The Hydrogen Safety Panel brings a broad cross-section of expertise from the industrial, government, and academic sectors to help advise the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Fuel Cell Technologies Office through its work in hydrogen safety, codes, and standards. The Panel’s initiatives in reviewing safety plans, conducting safety evaluations, identifying safety-related technical data gaps, and supporting safety knowledge tools and databases cover the gamut from research and development to demonstration and deployment. The Panel’s recent work has focused on the safe deployment of hydrogen and fuel cell systems in support of DOE efforts to accelerate fuel cell commercialization in early market applications: vehicle refueling, material handling equipment, backup power for warehouses and telecommunication sites, and portable power devices. This paper resulted from observations and considerations stemming from the Panel’s work on early market applications. This paper focuses on hydrogen system components that are installed in outdoor enclosures. These enclosures might alternatively be called “cabinets,” but for simplicity, they are all referred to as “enclosures” in this paper. These enclosures can provide a space where a flammable mixture of hydrogen and air might accumulate, creating the potential for a fire or explosion should an ignition occur. If the enclosure is large …

This quarterly report summarizes the status for the project planning to obtain all the approvals required for a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Autodesk, Inc., Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America (Toyota), and Magna Exterior and Interiors Corporation (Magna). The CRADA documents have been processed by PNNL Legal Services that is also coordinating the revision effort with the industrial parties to address DOE’s comments.

None

None

N/A

The objective of this project was to characterize the influence that naturally complex geologic media has on anomalous dispersion and to determine if the nature of dispersion can be estimated from the underlying heterogeneous media. The UNM portion of this project was to provide detailed representations of aquifer heterogeneity through producing highly-resolved models of outcrop analogs to aquifer materials. This project combined outcrop-scale heterogeneity characterization (conducted at the University of New Mexico), laboratory experiments (conducted at Sandia National Laboratory), and numerical simulations (conducted at Sandia National Laboratory and Colorado School of Mines). The study was designed to test whether established dispersion theory accurately predicts the behavior of solute transport through heterogeneous media and to investigate the relationship between heterogeneity and the parameters that populate these models. The dispersion theory tested by this work was based upon the fractional advection-dispersion equation (fADE) model. Unlike most dispersion studies that develop a solute transport model by fitting the solute transport breakthrough curve, this project explored the nature of the heterogeneous media to better understand the connection between the model parameters and the aquifer heterogeneity. We also evaluated methods for simulating the heterogeneity to see whether these approaches (e.g., geostatistical) could reasonably replicate realistic …

The objective of the Abrasion Testing of Critical Components of Hydrokinetic Devices (Project) was to test critical components of hydrokinetic devices in waters with high levels of suspended sediment – information that is widely applicable to the hydrokinetic industry. Tidal and river sites in Alaska typically have high suspended sediment concentrations. High suspended sediment also occurs in major rivers and estuaries throughout the world and throughout high latitude locations where glacial inputs introduce silt into water bodies. In assessing the vulnerability of technology components to sediment induced abrasion, one of the greatest concerns is the impact that the sediment may have on device components such as bearings and seals, failures of which could lead to both efficiency loss and catastrophic system failures.

None

Over the past five years, our activities have both established Kepler as a viable scientific workflow environment and demonstrated its value across multiple science applications. We have published numerous peer-reviewed papers on the technologies highlighted in this short paper and have given Kepler tutorials at SC06,SC07,SC08,and SciDAC 2007. Our outreach activities have allowed scientists to learn best practices and better utilize Kepler to address their individual workflow problems. Our contributions to advancing the state-of-the-art in scientific workflows have focused on the following areas. Progress in each of these areas is described in subsequent sections. Workflow development. The development of a deeper understanding of scientific workflows "in the wild" and of the requirements for support tools that allow easy construction of complex scientific workflows; Generic workflow components and templates. The development of generic actors (i.e.workflow components and processes) which can be broadly applied to scientific problems; Provenance collection and analysis. The design of a flexible provenance collection and analysis infrastructure within the workflow environment; and Workflow reliability and fault tolerance. The improvement of the reliability and fault-tolerance of workflow environments.

None

On July 31-August 2 of 2012, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) held a workshop entitled Grand Challenges of Advanced Computing for Energy Innovation. This workshop built on three earlier workshops that clearly identified the potential for the Department and its national laboratories to enable energy innovation. The specific goal of the workshop was to identify the key challenges that the nation must overcome to apply the full benefit of taxpayer-funded advanced computing technologies to U.S. energy innovation in the ways that the country produces, moves, stores, and uses energy. Perhaps more importantly, the workshop also developed a set of recommendations to help the Department overcome those challenges. These recommendations provide an action plan for what the Department can do in the coming years to improve the nation’s energy future.

This report fulfills the M4 milestone M4FT-13OR08220112, "Report Documenting Experimental Activities." The purpose of this report is to document the results of a literature review conducted of studies related to the vibration and shock associated with the normal conditions of transport for rail shipments of used nuclear fuel from commercial light-water reactors. As discussed in Adkins (2013), the objective of this report is to determine if adequate data exist that would enable the impacts of the shock and vibration associated with the normal conditions of transport on commercial light-water reactor used nuclear fuel shipped in current generation rail transportation casks to be realistically modeled.

None

This report documents the technical basis for determining that stabilizing highpurity PuO{sub 2} derived from oxalate precipitation at the SRS HB-Line facility at a minimum of 625 {degree}C for at least four hours in an oxidizing atmosphere is equivalent to stabilizing at a minimum of 950 {degree}C for at least two hours as regards meeting the objectives of stabilization defined by DOE-STD-3013 if the material is handled in a way to prevent excessive absorption of water.

It is now firmly established that neutrinos, which are copiously produced in the hot and dense core of the supernova, play a role in the supernova explosion mechanism and in the synthesis of heavy elements through a phenomena known as r-process nucleosynthesis. They are also detectable in terrestrial neutrino experiments, and serve as a probe of the extreme environment and complex dynamics encountered in the supernova. The major goal of the UW research activity relevant to this project was to calculate the neutrino interaction rates in hot and dense matter of relevance to core collapse supernova. These serve as key input physics in large scale computer simulations of the supernova dynamics and nucleosynthesis being pursued at national laboratories here in the United States and by other groups in Europe and Japan. Our calculations show that neutrino production and scattering rate are altered by the nuclear interactions and that these modifications have important implications for nucleosynthesis and terrestrial neutrino detection. The calculation of neutrino rates in dense matter are difficult because nucleons in the dense matter are strongly coupled. A neutrino interacts with several nucleons and the quantum interference between scattering off different nucleons depends on the nature of correlations between …

None

Marshall Islands Special Medical Care and Logistics Program

The DOE theory group grew from 2009-2012 from a single investigator, Lawrence Krauss, the PI on the grant, to include 3 faculty (with the addition of Maulik Parikh and Tanmay Vachaspati), and a postdoc covered by the grant, as well as partial support for a graduate student. The group has explored issues ranging from gravity and quantum field theory to topological defects, energy conditions in general relativity, primordial magnetic fields, neutrino astrophysics, quantum phases, gravitational waves from the early universe, dark matter detection schemes, signatures for dark matter at the LHC, and indirect astrophysical signatures for dark matter. In addition, we have run active international workshops each year, as well as a regular visitor program. As well, the PI's outreach activities, including popular books and articles, and columns for newspapers and magazines, as well as television and radio appearances have helped raise the profile of high energy physics internationally. The postdocs supported by the grant, James Dent and Roman Buniy have moved on successfully to a faculty positions in Louisiana and California.

This report intends to support Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) Nuclear Energy Research and Development Roadmap and industry stakeholders by evaluating optical-based instrumentation and control (I&C) concepts for advanced small modular reactor (AdvSMR) applications. These advanced designs will require innovative thinking in terms of engineering approaches, materials integration, and I&C concepts to realize their eventual viability and deployability. The primary goals of this report include: 1. Establish preliminary I&C needs, performance requirements, and possible gaps for AdvSMR designs based on best available published design data. 2. Document commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) optical sensors, components, and materials in terms of their technical readiness to support essential AdvSMR in-vessel I&C systems. 3. Identify technology gaps by comparing the in-vessel monitoring requirements and environmental constraints to COTS optical sensor and materials performance specifications. 4. Outline a future research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) program plan that addresses these gaps and develops optical-based I&C systems that enhance the viability of future AdvSMR designs. The development of clean, affordable, safe, and proliferation-resistant nuclear power is a key goal that is documented in the Nuclear Energy Research and Development Roadmap. This roadmap outlines RD&D activities intended to overcome technical, economic, and other barriers, which currently …

None

None

There is a need for accurate dosimetry for studies of health effects in the Japanese atomic bomb survivors because of the important role that these studies play in worldwide radiation protection standards. International experts have developed dosimetry systems, such as the Dosimetry System 2002 (DS02), which assess the initial radiation exposure to gamma rays and neutrons but only briefly consider the possibility of some minimal contribution to the total body dose by residual radiation exposure. In recognition of the need for an up-to-date review of the topic of residual radiation exposure in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, recently reported studies were reviewed at a technical session at the 57th Annual Meeting of the Health Physics Society in Sacramento, California, 22-26 July 2012. A one-day workshop was also held to provide time for detailed discussion of these newer studies and to evaluate their potential use in clarifying the residual radiation exposures to the atomic-bomb survivors at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Suggestions for possible future studies are also included in this workshop report.

At the end of 2012, U.S. wind turbines in distributed applications reached a 10-year cumulative installed capacity of more than 812 MW from more than 69,000 units across all 50 states. In 2012 alone, nearly 3,800 wind turbines totaling 175 MW of distributed wind capacity were documented in 40 states and in the U.S. Virgin Islands, with 138 MW using utility-scale turbines (i.e., greater than 1 MW in size), 19 MW using mid-size turbines (i.e., 101 kW to 1 MW in size), and 18.4 MW using small turbines (i.e., up to 100 kW in size). Distributed wind is defined in terms of technology application based on a wind project’s location relative to end-use and power-distribution infrastructure, rather than on technology size or project size. Distributed wind systems are either connected on the customer side of the meter (to meet the onsite load) or directly to distribution or micro grids (to support grid operations or offset large loads nearby). Estimated capacity-weighted average costs for 2012 U.S. distributed wind installations was $2,540/kW for utility-scale wind turbines, $2,810/kW for mid-sized wind turbines, and $6,960/kW for newly manufactured (domestic and imported) small wind turbines. An emerging trend observed in 2012 was an increased use …

Our contributions to advancing the state‐of‐the‐art in scientific workflows have focused on the following areas: Workflow development; Generic workflow components and templates; Provenance collection and analysis; Workflow reliability and fault tolerance.