An Updated Life Cycle Assessment of Utility-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Systems Installed in the United States

Given the high deployment targets for solar photovoltaics (PV) to meet U.S. decarbonization goals, and the limited carbon budget remaining to limit global temperature rise, accurate accounting of PV system life cycle energy use and greenhouse gas emissions is needed. In the United States, most PV systems are large, utility-scale systems that use single-axis trackers and central inverters, which are not commonly examined in existing life cycle assessment (LCA) literature.
This study presents a cradle-to-grave LCA of a typical silicon U.S. utility-scale PV (UPV) installation that is consistent with the utility system features documented in the NREL annual PV system …

DOE Releases Report Outlining How America Can Sustainably Produce More Than One Billion Tons of Biomass Per Year

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today released the 2023 Billion-Ton Report (BT23), which shows that the U.S. could sustainably triple its production of biomass to more than 1 billion tons per year. The report—the fourth in a series of assessments of potential biomass resources in the United States since 2005—finds that 1 billion tons of biomass could satisfy over 100% of the projected demand for airplane fuel in the country, allowing the U.S. to fully decarbonize the aviation industry with sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Advancing clean energy solutions like biomass is critical to reaching long-term national decarbonization objectives and …

Water Power Technologies Office Releases 2022–2023 Report Highlighting Hydropower and Marine Energy Successes

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) released its 2022–2023 Accomplishments Report, which showcases more than 40 hydropower and marine energy successes from WPTO-funded projects at DOE national laboratories, companies, and academic institutions across the country.

Hydropower and marine energy depend on the movement and flow of water and are generally predictable and reliable. This makes them well-suited to help balance an electricity grid with higher levels of variable renewable energy like wind and solar. These resources are also important in achieving a clean electricity sector by 2035 and a net-zero-emissions economy by 2050. …

USDA Outlines Vision to Strengthen the American Bioeconomy through a More Resilient Biomass Supply Chain

In September 2022, President Biden signed Executive Order (EO) 14081 on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy. The EO directs the Secretary of Agriculture, in consultation with the heads of appropriate agencies as determined by the Secretary, to submit a plan to the President, through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA) and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy (APEP), to support the resilience of the U.S. biomass supply chain for domestic biomanufacturing and biobased product manufacturing, while also advancing food security, environmental sustainability, and the needs of …

Practices for Enhancing Leadership for Safety in Nuclear Regulatory Bodies

This report presents practical guidance to enhance leadership for safety in nuclear regulatory bodies. It identifies the effective characteristics, competencies and behaviours of leaders in regulatory bodies that have a healthy safety culture and lays out programmes and processes that can continuously improve that safety culture.

Some 12 characteristics and competencies that emerged from the original research underpinning this guide are identified as essential to the development of effective leadership for safety in regulatory bodies. These are grouped into three aspect categories and are accompanied by examples of good practices for the regulatory body as an organisation and good practices …

Rapid Biodegradation of Microplastics Generated from Bio-Based Thermoplastic Polyurethane

The accumulation of microplastics in various ecosystems has now been well documented and recent evidence suggests detrimental effects on various biological processes due to this pollution. Accumulation of microplastics in the natural environment is ultimately due to the chemical nature of widely used petroleum-based plastic polymers, which typically are inaccessible to biological processing. One way to mitigate this crisis is adoption of plastics that biodegrade if released into natural environments. In this work, we generated microplastic particles from a bio-based, biodegradable thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU-FC1) and demonstrated their rapid biodegradation via direct visualization and respirometry. Furthermore, we isolated multiple bacterial strains …

The Mutual Impact of Nuclear Regulatory Bodies and License Holders from a Safety Culture Perspective

Most safety incidents are often not due to a technical fault or the actions of a single individual, but rather originate in a compromised safety culture – the collection of the beliefs, perceptions and values that employees share in relation to risks within an organisation, such as a workplace or a community.

Regulatory bodies, by their very nature, have a deep influence on the safety culture of nuclear site licence holders. But this influence can also flow in the other direction, from licensee to regulatory body. Based on the insights from senior practitioners worldwide, this report examines the factors and …

Use of Computational Fluid Dynamics for Nuclear Safety

This Technical Opinion Paper (TOP) studies the emerging use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) as an additional tool for the evaluation of safety cases implying thermal hydraulics. CFD allows a finer description of the phenomena compared to the present system-scale tools. This appears promising but also raises new questions in the assessment of safety studies and its use is currently still limited to a relatively small number of applications. The development of CFD is a fast-evolving and relatively recent activity in the context of nuclear safety. The Computational Fluid Dynamics Task Group (CFDTG), which is part of the Nuclear Energy …

Brief Report on the Launch of Women in Energy Network-Africa

The launch event for Women in Energy Network Africa (WEN-Africa) was held on February 21- 22, 2024, in Kigali, Rwanda with the presence of 140 representatives from 24 countries in Africa and four countries representing Middle East and North Africa and South Asia. The objective of the WEN-Africa launch workshop was to highlight the need for solidarity in closing the gender gap in the African energy sector and provide a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary advocacy, knowledge sharing, policy dialogue, and capacity development among energy sector stakeholders across the region.

Aligned with the World Bank Gender Strategy 2024 – 2030, the …

Beneath the Green: A Critical Look at the Environmental and Human Costs of Industrial Cobalt Mining in DRC

Cobalt is a critical mineral for the green energy transition. It is used in the rechargeable batteries in electric vehicles and is primarily found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which holds around 70% of the world’s reserves. It is mined as a by-product of copper, another critical mineral. DRC is the primary producer of cobalt and the third largest producer of copper. 88% of DRC’s cobalt is produced by industrial mines operated by some of the world’s largest mining companies; the remaining 12% is from artisanal miners.
In one of the first in-depth studies on the environmental impacts …