The purpose of this report was to estimate the cost of producing methane (natural gas) from geopressured aquifers inland from and along the coast of the Gulf of New Mexico. No other economic values of the geopressured brines were considered for exploitation. There were several component tasks of such an overall analysis which had to be completed in order to arrive at the final conclusion. (1) An estimate of the reservoir parameters of the geopressured aquifers; their areal extent, net thickness of productive sand, porosity, permeability, effective compressibility. It is these parameters which determine the production rates and the total recovery of the resource that may be expected within an economic time frame. (2) An estimate of the production rates and cumulative production of geopressured aquifers having reservoir properties falling into the range of values that may be anticipated from the results of the first task. (3) An estimate of the operating and capital costs of drilling wells and producing such geopressured aquifers, integral and significant part of the operating costs is the cost of disposing of the large quantities of produced brines following the desorption of the methane. (4) An estimate of the sales price of the recovered methane …

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An experimental facility was established at LLL to characterize radiation fields produced by a variety of sources and transmitted through various shielding materials. Specific techniques for acquiring and reducing continuous gamma-ray energy spectra are discussed including NaI(Tl) detectors. Use of several detector sizes allowed study of a wide variety of source intensities and calculation of response matrices for a number of collimated detector configurations. A computer program to perform the data reduction by an iterative unfolding process is described. The reduction technique discloses the continuous gamma-ray energy spectrum over the range 0.1 to 8 MeV as opposed to the traditional peak intensity analysis. 11 references.

This two-part report provides an essentially complete listing of radioactive occurrences in Colorado, with a comprehensive bibliography and bibliographic cross-indexes. Part 1 lists approximately 3000 known radioactive occurrences with their locations and brief accounts of the geology, mineralogy, radioactivity, host rock, production data, and source of data for each. The occurrences are classified by host rock and plotted on U.S. Geological Survey 1/sup 0/ x 2/sup 0/ topographic quadrangle maps with a special 1 : 100,000-scale base map for the Uravan mineral belt. Part 2 contains the bibliography of approximately 2500 citations on radioactive mineral occurrences in the state, with cross-indexes by county, host rock, and the special categories of ''Front Range,'' ''Colorado Plateau,'' and ''thorium.'' The term ''occurrence'' as used in this report is defined as any site where the concentration of uranium or thorium is at least 0.01% or where the range of radioactivity is greater than twice the background radioactivity. All citations and occurrence data are stored on computer diskettes for easy retrieval, correction, and updating.

The complexity-stability hypothesis was experimentally tested using intact terrestrial microcosms. Functional complexity was defined as the number and significance of component interactions (i.e., population interactions, physical-chemical reactions, biological turnover rates) influenced by nonlinearities, feedbacks, and time delays. It was postulated that functional complexity could be nondestructively measured through analysis of a signal generated from the system. Power spectral analysis of hourly CO/sub 2/ efflux, from eleven old-field microcosms, was analyzed for the number of low frequency peaks and used to rank the functional complexity of each system. Ranking of ecosystem stability was based on the capacity of the system to retain essential nutrients and was measured by net loss of Ca after the system was stressed. Rank correlation supported the hypothesis that increasing ecosystem functional complexity leads to increasing ecosystem stability. The results indicated that complex functional dynamics can serve to stabilize the system. The results also demonstrated that microcosms are useful tools for system-level investigations.

This study explores the practical limits of helium cooling in a simple geometry unconstrained by a particular conceptual design. Specifically, the configuration was chosen to be an externally heated straight tube considering both uniform heating and heating of half the external parimeter. Both thermal hydraulic and structural limits to the heat flux have been investigated. Curves are presented to show the heat flux and tube length which simultaneously attain both a well temperature and pressure drop/pumping power limit for a range of diameters from 0.05 to 8.0 inches and pressures from 50 to 5000 psia. Tube wall stress limits on heat flux are also shown for the same range of pressure and diameter. These results should serve as an aid in planning more complex concepts as well as evaluating helium cooling in this specific configuration.

Appendix containing a survey of terrestrial ecology and preliminary botanical monitoring of Nott Island, Connecticut to accompany a report on habitat field investigations of the Nott Island Upland Habitat Development Site in Connecticut.

This annual progress report follows, as in the past, the organizational structure of the Health Physics Division. Each part is a report of work done by a section of the division: Assessment and Technology Section (Part I), headed by H.W. Dickson; Biological and Radiation Physics Section (Part II), H.A. Wright; Chemical Physics and Spectroscopy Section (Part III), W.R. Garrett; Emergency Technology Section (Part IV), C.V. Chester, Medical Physics and Internal Dosimetry Section (Part V), K.E. Cowser; and the Analytic Dosimetry and Education Group (Part VI), J.E. Turner.

From Introduction: The purpose of this report is to provide geologic and mineral resource background information useful in evaluating the uranium potential of the Raleigh 1* X 20 sheet.

Information collected from the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) using the Information on Nuclear SITEs (INSITE) Information System. This document describes data for site location and description, population and population distribution, nearby facilities and institutions, nearby land usage, nearby water usage, transportation systems and pipelines, and historic, cultural, scientific, scenic and wildlife areas.

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Separate abstracts were prepared for 10 of the included sections. (MOW)

Experiments were carried out to investigate the erosion of concrete under high surface heat flux in connection with the core-melt/concrete interaction studies. The dominate erosion mechanism was found to be melting at the surface accompanied by chemical decomposition of the concrete beneath the melt-solid interface. The erosion process reaches a steady state after an initial transient. The steady state is characterized by an essentially constant erosion rate at the surface and a nonvarying (with respect to the moving melt interface) temperature distribution within the concrete. For the range of incident heat flux 64 W/cm/sup 2/ to 118 W/cm/sup 2/, the corresponding steady state erosion rate varies from approximately 8 cm/hr to 23 cm/hr. A simple ablation/melting model is proposed for the erosion process. The model was found to be able to correlate all temperature responses at various depths from all tests at large times and for temperatures above approximately 250/sup 0/C.

The RJESTATS system of programs provides accounting information on the use of the Environmental Sciences Division Remote Job Entry (RJE) facility. Summaries can be generated to display the number and kind of users, types of jobs run through the RJE facility, and the persons (or projects) that are utilizing the facility. Sample tables are presented to show certain summaries by user name, job name initials, and types of jobs run. RJESTATS is useful for managing and determining the use of an IBM-compatible RJE facility.

Techniques for producing intense negative ion beams are discussed. These beams are required for intense neutral beam development at energies greater than 150 keV. Handling, acceleration, and stripping of negative ion beams are described.

The compartment model has a large number of applications in ecosystem science. An attempt is made to outline the problem areas and objectives for which this type of model has particular advantages. The areas identified are an adequate model of tracer movement through an undisturbed but non-equilibrium ecosystem; an adequate model of the movement of material in greater than tracer quantity through an ecosystem near steady state; a minimal model based on limited data; a tool for extrapolating past trends; a framework for the summarization of large data sets; and a theoretical tool for exploring and comparing limited aspects of ecosystem dynamics. The review is set in an historical perspective which helps explain why these models were adopted in ecology. References are also provided to literature which documents available mathematical techniques in an ecological context.

The domain and surface structures of metallic sodium tungsten bronzes, NaxWO₃, 0.4 < x < 1, were studied using optical microscopy, supplemented by chemical methods, photoelectron spectroscopy, electron microscopy, etc. The birefringent, multidomain structure of the bronze is exhibited by a sodium-deficient, epitaxial surface film and hence is not, as reported elsewhere, a bulk property. The film can be synthesized by anodic electrolysis in alkaline solution and can exist only epitaxially with the substrate. It is chemically inert, translucent, and often laminated to a multilayered film. The film domain is hypersensitive to lateral stress and to thermal change, and appears to be modulated by minute structural changes of the substrate. This epitaxial modulation of the film is strikingly large at the phase transitions of the substrate induced by slightly different tiltings of the oxygen octahedra. The domain-wall movement is often slow enough to be visible, and that by thermal effect is occasionally accompanied by an audible, high-pitched, snapping sound.

To investigate the characteristics of the vadose zone with respect to radioactive waste disposal, the mechanics of unsaturated flow in arid regions and the geohydrology of four areas with a deep water table were studied. The studies indicated that (1) arid sites with a water table deeper than 200 m can be found in at least three distinct geologic settings in the western United States, (2) the physics of unsaturated flow in soils and rock with interstitial porosity at low water contents, particularly under thermal gradients, is not yet completely understood, and (3) under certain conditions unsaturated flow can be so slow that analytic modeling of an unflawed repository is unnecessary to prove effective containment.

An iterative refinement process for adjusting derivative values in the Hermite representation of a piecewise cubic function to produce visually pleasing interpolants is described. The difficulties encountered at various stages in the development of the algorithm are outlined, and future research directions are indicated. 22 figures.

Separate abstracts were prepared for each of the 3 included sections. (MOW)

An investigation has been made of the physical properties and formation conditions of cements formed in the yttria/salt/water system. Cementitious binders were of the nominal Y/sub 2/(OH)/sub 5/X.H/sub 2/O type (where X represents the Cl/sup -/ or NO/sub 3//sup -/). An ammonium nitrate-produced yttria cement was shown to be sinterable and was demonstrated to form very refractory castable concretes with zirconia or alumina aggregates.

This is part of a history of the research work of Seaborg and associates in the University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory, Chemistry Section C-I. The work was concerned with the development of chemical procedures for the extraction of plutonium, for the purification of plutonium, and for research on the isotopes of other heavy elements including other transuranium elements. The style of the history is that of a diary with footnotes giving additional information. (DLC)

Charge exchange within accelerating grids in neutral beam systems produces parasitic beam components which degrade the performance of the systems. These components also change the plasma confinement properties at the target. This note discusses parasitic beams produced in three types of grid systems: (1) TFTR/MFTF sources, (2) accel-decel grids for low energy beams, and (3) the JSC negative ion system.

A Monte Carlo mathematical model tracks the movement of fish in a body of water (e.g., a pond or reservoir) which is represented by a two-dimensional grid. For the case of a long, narrow reservoir, depth and length along the reservoir are the logical choices for coordinate axes. In the model, it is assumed that the movement of fish is influenced by gradients of temperature and dissolved oxygen, as well as food availability and habitat preference. The fish takes one spatial ''step'' at a time, the direction being randomly selected, but also biased by the above factors. In trial simulations, a large number of simulated fish were allowed to distribute themselves in a hypothetical body of water. Assuming only temperature was influencing the movements of the fish, the resultant distributions are compared with experimental data on temperature preferences.