This report was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) Existing Plants Research Program, which has an energy-water research effort that focuses on water use at power plants. This study complements their overall research effort by evaluating water availability at power plants under drought conditions. While there are a number of competing demands on water uses, particularly during drought conditions, this report focuses solely on impacts to the U.S. steam electric power plant fleet. Included are both fossil-fuel and nuclear power plants. One plant examined also uses biomass as a fuel. The purpose of this project is to estimate the impact on generation capacity of a drop in water level at U.S. steam electric power plants due to climatic or other conditions. While, as indicated above, the temperature of the water can impact decisions to halt or curtail power plant operations, this report specifically examines impacts as a result of a drop in water levels below power plant submerged cooling water intakes. Impacts due to the combined effects of excessive temperatures of the returned cooling water and elevated temperatures of receiving waters (due to high ambient temperatures associated with drought) may be examined in …

Gain an in-depth understanding of the role of quark flavor.

We employ a high-resolution LCDM N-body simulation to present merger rate predictions for dark matter halos and investigate how common merger-related observables for galaxies - such as close pair counts, starburst counts, and the morphologically disturbed fraction - likely scale with luminosity, stellar mass, merger mass ratio, and redshift from z = 0 to z = 4. We provide a simple 'universal' fitting formula that describes our derived merger rates for dark matter halos a function of dark halo mass, merger mass ratio, and redshift, and go on to predict galaxy merger rates using number density-matching to associate halos with galaxies. For example, we find that the instantaneous merger rate of m/M > 0.3 mass ratio events into typical L {approx}> fL{sub *} galaxies follows the simple relation dN/dt {approx_equal} 0.03(1+f)Gyr{sup -1} (1+z){sup 2.1}. Despite the rapid increase in merger rate with redshift, only a small fraction of > 0.4L{sub *} high-redshift galaxies ({approx} 3% at z = 2) should have experienced a major merger (m/M > 0.3) in the very recent past (t < 100 Myr). This suggests that short-lived, merger-induced bursts of star formation should not contribute significantly to the global star formation rate at early times, in …

We present a simple formalism to interpret the observations of two galaxy statistics, the UV luminosity function (LF) and two-point correlation functions for star-forming galaxies at z {approx} 4, 5 and 6 in the context of {Lambda}CDM cosmology. Both statistics are the result of how star formation takes place in dark matter halos, and thus are used to constrain how UV light depends on halo properties, in particular halo mass. The two physical quantities we explore are the star formation duty cycle, and the range of UV luminosity that a halo of mass M can have (mean and variance). The former directly addresses the typical duration of star formation activity in halos while the latter addresses the averaged star formation history and regularity of gas inflow into these systems. In the context of this formalism, we explore various physical models consistent with all the available observational data, and find the following: (1) the typical duration of star formation observed in the data is {approx}< 0.4 Gyr (1{sigma}), (2) the inferred scaling law between the observed L{sub UV} and halo mass M from the observed faint-end slope of the luminosity functions is roughly linear out to M {approx} 10{sup 11.5} - …

We model the mass distribution of long gamma-ray burst (GRB) host galaxies given recent results suggesting that GRBs occur in low metallicity environments. By utilizing measurements of the redshift evolution of the mass-metallicity (M-Z) relationship for galaxies, along with a sharp host metallicity cut-off suggested by Modjaz and collaborators, we estimate an upper limit on the stellar mass of a galaxy that can efficiently produce a GRB as a function of redshift. By employing consistent abundance indicators, we find that sub-solar metallicity cut-offs effectively limit GRBs to low stellar mass spirals and dwarf galaxies at low redshift. At higher redshifts, as the average metallicity of galaxies in the Universe falls, the mass range of galaxies capable of hosting a GRB broadens, with an upper bound approaching the mass of even the largest spiral galaxies. We compare these predicted limits to the growing number of published GRB host masses and find that extremely low metallicity cut-offs of 0.1 to 0.5 Z{sub {circle_dot}} are effectively ruled out by a large number of intermediate mass galaxies at low redshift. A mass function that includes a smooth decrease in the efficiency of producing GRBs in galaxies of metallicity above 12+log(O/H){sub KK04} = 8.7 can, …

We use the publicly available subhalo catalogs from the via Lactea simulation along with a Gpc-scale N-body simulation to understand the impact of inhomogeneous reionization on the satellite galaxy population of the Milky Way. The large-volume simulation is combined with a model for reionization that allows us to predict the distribution of reionization times for Milky Way mass halos. Motivated by this distribution, we identify candidate satellite galaxies in the simulation by requiring that any subhalo must grow above a specified mass threshold before it is reionized; after this time the photoionizing background will suppress both the formation of stars and the accretion of gas. We show that varying the reionization time over the range expected for Milky Way mass halos can change the number of satellite galaxies by roughly two orders of magnitude. This conclusion is in contradiction with a number of studies in the literature, and we conclude that this is a result of inconsistent application of the results of Gnedin (2000); subtle changes in the assumptions about how reionization affects star formation in small galaxies can lead to large changes in the effect of changing the reionization time on the number of satellites. We compare our satellite …

As a part of the Waste Acceptance Product Specifications (WAPS) for Vitrified High-Level Waste Forms defined by the Department of Energy - Office of Environmental Management, the phase stability must be determined for each of the projected high-level waste (HLW) types at the Savannah River Site (SRS). Specifically, WAPS 1.4.1 requires the glass transition temperature (Tg) to be defined and time-temperature-transformation (TTT) diagrams to be developed. The Tg of a glass is an indicator of the approximate temperature where the supercooled liquid converts to a solid on cooling or conversely, where the solid begins to behave as a viscoelastic solid on heating. A TTT diagram identifies the crystalline phases that can form as a function of time and temperature for a given waste type or more specifically, the borosilicate glass waste form. In order to assess durability, the Product Consistency Test (PCT) was used and the durability results compared to the Environmental Assessment (EA) glass. The measurement of glass transition temperature and the development of TTT diagrams have already been performed for the seven Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) projected compositions as defined in the Waste Form Compliance Plan (WCP). These measurements were performed before DWPF start-up and the results …

This report provides an overview of federal law governing wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping. It also appends citations to state law in the area and contains a bibliography of legal commentary as well as the text of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This report also includes a brief summary of the recently expired Protect America Act, P.L. 110-55 and of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008, P.L. 110-261 (H.R. 6304).