Older heating systems often suffer from mis-investment--multiple contractors upgrading parts of systems in inadequate or inappropriate ways that reduce system functionality and efficiency--or from a lack of proper maintenance. This technical report addresses these barriers to information, contractor resources, and cost-savings. Building off of previous research, CNT Energy conducted a study to identify best practices for the methodology, typical costs, and energy savings associated with steam; system balancing.

A combined license (COL) application is required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for all proposed nuclear plants. The information requirements for a COL application are set forth in 10 CFR 52.79, “Contents of Applications; Technical Information in Final Safety Analysis Report.” An applicant for a modular high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) must develop and submit for NRC review and approval a COL application which conforms to these requirements. The technical information necessary to allow NRC staff to evaluate a COL application and resolve all safety issues related to a proposed nuclear plant is detailed and comprehensive. To this, Regulatory Guide (RG) 1.206, “Combined License Applications for Nuclear Power Plants” (LWR Edition), was developed to assist light water reactor (LWR) applicants in incorporating and effectively formatting required information for COL application review (Ref. 1). However, the guidance prescribed in RG 1.206 presumes a LWR design proposal consistent with the systems and functions associated with large LWR power plants currently operating under NRC license.

This report summarizes the work completed to evaluate cladding materials that could serve as improvements to Zircaloy in terms of accident tolerance. This testing involved oxidation resistance to steam or H{sub 2}-50% steam environments at 800-1350 C at 1-20 bar for short times. A selection of conventional alloys, SiC-based ceramics and model alloys were used to explore a wide range of materials options and provide guidance for future materials development work. Typically, the SiC-based ceramic materials, alumina-forming alloys and Fe-Cr alloys with {ge}25% Cr showed the best potential for oxidation resistance at {ge}1200 C. At 1350 C, FeCrAl alloys and SiC remained oxidation resistant in steam. Conventional austenitic steels do not have sufficient oxidation resistance with only {approx}18Cr-10Ni. Higher alloyed type 310 stainless steel is protective but Ni is not a desirable alloy addition for this application and high Cr contents raise concern about {alpha}{prime} formation. Higher pressures (up to 20.7 bar) and H{sub 2} additions appeared to have a limited effect on the oxidation behavior of the most oxidation resistant alloys but higher pressures accelerated the maximum metal loss for less oxidation resistant steels and less metal loss was observed in a H{sub 2}-50%H{sub 2}O environment at 10.3 bar. …

When modeling solar energy technologies and other distributed energy systems, using high-quality expansive electricity rates is essential. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) developed a utility rate platform for entering, storing, updating, and accessing a large collection of utility rates from around the United States. This utility rate platform lives on the Open Energy Information (OpenEI) website, OpenEI.org, allowing the data to be programmatically accessed from a web browser, using an application programming interface (API). The semantic-based utility rate platform currently has record of 1,885 utility rates and covers over 85% of the electricity consumption in the United States.

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This is a Final Technical Report on the Research and Development completed towards the development of a Low Cost Solar Collector conducted under the DOE cost-sharing award EE-0003591. The objective of this project was to develop a new class of solar concentrators with geometries and manufacturability that could significantly reduce the fully installed cost of the solar collector field for concentrated solar thermal power plants. The goal of the project was to achieve an aggressive cost target of $170/m2, a reduction of up to 50% in the total installed cost of a solar collector field as measured against the current industry benchmark of a conventional parabolic trough. The project plan, and the detailed activities conducted under the scope of the DOE Award project addressed all major drivers that affect solar collector costs. In addition to costs, the study also focused on evaluating technical performance of new collector architectures and compared them to the performance of the industry benchmark parabolic trough. The most notable accomplishment of this DOE award was the delivery of a full-scale integrated design, manufacturing and field installation solution for a new class of solar collector architecture which has been classified as the Bi-Planar Fresnel Collector (BPFC) and …

This is the final project report for award DE-SC0005351, which supported the research project "€œExploratory Research: Mercury Stable Isotopes as Indicators of the Biogeochemical Cycling of Mercury."€ This exploratory project investigated the use of mercury (Hg) stable isotope measurements as a new approach to study how Hg moves and changes its chemical form in environmental systems, with particular focus on the East Fork of Poplar Creek (EFPC) near the DOE Y-12 plant (a Hg contamination source). This study developed analytical methods and collected pilot data that have set the stage for more detailed studies and have begun to provide insights into Hg movement and chemical changes. The overall Hg stable isotope approach was effective. The Hg isotope analysis methods yielded high-precision measurements of the sediment, water, and fish samples analyzed; quality control measures demonstrated the precision. The pilot data show that the 202Hg/198Hg, 199Hg/198Hg, and 201Hg/198Hg isotope ratios vary in this system. 202Hg/198Hg ratios of the Hg released from the Y-12 plant are relatively high, and those of the regional Hg background in soils and river sediments are significantly lower. Unfortunately, 202Hg/198Hg differences that might have been useful to distinguish early Hg releases from later releases were not observed. However, …

This plan describes environmental monitoring as required by U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Order 450.1, “Environmental Protection Program,” and additional environmental monitoring currently performed by other organizations in and around the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The objective of DOE Order 450.1 is to implement sound stewardship practices that protect the air, water, land, and other natural and cultural resources that may be impacted by DOE operations. This plan describes the organizations responsible for conducting environmental monitoring across the INL, the rationale for monitoring, the types of media being monitored, where the monitoring is conducted, and where monitoring results can be obtained. This plan presents a summary of the overall environmental monitoring performed in and around the INL without duplicating detailed information in the various monitoring procedures and program plans currently used to conduct monitoring.

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Overview of the U.S. Department of Energy Federal Energy Management Program Energy-Efficient Product Procurement Program and its designated product category list.

For challenging radiation transport problems, hybrid methods combine the accuracy of Monte Carlo methods with the global information present in deterministic methods. One of the most successful hybrid methods is CADIS Consistent Adjoint Driven Importance Sampling. This method uses a deterministic adjoint solution to construct a biased source distribution and consistent weight windows to optimize a specific tally in a Monte Carlo calculation. The method has been implemented into transport codes using just the spatial and energy information from the deterministic adjoint and has been used in many applications to compute tallies with much higher figures-of-merit than analog calculations. CADIS also outperforms user-supplied importance values, which usually take long periods of user time to develop. This work extends CADIS to develop weight windows that are a function of the position, energy, and direction of the Monte Carlo particle. Two types of consistent source biasing are presented: one method that biases the source in space and energy while preserving the original directional distribution and one method that biases the source in space, energy, and direction. Seven simple example problems are presented which compare the use of the standard space/energy CADIS with the new space/energy/angle treatments.

A visual inspection data collection tool for the evaluation of fielded photovoltaic (PV) modules has been developed to facilitate describing the condition of PV modules with regard to field performance. The proposed data collection tool consists of 14 sections, each documenting the appearance or properties of a part of the module. This report instructs on how to use the collection tool and defines each attribute to ensure reliable and valid data collection. This tool has been evaluated through the inspection of over 60 PV modules produced by more than 20 manufacturers and fielded at two different sites for varying periods of time. Aggregated data from such a single data collection tool has the potential to enable longitudinal studies of module condition over time, technology evolution, and field location for the enhancement of module reliability models.

NREL data will help utilities incorporate solar energy into their electric power systems.

This fact sheet provides a summary of how DOE and NREL's technical assistance in Greensburg, Kansas, helped the town rebuild green after recovering from a tornado in May 2007.

Recent progress with fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) has focused attention on hydrogen infrastructure as a critical commercialization barrier. With major automakers focused on 2015 as a target timeframe for global FCEV commercialization, the window of opportunity is short for establishing a sufficient network of hydrogen stations to support large-volume vehicle deployments. This report describes expert feedback on the market readiness of hydrogen infrastructure technology from two activities.

This fact sheet provides information on Tribes in the lower 48 states selected to receive assistance from the Strategic Technical Assistance Response Team (START) Program, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs (DOE-IE) initiative to provide technical expertise to support the development of next-generation energy projects in Indian Country.

This report describes the status of the U.S. wind energy industry market in 2011; its trends, performance, market drivers and future outlook.

Possible alternatives to transparent conductors show promise for enabling new processes and reducing costs.

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Over the last several decades, libraries across the nation have undergone dramatic budget cuts, despite being an important resource for regional and national economic growth and innovation. Numerous studies have attempted to show that libraries increase the intellectual level of users and contribute to the economic growth of communities through surveys and customer service data. Within this study, we have attempted to develop a more analytical method for assessing library performance, using the Idaho National Laboratory Research Library as a sample subject. We have developed a mathematical model to measure the financial value of a library’s material resources as well as its intellectual value to determine if the library is a positive contributor to the wider organization and community it serves.

MarmotViz is an illustrative visualization plug-in for ParaView. It is intended for generating enhanced visualizations of time-varying datasets on unstructured connected meshes. A detailed description of the implemented algorithms and program structure can be found in the related document: Generalized framework and algorithms for illustrative visualization of time-varying data on unstructured meshes . This document provides details for compiling/building MarmotViz, using the MarmotViz plug-in in ParaView, and extending the MarmotViz plug-in.

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