Recent droughts and heat waves have revealed the vulnerability of some power plants to effects from higher temperature intake water for cooling. In this evaluation, we develop a methodology for predicting whether power plants are at risk of violating thermal pollution limits. We begin by...

Recent droughts and heat waves have revealed the vulnerability of some power plants to effects from higher temperature intake water for cooling. In this evaluation, we develop a methodology for predicting whether power plants are at risk of violating thermal pollution limits. We begin by...

Growing populations and periodic drought conditions have exacerbated water stress in many areas worldwide. In response, some municipalities have considered desalination of saline water as a freshwater supply. Unfortunately, desalination requires a sizeable energy investment. However, renewable...

Worldwide, algal biofuel research and development efforts have focused on increasing the competitiveness of algal biofuels by increasing the energy and financial return on investments, reducing water intensity and resource requirements, and increasing algal productivity. In this study, analyses...

Recent optimistic revisions to projections for recoverable natural gas resources in the United States have generated renewed interest in the possibility of greater utilization of natural gas as a transportation fuel. Against a backdrop of significant policy challenges for the United States,...

Electricity is a complex and interesting topic for research and investigation. From a systems level, electricity includes many steps from its generation (power plants) to transmission and distribution to delivery and final use. Within each of these steps are a set of tradeoffs that are...

This manuscript uses data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to analyze the potential for energy recovery from wastewater treatment plants via anaerobic digestion with biogas utilization and biosolids incineration with electricity generation. These energy recovery strategies could...

Water heating represented nearly 13% of 2010 residential energy consumption making it an important target for energy conservation efforts. The objective of this work is to identify spatially-resolved strategies for energy conservation, since little analysis has been done to identify how regional...

In this paper, we use experimental data collected from an Austin, Texas smart grid test bed with a system-level battery energy storage model to assess the lifetime of batteries in a microgrid operating in islanded mode during a distribution-level outage. We consider a hypothetical microgrid...

Demand for liquid fuels (i.e., petroleum products) has burdened the U.S. with major challenges, including national security and economic concerns stemming from rising petroleum imports; impacts of global climate change from rising emissions of CO2; and continued public health concerns from...