Wind power is the fastest growing renewable energy technology and electric power source (AWEA, 2004a). This renewable energy has demonstrated its readiness to become a more significant contributor to the electricity supply in the western U.S. and help ease the power shortage (AWEA, 2000). The practical exercise of this alternative energy supply also showed its function in stabilizing electricity prices and reducing the emissions of pollution and greenhouse gases from other natural gas-fired power plants. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the world's winds could theoretically supply the equivalent of 5800 quadrillion BTUs of energy each year, which is 15 times current world energy demand (AWEA, 2004b). Archer and Jacobson (2005) also reported an estimation of the global wind energy potential with the magnitude near half of DOE's quote. Wind energy has been widely used in Europe; it currently supplies 20% and 6% of Denmark's and Germany's electric power, respectively, while less than 1% of U.S. electricity is generated from wind (AWEA, 2004a). The production of wind energy in California ({approx}1.2% of total power) is slightly higher than the national average (CEC & EPRI, 2003). With the recently enacted Renewable Portfolio Standards calling for 20% of renewables in …

Spontaneous combustion has always been a problem in coal utilization especially in the storage and transportation of coal. In the United States, approximately 11% of underground coal mine fires are attributed to spontaneous coal combustion. The incidence of such fires is expected to increase with increased consumption of lower rank coals. The cause is usually suspected to be the reabsorption of moisture and oxidation. To understand the mechanisms of spontaneous combustion this study was conducted to (1) define the initial and final products during the low temperature (10 to 60 C) oxidation of coal at different partial pressures of O{sub 2}, (2) determine the rate of oxidation, and (3) measure the reaction enthalpy. The reaction rate (R) and propensity towards spontaneous combustion were evaluated in terms of the initial rate method for the mass gained due to adsorbed O{sub 2}. Equipment that was used consisted of a FT-IR (Fourier Transform-Infrared Spectrometer, Perkin Elmer), an accelerated surface area porosimeter (ASAP, Micromeritics model 2010), thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA, Cahn Microbalance TG 121) and a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC, Q1000, thermal analysis instruments). Their combination yielded data that established a relation between adsorption of oxygen and reaction enthalpy. The head space/ gas chromatograph/ mass …

This report describes complete results of the project entitled ''Enhanced Recovery Utilizing Variable Frequency Drives and a Distributed Power System''. This demonstration project was initiated in July 2003 and completed in March 2005. The objective of the project was to develop an integrated power production/variable frequency drive system that could easily be deployed in the oil field that would increase production and decrease operating costs. This report describes all the activities occurred and documents results of the demonstration.

This project provided the funding to operate and maintain the Nevada Desert FACE Facility. This support funds the CO{sub 2}, system repairs and maintenance, basic physical and biological site information, and personnel that are essential for the experiment to continue. They have continued to assess the effects of elevated CO{sub 2} on three key processes: (1) leaf- to plant-level responses of desert vegetation to elevated atmospheric CO{sub 2}; (2) ecosystem-level responses; and (3) integration of plant and ecosystem processes to understand carbon balance of deserts. The focus is the seminal interactions among atmospheric CO{sub 2}, water, and nitrogen that drive desert responses to elevated CO{sub 2} and explicitly address processes that occur across scales (biological, spatial, and temporal).

In order to determine if the measured beta activity for a solution containing potassium was exactly as predicted, particularly since the CES gas counter is not calibrated specifically with K-40, an experiment was conducted to compare measured activities from two radioanalytical methods (gamma spectroscopy and gas proportional counting) to calculated activities across a range of potassium concentrations. Potassium, being ubiquitous and naturally radioactive, is a well-known and common interference in gross beta counting methods. By measuring the observed beta activity due to K-40 in potassium-containing solutions across a wide range of concentrations, it was found that the observed beta activity agrees well with the beta activity calculated from the potassium concentration measured by standard inorganic analytical techniques, such as ICP-OES, and that using the measured potassium concentration to calculate the expected beta activity, and comparing this to the observed beta activity to determine if potassium can account for all the observed activity in a sample, is a valid technique. It was also observed that gamma spectroscopy is not an effective means of measuring K-40 activity below approximately 700 pCi/L, which corresponds to a solution with approximately 833 mg/L total potassium. Gas proportional counting for gross beta activity has a much …