From Laboratory to Marketplace
PNNL has been honored with three awards for excellence in transferring technologies to private sector by the Federal Laboratory Consortium.
Multiscale Effects Masked the Impact of COVID-19 on Electricity Consumption
COVID-19 had multiple impacts on the electric sector and the nature of those impacts varied on the scale analyzed.
Wind Energy
Wind energy research at PNNL is funded by DOE’s Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO). PNNL partners with WETO to meet its twofold mission: enable the innovations needed to advance the nation’s wind energy systems, and address wind energy market and deployment barriers, including siting and environmental impacts for wind power.
Advanced Reactors
PNNL conducts research and development to support the commercialization and licensing of advanced nuclear reactors, including small modular reactors. Small modular reactors and other advanced reactors are expected to reduce economic, security, technical, perceived safety, and regulatory barriers to the accelerated establishment in the U.S. of the next generation of nuclear power.
Grid Energy Storage
Redox. Vanadium. When combined with “batteries,” these highly technical words describe an equally daunting goal: development of energy storage technologies to support the nation’s power grid. Energy storage neatly balances electricity supply and demand. Renewable energy, like wind and solar, can at times exceed demand. Energy storage systems can store that excess energy until electricity production drops and the energy can be deposited back to the power grid.
Tethys Tackles Downscaling Challenge for Regional Water Withdrawals
Open-source tool helps connect high-resolution sectoral models and broader integrated human-Earth system models.
Analysis of Urban Teleconnections Reveals Wide Disparities in Potential Drinking Water Contamination
A multisectoral analysis that combines land use data with hydrological simulations reveals wide disparities in potential source water contamination.
Bioenergy Technologies
PNNL bioenergy research is in support of DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO). BETO’s goal is to develop a viable, sustainable domestic biomass industry that produces renewable biofuels, bioproducts, and biopower; enhances U.S. energy security, and reduces dependence on foreign oil. PNNL supports these goals by researching and developing processes that convert biomass and wastes to chemicals and to biofuels that are infrastructure ready (e.g., gasoline, diesel and jet fuel). The research team utilizes their technical expertise in advanced biotechnology, catalysis and thermal processing to enable these conversions to take place.
Evaluating the Economic Impact of Water Scarcity in a Changing World
Calculating the multi-region and multisector effects of water scarcity for thousands of possible future socioeconomic, climate, and hydrologic scenarios.
Human–Earth Interactions Researchers Set Vision for 2030
To improve the study of human-Earth interactions, a 10-year vision report by the MultiSector Dynamics community of practice encourages the use of emerging human systems datasets, embedded intelligence in modeling, and workforce diversity.