Radiological Protection During Armed Conflict: Improving Regulatory and Operational Resilience

The conflict in Ukraine has highlighted pressing concerns regarding radiological protection and the need to enhance both operational and regulatory resilience during times of armed conflict. While the core principles of radiological protection remain sound, it is crucial for all nations to strengthen their plans and procedures to better manage emerging threats and increased uncertainty.

In response to these complex challenges, the NEA Committee on Radiological Protection and Public Health (CRPPH) and the Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (DSA) co-hosted a workshop in Oslo from 22 to 24 November 2023. The workshop, titled “Radiological Protection During Armed Conflict”, gathered …

Encouraging Transportation Energy Solutions that Work Today

The Transport Project is a national coalition of roughly 200 fleets, vehicle and engine manufacturers and dealers, servicers and suppliers, and fuel producers and providers dedicated to the decarbonization of North America’s transportation sector. Through the increased use of gaseous motor fuels including renewable natural gas (RNG) and hydrogen, the United States and Canada can help achieve ambitious climate goals and greatly improve air quality safely, reliably, and effectively without delay and without compromising existing commercial business operations. …

Forecasting of Virtual Power Plant Generating and Energy Arbitrage Economics in the Electricity Market Using Machine Learning Approach

Over time, the importance of virtual power plants (VPP) has markedly risen to seamlessly incorporate the sporadic nature of renewable energy sources into the existing smart grid framework. Simultaneously, there is a growing need for advanced forecasting methods to bolster the grid’s stability, flexibility, and dispatchability. This paper presents a dual-pronged, innovative approach to maximize income in the day-ahead power market through VPP. On one front, forecasting VPP generation units, including solar photovoltaic, wind power, and combined heat and power, employs a novel Adam Optimizer Long-Short-Term-Memory (AOLSTM) machine learning technique. Conversely, estimating the revenue’s superior frontier is accomplished by integrating …

Reline or Revitalize: The Narrowing Window to Modernize the US Steel Industry

Investment in reviving or “relining” the seven aging blast furnaces in the Great Lakes region is a multi-billion dollar bet that risks continuing job decline at these assets, weakens the ability of the US steel industry to compete in the global market, and perpetuates serious health and climate emissions harm from coal-based steel production.

Although the seven remaining coal-based blast furnaces represent only about a quarter of US steel production, these plants generate approximately 75 percent of the industry’s emissions. Continuing business-as-usual operations at these sites for the next few decades risks blowing past the domestic steel industry’s carbon budget …

Energy-from-Waste as a Carbon Dioxide Removal Pathway in the United Kingdom

This report evaluates the potential of Energy-from-Waste (EfW) combined with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to generate high quality, highly durable carbon dioxide removal (CDR) Credits. With over fifty operational EfW plants, generating CDR credits for EfW with CCS presents a significant opportunity for the UK.

CDR credits have largely been traded in unregulated voluntary markets, where registries set the rules for Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV), however governments are increasingly developing regulations that formalize MRV requirements. This report sets out the crediting process, the requirements of a robust MRV framework and considerations for durable storage of captured carbon dioxide …

Low-Carbon Ammonia Technology: Blue, Green, and Beyond

As the world intensifies efforts to combat climate change, several industries are focusing on the development of sustainable manufacturing processes for high-impact products like ammonia. Primarily used as an agricultural fertilizer, ammonia and other ammonia-based fertilizers are essential for providing nitrogen to crops. Conventional ammonia production methods are carbon-intensive, relying heavily on fossil fuels, and thus, alternative low-carbon pathways to produce ammonia are under development, offering promising solutions to decarbonize ammonia production.

Ammonia production technologies generally fall under two categories: those that utilize the Haber-Bosch (HB) process, and those that are more novel. The Haber-Bosch process is the method by …

Direct Air Capture: Definition and Company Analysis

Direct air capture, hereafter referred to as DAC, is an emerging technology that will be an important part of the portfolio of technologies enabling atmospheric carbon dioxide removal (CDR). This report provides a background on the technology, explains potentially required levels of deployment, discusses the U.S. Department of Energy’s role in supporting DAC, offers a precise definition of the technology, and provides a list of companies working on DAC with corresponding analysis of trends. The intended audience includes those working in the CDR field as well as anyone generally interested in learning more about the development and status of direct …

Next Generation Energy Efficiency Resource Standards Update

Presently, 26 states plus the District of Columbia have EERS policies in place. These states accounted for over 80% of utility energy efficiency program savings in 2023, making EERS policies a critical part of utility energy efficiency programs. On average, in 2023, utilities achieved 99% of their EERS goals, with some utilities exceeding goals and others falling a little short. Utilities exceeding goals were often aided by performance incentives that reward utilities for exceeding EERS minimums.

In this study, the authors examined four specific next generation elements:
– Mandatory emissions reduction targets or a decarbonization goal
– Electrification, including enabling …

A Review of Value of Solar Studies In Theory and In Practice

Though most states in the United States required net metering as of 2024 (i.e., compensating solar output at the full electricity rate), many have taken recent action to address distributed generation compensation and valuation. One common action is for states to commission value of solar (VoS) studies that quantify the value and costs associated with distributed solar output to inform solar tariff and incentive design.

This brief summarizes a collection of state- and utility-commissioned VoS studies and related literature, with a focus on who commissioned the study, which value and cost categories were discussed and/or quantified, and the methods used. …

Evaluating GHG Mitigation Potential from ESPC Projects

This report explores the impact of implemented ESPC projects on the projected greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions in the U.S. buildings sector, and the associated projected annual cost savings and marginal abatement costs. It is important to investigate the role that energy retrofits can play in achieving GHG emission reduction targets given the use of ESPC by public agencies to reduce emissions from energy use in addition to the historical use of ESPC to to achieve cost/energy savings and ancillary benefits (e.g., addressing deferred maintenance, aging infrastructure, etc.). The analysis draws from LBNL’s eProject Builder (ePB) database, which contains approximately …