Work this quarter included equipment installation, shakedown testing, and the beginning of the detailed testing program. With the exception of ongoing Task 4: Sample Characterization, Tasks 1 through 8 are now complete. Task 10: Detailed Testing and Task 12: Sample Analysis began this quarter and will consume all available time during the 5th quarter. Installation and testing of the process equipment, mechanical systems, as well as the electrical systems were completed. The shakedown process uncovered several necessary modifications to the circuit which were subsequently completed. Most of the changes concerned piping and valving modifications which allowed for better material flow and sampling. The circuit was operated with coal to determine the time for each unit to reach steady state. The primary objective of the proposed work is to design, install, and operate an advanced fine coal processing circuit combining the Microcel{trademark} and Multi-Gravity-Separator (MGS) technologies. Both of these processes have specific advantages as stand-alone units. For example, the Microcel column effectively removes ash-bearing mineral matter, while the MGS efficiently removes coal-pyrite composites.

The cancellation of the Yucca Mountain repository program in the United States raises the prospect of extended long-term storage (i.e., >120 years) and deferred transportation of used fuel at operating and decommissioned nuclear power plant sites. Under U.S. federal regulations contained in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 72.42, the initial license term for an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) must not exceed 40 years from the date of issuance. Licenses may be renewed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) at the expiration of the license term upon application by the licensee for a period not to exceed 40 years. Application for ISFSI license renewals must include the following: (1) Time-limited aging analyses (TLAAs) that demonstrate that structures, systems, and components (SSCs) important to safety will continue to perform their intended function for the requested period of extended operation; and (2) a description of the aging management program (AMP) for management of issues associated with aging that could adversely affect SSCs important to safety. In addition, the application must also include design bases information as documented in the most recent updated final safety analysis report as required by 10 CFR 72.70. Information contained in previous …

Drawing to a close after five years of funding from DOE's ASCR and BER program offices, the SciDAC-2 project called the Earth System Grid (ESG) Center for Enabling Technologies has successfully established a new capability for serving data from distributed centers. The system enables users to access, analyze, and visualize data using a globally federated collection of networks, computers and software. The ESG software - now known as the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) - has attracted a broad developer base and has been widely adopted so that it is now being utilized in serving the most comprehensive multi-model climate data sets in the world. The system is used to support international climate model intercomparison activities as well as high profile U.S. DOE, NOAA, NASA, and NSF projects. It currently provides more than 25,000 users access to more than half a petabyte of climate data (from models and from observations) and has enabled over a 1,000 scientific publications.

As a generator of transuranic (TRU) and TRU mixed waste destined for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), the Hanford Site must ensure that its TRU waste meets the requirements of US. Department of Energy (DOE) 0 435.1, ''Radioactive Waste Management,'' and the Contact-Handled (CH) Transuranic Waste Acceptance Criteria for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP-WAC). WIPP-WAC requirements are derived from the WIPP Technical Safety Requirements, WIPP Safety Analysis Report, TRUPACT-II SARP, WIPP Land Withdrawal Act, WIPP Hazardous Waste Facility Permit, and Title 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 191/194 Compliance Certification Decision. The WIPP-WAC establishes the specific physical, chemical, radiological, and packaging criteria for acceptance of defense TRU waste shipments at WIPP. The WPP-WAC also requires that participating DOE TRU waste generator/treatment/storage sites produce site-specific documents, including a certification plan, that describe their program for managing TRU waste and TRU waste shipments before transferring waste to WIPP. Waste characterization activities provide much of the data upon which certification decisions are based. Waste characterization requirements for TRU waste and TRU mixed waste that contains constituents regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) are established in the WIPP Hazardous Waste Facility Permit Waste Analysis Plan (WAP). The …

This report details events of importance reported by the Hanford Operations Office for the week ending May 4, 1949.

There is a need for accurate dosimetry for studies of health effects in the Japanese atomic bomb survivors because of the important role that these studies play in worldwide radiation protection standards. International experts have developed dosimetry systems, such as the Dosimetry System 2002 (DS02), which assess the initial radiation exposure to gamma rays and neutrons but only briefly consider the possibility of some minimal contribution to the total body dose by residual radiation exposure. In recognition of the need for an up-to-date review of the topic of residual radiation exposure in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, recently reported studies were reviewed at a technical session at the 57th Annual Meeting of the Health Physics Society in Sacramento, California, 22-26 July 2012. A one-day workshop was also held to provide time for detailed discussion of these newer studies and to evaluate their potential use in clarifying the residual radiation exposures to the atomic-bomb survivors at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Suggestions for possible future studies are also included in this workshop report.

Wood is a potential source for biofuels such as ethanol if it can be digested into sugars and fermented by yeast. Biomass derived from wood is a challenging substrate for ethanol production since it is made of lignin and cellulose which cannot be broken down easily into fermentable sugars. Some insects, and termites in particular, are specialized at using enzymes in their guts to digest wood into sugars. If termite gut enzymes could be made abundantly by a recombinant protein expression vector system, they could be applied to an industrial process to make biofuels from wood. In this study, a large cDNA library of relevant termite genes was made using termites fed a normal diet, or a diet with added lignin. A subtracted library yielded genes that were overexpressed in the presence of lignin. Termite gut enzyme genes were identified and cloned into recombinant insect viruses called baculoviruses. Using our PERLXpress system for protein expression, these termite gene recombinant baculoviruses were prepared and used to infect insect larvae, which then expressed abundant recombinant termite enzymes. Many of these expressed enzymes were prepared to very high purity, and the activities were studied in conjunction with collaborators at Purdue University. Recombinant termite …

This SBIR project evaluated the potential to remediate geologic CO2 sequestration sites into useful methane gas fields by application of methanogenic bacteria. Such methanogens are present in a wide variety of natural environments, converting CO2 into CH4 under natural conditions. We conclude that the process is generally feasible to apply within many of the proposed CO2 storage reservoir settings. However, extensive further basic R&D still is needed to define the precise species, environments, nutrient growth accelerants, and economics of the methanogenic process. Consequently, the study team does not recommend Phase III commercial application of the technology at this early phase.

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Water vapor is a primary element in the Earth’s climate system. Atmospheric water vapor is central to cloud processes, radiation transfer, and the hydrological cycle. Using funding from Department of Energy (DOE) grant DE-FG03-02ER63327, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) developed new observational techniques to measure atmospheric water vapor and applied these techniques to measure four dimensional water vapor fields throughout the United States Southern Great Plains region. This report summarizes the development of a new observation from ground based Global Positioning System (GPS) stations called Slant Water Vapor (SW) and it’s utilization in retrieving four dimensional water vapor fields. The SW observation represents the integrated amount of water vapor between a GPS station and a transmitting satellite. SW observations provide improved temporal and spatial sampling of the atmosphere when compared to column-integrated quantities such as preciptitable water vapor (PW). Under funding from the DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program, GPS networks in the Southern Great Plains (SGP) region were deployed to retrieve SW to improve the characterization of water vapor throughout the region. These observations were used to estimate four dimensional water vapor fields using tomographic approaches and through assimilation into the MM5 numerical weather model.

OAK A271 Rockwell International Hot Laboratory decontamination and dismantlement interim progress report 1987-1996. The Rockwell International Hot Laboratory (RIHL) is one of a number of former nuclear facilities undergoing decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL). The RIHL facility is in the later stages of dismantlement, with the final objective of returning the site location to its original natural state. This report documents the decontamination and dismantlement activities performed at the facility over the time period 1988 through 1996. At this time, the support buildings, all equipment associated with the facility, and the entire above-ground structure of the primary facility building (Building 020) have been removed. The basement portion of this building and the outside yard areas (primarily asphalt and soil) are scheduled for D&D activities beginning in 1997.

Open Access to particle physics literature does not sound particularly new or exciting, since particle physicists have been reading preprints for decades, and arXiv.org for 15 years. However new movements in Europe are attempting to make the peer-reviewed literature of the field fully Open Access. This is not a new movement, nor is it restricted to this field. However, given the field's history of preprints and eprints, it is well suited to a change to a fully Open Access publishing model. Data shows that 90% of HEP published literature is freely available online, meaning that HEP libraries have little need for expensive journal subscriptions. As libraries begin to cancel journal subscriptions, the peer review process will lose its primary source of funding. Open Access publishing models can potentially address this issue. European physicists and funding agencies are proposing a consortium, SCOAP3, that might solve many of the objections to traditional Open Access publishing models in Particle Physics. These proposed changes should be viewed as a starting point for a serious look at the field's publication model, and are at least worthy of attention, if not adoption.

This document establishers the Software Configuration Management Plan (SCMP) for the software associated with the control system of the Sodium Removal System (SRS) located in the Interim Examination and Maintenance (IEM Cell) Facility of the FFTF Flux Test.

California utilities have been exploring the use of critical peak prices (CPP) to help reduce needle peaks in customer end-use loads. CPP is a form of price-responsive demand response (DR). Recent experience has shown that customers have limited knowledge of how to operate their facilities in order to reduce their electricity costs under CPP (Quantum 2004). While the lack of knowledge about how to develop and implement DR control strategies is a barrier to participation in DR programs like CPP, another barrier is the lack of automation of DR systems. During 2003 and 2004, the PIER Demand Response Research Center (DRRC) conducted a series of tests of fully automated electric demand response (Auto-DR) at 18 facilities. Overall, the average of the site-specific average coincident demand reductions was 8% from a variety of building types and facilities. Many electricity customers have suggested that automation will help them institutionalize their electric demand savings and improve their overall response and DR repeatability. This report focuses on and discusses the specific results of the Automated Critical Peak Pricing (Auto-CPP, a specific type of Auto-DR) tests that took place during 2005, which build on the automated demand response (Auto-DR) research conducted through PIER and the …

This document provides an understanding of the near and long term computing and I/O resources in the Secure Computing Facility (SCF) and Open Computing Facility (OCF). Requirements for data flows, storage capacities and transfer rates are determined. Recommendations are made for architectures, timeframes for major deliverables, and procurements for the next fiscal year.

This report provides sinformation on energy consumption in Federal buildings and operations and documents activities conducted by Federal agencies to meet statutory requirements of the National Energy Conservation Policy Act. It also describes energy conservation and management activities of the Federal Government under section 381 of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. Implementation activities undertaken during FY94 by the Federal agencies under the Energy Policy Act of 1992 and Executive Orders 12759 and 12902 are also described. During FY94, total (gross) energy consumption of the US Government, including energy consued to produce, process, and transport energy, was 1.72 quadrillion Btu. This represents {similar_to}2.0% of the total 85.34 quads used in US.

This document describes a parallel finite-difference code for modeling wave propagation in 2D, fully anisotropic materials. The code utilizes a mesh refinement scheme to improve computational efficiency. Mesh refinement allows the grid spacing to be tailored to the velocity model, so that fine grid spacing can be used in low velocity zones where the seismic wavelength is short, and coarse grid spacing can be used in zones with higher material velocities. Over-sampling of the seismic wavefield in high velocity zones is therefore avoided. The code has been implemented to run in parallel over multiple processors and allows large-scale models and models with large velocity contrasts to be simulated with ease.

B and W Protec, Inc. (BWP) is responsible for implementing the Performance Assurance Program for the Project Hanford Management Contract (PHMC) in accordance with DOE Order 470.1, Safeguards and Security Program (DOE 1995a). The Performance Assurance Program applies to safeguards and security (SAS) systems and their essential components (equipment, hardware, administrative procedures, Protective Force personnel, and other personnel) in direct support of Category I and H special nuclear material (SNM) protection. Performance assurance includes several Hanford Site activities that conduct performance, acceptance, operability, effectiveness, and validation tests. These activities encompass areas of training, exercises, quality assurance, conduct of operations, total quality management, self assessment, classified matter protection and control, emergency preparedness, and corrective actions tracking and trending. The objective of the Performance Assurance Program is to capture the critical data of the tests, training, etc., in a cost-effective, manageable program that reflects the overall effectiveness of the program while minimizing operational impacts. To aid in achieving this objective, BWP will coordinate the Performance Assurance Program for Fluor Daniel Hanford, Inc. (FDH) and serve as the central point for data collection.

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Conducted research in the following major focus areas: (1) Development of mild extraction approaches to estimate bioavailable fraction of crude oil residues in contaminated soils; (2) Application of these methods to understand decreases in toxicity and increases in sequestration of hydrocarbons over time, as well as the influence of soil properties on these processes; (3) Measurements of the abilities of various bacteria (PAH-degraders and others more representative of typical soil bacteria) to withstand oxidative treatments (i.e. Fenton's reaction) which would occur in CBT; and (4) Experiments into the biochemical/genetic inducibility of PAH degradation by compounds formed by the chemical oxidation of PAH.

The U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) is required by Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 regulations to develop a conceptual understanding of potential contaminant releases from the Hanford Site based on an evaluation of existing data and known historical practices. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are one environmental contaminant potentially released through leaks, spills, or disposal. This document presents a summary of selected relevant existing information, including environmental studies and Hanford Site analytical data.

Spent fuel radioactive sludge present in the K East and K West spent nuclear fuel storage basins now resides in the KW Basin in six large underwater engineered containers. The sludge will be dispositioned in two phases under the Sludge Treatment Project: (1) hydraulic retrieval into sludge transport and storage containers (STSCs) and transport to interim storage in Central Plateau and (2) retrieval from the STSCs, treatment, and packaging for shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. In the years the STSCs are stored, sludge strength is expected to increase through chemical reaction, intergrowth of sludge crystals, and compaction and dewatering by settling. Increased sludge strength can impact the type and operation of the retrieval equipment needed prior to final sludge treatment and packaging. It is important to determine whether water jetting, planned for sludge retrieval from STSCs, will be effective. Shear strength is a property known to correlate with the effectiveness of water jetting. Accordingly, the unconfined compressive strengths (UCS) of archive K Basin sludge samples and sludge blends were measured using a pocket penetrometer modified for hot cell use. Based on known correlations, UCS values can be converted to shear strengths. Twenty-six sludge samples, stored in hot cells …

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has vast amounts of data available, but its ultimate value cannot be realized without powerful technologies for knowledge discovery to enable better decision making by analysts. Past evidence has shown that terrorist activities leave detectable footprints, but these footprints generally have not been discovered until the opportunity for maximum benefit has passed. The challenge faced by the DHS is to discover the money transfers, border crossings, and other activities in advance of an attack and use that information to identify potential threats and vulnerabilities. The data to be analyzed by DHS comes from many sources ranging from news feeds, to raw sensors, to intelligence reports, and more. The amount of data is staggering; some estimates place the number of entities to be processed at 1015. The uses for the data are varied as well, including entity tracking over space and time, identifying complex and evolving relationships between entities, and identifying organization structure, to name a few. Because they are ideal for representing relationship and linkage information, semantic graphs have emerged as a key technology for fusing and organizing DHS data. A semantic graph organizes relational data by using nodes to represent entities and edges …

The Indoor Environment Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) teamed with seven universities to participate in a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Center of Excellence (COE) for research on environmental quality in aircraft. This report describes research performed at LBNL on selecting and evaluating sensors for monitoring environmental quality in aircraft cabins, as part of Project 7 of the FAA's COE for Airliner Cabin Environmental Research (ACER)1 effort. This part of Project 7 links to the ozone, pesticide, and incident projects for data collection and monitoring and is a component of a broader research effort on sensors by ACER. Results from UCB and LBNL's concurrent research on ozone (ACER Project 1) are found in Weschler et al., 2007; Bhangar et al. 2008; Coleman et al., 2008 and Strom-Tejsen et al., 2008. LBNL's research on pesticides (ACER Project 2) in airliner cabins is described in Maddalena and McKone (2008). This report focused on the sensors needed for normal contaminants and conditions in aircraft. The results are intended to complement and coordinate with results from other ACER members who concentrated primarily on (a) sensors for chemical and biological pollutants that might be released intentionally in aircraft; (b) integration of sensor systems; and …