This paper presents a limit order book (LOB) market mechanism design for transactive energy systems. The proposed design is planned for deployment in New Hampshire and Maine under a US Department of Energy Connected Communities project. The new LOB mechanism is intended to replace or work in conjunction with the conventional transactive energy double auction mechanisms designed for retail real-time electricity price discovery, and will facilitate significant scaling of transactive energy systems. The paper provides LOB market rules, clearing algorithm, and illustrative examples and discusses clearing algorithm performance and reliability. The proposed LOB design includes support for discovering prices arising from wholesale electricity markets, distribution system asset constraints, distributed energy resource constraints, and consumer willingness to consume or produce at a reservation price.

Despite recent technical advances, there is a risk that commercial-scale fusion will not play a substantial role in mitigating climate change or alleviating energy poverty due to a lack of public or community support, often referred to as a lack of a social license. This risk is not academic—other technologies, such as fission reactors, spent fuel waste repositories (e.g., Yucca Mountain), genetically modified foods, onshore and offshore wind turbines, electrical transmission lines, and even vaccines, struggle due to rejection by a substantial fraction of society, in other words, a lack of social acceptance. Conventional approaches to this challenge, such as risk-reducing technical solutions (e.g., replacing fission with fusion), or better “communication” or “education,” are unlikely, on their own, to be sufficient to mitigate this risk. Fortunately, fusion is sufficiently young that it has an opportunity to distinguish itself from other energy technologies not just in the way that it uses physics, but also in the way that it approaches society. In particular, fusion can anticipate, rather than react to, public concerns. Looking to other industries and fields of research, this paper describes the risk of a lack of public support and methods to achieve such support, including a social license, bio-ethical review, and responsible research and innovation. These methods are discussed in the context of seven case studies, illustrating practical application. The paper concludes with recommendations for specific steps that fusion companies, non-governmental organizations, academic researchers, government funders, and government regulators can take now to facilitate a long-term social license for fusion energy.

Nuclear power on a scale large enough to make a difference to climate changeClimate change presents a profound ethical dilemma. While nuclear can help mitigate climate changeClimate change and help meet the need for energy worldwide, it also has significant social and environmental impactsEnvironmental impact. Conventional energy decision making and analysis, often based on quantitative cost-benefit comparisons, struggles with this dilemma, in part because of the challenges of pricing non-economic impacts. Yet, in order for new nuclear technologies, such as advanced fission and fusion-based reactors, to be an option to address climate changeClimate change and energy poverty, technologists, funders and policy makers must successfully navigate this dilemma. This chapter offers practical suggestions for such navigation. Given bioethicsBioethics' routine, century-long history of application, its focus on non-economic impacts, and its adoption worldwide, even if such adoption is controversial, the chapter looks to the process of bioethical review for inspiration. The chapter argues that an ethical review process (i) that is based on multiple ethical perspectives with input from a range of diverse and independent stakeholders; and (ii) that adopts technical limits as compromise, could facilitate the development and deployment of advanced nuclear technologies. In support of this argument, the chapter discusses the bioethical review process through three case studies of controversial technologies in the U.S., UKUnited Kingdom (UK), MalaysiaMalaysia and SingaporeSingapore. The chapter then uses sixteen global ethical perspectives to identify seven impacts of nuclear technologies that are likely to arise in ethical review, including energy access and conservation, human health and safety, global peace and security, future generations, land and the environment, community solidarity, and distributions of benefits and harms. For each impact, the chapter offers a brief up-to-date assessment and comparison to renewable alternatives.

The UCNA experiment was designed to measure the neutron β-asymmetry parameter A_0 using polarized ultracold neutrons (UCN). UCN produced via downscattering in solid deuterium were polarized via transport through a 7 T magnetic field, and then directed to a 1 T solenoidal electron spectrometer, where the decay electrons were detected in electron detector packages located on the two ends of the spectrometer. A value for A_0 was then extracted from the asymmetry in the numbers of counts in the two detector packages. We summarize all of the results from the UCNA experiment, obtained during run periods in 2007, 2008–2009, 2010, and 2011–2013, which ultimately culminated in a 0.67% precision result for A_0.

Nuclear energy technologies have the potential to help mitigate climate change. However, these technologies face many challenges, including high costs, societal concern and opposition, and health, safety, environmental and proliferation risks. Many companies and academic research groups are pursuing advanced designs, both fission and fusion-based, to address both costs and these risks. This Chapter complements these efforts by analyzing how nuclear technologies can address societal concerns through the acquisition of a social license, a nebulous concept that represents "society's consent" and that has been used to facilitate and improve a wide range of publicly and privately funded projects and activities subject to a range of regulatory oversight, including large industrial facilities, controversial genetic engineering research, and environmental management. Suggestions for public engagement and consent-based siting, two aspects of a social license, have been made before. This chapter modernizes these suggestions by briefly reviewing the social license and engagement literature. The Chapter discusses, in the context of how to acquire a social license, the role of government regulation, the role of project proponents and government actors, and the role of four key principles, including engendering trust, transparency, meaningful public engagement, and protection of health, safety and the environment. Further, the Chapter uses the social license concept to explain why some nuclear waste repositories have succeeded while others languish and provides concrete recommendations for the deployment of new nuclear waste repositories and advanced power plants, both fission and fusion-based.

Under the NPT, all States have an inalienable right to the peaceful use of nuclear technology. However, what this right means in practice is uncertain because: (1) many technologies that can be used to produce fuel for nuclear power plants can also be used to produce materials for nuclear weapons; and (2) peaceful use is not defined in the NPT. As a consequence of this uncertainty, a global expansion of nuclear power, as advocated by some climate change experts, may lead to more States having enrichment facilities, increase the risk of proliferation, and inhibit movement towards a world with few, if any, nuclear weapons. This chapter presents a new idea for resolving the inherent ambiguity of peaceful use through a legal principle: peaceful use activities would be those that are licensed by an international agency, while any non-licensed activity would be irrebuttable presumed non-peaceful. This licensing approach is an alternative to other proposals for managing the proliferation risk of an expansion of nuclear power, such as international ownership of enrichment facilities or strengthened IAEA inspections. By resolving the ambiguity of peaceful use, the licensing approach may be able to manage the proliferation risks of an expansion of nuclear power better than these proposals and offers several other safety and security advantages. The licensing approach is discussed in detail, including key license terms, international relationships and obligations, an implementation path, and existing precedents for controlling sensitive technology through licensing. The author also explains why a new approach to non-proliferation may be needed if nuclear power expands substantially and compares licensing to other reform proposals, which are briefly described.

The Durban Platform for Enhanced Action negotiations are likely to lead to a Paris outcome that embodies a hybrid climate policy architecture, combining top-down elements, such as for monitoring, reporting, and verification, with bottom-up elements, including Intended Nationally Determined Contributions' from participating countries, detailing plans to reduce emissions, based on national circumstances. For such a system to be cost-effective - and thus more likely to embody greater ambition - a key feature will be linkages among regional, national, and sub-national climate policies. By linkage, we mean formal recognition by a mitigation programme in one jurisdiction of emission reductions undertaken in another jurisdiction for the purposes of complying with the first jurisdiction's requirements. The Paris outcome could play at least four different roles with respect to linkage of heterogeneous policy instruments. First, it could discourage linkage, either by not allowing countries to count international transfers toward their mitigation contributions, or by limiting the number or types of transferred units that can be counted for compliance purposes. Second, it could be silent on the topic of linkage, creating legal and regulatory uncertainty about whether international transfers are allowed. Third, it could expressly authorize linkage but not provide any further details about how linkage should occur, leaving it to future United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiating sessions to work out the details or to national governments to develop bilateral or multilateral linkage arrangements. Finally, the Paris outcome could establish institutional arrangements and rules that facilitate and promote linkage. We examine how a future international policy architecture could help facilitate the growth and operation of a robust system of international linkages. Several design elements merit serious consideration for inclusion in the Paris outcome, either in the core agreement or by establishing a process for subsequent international elaboration. At the same time, including detailed linkage rules in the core agreement is not desirable because this could make it difficult for rules to evolve in light of experience.Policy relevanceThese findings have implications for the efficient and effective design of an international climate policy architecture by detailing the role that linkage can play in supporting heterogeneous climate policies at the regional, national, and sub-national levels.

This article examines the current capability of accelerator technology, which is rapidly improving, to produce medical isotopes. A detailed analysis of 12 medical isotopes that are in active diagnostic and therapeutic use and typically made in nuclear reactors shows that accelerator-based technologies, such as linear accelerators, cyclotrons, and spallation neutron sources, could meet medical demand for these isotopes, without the use of enriched uranium and with low proliferation risk. The feasibility of accelerator-based production of an additional 70 isotopes that have a potential medical use is also discussed.A simple estimate suggests that accelerators can produce isotopes at a cost comparable to reactors. This article includes four case studies that illustrate the recent choices that emerging market countries have made when expanding domestic medical isotope production. Technical, commercial, and regulatory steps for commercialization are also described. The article concludes with policy suggestions that would increase the adoption of accelerator-based medical isotope production.

Negotiations pursuant to the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action appear likely to lead to a 2015 Paris agreement that embodies a hybrid climate policy architecture, combining top-down elements, such as for monitoring, reporting, and verification, with bottom-up elements, including nationally determined contributions from each participating country, detailing what it intends to do to reduce emissions, based on its national circumstances. For such a system to be cost-effective--and thus more likely to achieve significant global emissions reductions--a key feature will be linkages among regional, national, and sub-national climate policies. By linkage, we mean a formal recognition by a greenhouse gas mitigation program in one jurisdiction (a regional, national, or sub-national government) of emission reductions undertaken in another jurisdiction for purposes of complying with the first jurisdiction's mitigation program. We examine how a future international policy architecture could help facilitate the growth and operation of a robust system of international linkages of regional, national, and sub-national policies. Several design elements merit serious consideration for inclusion in the Paris agreement, either directly or by establishing a process for subsequent international elaboration. At the same time, including detailed linkage rules in the core agreement is not desirable because this could make it difficult for rules to evolve in light of experience.

In this paper, we describe the performance of the Los Alamos spallation-driven solid-deuterium ultra-cold neutron (UCN) source. Measurements of the cold neutron flux, the very low energy neutron production rate, and the UCN rates and density at the exit from the biological shield are presented and compared to Monte Carlo predictions. The cold neutron rates compare well with predictions from the Monte Carlo code MCNPX and the UCN rates agree with our custom UCN Monte Carlo code. The source is shown to perform as modeled. The maximum delivered UCN density at the exit from the biological shield is 52(9) UCN/cc with a solid deuterium volume of ~1500 cm(3).

Torsion pendulum experiments have unprecedented sensitivity to fifth-forces. The Eöt-Wash group at the University of Washington has developed a technique that converts an oscillating force or acceleration acting on a pendulum into an oscillating rotation that is observed with an auto-collimator. Most of our torsion balance experiments have angular noise of about 1 nanorad/ √ day. That noise corresponds to a force on each atom in the pendulum equivalent to the electrostatic repulsion force between two electrons separated by 100 light-years. With this level of sensitivity, our torsion pendulums probe many interesting questions such as: • Are there forces much weaker than gravity? • Is there a force that couples to B-L number? • Is there a non-gravitational force between luminous matter and dark matter? • Are there large extra-dimensions? • Is there a preferred frame in space? • Are the light scalar particles of string theory hidden by a self-interaction process? • Are there weakly interacting scalars or pseudoscalars?

Despite two decades of experimental e_ort, the elusive axion has yet to be discovered. Nevertheless, it remains a well-motivated solution to the strong CP problem and a promising dark matter candidate. Most searches use the axion-two-photon coupling to probe for axions that are generated in the sun, remnants from the big-bang or created in the laboratory. Using techniques inspired by torsion pendulum based tests of gravity, we have constructed a new torsion pendulum experiment that looks for a macroscopic parity and time-violating force mediated by virtual axions. For an axion mass of 1 meV, we have improved the limit on this force by ten orders of magnitude, and thus, have opened another path to look for very heavy axions.

We consider theoretical motivations to search for extra short-range fundamental forces as well as experiments constraining their parameters. The forces could be of two types: 1) spin-independent forces; 2) spin-dependent axion-like forces. Different experimental techniques are sensitive in respective ranges of characteristic distances The techniques include measurements of gravity at short distances, searches for extra interactions on top of the Casimir force, precision atomic and neutron experiments. We locus on neutron constraints, thus the range of characteristic distances considered here corresponds to the range accessible for neutron experiments. (C) 2011 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Low mass pseudoscalars, such as the axion, can mediate macroscopic parity and time-reversal symmetry-violating forces. We searched for such a force between polarized electrons and unpolarized atoms using a novel, magnetically unshielded torsion pendulum. We improved the laboratory bounds on this force by more than 10 orders of magnitude for pseudoscalars heavier than 1 meV and have constrained this force over a broad range of astrophysically interesting masses (10  μeV to 10 meV).

We report the first measurement of an angular correlation parameter in neutron beta decay using polarized ultracold neutrons (UCN). We utilize UCN with energies below about 200 neV, which we guide and store for approximately 30 s in a Cu decay volume. The interaction of the neutron magnetic dipole moment with a static 7 T field external to the decay volume provides a 420 neV potential energy barrier to the spin state parallel to the field, polarizing the UCN before they pass through an adiabatic fast passage spin flipper and enter a decay volume, situated within a 1 T field in a 2x2pi solenoidal spectrometer. We determine a value for the beta-asymmetry parameter A_{0}=-0.1138+/-0.0046+/-0.0021.

Torsion pendulum experiments are used for precise tests of the strong and weak equivalence principle, the gravitational inverse square law and Lorentz symmetry. In addition, dedicated experiments can be constructed that are sensitive to axion-like particles. The fantastic sensitivity of these devices has many implications for gravity scale particle physics. Here we briefly summarize a few of the particle physics implications of four of the EötWash torsion pendulum experiments inspired by string theory and other extensions to the standard model.