering approach inadvertently introduces microorganisms into the hydrocarbon reservoir, allowing them to inhabit a new physical space and thrive in the unique biogeochemical resources present in the environment. Advancing our fundamental understanding of microbial growth and physiology in this extreme subsurface environment is critical to improving biofouling control efficacy and maximizing opportunities for beneficial natural resource exploitation. Here, we used metaproteomics and exometabolomics to investigate the biochemical mechanisms underpinning the adaptation of model bacterium Halanaerobium congolense WG10 and mixed microbial consortia enriched from shale-produced fluids to hypersalinity and very low reservoir flow rates (metabolic stress). We also queried the metabolic foundation for biofilm formation in this system, a major impediment to subsurface energy exploration. For the first time, we report that H. congolense WG10 accumulates tyrosine for osmoprotection, an indication of the flexible robustness of stress tolerance that enables its long-term persistence in fractured shale environments. We also identified aromatic amino acid synthesis and cell wall maintenance as critical to biofilm formation. Finally, regulation of transmembrane transport is key to metabolic stress adaptation in shale bacteria under very low well flow rates. These results provide unique insights that enable better management of hydraulically fractured shale systems, for more efficient and sustainable energy extraction.

04 OIL SHALES AND TAR SANDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Environmental Impacts of Closed-Loop Pumped Storage Hydropower

The goal of this report is to help license applicants, resource agencies, and other members of the hydropower community involved in closed-loop pumped storage hydropower permitting and licensing process, focus the scope of environmental reviews, and more quickly identify impacts with project nexus and potential mitigation measures for these impacts. Pumped storage hydropower (PSH) is an energy storage technology that uses energy to pump water up from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir where water is stored until electricity is needed and the water is released to a lower reservoir passing through turbines. Closed-loop PSH—PSH that is not continuously connected to a naturally flowing water feature—is one of the lowest greenhouse gas emitting energy storage technologies and is therefore a critical part of the transition to renewable energy (Simon et al. 2023). Proposals for closed-loop PSH facilities in the United States currently account for more than 40% of original licenses and 99% of potential generation capacity in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) hydropower licensing pipeline (Johnson et al. 2023). While closed-loop PSH facilities can have lower environmental impacts than open-loop PSH facilities, no closed-loop facilities have been constructed in the United States to enable direct accounting of project impacts and efficacy of mitigations. Many proposals for closed-loop PSH submitted to FERC are abandoned early in the permitting and licensing process prior to license applications and environmental assessments, so there is little documentation describing potential project impacts and proposed mitigations. The newness of closed-loop PSH proposals in the United States may mean that tribal, federal, and state agencies with authorities for cultural and natural resources protection and management involved in the FERC licensing process may not have experience with closed-loop PSH regulation. Moreover, many proposed closed-loop PSH facilities are in areas that do not have high concentrations of conventional hydropower, so these agencies may also be unfamiliar with the FERC hydropower licensing process. The goal of this report is to help license applicants, resource agencies, and other members of the hydropower community focus the scope of environmental review for the closed-loop PSH development, licensing, and federal authorization process enabling quicker identification of potential impacts, mitigations, and situations where mitigation may not be possible. We found that environmental impacts of closed-loop PSH are highly site-specific, and generalizations about the types of environmental impacts across closed-loop PSH projects are difficult to make. Environmental impacts of closed-loop PSH are like those for open-loop PSH with a few exceptions including water sourcing, which can lead to delays and contention due to potential complexities with water rights, impacts to aquatic resources, and greenhouse gas emission potential. Cultural resource impacts were commonly reported in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documents reviewed and discussed in interviews, but in many cases such impacts cannot be mitigated.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

The transition from resistance to acceptance: Managing a marine invasive species in a changing world

Abstract Marine invasive species can transform coastal ecosystems, yet mitigating their effects can be difficult, and even impractical. Often, marine invasive species are managed at poorly matched spatial scales, and at the same time, rates of spread and establishment are increasing under climate change and can outpace resources available for population suppression. These circumstances challenge traditional conservation goals of maintaining a historic environmental state, especially for a species like the European green crab ( Carcinus maenas ), a formidable invader with few examples of successful long‐term removal programs. A management paradigm where decision alternatives include resisting or accepting a new ecological trajectory may be needed. We apply mathematical concepts from decision theory to develop a quantitative framework for navigating management decisions in this new resist‐accept paradigm. We develop a model of European green crab growth, removal and colonization, and we find optimal levels of removal effort that minimize both ecological change and removal cost. We establish a benchmark of colonization pressure at which green crab density becomes decoupled from a decision maker's actions, such that population control can no longer shape the invasion trajectory. For informing the decision boundary between resistance and acceptance, our results highlight that a decision maker's understanding of how removal cost scales with removal effort is more important than understanding the density‐impact relationship. We show that assuming stationary system dynamics can result in sub‐optimal levels of species removal effort, highlighting the importance of developing anticipatory management strategies by accounting for non‐stationary dynamics. Policy implications . For marine invasive species that can disperse across long distances and recolonize rapidly after removal, the focus of conservation policy should shift away from understanding how to resist change to understanding when to stop resisting change. Navigating this decision problem involves trade‐offs among competing objectives, highlighting the need for structured approaches to elicit objective weights that reflect the values of the decision maker. For natural resource managers facing possible ecosystem transformation, this decision framework can enable proactive and strategic decisions made under uncertainty in a changing world.

Keller, Abigail G. [Department of Environment Scie↗
DOE OSTI2025

Water Temperature, Prey Concentration and Salmonid Density Influence Daily Growth of Wild Juvenile Salmonids in Tributaries of the Upper Salmon River, Idaho ( USA )

ABSTRACT Theory, experiments and field studies indicate that the somatic growth rate of freshwater consumers is shaped by the individual, additive and multiplicative effects of multiple factors, including consumer size and condition, temperature, prey resources and biotic interactions. While our understanding of how these factors affect wild populations of freshwater consumers is improving, the topic remains poorly studied, especially with respect to mobile species. Here, we report on an 8‐year, seven‐stream ( n = 49 stream‐year combinations) observational study examining the individual and interactive effects of invertebrate prey concentration (F, mg/m 3 ), mean daily water temperature (T, °C) and juvenile Chinook salmon ( Oncorhynchus tshawytscha ) density (D, fish/100 m 2 ) on summer daily growth rates (%/d) of mobile, anadromous, juvenile Chinook salmon (age‐0+, n = 382) and sub‐yearling (age‐0+, n = 61) and yearling (age‐1+) steelhead trout ( O. mykiss , n = 70) rearing in cold (mean daily summer: 12.1°C, range: 4.2°C–16.7°C) mountain tributaries of the Salmon River basin in central Idaho (USA). AIC c model selection indicated that daily juvenile salmonid growth positively correlated with water temperature, prey biomass concentration, local juvenile Chinook density and the interaction between water temperature and food but with species and age‐specific differences. Water temperature was a covariate in all top‐ranked models, with daily growth (%/day) rate increasing (0.05%–0.23%/d) linearly with mean daily summer water temperature. In addition to a direct positive relationship with daily growth rate, there was evidence that prey concentration positively interacted with water temperature to accelerate daily growth (F × T). The positive relationship between juvenile salmonid daily growth rate and juvenile Chinook density is difficult to explain and could result from confounding factors. The individual success observed in these streams may contribute to population‐level benefits for the focal consumers, as prey‐rich, warm summers may result in larger individuals with higher energy reserves at the end of the summer/autumn growing season, contributing to improved overwinter survival. Our results, taken in combination with evidence from models, experiments and observational studies, have climate change implications. Current and predicted increases in water temperature will necessitate higher rates of prey consumption by aquatic ectothermic consumers to offset accelerated metabolic demands. Thus, to improve the resilience of mobile freshwater consumers in a warming climate, we suggest that natural resource managers not only consider physical and chemical habitat conditions but also biotic conditions, including the spatiotemporal quantity and quality of prey resources.

Kiffney, Peter. M. [Fish Ecology, Northwest Fisher↗
DOE OSTI2025

Managing ecosystem damage from extreme events

Large disturbances to ecosystems can severely impact the stability of a region's natural resources, habitats, and outdoor recreation. Because extreme events can be large and relatively infrequent, they test institutional capacity to support recovery and restoration. Here, when hurricanes and other large-scale disturbances like wildfires occur, much of the impacted landscape receives little to no active management. Ecosystems are often allowed to either recover or transition without much direct intervention, and successional dynamics are sometimes altered by novel invasive species, management history, or other environmental changes. Recovery and restoration are especially challenging for landscapes with highly fragmented private ownership, such as the forests of the eastern US. Acting alone, non-industrial private forest landowners have little capacity to effectively respond to unexpected forest loss and to oversee forest recovery, as the scale of actions needed after extreme events may require cooperation across ownerships or jurisdictions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Putting the soil health principles to the test in Iowa

One of the most popular soil conservation campaigns is based on the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service's Soil Health Principles (NRCS-SHPs). The NRCS-SHP program identifies four principles—maximize presence of living roots, minimize disturbance, maximize soil cover, and maximize biodiversity—with the underlying assumption that the more principles one follows, the greater improvements in soil health. Despite the popularity of the NRCS-SHPs, this underlying assumption has not been rigorously tested. To do so, we used nine long-term experiments all located in central Iowa, but with varying degree of NRCS-SHP adoption, to determine if greater adoption increases three slow-changing (maximum water holding capacity, bulk density [BD], and soil organic carbon) and three dynamic (microbial biomass carbon [MBC], potentially mineralizable carbon [PMC], and permanganate oxidizable carbon [POXC]) soil health indicators. We regressed these indicators with a soil health principle score that can scale soil management based on adoption of the NRCS-SHPs. Of the slow-changing soil properties, increased adoption of NRCS-SHPs only decreased soil BD (R2 = 0.22, p = 0.024). On the other hand, increased adoption of NRCS-SHPs strongly predicted increases in both MBC and PMC and across two sampling dates (R2 > 0.23, p < 0.015); POXC, however, did not increase with greater adoption. The consistent increases in MBC and PMC with greater adoption of NRCS-SHPs supports their usefulness as sensitive indicators of positive soil health change. Our study provides scientific evidence to support the NRCS-SHPs concept, improving its usefulness as an extension campaign, and stands as a step toward evidence-based soil conservation.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Key Drivers for Offshore Wind Deployment in the Western United States

The western coast of the United States has abundant natural resources, including wind, sun, and water. Despite strong ocean winds, offshore wind energy (OSW) in the Western United States is in the early stages of technology development due largely to the deep water off the coast, which requires floating platforms rather than fixed‐bottom turbines. Floating OSW increases the technical difficulty of installation and thus the cost relative to both fixed‐bottom OSW and land‐based turbines. OSW is a potential generation option to help meet increasing demand on the west coast of the United States because it likely has fewer land‐use conflicts than other technologies and complements sources in the existing electricity supply by providing energy during times of high system stress. This paper examines the possible drivers and barriers to OSW deployment on the West Coast using the National Laboratory of the Rockies' state‐of‐the‐art capacity expansion model and the Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) model. We use ReEDS to explore a multitude of future scenarios looking at key drivers for OSW deployment, including variations on the cost of OSW, electricity demand growth, and the availability of competing technologies to examine the factors that may play a role in OSW growth. Assuming coastal state policies such as renewable portfolio and clean energy standards remain in place, we find that OSW can play a role in meeting electricity demand and provide energy during stressful grid conditions and find that deployment from the least‐cost investment model ranges from 7.6 to 38 GW by 2045.

17 WIND ENERGY↗