In November 2012, the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) released a new report, 'Natural Gas and the Transformation of the U.S. Energy Sector: Electricity.' The study provides a new methodological approach to estimate natural gas related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, tracks trends in regulatory and voluntary industry practices, and explores various electricity futures. The Executive Summary provides key findings, insights, data, and figures from this major study.

The objective of the proposed research is the demonstration and development of a novel biomass pyrolysis technology for the production of a stable bio-oil. The approach is to carry out catalytic hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) and upgrading together with pyrolysis in a single fluidized bed reactor with a unique two-level design that permits the physical separation of the two processes. The hydrogen required for the HDO will be generated in the catalytic section by the water-gas shift reaction employing recycled CO produced from the pyrolysis reaction itself. Thus, the use of a reactive recycle stream is another innovation in this technology. The catalysts will be designed in collaboration with BASF Catalysts LLC (formerly Engelhard Corporation), a leader in the manufacture of attrition-resistant cracking catalysts. The proposed work will include reactor modeling with state-of-the-art computational fluid dynamics in a supercomputer, and advanced kinetic analysis for optimization of bio-oil production. The stability of the bio-oil will be determined by viscosity, oxygen content, and acidity determinations in real and accelerated measurements. A multi-faceted team has been assembled to handle laboratory demonstration studies and computational analysis for optimization and scaleup.

In February 2011 the US Department of Energy announced their new Sunshot Initiative. The Sunshot goal is to reduce the total cost of solar energy systems by about 75 percent before the end of the decade. The DOE estimated that a total installed cost of $1 per watt for photovoltaic systems would be equivalent to 6¢/kilowatt hour (kWh) for energy available from the grid. The DOE also estimated that to meet the $1 per watt goal, PV module costs would need to be reduced to $.50 per watt, balance of systems costs would need to be reduced to $.40 per watt, and power electronic costs would need to reach $.10 per watt. To address the BOS balance of systems cost component of the $1 per watt goal, the DOE announced a funding opportunity called (BOS-X) Extreme Balance of System Hardware Cost Reductions. The DOE identified eight areas within the total BOS costs: 1) installation labor, 2) installation materials, 3) installation overhead and profit, 4) tracker, 5) permitting and commissioning, 6) site preparation, 7) land acquisition, 8) sales tax. The BOS-X funding announcement requested applications in four specific topics: Topic 1: Transformational Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) Modules Topic 2: Roof and …

The purpose of INL’s research on this project is to demonstrate the feasibility of a host event based network monitoring tool and the effects on host performance. Current host based network monitoring tools work on polling which can miss activity if it occurs between polls. Instead of polling, a tool could be developed that makes use of event APIs in the operating system to receive asynchronous notifications of network activity. Analysis and logging of these events will allow the tool to construct the complete real-time and historical network configuration of the host while the tool is running. This research focused on three major operating systems commonly used by SCADA systems: Linux, WindowsXP, and Windows7. Windows 7 offers two paths that have minimal impact on the system and should be seriously considered. First is the new Windows Event Logging API, and, second, Windows 7 offers the ALE API within WFP. Any future work should focus on these methods.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) held a Biogas and Fuel Cells Workshop June 11-13, 2012, in Golden, Colorado, to discuss biogas and waste-to-energy technologies for fuel cell applications. The overall objective was to identify opportunities for coupling renewable biomethane with highly efficient fuel cells to produce electricity; heat; combined heat and power (CHP); or combined heat, hydrogen and power (CHHP) for stationary or motive applications. The workshop focused on biogas sourced from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), landfills, and industrial facilities that generate or process large amounts of organic waste, including large biofuel production facilities (biorefineries).

Overview of current state-of-the-art of social media for NTI Working Group III: Societal Verification

This paper presents a new tool for testing wind plant controllers in the Simulator for Offshore Wind Farm Applications (SOWFA). SOWFA is a high-fidelity simulator for the interaction between wind turbine dynamics and the fluid flow in a wind plant. The new super-controller testing environment in SOWFA allows for the implementation of the majority of the wind plant control strategies proposed in the literature.

This report provides an assessment of the use of Mechanical Stress Improvement Process to reduce, or decrease, stress-driven degradation, i.e., primary water stress corrosion cracking.

This fact sheet helps to dispel common community wind myths, using citations to published research.

Individual datastreams from instrumentation at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility fixed and mobile research sites are collected and routed to the Data Management Facility (DMF) for processing in near-real-time. Instrument and processed data are then delivered approximately daily to the ARM Data Archive, where they are made freely available to the research community. For each instrument, we calculate the ratio of the actual number of processed data records received daily at the Data Archive to the expected number of data records. The results are tabulated by (1) individual datastream, site, and month for the current year and (2) site and fiscal year dating back to 1998.

The document describes detailed uncertainty quantification (UQ) methodology developed by PNNL to estimate secure ranges of potential dynamic intra-hour interchange adjustments in the ISO-NE system and provides description of the dynamic interchange adjustment (DINA) tool developed under the same contract. The overall system ramping up and down capability, spinning reserve requirements, interchange schedules, load variations and uncertainties from various sources that are relevant to the ISO-NE system are incorporated into the methodology and the tool. The DINA tool has been tested by PNNL and ISO-NE staff engineers using ISO-NE data.

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The Debye sheath is shown to be unstable under general conditions. For surface materials with sufficient secondary electron emission (SEE) yields, the surface's current-voltage characteristic has an unstable branch when the bulk plasma temperature (Te ) exceeds a critical value, or when there are fast electron populations present. The plasma-surface interaction becomes dynamic where the sheath may undergo spontaneous transitions or oscillations. Using particle-in-cell simulations, we analyze sheath instabilities occurring in a high Te plasma slab bounded by walls with SEE. As the plasma evolves, whenever the sheath enters an unstable state, its amplitude rapidly collapses, allowing a large flux of previously trapped electrons to hit the wall. These hot electrons induce more than one secondary on average, causing a net loss of electrons from the wall. The sheath collapse quenches when the surface charge becomes positive because the attractive field inhibits further electrons from escaping. Sheath instabilities influence the current balance, energy loss, cross-B-field transport and even the bulk plasma properties. Implications for discharges including Hall thrusters are discussed. More generally, the results show that common theories that treat emission as a fixed (time-independent) "coefficient" do not capture the full extent of SEE effects.

In this work, the development of model-based feedback control that stabilizes an unstable equilibrium is obtained for the Modi ed Hasegawa-Wakatani (MHW) equations, a classic model in plasma turbulence. First, a balanced truncation (a model reduction technique that has proven successful in ow control design problems) is applied to obtain a low dimensional model of the linearized MHW equation. Then a modelbased feedback controller is designed for the reduced order model using linear quadratic regulators (LQR). Finally, a linear quadratic gaussian (LQG) controller, which is more resistant to disturbances is deduced. The controller is applied on the non-reduced, nonlinear MHW equations to stabilize the equilibrium and suppress the transition to drift-wave induced turbulence.

DISFRAC is the implementation of a theoretical, multi-scale model for the prediction of fracture toughness in the ductile-to-brittle transition temperature (DBTT) region of ferritic steels. Empirically-derived models of the DBTT region cannot legitimately be extrapolated beyond the range of existing fracture toughness data. DISFRAC requires only tensile properties and microstructural information as input, and thus allows for a wider range of application than empirical, toughness data dependent models. DISFRAC is also a framework for investigating the roles of various microstructural and macroscopic effects on fracture behavior, including carbide particle sizes, grain sizes, strain rates, and material condition. DISFRAC s novel approach is to assess the interaction effects of macroscopic conditions (geometry, loading conditions) with variable microstructural features on cleavage crack initiation and propagation. The model addresses all stages of the fracture process, from microcrack initiation within a carbide particle, to propagation of that crack through grains and across grain boundaries, finally to catastrophic failure of the material. The DISFRAC procedure repeatedly performs a deterministic analysis of microcrack initiation and propagation within a macroscopic crack plastic zone to calculate a critical fracture toughness value for each microstructural geometry set. The current version of DISFRAC, version 2.0, is a research code for …

NREL and Mattson Technology are interested in developing new processing techniques for fabrication of solar cells using UV-rich optical processing. UV light has a very high absorption coefficient in most semiconductors, allowing the semiconductor surface to be heated locally and, in some cases, without a significant increase in the substrate temperature. NREL has several projects related to cell processing that currently use an optical furnace (having a spectrum rich in visible and infrared light). Mattson Technology has developed a UV rich light source that can be used in either pulse or continuous modes. The objective of this CRADA is to explore applications in solar cell processing where absorption characteristics of UV light can lead to lower cell cost and/or higher efficiencies.

The application of microchannel technology for distributive distillation was studied to achieve the Grand Challenge goals of 25% energy savings and 10% return on investment. In Task 1, a detailed study was conducted and two distillation systems were identified that would meet the Grand Challenge goals if the microchannel distillation technology was used. Material and heat balance calculations were performed to develop process flow sheet designs for the two distillation systems in Task 2. The process designs were focused on two methods of integrating the microchannel technology – 1) Integrating microchannel distillation to an existing conventional column, 2) Microchannel distillation for new plants. A design concept for a modular microchannel distillation unit was developed in Task 3. In Task 4, Ultrasonic Additive Machining (UAM) was evaluated as a manufacturing method for microchannel distillation units. However, it was found that a significant development work would be required to develop process parameters to use UAM for commercial distillation manufacturing. Two alternate manufacturing methods were explored. Both manufacturing approaches were experimentally tested to confirm their validity. The conceptual design of the microchannel distillation unit (Task 3) was combined with the manufacturing methods developed in Task 4 and flowsheet designs in Task 2 to …

Effective storage of hydrogen presents one of the most significant technical gaps to successful implementation of the hydrogen economy, particularly for transportation applications. Amine boranes, such as ammonia borane H3NBH3 and ammonia triborane H3NB3H7, have been identified as promising, high-capacity chemical hydrogen storage media containing potentially readily released protic (N-H) and hydridic (B-H) hydrogens. At the outset of our studies, dehydrogenation of ammonia borane had been studied primarily in the solid state, but our DOE sponsored work clearly demonstrated that ionic liquids, base-initiators and/or metal-catalysts can each significantly increase both the rate and extent of hydrogen release from amine boranes under moderate conditions. Our studies also showed that depending upon the activation method, hydrogen release from amine boranes can occur by very different mechanistic steps and yield different types of spent-fuel materials. The fundamental understanding that was developed during this grant of the pathways and controlling factors for each of these hydrogen-release mechanisms is now enabling continuing discovery and optimization of new chemical-hydride based hydrogen storage systems.

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Foxtail millet (Setaria italica L.) is a warm-season, C4 annual crop commonly grown for grain and forage worldwide. It has a relatively short generation time, yet produces hundreds of seeds per inflorescence. The crop is inbred and it has a small-size genome (~500 Mb). These features make foxtail millet an attractive grass model, especially for bioenergy crops. While a number of genomic tools have been established for foxtail millet, including a fully sequenced genome and molecular markers, the objectives of this project were to develop a tissue culture system, determine the best explant(s) for tissue culture, optimize transient gene expression, and establish a stable transformation system for foxtail millet cultivar Yugu1. In optimizing a tissue culture medium for the induction of calli and somatic embryos from immature inflorescences and mature seed explants, Murashige and Skoog medium containing 2.5 mg l-1 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 0.6 mg l-1 6- benzylaminopurine was determined to be optimal for callus induction of foxtail millet. The efficiency of callus induction from explants of immature inflorescences was significantly higher at 76% compared to that of callus induction from mature seed explants at 68%. The calli induced from this medium were regenerated into plants at high frequency (~100%) …

This report documents the results of an in-depth evaluation of energy consumption and thermal comfort for two potential net zero-energy homes (NZEHs) in Massachusetts, as well as an indoor air quality (IAQ) evaluation performed in conjunction with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL).

Managing scientific data has been identified by the scientific community as one of the most important emerging needs because of the sheer volume and increasing complexity of data being collected. Effectively generating, managing, and analyzing this information requires a comprehensive, end-to-end approach to data management that encompasses all of the stages from the initial data acquisition to the final analysis of the data. Fortunately, the data management problems encountered by most scientific domains are common enough to be addressed through shared technology solutions. Based on community input, we have identified three significant requirements. First, more efficient access to storage systems is needed. In particular, parallel file system and I/O system improvements are needed to write and read large volumes of data without slowing a simulation, analysis, or visualization engine. These processes are complicated by the fact that scientific data are structured differently for specific application domains, and are stored in specialized file formats. Second, scientists require technologies to facilitate better understanding of their data, in particular the ability to effectively perform complex data analysis and searches over extremely large data sets. Specialized feature discovery and statistical analysis techniques are needed before the data can be understood or visualized. Furthermore, interactive …

In previous work [1], the onset criterion for radiation driven islands [2] in combination with a simple cylindrical model of tokamak current channel behavior was shown to be consistent with the empirical scaling of the tokamak density limit [3]. A number of the unexplained phenomena at the density limit are consistent with this novel physics mechanism. In this work, a more formal theoretical underpinning, consistent with cylindrical tearing mode theory, is developed for the onset criteria of these modes. The appropriate derivation of the radiation-driven addition to the modified Rutherford equation is discussed. Additionally, the ordering of the terms in the MRE is examined in a regime near the density limit. It is hoped that given the apparent success of this simple model in explaining the observed global scalings will lead to a more comprehensive analysis of the possibility that radiation driven islands are the physics mechanism responsible for the density limit. In particular, with modern diagnostic capabilities detailed measurements of current densities, electron densities and impurity concentrations at rational surfaces should be possible, enabling verification of the concepts described above.

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