The Carbon Characterization Laboratory (CCL) is located in Labs C19 and C20 of the Idaho National Laboratory Research Center. The CCL was established under the Next Generation Nuclear Plant Project to support graphite and ceramic composite research and development activities. The research conducted in this laboratory will support the Advanced Graphite Creep experiments—a major series of material irradiation experiments within the Next Generation Nuclear Plant Graphite program. The CCL is designed to characterize and test low activated irradiated materials such as high purity graphite, carbon-carbon composites, silicon-carbide composite, and ceramic materials. The laboratory is fully capable of characterizing material properties for both irradiated and nonirradiated materials. Major infrastructural modifications were undertaken to support this new radiological facility at Idaho National Laboratory. Facility modifications are complete, equipment has been installed, radiological controls and operating procedures have been established and work management documents have been created to place the CCL in readiness to receive irradiated graphite samples.

The purpose of this report is to develop a project management plan for maintaining and monitoring liquid radioactive waste tanks at Iraq's Al-Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center. Based on information from several sources, the Al-Tuwaitha site has approximately 30 waste tanks that contain varying amounts of liquid or sludge radioactive waste. All of the tanks have been non-operational for over 20 years and most have limited characterization. The program plan embodied in this document provides guidance on conducting radiological surveys, posting radiation control areas and controlling access, performing tank hazard assessments to remove debris and gain access, and conducting routine tank inspections. This program plan provides general advice on how to sample and characterize tank contents, and how to prioritize tanks for soil sampling and borehole monitoring.

The goals of this case study are: (1) To examine the correlation between Iran's nuclear program and clerical statements; (2) To evaluate the importance of these statements; (3) To understand the relationship between policy and fatwas (Islamic decrees); (4) To address the issue of a 'nuclear fatwa'; and (5) To examine how, if at all, Sharia (Islamic law) has influenced Iran's actions or inactions with respect to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Iran's adherence to its IAEA Safeguards Agreements and the Additional Protocol. The Islamic Republic of Iran (hereinafter Iran) is one of two theocracies in the world, the second being Vatican City. Iran's government derives its constitutional, moral, and political legitimacy from Islam. As a result of this theocratic culture, rules are set and interpreted with a much different calibrator than that of the Western world. Islam affects all aspects of Iranian life. This is further complicated by the fact that Islam is not a nationalistic faith, in that many people all over the world believe in and adhere to Islamic principles. As a result, a political system that derives much of its fervor from being nationalistic is caught between two worlds, one …

Experimental evidence has established that neutrino flavor states evolve over time. A neutrino of a particular flavor that travels some distance can be detected in a different neutrino flavor state. The Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS) is a long-baseline experiment that is designed to study this phenomenon, called neutrino oscillations. MINOS is based at Fermilab near Chicago, IL, and consists of two detectors: the Near Detector located at Fermilab, and the Far Detector, which is located in an old iron mine in Soudan, MN. Both detectors are exposed to a beam of muon neutrinos from the NuMI beamline, and MINOS measures the fraction of muon neutrinos that disappear after traveling the 734 km between the two detectors. One can measure the atmospheric neutrino mass splitting and mixing angle by observing the energy-dependence of this muon neutrino disappearance. MINOS has made several prior measurements of these parameters. Here I describe recently-developed techniques used to enhance our sensitivity to the oscillation parameters, and I present the results obtained when they are applied to a dataset that is twice as large as has been previously analyzed. We measure the mass splitting {Delta}m{sub 23}{sup 2} = (2.32{sub -0.08}{sup +0.12}) x 10{sup -3} eV{sup …

This presentation discusses the relationship between electric drive vehicles and the availability of lithium.

The nexus between thermoelectric power production and water use is not uniform across the U.S., but rather differs according to regional physiography, demography, power plant fleet composition, and the transmission network. That is, in some regions water demand for thermoelectric production is relatively small while in other regions it represents the dominate use. The later is the case for the Great Lakes region, which has important implications for the water resources and aquatic ecology of the Great Lakes watershed. This is today, but what about the future? Projected demographic trends, shifting lifestyles, and economic growth coupled with the threat of global climate change and mounting pressure for greater U.S. energy security could have profound effects on the region's energy future. Planning for such an uncertain future is further complicated by the fact that energy and environmental planning and regulatory decisionmaking is largely bifurcated in the region, with environmental and water resource concerns generally taken into account after new energy facilities and technologies have been proposed, or practices are already in place. Based on these confounding needs, the objective of this effort is to develop Great Lakes-specific methods and tools to integrate energy and water resource planning and thereby support the …

Coal-derived synthesis gas is a potential major source of hydrogen for fuel cells. Oxygen-blown coal gasification is an efficient approach to achieving the goal of producing hydrogen from coal, but a cost-effective means of enriching O2 concentration in air is required. A key objective of this project is to assess the utility of a system that exploits porous carbon materials and electrical swing adsorption to produce an O2-enriched air stream for coal gasification. As a complement to O2 and N2 adsorption measurements, CO2 was used as a more sensitive probe molecule for the characterization of molecular sieving effects. To further enhance the potential of activated carbon composite materials for air separation, work was implemented on incorporating a novel twist into the system; namely the addition of a magnetic field to influence O2 adsorption, which is accompanied by a transition between the paramagnetic and diamagnetic states. The preliminary findings in this respect are discussed.

None

This report describes efforts by IBACOS, a Department of Energy Building America research team, in the St. Bernard Project, a nonprofit, community-based organization whose mission is to assist Hurricane Katrina survivors return to their homes in the New Orleans area. The report focuses on energy modeling results of two plans that the St. Bernard Project put forth as 'typical' building types and on quality issues that were observed during the field walk and Best Practice recommendations that could improve the energy efficiency and durability of the renovated homes.

A vitrification test has been conducted using the cold crucible induction melter (CCIM) test system at the Idaho National Laboratory. The test was conducted to demonstrate the vitrification of a Hanford low activity waste (LAW) that contains relatively large amounts of sulfate and sodium, compared to other radioactive Hanford waste streams. The high sulfate content limits the potential loading of this waste stream in conventional borosilicate glass, so this test demonstrated how this waste stream could be vitrified in an iron-phosphate glass that can tolerate higher levels of sulfate.

Security of control systems is becoming a pivotal concern in critical national infrastructures such as the power grid and nuclear plants. In this paper, we adopt a hierarchical viewpoint to these security issues, addressing security concerns at each level and emphasizing a holistic cross-layer philosophy for developing security solutions. We propose a bottom-up framework that establishes a model from the physical and control levels to the supervisory level, incorporating concerns from network and communication levels. We show that the game-theoretical approach can yield cross-layer security strategy solutions to the cyber-physical systems.

The goal of this research was to provide a proof-of-concept (POC) system for preventing non-taxable (non-highway diesel use) or low-taxable (jet fuel) petrochemical products from being blended with taxable fuel products and preventing taxable fuel products from cross-jurisdiction evasion. The research worked to fill the need to validate the legitimacy of individual loads, offloads, and movements by integrating and validating, on a near-real-time basis, information from global positioning system (GPS), valve sensors, level sensors, and fuel-marker sensors.

This independent review is the conclusion arrived at from data collection, document reviews, interviews and deliberation from December 2010 through April 2011 and the technical potential of Hydrogen Production Cost Estimate Using Biomass Gasification. The Panel reviewed the current H2A case (Version 2.12, Case 01D) for hydrogen production via biomass gasification and identified four principal components of hydrogen levelized cost: CapEx; feedstock costs; project financing structure; efficiency/hydrogen yield. The panel reexamined the assumptions around these components and arrived at new estimates and approaches that better reflect the current technology and business environments.

This is the final report for the Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering - PECASE (LDRD projects 93369 and 118841) awarded to Professor Yunfeng Lu (Tulane University and University of California-Los Angeles). During the last decade, mesoporous materials with tunable periodic pores have been synthesized using surfactant liquid crystalline as templates, opening a new avenue for a wide spectrum of applications. However, the applications are somewhat limited by the unfavorabe pore orientation of these materials. Although substantial effort has been devoted to align the pore channels, fabrication of mesoporous materials with perpendicular pore channels remains challenging. This project focused on fabrication of mesoporous materials with perpendicularly aligned pore channels. We demonstrated structures for use in water purification, separation, sensors, templated synthesis, microelectronics, optics, controlled release, and highly selective catalysts.

The study of neutrino oscillations has necessitated a new generation of neutrino experiments that are exploring neutrino-nuclear scattering processes. We focus in particular on charged-current quasi-elastic scattering, a particularly important channel that has been extensively investigated both in the bubble-chamber era and by current experiments. Recent results have led to theoretical reexamination of this process. We review the standard picture of quasi-elastic scattering as developed in electron scattering, review and discuss experimental results, and discuss additional nuclear effects such as exchange currents and short-range correlations that may play a significant role in neutrino-nucleus scattering.

None

This publication detailing the design, implementation strategies, and continuous performance monitoring of NREL's Research Support Facility data center. Data centers are energy-intensive spaces that facilitate the transmission, receipt, processing, and storage of digital data. These spaces require redundancies in power and storage, as well as infrastructure, to cool computing equipment and manage the resulting waste heat (Tschudi, Xu, Sartor, and Stein, 2003). Data center spaces can consume more than 100 times the energy of standard office spaces (VanGeet 2011). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that data centers used 61 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2006, which was 1.5% of the total electricity consumption in the U.S. (U.S. EPA, 2007). Worldwide, data centers now consume more energy annually than Sweden (New York Times, 2009). Given their high energy consumption and conventional operation practices, there is a potential for huge energy savings in data centers. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is world renowned for its commitment to green building construction. In June 2010, the laboratory finished construction of a 220,000-square-foot (ft{sup 2}), LEED Platinum, Research Support Facility (RSF), which included a 1,900-ft{sup 2} data center. The RSF will expand to 360,000 ft{sup 2} with the opening of an additional wing …

Performance characterization and durability testing have been completed on two five-cell high-temperature electrolysis stacks constructed with advanced cell and stack technologies. The solid oxide cells incorporate a negative-electrode-supported multi-layer design with nickel-zirconia cermet negative electrodes, thin-film yttria-stabilized zirconia electrolytes, and multi-layer lanthanum ferrite-based positive electrodes. The per-cell active area is 100 cm2. The stack is internally manifolded with compliant mica-glass seals. Treated metallic interconnects with integral flow channels separate the cells. Stack compression is accomplished by means of a custom spring-loaded test fixture. Initial stack performance characterization was determined through a series of DC potential sweeps in both fuel cell and electrolysis modes of operation. Results of these sweeps indicated very good initial performance, with area-specific resistance values less than 0.5 ?.cm2. Long-term durability testing was performed with A test duration of 1000 hours. Overall performance degradation was less than 10% over the 1000-hour period. Final stack performance characterization was again determined by a series of DC potential sweeps at the same flow conditions as the initial sweeps in both electrolysis and fuel cell modes of operation. A final sweep in the fuel cell mode indicated a power density of 0.356 W/cm2, with average per-cell voltage of 0.71 V at …

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) offers the scientific community unique access to two types of world-class neutron sources at a single site - the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) and the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR). The 85-MW HFIR provides one of the highest steady-state neutron fluxes of any research reactor in the world, and the SNS is one of the world's most intense pulsed neutron beams. Management of these two resources is the responsibility of the Neutron Sciences Directorate (NScD). NScD commissioned this survey research to develop baseline information regarding awareness of and perceptions about neutron science. Specific areas of investigative interest include the following: (1) awareness levels among those in the scientific community about the two neutron sources that ORNL offers; (2) the level of understanding members of various scientific communities have regarding benefits that neutron scattering techniques offer; and (3) any perceptions that negatively impact utilization of the facilities. NScD leadership identified users of two light sources in North America - the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory and the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) at Brookhaven National Laboratory - as key publics. Given the type of research in which these scientists engage, they would quite …

This study examined the quality of E85 fuel around the country in each of the three volatility classes identified in ASTM D5798-10. Samples were collected from pumps in 21 states between July 2010 and May 2011, with almost 40 samples collected in each class. Parameters tested to assess fuel quality were volatility, ethanol content, water content, acidity, pHe, inorganic chloride and sulfate, and total sulfate. Class 1 samples more often met the volatility specification than samples from other classes, with 67% of the samples collected in this study meeting the specification. Samples in Classes 2 and 3 met the applicable volatility specifications on 43% and 30% of the time, respectively. Compliance with the ethanol specification was almost 90% in all three volatility classes, a significant improvement over previous surveys. Several samples that would have been off-specification for ethanol content under previous versions of the specification now met the specification with the reduction in ethanol content for all classes. A few samples were off-specification for pHe, acidity, water, and inorganic chloride. Few samples were off-specification for more than one property, and samples that were off-specification in one volatility class were not necessarily off-specification in the other two classes.

An air-ingress accident followed by a pipe break is considered as a critical event for a very high temperature gas-cooled reactor (VHTR). Following helium depressurization, it is anticipated that unless countermeasures are taken, air will enter the core through the break leading to oxidation of the in-core graphite structure. Thus, without mitigation features, this accident might lead to severe exothermic chemical reactions of graphite and oxygen. Under extreme circumstances, a loss of core structural integrity may occur along with excessive release of radiological inventory. Idaho National Laboratory under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy is performing research and development (R&D) that focuses on key phenomena important during challenging scenarios that may occur in the VHTR. Phenomena Identification and Ranking Table (PIRT) studies to date have identified the air ingress event, following on the heels of a VHTR depressurization, as very important (Oh et al. 2006, Schultz et al. 2006). Consequently, the development of advanced air ingress-related models and verification and validation (V&V) requirements are part of the experimental validation plan. This paper discusses about various air-ingress mitigation concepts applicable for the VHTRs. The study begins with identifying important factors (or phenomena) associated with the air-ingress accident by using …

Net-zero energy buildings generate as much energy as they consume and are significant in the sustainable future of building design and construction. The role of daylighting (and its simulation) in the design process becomes critical. In this paper we present the process the National Renewable Energy Laboratory embarked on in the procurement, design, and construction of its newest building, the Research Support Facility (RSF) - particularly the roles of daylighting, electric lighting, and simulation. With a rapid construction schedule, the procurement, design, and construction had to be tightly integrated; with low energy use. We outline the process and measures required to manage a building design that could expect to operate at an efficiency previously unheard of for a building of this type, size, and density. Rigorous simulation of the daylighting and the electric lighting control response was a given, but the oft-ignored disconnect between lighting simulation and whole-building energy use simulation had to be addressed. The RSF project will be thoroughly evaluated for its performance for one year; preliminary data from the postoccupancy monitoring efforts will also be presented with an eye toward the current efficacy of building energy and lighting simulation.

This thesis describes a search for a new hadronic resonance in 3.2 fb{sup -1} of data using the Collider Detector at Fermilab. The Fermilab Tevatron accelerator collides beams of protons and antiprotons at a center of mass energy of {radical}s = 1.96 TeV. A unique approach is presented to extract multijet resonances from the large QCD background. Although the search is model independent, a pair produced supersymmetric gluino decaying through R-parity violation into three partons each is used to test our sensitivity to new physics. We measure these partons as jets, and require a minimum of six jets in an event. We make use of the kinematic features and correlations and use an ensemble of jet combinations to distinguish signal from multijet QCD backgrounds. Our background estimates also include all-hadronic t{bar t} decays that have a signature similar to signal. We observe no significant excess in an invariant mass range of 77 GeV/c{sup 2} to 240 GeV/c{sup 2} and place 95% C.L. limits on {sigma}(p{bar p} {yields} {tilde g}{tilde g} {yields} 3jets + 3jets) as a function of gluino invariant mass.

This proof-of-concept research was performed to explore the feasibility of using real-world braking data from commercial motor vehicles to make a diagnosis of brake condition similar to that of the performance-based brake tester (PBBT). This was done by determining the relationship between pressure and brake force (P-BF), compensating for the gross vehicle weight (GVW). The nature of this P-BF relationship (e.g., low braking force for a given brake application pressure) may indicate brake system problems. In order to determine the relationship between brake force and brake application pressure, a few key parameters of duty cycle information were collected. Because braking events are often brief, spanning only a few seconds, a sample rate of 10 Hz was needed. The algorithm under development required brake application pressure and speed (from which deceleration was calculated). Accurate weight estimation was also needed to properly derive the braking force from the deceleration. In order to ensure that braking force was the predominant factor in deceleration for the segments of data used in analysis, the data was screened for grade as well. Also, the analysis needed to be based on pressures above the crack pressure. The crack pressure is the pressure below which the individual brakes …