This technology pathway case investigates the catalytic conversion of solubilized carbohydrate streams to hydrocarbon biofuels, utilizing data from recent efforts within the National Advanced Biofuels Consortium (NABC) in collaboration with Virent, Inc. Technical barriers and key research needs that should be pursued for the catalytic conversion of sugars pathway to be competitive with petroleum-derived gasoline-, diesel-, and jet-range hydrocarbon blendstocks have been identified.

This document highlights the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's investments and impacts in the state of New Hampshire.

New Mexico State University and a group of New Mexico farmers are evaluating an innovative agricultural technique they call Intensive Production (IP). In contrast to conventional agricultural practice, IP uses intercropping, green fallowing, application of soil amendments and soil microbial inocula to sequester carbon as plant biomass, resulting in improved soil quality. Sandia National Laboratories role was to identify a non-invasive, cost effective technology to monitor soil carbon changes. A technological review indicated that Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) best met the farmers' objectives. Sandia partnered with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to analyze farmers' test plots using a portable LIBS developed at LANL. Real-time LIBS field sample analysis was conducted and grab samples were collected for laboratory comparison. The field and laboratory results correlated well implying the strong potential for LIBS as an economical field scale analytical tool for analysis of elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphate.

This report documents an effort to quantify the uncertainty of the calculated temperature data for the first Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR-1) fuel irradiation experiment conducted in the INL’s Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) in support of the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) R&D program. Recognizing uncertainties inherent in physics and thermal simulations of the AGR-1 test, the results of the numerical simulations can be used in combination with the statistical analysis methods to improve qualification of measured data. Additionally, the temperature simulation data for AGR tests can be used for validation of the fuel transport and fuel performance simulation models. The crucial roles of the calculated fuel temperatures in ensuring achievement of the AGR experimental program objectives require accurate determination of the model temperature uncertainties. The report is organized into three chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the AGR Fuel Development and Qualification program and provides overviews of AGR-1 measured data, AGR-1 test configuration and test procedure, and thermal simulation. Chapters 2 describes the uncertainty quantification procedure for temperature simulation data of the AGR-1 experiment, namely, (i) identify and quantify uncertainty sources; (ii) perform sensitivity analysis for several thermal test conditions; (iii) use uncertainty propagation to quantify overall response temperature uncertainty. A set …

None

Further to the development of a model analysis fra

The growth of wind and solar generation in the United States, and the expectation of continued growth of these technologies, dictates that the future power system will be operated in a somewhat different manner because of increased variability and uncertainty. A small number of balancing authorities have attempted to determine an 'integration cost' to account for these changes to their current operating practices. Some balancing authorities directly charge wind and solar generators for integration charges, whereas others add integration charges to projected costs of wind and solar in integrated resource plans or in competitive solicitations for generation. This report reviews the balancing authorities that have calculated variable generation integration charges and broadly compares and contrasts the methodologies they used to determine their specific integration charges. The report also profiles each balancing authority and how they derived wind and solar integration charges.

This fact sheet describes the tablet-based simuwatt Audit tool, which uses NREL's advanced energy modeling framework and building energy audit processes, collaboration tools, in-app media, and private company concept3D's geometric capture software combined with real-time connections to large sets of standardized data to perform building energy audits faster than traditional methods. By integrating the NREL Building Component Library, utility rates, weather information, and energy conservation measures, the tool provides investment-grade audits that cost 75% less than traditional audits and stores the data in a consistent and reusable format.

The U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored Transportation Energy Futures (TEF) project examines how combining multiple strategies could reduce both GHG emissions and petroleum use by 80%. The project's primary objective was to help inform domestic decisions about transportation energy strategies, priorities, and investments, with an emphasis on previously underexplored opportunities related to energy efficiency and renewable energy in light-duty vehicles, non-light-duty vehicles, fuels, and transportation demand. This PowerPoint provides an overview of the project and its findings.

Uranium can be recovered from uranium oxide (UO2) spent fuel through the combination of the oxide reduction and electrorefining processes. During oxide reduction, the spent fuel is introduced to molten LiCl-Li2O salt at 650 degrees C and the UO2 is reduced to uranium metal via two routes: (1) electrochemically, and (2) chemically by lithium metal (Li0) that is produced electrochemically. However, the hygroscopic nature of both LiCl and Li2O leads to the formation of LiOH, contributing hydroxyl anions (OH-), the reduction of which interferes with the Li0 generation required for the chemical reduction of UO2. In order for the oxide reduction process to be an effective method for the treatment of uranium oxide fuel, the role of moisture in the LiCl-Li2O system must be understood. The behavior of moisture in the LiCl-Li2O molten salt system was studied using cyclic voltammetry, chronopotentiometry and chronoamperometry, while reduction to hydrogen was confirmed with gas chromatography.

The parking garage fact sheet highlights the many features of NREL's garage, including energy efficiency, renewable energy, water conservation, building materials, and waste minimization.

Dominant research results on adsorption on gold clusters are reviewed, including adsorption of H{sub 2}O and O{sub 2} on gold cluster cations and anions, kinetics of CO adsorption to middle sized gold cluster cations, adsorption of CO on Au{sub n}{sup +} with induced changes in structure, and H{sub 2}O enhancement of CO adsorption.

In its deployment as a pebble bed reactor (PBR) critical facility from 1992 to 1996, the PROTEUS facility was designated as HTR-PROTEUS. This experimental program was performed as part of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Coordinated Research Project (CRP) on the Validation of Safety Related Physics Calculations for Low Enriched HTGRs. Within this project, critical experiments were conducted for graphite moderated LEU systems to determine core reactivity, flux and power profiles, reaction-rate ratios, the worth of control rods, both in-core and reflector based, the worth of burnable poisons, kinetic parameters, and the effects of moisture ingress on these parameters. Four benchmark experiments were evaluated in this report: Cores 1, 1A, 2, and 3. These core configurations represent the hexagonal close packing (HCP) configurations of the HTR-PROTEUS experiment with a moderator-to-fuel pebble ratio of 1:2. Core 1 represents the only configuration utilizing ZEBRA control rods. Cores 1A, 2, and 3 use withdrawable, hollow, stainless steel control rods. Cores 1 and 1A are similar except for the use of different control rods; Core 1A also has one less layer of pebbles (21 layers instead of 22). Core 2 retains the first 16 layers of pebbles from Cores 1 and 1A and …

Modeling of reacting flows in porous media has become particularly important with the increased interest in hydrogen solid-storage beds. An advanced type of storage bed has been proposed that utilizes oxidation of uranium hydride to heat and decompose the hydride, releasing the hydrogen. To reduce the cost and time required to develop these systems experimentally, a valid computational model is required that simulates the reaction of uranium hydride and oxygen gas in a hydrogen storage bed using multiphysics finite element modeling. This SAND report discusses the advancements made in FY12 (since our last SAND report SAND2011-6939) to the model developed as a part of an ASC-P&EM project to address the shortcomings of the previous model. The model considers chemical reactions, heat transport, and mass transport within a hydride bed. Previously, the time-varying permeability and porosity were considered uniform. This led to discrepancies between the simulated results and experimental measurements. In this work, the effects of non-uniform changes in permeability and porosity due to phase and thermal expansion are accounted for. These expansions result in mechanical stresses that lead to bed deformation. To describe this, a simplified solid mechanics model for the local variation of permeability and porosity as a function …

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is supporting the Department of Energy (DOE) Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) in organizing and executing a model comparison activity. This project is directed at testing, diagnosing differences, and demonstrating modeling capabilities of a worldwide collection of numerical simulators for evaluating geothermal technologies. A key element of the projct was the planning and implementation of a one-day project kickoff workshop, held February 14, 2013 in Palo Alto, CA. The primary goals of the workshop were to 1) introduce the project and its objectives to potential participating team members, and 2) develop an initial set of test problem descriptions for use in the execution stage. This report summarizes the outcomes of the workshop.

Safety is central to the design, licensing, operation, and economics of nuclear power plants (NPPs). As the current light water reactor (LWR) NPPs age beyond 60 years, there are possibilities for increased frequency of systems, structures, and components (SSC) degradations or failures that initiate safety significant events, reduce existing accident mitigation capabilities, or create new failure modes. Plant designers commonly “over-design” portions of NPPs and provide robustness in the form of redundant and diverse engineered safety features to ensure that, even in the case of well-beyond design basis scenarios, public health and safety will be protected with a very high degree of assurance. This form of defense-in-depth is a reasoned response to uncertainties and is often referred to generically as “safety margin.” Historically, specific safety margin provisions have been formulated primarily based on engineering judgment backed by a set of conservative engineering calculations. The ability to better characterize and quantify safety margin is important to improved decision making about LWR design, operation, and plant life extension. A systematic approach to characterization of safety margins and the subsequent margin management options represents a vital input to the licensee and regulatory analysis and decision making that will be involved. In addition, as …

The accident at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor provided a unique opportunity to evaluate sensors exposed to severe accident conditions. Conditions associated with the release of coolant and the hydrogen burn that occurred during this accident exposed instrumentation to harsh conditions, including direct radiation, radioactive contamination, and high humidity with elevated temperatures and pressures. As part of a program initiated in 2012 by the Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE), a review was completed to gain insights from prior TMI-2 sensor survivability and data qualification efforts. This new effort focussed upon a set of sensors that provided critical data to TMI-2 operators for assessing the condition of the plant and the effects of mitigating actions taken by these operators. In addition, the effort considered sensors providing data required for subsequent accident simulations. Over 100 references related to instrumentation performance and post-accident evaluations of TMI-2 sensors and measurements were reviewed. Insights gained from this review are summarized within this report. For each sensor, a description is provided with the measured data and conclusions related to the sensor’s survivability, and the basis for conclusions about its survivability. As noted within this document, several techniques were invoked in …

The ACP and IRIS are developed to establish a world reference for calibrating pyrgeometers with traceability to SI units. The two radiometers are unwindowed with negligible spectral dependence, and traceable to SI units through the temperature scale (ITS-90). The first outdoor comparison between the two designs was held from January 28 to February 8, 2013 at the Physikalisch-Metorologisches Observatorium Davos (PMOD). The difference between the irradiance measured by ACP and that of IRIS was within 1 W/m2. A difference of 5 W/m2 was observed between the irradiance measured by ACP&IRIS and that of the interim World Infrared Standard Group (WISG).

This document highlights the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's investments and impacts in the state of Indiana.

The rate of oxidation is important to the long-term performance of reducing salt waste forms because the solubility of some contaminants, e.g., technetium, is a function of oxidation state. TcO{sub 4}{sup −} in the salt solution is reduced to Tc(IV) and has been shown to react with ingredients in the waste form to precipitate low solubility sulfide and/or oxide phases [Shuh, et al., 1994, Shuh, et al., 2000, Shuh, et al., 2003]. Upon exposure to oxygen, the compounds containing Tc(IV) oxidize to the pertechnetate ion, Tc(VII)O{sub 4}{sup −}, which is very soluble. Consequently the rate of technetium oxidation front advancement into a monolith and the technetium leaching profile as a function of depth from an exposed surface are important to waste form performance and ground water concentration predictions. An approach for measuring contaminant oxidation rate (effective contaminant specific oxidation rate) based on leaching of select contaminants of concern is described in this report. In addition, the relationship between reduction capacity and contaminant oxidation is addressed. Chromate was used as a non-radioactive surrogate for pertechnetate in simulated waste form samples. Depth discrete subsamples were cut from material exposed to Savannah River Site (SRS) ''field cured'' conditions. The subsamples were prepared and …

A greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory is a systematic approach to account for the production and release of certain gases generated by an institution from various emission sources. The gases of interest are those that climate science has identified as related to anthropogenic global climate change. This document presents an inventory of GHGs generated during Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 by Idaho National Laboratory (INL), a Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored entity, located in southeastern Idaho.

This analysis evaluates CSP with TES in a scenario where California derives 33% of its electricity from renewable energy sources. It uses a commercial grid simulation tool to examine the avoided operational and capacity costs associated with CSP and compares this value to PV and a baseload generation with constant output. Overall, the analysis demonstrates several properties of dispatchable CSP, including the flexibility to generate during periods of high value and avoid generation during periods of lower value. Of note in this analysis is the fact that significant amount of operational value is derived from the provision of reserves in the case where CSP is allowed to provide these services. This analysis also indicates that the 'optimal' configuration of CSP could vary as a function of renewable penetration, and each configuration will need to be evaluated in terms of its ability to provide dispatchable energy, reserves, and firm capacity. The model can be used to investigate additional scenarios involving alternative technology options and generation mixes, applying these scenarios within California or in other regions of interest.

Cadmium ratios were measured with enriched uranium metal foils at various locations in the assembly with the fuel tube at the 1.506-cm spacing. They are described in the following subsections. The experiment configuration was the same as the first critical configuration described in HEU-COMP-FAST-004 (Case 1). The experimenter placed 0.75-cm-diameter × 0.010-cm-thick 93.15%-235U-enriched uranium metal foils with and without 0.051-cm-thick cadmium covers at various locations in the core and top reflector. One part of the cadmium cover was cupshape and contained the uranium foil. The other part was a lid that fit over the exposed side of the foil when it was in the cup shaped section of the cover. As can be seen in the logbook, two runs were required to obtain all the measurements necessary for the cadmium ratio. The bare foil measurements within the top reflector were run first as part of the axial foil activation measurements. The results of this run are used for both the axial activation results and the cadmium ratios. Cadmium covered foils were then placed at the same location through the top reflector in a different run. Three pairs of bare and cadmium covered foils were also placed through the core tank. …

Workplace safety has been historically neglected by organizations in order to enhance profitability. Over the past 30 years, safety concerns and attention to safety have increased due to a series of disastrous events occurring across many different industries (e.g., Chernobyl, Upper Big-Branch Mine, Davis-Besse etc.). Many organizations have focused on promoting a healthy safety culture as a way to understand past incidents, and to prevent future disasters. There is an extensive academic literature devoted to safety culture, and the Department of Energy has also published a significant number of documents related to safety culture. The purpose of the current endeavor was to conduct a review of the safety culture literature in order to understand definitions, methodologies, models, and successful interventions for improving safety culture. After reviewing the literature, we observed four emerging themes. First, it was apparent that although safety culture is a valuable construct, it has some inherent weaknesses. For example, there is no common definition of safety culture and no standard way for assessing the construct. Second, it is apparent that researchers know how to measure particular components of safety culture, with specific focus on individual and organizational factors. Such existing methodologies can be leveraged for future assessments. …