Award Data

Up to 2700 terawatt-hours per year of geothermal electricity generation capacity has been shown to be available within North America, typically with wells drilled into geologically active regions of the earths crust where this energy is concentrated (Huttrer, 2001). Of this potential, about half is considered to have temperatures high enough for conventional (steam-based) power production, while ...

There is a need for condition monitoring sensors capable of function in the harshest environments associated with advanced power systems that will: directly contribute to improving system control, protect capital equipment investment, and promote safety through prevention of catastrophic equipment failure. These harsh environments include extreme temperatures (8001800C), high pressures ( ...

Gasification technologies convert coal and biomass into synthesis gas feed streams that can either be used as a fuel for highly efficient power generation cycles or converted into value-added chemicals and transportation fuels. However, coal-derived synthesis gas contains a myriad of contaminants that may be regulated in power plant emissions and act as poisons for the catalysts used in downstrea ...

In the proposed effort, we will leverage this extensive experience and capabilities to realize a frequency agile mmW radiometer that can cover the range of DC-110 GHz and can be scaled to DC-200 GHz under Phase II. Ours is a photonic system that multiplies and up-coverts a low-frequency reference signal onto an optical carrier (laser) using EO modulation, then uses the modulation sidebands to inj ...

Many activities and technological systems prevalent in today’s society – air traffic control and air travel, the power grids, communications, deep-water drilling operations, human spaceflight – are vulnerable to the effects of sudden flares from our Sun. Because the propagation speed for flare emission is the speed of light, it is necessary to forecast these events in order to mitigate thei ...

To ensure safe and reliable power production by nuclear power plants, a wide variety of materials and components need to undergo inspections and maintenances at pre-determined intervals. Condition based maintenance is highly desirable because it can potentially avoid unnecessarily costly maintenance actions and associated error induced failures. Consequently, it can help achieve nearly all the mai ...

This Phase I project proposes the development of a Marine Profiling Radiometer (MPR). The MPR is a passive microwave remote sensor capable to measure the stability of the marine boundary layer. Significant innovations in radiometer design, packaging, mode of operation, and calibration enable the MPR to operate in the unforgiving marine environment for an extended time without maintenance and user ...

The biomass supply chain is evolving to meet the expanding forms of biomass utilization. In particular to meet the goals to produce 60 billion gallons of renewable fuel by 2030 will require a massive increase in cellulosic biofuel production. To produce 45 billion gallons of cellulosic biofuel will require about 530 million tons of cellulosic biomass to be processed and converted to fuel each ye ...

Dimethyl carbonate (DMC) is a high value organic chemical with many potentially important applications. DMC can be made from CO2 directly or indirectly. With the development of CO2 capture and sequestration technology, huge amounts of low cost CO2 will be available as a feed stock. The conversion of CO2 to DMC will be an attractive chemical production investment. A major problem associated the D ...

Cogeneration utilizes solar insolation to simultaneously provide electricity and address other build- ing energy requirements such as Heating or Cooling. Yet, the #1 energy use in Commercial Build- ings is neither of these, but instead Lighting. We show a novel solar Co-Gen architecture that optimally targets this top requirement, with the IR portion driving high-efficiency thermo-PV for electric ...