A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) faces numerous legal challenges as it implements the nation's environmental laws. Several statutes, such as the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, allow citizens to file suit against EPA to challenge certain agency actions. Where EPA is named as a defendant, the Department of Justice provides EPA's legal defense. If successful, plaintiffs may be paid for certain attorney fees and costs. Payments are made from the Department of the Treasury's Judgment Fund--a permanent fund available to pay judgments against the government, as well as settlements resulting from lawsuits--or EPA's appropriations. For this review, GAO was asked to examine (1) the trends in and factors affecting environmental litigation for fiscal years 1995 through 2010 and (2) Justice's recent costs and recent plaintiff payments from the Judgment Fund and EPA. To conduct this review, GAO obtained and analyzed data from two Justice databases on cases filed under 10 key environmental statutes. To gain stakeholder views on any trends and factors that might affect them, GAO interviewed representatives of environmental and industry groups, state attorneys general, and other experts. GAO estimated the costs of …

The goal of this project was to develop non-destructive, minimally disruptive eddy sensors to inspect small diameter stainless steel metal tubes. Modifications to Sandia's Emphasis/EIGER code allowed for the modeling of eddy current bobbin sensors near or around 1/8-inch outer diameter stainless steel tubing. Modeling results indicated that an eddy sensor based on a single axial coil could effectively detect changes in the inner diameter of a stainless steel tubing. Based on the modeling results, sensor coils capable of detecting small changes in the inner diameter of a stainless steel tube were designed, built and tested. The observed sensor response agreed with the results of the modeling and with eddy sensor theory. A separate limited distribution SAND report is being issued demonstrating the application of this sensor.

This report investigates the effects that increased distributed photovoltaic (PV) generation would have on the Kauai Island Utility Co-op (KIUC) system operating requirements. The study focused on determining reserve requirements needed to mitigate the impact of PV variability on system frequency, and the impact on operating costs. Scenarios of 5-MW, 10-MW, and 15-MW nameplate capacity of PV generation plants distributed across the Kauai Island were considered in this study. The analysis required synthesis of the PV solar resource data and modeling of the KIUC system inertia. Based on the results, some findings and conclusions could be drawn, including that the selection of units identified as marginal resources that are used for load following will change; PV penetration will displace energy generated by existing conventional units, thus reducing overall fuel consumption; PV penetration at any deployment level is not likely to reduce system peak load; and increasing PV penetration has little effect on load-following reserves. The study was performed by EnerNex under contract from Sandia National Laboratories with cooperation from KIUC.

Implementation of online monitoring and prognostics in existing U.S. nuclear power plants will involve coordinating the efforts of national laboratories, utilities, universities, and private companies. Internet-based collaborative work environments provide necessary communication tools to facilitate interaction between geographically diverse participants. Available technologies were considered, and a collaborative workspace was established at INL as a hub for the light water reactor sustainability online monitoring community.

This report covers the topics of discussion and the recommendations of the panel members. On December 8 and 9, 2010, the Geochemistry, Biogeochemistry, and Subsurface Science (GBSS) Science Theme Advisory Panel (STAP) convened for a more in-depth exploration of the five Science Theme focus areas developed at a similar meeting held in 2009. The goal for the fiscal year (FY) 2011 meeting was to identify potential topical areas for science campaigns, necessary experimental development needs, and scientific members for potential research teams. After a review of the current science in each of the five focus areas, the 2010 STAP discussions successfully led to the identification of one well focused campaign idea in pore-scale modeling and five longer-term potential research campaign ideas that would likely require additional workshops to identify specific research thrusts. These five campaign areas can be grouped into two categories: (1) the application of advanced high-resolution, high mass accuracy experimental techniques to elucidate the interplay between geochemistry and microbial communities in terrestrial ecosystems and (2) coupled computation/experimental investigations of the electron transfer reactions either between mineral surfaces and outer membranes of microbial cells or between the outer and inner membranes of microbial cells.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is interested in supporting manufacturing research and development (R&D) for fuel cell systems in the 10-1,000 kilowatt (kW) power range relevant to stationary and distributed combined heat and power applications, with the intent to reduce manufacturing costs and increase production throughput. To assist in future decision-making, DOE requested that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) provide a baseline understanding of the current levels of adoption of automation in manufacturing processes and flow, as well as of continuous processes. NREL identified and visited or interviewed key manufacturers, universities, and laboratories relevant to the study using a standard questionnaire. The questionnaire covered the current level of vertical integration, the importance of quality control developments for automation, the current level of automation and source of automation design, critical balance of plant issues, potential for continuous cell manufacturing, key manufacturing steps or processes that would benefit from DOE support for manufacturing R&D, the potential for cell or stack design changes to support automation, and the relationship between production volume and decisions on automation.

This project sought to evaluate the impacts of high wind penetrations on the U.S. Eastern Interconnection and analyze how different unit commitment strategies may affect these impacts.

This report documents the methods and results of a plug load study of the Environmental Protection Agency's Region 8 Headquarters in Denver, Colorado, conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The study quantified the effect of mechanical and behavioral change approaches on plug load energy reduction and identified effective ways to reduce plug load energy. Load reduction approaches included automated energy management systems and behavioral change strategies.

The Hanford Site in Washington State manages 177 underground storage tanks containing approximately 250,000 m3 of waste generated during past defense reprocessing and waste management operations. These tanks contain a mixture of sludge, saltcake and supernatant liquids. The insoluble sludge fraction of the waste consists of metal oxides and hydroxides and contains the bulk of many radionuclides such as the transuranic components and 90Sr. The saltcake, generated by extensive evaporation of aqueous solutions, consists primarily of dried sodium salts. The supernates consist of concentrated (5-15 M) aqueous solutions of sodium and potassium salts. The 177 storage tanks include 149 single-shell tanks (SSTs) and 28 double -hell tanks (DSTs). Ultimately the wastes need to be retrieved from the tanks for treatment and disposal. The SSTs contain minimal amounts of liquid wastes, and the Tank Operations Contractor is continuing a program of moving solid wastes from SSTs to interim storage in the DSTs. The Hanford DST system provides the staging location for waste feed delivery to the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of River Protection’s (ORP) Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). The WTP is being designed and constructed to pretreat and then vitrify a large portion of the wastes …

The Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) Graphite R&D program is currently measuring irradiated material property changes in several grades of nuclear graphite for predicting their behavior and operating performance within the core of new Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) designs. The Advanced Graphite Creep (AGC) experiment consisting of six irradiation capsules will generate this irradiated graphite performance data for NGNP reactor operating conditions. All samples in the experiment will be fully characterized before irradiation, irradiated in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR), and then re-examined to determine the irradiation induced changes to key materials properties in the different graphite grades. The information generated during the AGC experiment will be utilized for NRC licensing of NGNP reactor designs, shared with international collaborators in the Generation IV Information Forum (GIF), and eventually utilized in ASME design code for graphite nuclear applications. This status report will describe the process the NGNP Graphite R&D program has developed to record the AGC1 pre-irradiation examination data.

This report presents the results of an assessment of the technical and economic feasibility of deploying a solar photovoltaics (PV) system on landfill sites in Puerto Rico. The purpose of this report is to assess the landfills with the highest potential for possible solar PV installation and estimate cost, performance, and site impacts of three different PV options: crystalline silicon (fixed tilt), crystalline silicon (single-axis tracking), and thin film (fixed tilt). The report outlines financing options that could assist in the implementation of a system. According to the site production calculations, the most cost-effective system in terms of return on investment is the thin-film fixed-tilt technology. The report recommends financing options that could assist in the implementation of such a system. The landfills and sites considered in this report were all determined feasible areas in which to implement solar PV systems.

The Strategic Environmental Research and Developmental Program (SERDP)/Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) is the Department of Defense?s (DOD) environmental science and technology program focusing on issues related to environment and energy for the military services. The SERDP/ESTCP Office requested that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) provide technical assistance with strategic planning by evaluating the potential for several types of renewable energy technologies at DOD installations. NREL was tasked to provide technical expertise and strategic advice for the feasibility of geothermal resources, waste-to-energy technology, photovoltaics (PV), wind, microgrids, and building system technologies on military installations. This technical report is the deliverable for these tasks.

This fact sheet is an overview of the Department of Energy's Building Technologies program.

This report evaluates the feasibility of disposing U.S. high-level radioactive waste in granite several hundred meters below the surface of the earth. The U.S. has many granite formations with positive attributes for permanent disposal. Similar crystalline formations have been extensively studied by international programs, two of which, in Sweden and Finland, are the host rocks of submitted or imminent repository license applications. This report is enabled by the advanced work of the international community to establish functional and operational requirements for disposal of a range of waste forms in granite media. In this report we develop scoping performance analyses, based on the applicable features, events, and processes (FEPs) identified by international investigators, to support generic conclusions regarding post-closure safety. Unlike the safety analyses for disposal in salt, shale/clay, or deep boreholes, the safety analysis for a mined granite repository depends largely on waste package preservation. In crystalline rock, waste packages are preserved by the high mechanical stability of the excavations, the diffusive barrier of the buffer, and favorable chemical conditions. The buffer is preserved by low groundwater fluxes, favorable chemical conditions, backfill, and the rigid confines of the host rock. An added advantage of a mined granite repository is that …

This paper summarizes the potential market for process heat produced by a high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR), the environmental benefits reduced CO2 emissions will have on these markets, and the typical economics of projects using these applications. It gives examples of HTGR technological applications to industrial processes in the typical co-generation supply of process heat and electricity, the conversion of coal to transportation fuels and chemical process feedstock, and the production of ammonia as a feedstock for the production of ammonia derivatives, including fertilizer. It also demonstrates how uncertainties in capital costs and financial factors affect the economics of HTGR technology by analyzing the use of HTGR technology in the application of HTGR and high temperature steam electrolysis processes to produce hydrogen.

This fact sheet is an overview of the Department of Energy's Solar Energy Technologies program.

This report presents the data qualification status of fuel irradiation data from the first four reactor cycles (147A, 148A, 148B, and 149A) of the on-going second Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR-2) experiment as recorded in the NGNP Data Management and Analysis System (NDMAS). This includes data received by NDMAS from the period June 22, 2010 through May 21, 2011. AGR-2 is the second in a series of eight planned irradiation experiments for the AGR Fuel Development and Qualification Program, which supports development of the very high temperature gas-cooled reactor (VHTR) under the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) Project. Irradiation of the AGR-2 test train is being performed at the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and is planned for 600 effective full power days (approximately 2.75 calendar years) (PLN-3798). The experiment is intended to demonstrate the performance of UCO (uranium oxycarbide) and UO2 (uranium dioxide) fuel produced in a large coater. Data qualification status of the AGR-1 experiment was reported in INL/EXT-10-17943 (Abbott et al. 2010).

In-situ decommissioning of Reactors P- and R- at the Savannah River Site will require filling the reactor vessels with a special concrete based on materials such as magnesium phosphate, calcium aluminate or silica fume. Then the reactor vessels will be overlain with an 8 ft. thick layer of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) steel reinforced concrete, called the 'Cap Concrete'. The integrity of this protective layer must be assured to last for a sufficiently long period of time to avoid ingress of water into the reactor vessel and possible movement of radioactive contamination into the environment. During drying of this Cap Concrete however, shrinkage strains are set up in the concrete as a result of diffusion and evaporation of water from the top surface. This shrinkage varies with depth in the poured slab due to a non-uniform moisture distribution. This differential shrinkage results in restraint of the upper layers with larger shrinkage by lower layers with lesser displacements. Tensile stresses can develop at the surface from the strain gradients in the bulk slab, which can lead to surface cracking. Further, a mechanism called creep occurs during the curing period or early age produces strains under the action of restraining forces. To …

Projects for the very high temperature reactor (VHTR) Technology Development Office provide data in support of Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing of the VHTR. Fuel and materials to be used in the reactor are tested and characterized to quantify performance in high temperature and high fluence environments. The VHTR program has established the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) Data Management and Analysis System (NDMAS) to ensure that VHTR data are qualified for use, stored in a readily accessible electronic form, and analyzed to extract useful results. This document focuses on the first NDMAS objective. It describes the High Temperature Materials characterization data stream, the processing of these data within NDMAS, and reports the interim fiscal year (FY) 2011 qualification status of the data. Data qualification activities within NDMAS for specific types of data are determined by the data qualification category assigned by the data generator. The High Temperature Materials data are being collected under the Nuclear Quality Assurance (NQA)-1 guidelines and will be qualified data. For NQA-1 qualified data, the qualification activities include: (1) capture testing to confirm that the data stored within NDMAS are identical to the raw data supplied, (2) accuracy testing to confirm that the data are an …

This document highlights the key accomplishments in Green IT of the 17 DOE labs.

A reconnaissance assessment of the carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) sequestration potential within the Triassic age rift trend sediments of South Carolina, Georgia and the northern Florida Rift trend was performed for the Office of Fossil Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). This rift trend also extends into eastern Alabama, and has been termed the South Georgia Rift by previous authors, but is termed the South Carolina, Georgia, northern Florida, and eastern Alabama Rift (SGFAR) trend in this report to better describe the extent of the trend. The objectives of the study were to: (1) integrate all pertinent geologic information (literature reviews, drilling logs, seismic data, etc.) to create an understanding of the structural aspects of the basin trend (basin trend location and configuration, and the thickness of the sedimentary rock fill), (2) estimate the rough CO{sub 2} storage capacity (using conservative inputs), and (3) assess the general viability of the basins as sites of large-scale CO{sub 2} sequestration (determine if additional studies are appropriate). The CO{sub 2} estimates for the trend include South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida only. The study determined that the basins within the SGFAR trend have sufficient sedimentary fill to have a large potential storage capacity …

Complex Adaptive Systems of Systems, or CASoS, are vastly complex ecological, sociological, economic and/or technical systems which we must understand to design a secure future for the nation and the world. Perturbations/disruptions in CASoS have the potential for far-reaching effects due to pervasive interdependencies and attendant vulnerabilities to cascades in associated systems. Phoenix was initiated to address this high-impact problem space as engineers. Our overarching goals are maximizing security, maximizing health, and minimizing risk. We design interventions, or problem solutions, that influence CASoS to achieve specific aspirations. Through application to real-world problems, Phoenix is evolving the principles and discipline of CASoS Engineering while growing a community of practice and the CASoS engineers to populate it. Both grounded in reality and working to extend our understanding and control of that reality, Phoenix is at the same time a solution within a CASoS and a CASoS itself.

This report tries to first generalize the requirements of the power system as it relates to the needs of operating reserves. It also includes a survey of operating reserves and how they are managed internationally in system operations today and then how new studies and research are proposing they may be managed in the future with higher penetrations of variable generation.

Due to current data collection technology, our ability to gather data has surpassed our ability to analyze it. In particular, k-means, one of the simplest and fastest clustering algorithms, is ill-equipped to handle extremely large datasets on even the most powerful machines. Our new algorithm uses a sample from a dataset to decrease runtime by reducing the amount of data analyzed. We perform a simulation study to compare our sampling based k-means to the standard k-means algorithm by analyzing both the speed and accuracy of the two methods. Results show that our algorithm is significantly more efficient than the existing algorithm with comparable accuracy. Further work on this project might include a more comprehensive study both on more varied test datasets as well as on real weather datasets. This is especially important considering that this preliminary study was performed on rather tame datasets. Also, these datasets should analyze the performance of the algorithm on varied values of k. Lastly, this paper showed that the algorithm was accurate for relatively low sample sizes. We would like to analyze this further to see how accurate the algorithm is for even lower sample sizes. We could find the lowest sample sizes, by manipulating …