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.

In a linear accelerator, it is important to achieve a good alignment between all of its components (such as quadrupoles, RF cavities, beam position monitors et al.), in order to better preserve the beam quality during acceleration. After the survey of the main linac components, there are several beam-based alignment (BBA) techniques to be applied, to further optimize the beam trajectory and calculate the corresponding steering magnets strength. Among these techniques the most simple and straightforward one is the one-to-one (1-to-1) steering technique, which steers the beam from quad center to center, and removes the betatron oscillation from quad focusing. For a future linear collider such as the International Linear Collider (ILC), the initial beam emittance is very small in the vertical plane (flat beam with {gamma}{epsilon}{sub y} = 20-40nm), which means the alignment requirement is very tight. In this note, we evaluate the emittance growth with one-to-one correction algorithm employed, both analytically and numerically. Then the ILC main linac accelerator is taken as an example to compare the vertical emittance growth after 1-to-1 steering, both from analytical formulae and multi-particle tracking simulation. It is demonstrated that the estimated emittance growth from the derived formulae agrees well with the results …

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.

The primary purpose of the tank mixing and sampling demonstration program is to mitigate the technical risks associated with the ability of the Hanford tank farm delivery and celtification systems to measure and deliver a uniformly mixed high-level waste (HLW) feed to the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) Uniform feed to the WTP is a requirement of 24590-WTP-ICD-MG-01-019, ICD-19 - Interface Control Document for Waste Feed, although the exact definition of uniform is evolving in this context. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling has been used to assist in evaluating scaleup issues, study operational parameters, and predict mixing performance at full-scale.

Forty three of the High Level Waste (HLW) tanks at the Savannah River Site (SRS) have internal structures that hinder removal of the last approximately five thousand gallons of waste sludge solely by mechanical means. Chemical cleaning can be utilized to dissolve the sludge heel with oxalic acid (OA) and pump the material to a separate waste tank in preparation for final disposition. This dissolved sludge material is pH adjusted downstream of the dissolution process, precipitating the sludge components along with sodium oxalate solids. The large quantities of sodium oxalate and other metal oxalates formed impact downstream processes by requiring additional washing during sludge batch preparation and increase the amount of material that must be processed in the tank farm evaporator systems and the Saltstone Processing Facility. Enhanced Chemical Cleaning (ECC) was identified as a potential method for greatly reducing the impact of oxalate additions to the SRS Tank Farms without adding additional components to the waste that would extend processing or increase waste form volumes. In support of Savannah River Site (SRS) tank closure efforts, the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) conducted Real Waste Testing (RWT) to evaluate an alternative to the baseline 8 wt. % OA chemical cleaning …

The Freight Shuttle System (FSS) is designed to provide freight transportation services between those short and intermediate distance locations (within 600 miles) that are currently handling large volumes of freight traffic. Much like trucks, the FSS's transporters are autonomous: each transporter has its own propulsion and travels independently of other transporters. Inspired by railroads, each FSS transporter has steel wheels operating on a steel running surface and can carry either a standardsize freight container or an over-the-road truck trailer. However, unlike either rail or trucks, the FSS runs on an elevated, dedicated guideway to avoid the interference of other transportation systems. The objective of this report is to examine the potential viability for an alternative transportation system for trailers and containers in a multi-national, cross-border setting. The El Paso-Ciudad Juarez region serves as the environment of this analysis.

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.

The Costilla County Biodiesel Pilot Project has demonstrated the compatibility of biodiesel technology and economics on a local scale. The project has been committed to making homegrown biodiesel a viable form of community economic development. The project has benefited by reducing risks by building the facility gradually and avoiding large initial outlays of money for facilities and technologies. A primary advantage of this type of community-scale biodiesel production is that it allows for a relatively independent, local solution to fuel production. Successfully using locally sourced feedstocks and putting the fuel into local use emphasizes the feasibility of different business models under the biodiesel tent and that there is more than just a one size fits all template for successful biodiesel production.

This Special Analysis (SA) was initiated to address a concern expressed by the Department of Energy's Low Level Waste Disposal Facility Federal Review Group (LFRG) Review Team during their review of the 2008 E-Area Performance Assessment (PA) (WSRC, 2008). Their concern was the potential for overlapping of atmospheric plumes, emanating from the soil surface above SRS LLW disposal facilities within the E-Area, to contribute to the dose received by a member of the public during the Institutional Control (IC) period. The implication of this concern was that the dose to the maximally-exposed individual (MEI) located at the SRS boundary might be underestimated during this time interval. To address this concern a re-analysis of the atmospheric pathway releases from E-Area was required. In the process of developing a new atmospheric release model (ARM) capable of addressing the LFRG plume overlap concern, it became obvious that new and better atmospheric pathway disposal limits should be developed for each of the E-Area disposal facilities using the new ARM. The scope of the SA was therefore expanded to include the generation of these new limits. The initial work conducted in this SA was to develop a new ARM using the GoldSim{reg_sign} program (GTG, 2009). …

Understanding the prevalence and structure of higher-order modes (HOMs) in accelerator cavities is critical because their excitation can result in problematic single bunch and multi-bunch effects. Particularly hazardous are dipole modes, which are more easily excited due to their linear field nature near the beam center. During a recent superconducting test on the energy recovery linac (ERL) cavity at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), 8 of the highest-Q HOMs were measured for the first time. In conjunction with analysis of CST Microwave Studio simulation results for the ERL model, one of these modes was further studied in the copper prototype ERL cavity. A method of identifying HOMs utilizing existing holes drilled in copper cavity cells was developed and used to conclude that the observed high-Q mode was a quadrupole.

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 study seeks to provide policymakers and other stakeholders with actionable information towards a road map for reducing energy consumption cost-effectively. We focus on individual end use equipment types (hereafter referred to as appliance groups) that might be the subject of policies - such as labels, energy performance standards, and incentives - to affect market transformation in the short term, and on high-efficiency technology options that are available today. As the study title suggests, the high efficiency or Business Case scenario is constructed around a model of cost-effective efficiency improvement. Our analysis demonstrates that a significant reduction in energy consumption and emissions is achievable at net negative cost, that is, as a profitable investment for consumers. Net savings are calculated assuming no additional costs to energy consumption such as carbon taxes. Savings relative to the base case as calculated in this way is often referred to as 'economic savings potential'. Chinese energy demand has grown dramatically over the last few decades. While heavy industry still plays a dominant role in greenhouse gas emissions, demand from residential and commercial buildings has also seen rapid growth in percentage terms. In the residential sector this growth is driven by internal migration from the …

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 …

The purpose of this report is to evaluate the potential dose distribution resulting from surface radioactivity, using occupational radiation exposure scenarios. The surface radioactivity clearance values considered in this analysis may ultimately replace those currently specified in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) requirements and guidance for radiological protection of workers, the public and the environment. The surface contamination values apply to radioactive contamination deposited on a surface (i.e., not incorporated into the interior of the material). For these calculations, the dose coefficients for intake of radionuclides were taken from ICRP Publication 68 (ICRP 1994), and external exposure dose coefficients were taken from the compact disc (CD) that accompanied Federal Guidance Report (FGR) 13 (Eckerman et al. 1999). The ICRP Publication 68 dose coefficients were based on ICRP Publication 60 (ICRP 1990) and were used specifically for worker dose calculations. The calculated dose in this analysis is the 'effective dose' (ED), rather than the 'effective dose equivalent' (EDE).

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.

The Saltstone Facility is designed and permitted to immobilize and dispose of low-level radioactive and hazardous liquid waste (salt solution) remaining from the processing of radioactive material at the Savannah River Site. Low-level waste (LLW) streams from the Effluent Treatment Project (ETP), H-Canyon, the DDA (Deliquification, Dissolution, and Adjustment) process, and the decontaminated salt solution product from the Actinide Removal Process/Modular Caustic Side Solvent Extraction (CSSX) Unit (ARP/MCU) process are stored in Tank 50 until the LLW can be transferred to the Saltstone Facility for treatment and disposal. The LLW must meet the specified waste acceptance criteria (WAC) before it is processed into saltstone. The specific chemical and radionuclide contaminants and their respective WAC limits are listed in the current Saltstone WAC. Waste Solidification Engineering (WSE) requested that Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) perform quarterly analysis on saltstone samples. The concentrations of chemical and radionuclide contaminants are measured to ensure the saltstone produced during each quarter is in compliance with the current WAC. This report documents the concentrations of chemical and radionuclide contaminants for the 2011 Second Quarter samples collected from Tank 50 on April 4, 2011 and discusses those results in further detail than the previously issued results report. …