A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The need to better protect federal facilities, coupled with federal budget constraints and the increased scrutiny of homeland security funding and programs, has prompted the need for U.S. agencies to measure the performance of their facility protection efforts. In this environment, it is important for these agencies to ensure that investments in facility protection are providing adequate returns in terms of better protecting real property assets against terrorism. In addition, the U.S. government's national strategy, Presidential directive, and guidance on protecting critical infrastructures--including facilities--have identified the use of performance measurement as a key means of assessing the effectiveness of protection programs. Given that protection of critical infrastructures is an important issue for organizations outside of the federal government as well, it is beneficial to look to the experiences of these organizations to identify lessons learned. As such, our objectives for this review were (1) to identify examples of performance measures for facility protection being used by selected organizations outside of the federal government--including private-sector entities, state and local governments, and foreign governments, and (2) to determine the status of U.S. federal agencies' efforts to develop and …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To prepare for potential attacks in the United States involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Congress approved the development of National Guard Civil Support Teams (CST) tasked to identify chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive weapons; assess consequences; advise civil authorities on response measures; and assist with requests for additional support. Thus far, 36 of the 55 approved teams have been fully certified to conduct their mission. The National Guard Bureau (NGB) is in the process of establishing, certifying, and planning for the long-term sustainment of the CSTs. GAO was asked to address the extent to which (1) the CSTs are ready to conduct their mission and (2) effective administrative mechanisms are in place for the CSTs."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over 100,000 chemicals, pollutants, and toxic substances are used in the United States and regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). EPA uses risk assessment to determine the health risk from exposure to these substances, collectively referred to as contaminants. In the last 12 years, independent reviewers have examined this process and made recommendations for how it could be improved. GAO was asked to (1) identify the significant recommendations that have been made to improve human health risk assessment; (2) describe what EPA has done to modify its human health risk assessment process; (3) determine the effects these past modifications have had on the preparation of risk assessments; and (4) identify any additional actions experts believe EPA could take to improve its process, and the barriers it would face in doing so."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2003, the Bureau of the Census (Bureau) changed the day and location of the release of its Income and Poverty Estimates. Some data users believed the change was an effort to suppress unfavorable news and questioned the Bureau's data dissemination practices. GAO was asked to assess whether (1) the Bureau adhered to its dissemination practices for the 2003 and later releases, and (2) the Bureau and 13 other federal statistical agencies follow data release practices recommended by the National Research Council (NRC). GAO reviewed the Bureau's dissemination process for the 2003 thru 2005 Income and Poverty Estimates."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Search and rescue--one of the United States Coast Guard's (USCG) oldest missions and highest priorities--involves minimizing loss of life, injury, and property damage by aiding people and boats in distress. In September 2002, USCG contracted to replace its search and rescue communications system--installed in the 1970s--with a new system known as Rescue 21. However, the acquisition and initial implementation of Rescue 21 has resulted in significant cost overruns and schedule delays. GAO's objectives in reviewing the Rescue 21 program were to (1) assess the reasons for the significant cost overruns and implementation delays; (2) evaluate the viability of the revised cost and schedule estimates; and (3) evaluate the impact of the implementation delays."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Until destroyed, Russia's stockpile of chemical weapons remains a proliferation threat, vulnerable to theft and diversion. Since 1992, Congress has authorized the Department of Defense (DOD) to provide more than $1 billion for the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program to help the Russian Federation construct a chemical weapons destruction facility (CWDF) at Shchuch'ye to eliminate about 14 percent of its stockpile. Over the past several years, DOD has faced numerous challenges that have increased the estimated cost of the facility from about $750 million to more than $1 billion and delayed the facility's operation from 2006 until 2009. DOD has attributed the increase cost and schedule to a variety of factors. In this report, we (1) assess the facility's progress, schedule, and cost and (2) review the status of Russia's efforts to destroy all of its chemical weapons."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is conducting a multiyear, multibillion-dollar acquisition of a new trade processing system, planned to support the movement of legitimate imports and exports and strengthen border security. By congressional mandate, plans for expenditure of appropriated funds on this system, the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), must meet certain conditions, including GAO review. This study addresses whether the fiscal year 2006 plan satisfies these conditions; it also describes the status of DHS's efforts to implement prior GAO recommendations for improving ACE management, and provides observations about the plan and DHS's management of the program."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has spent about $91 billion since the mid-1980s to develop a capability to destroy incoming ballistic missiles. In 2002, recognizing the new security environment after the September 11 attacks, President Bush directed that an initial set of defensive ballistic missile capabilities be put in place in 2004. Although DOD is developing the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) to meet an urgent need, preparing to operate and support a system under continuous development poses significant challenges. GAO was asked to assess the extent to which (1) DOD has made progress in planning to operate the BMDS, and (2) the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) provides complete and transparent data on BMDS operational costs."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 (EEOICPA) authorized the Department of Energy (Energy) to help its former contractor employees file state workers' compensation claims for illnesses that could be linked to exposure to toxic substances during their employment. Concerned with the relatively small number of finalized cases and the overall effectiveness of the program, Congress asked GAO to review costs incurred by Energy to administer the program. Specifically, Congress asked GAO to determine whether (1) internal controls over program payments were adequately designed to provide reasonable assurance that improper payments to contractors would not be made or would be detected in the normal course of business and (2) program payments were properly supported as a valid use of government funds."

This report is part of the Web-at-Risk project. The Web-at-Risk project is developing a Web Archiving Service (WAS) that will enable the project's partner institutions to act as archive agencies that will assist the project's curators in building and managing archived collections of web-published materials.

Pruet Production Co. and the Center for Sedimentary Basin Studies at the University of Alabama, in cooperation with Texas A&M University, Mississippi State University, University of Mississippi, and Wayne Stafford and Associates proposed a three-phase, focused, comprehensive, integrated and multidisciplinary study of Upper Jurassic Smackover carbonates (Class II Reservoir), involving reservoir characterization and 3-D modeling (Phase I) and a field demonstration project (Phases II and III) at Womack Hill Field Unit, Choctaw and Clarke Counties, Alabama, eastern Gulf Coastal Plain. Phase I of the project has been completed. The principal objectives of the project are: increasing the productivity and profitability of the Womack Hill Field Unit, thereby extending the economic life of this Class II Reservoir and transferring effectively and in a timely manner the knowledge gained and technology developed from this project to producers who are operating other domestic fields with Class II Reservoirs. The major tasks of the project included reservoir characterization, recovery technology analysis, recovery technology evaluation, and the decision to implement a demonstration project. Reservoir characterization consisted of geoscientific reservoir characterization, petrophysical and engineering property characterization, microbial characterization, and integration of the characterization data. Recovery technology analysis included 3-D geologic modeling, reservoir simulation, and microbial core …

CAR undertook this investigation to better understand the costs and challenges of a local (state) regulation necessitating the implementation of alternative or advanced powertrain technology. CAR will attempt to add insight into the challenges that local regulations present to the automotive industry, and to contribute further to the discussion of how advanced powertrain technology may be used to meet such regulation. Any local law that (directly or indirectly) affects light duty motor vehicle fuel economy creates what in effect is a specialty market for powertrain technology. As such these small markets present significant challenges for automotive manufacturers. First, a small market with unique standards presents significant challenges to an industry that has sustained growth by relying on large volumes to achieve scale economies and deliver products at a cost acceptable to the consumer. Further, the challenges of the additional technology make it likely that any powertrain capable of meeting the stringent emissions standards will include costly additional components, and thus will be more costly to manufacture. It is likely that manufacturers would consider the following actions as steps to deliver products to meet the pending California regulatory requirements anticipated as a result of prior California legislation: (1) Substituting more fuel …

Wind power production varies on a diurnal and seasonal basis. In this report, we use wind speed data modeled by TrueWind Solutions, LLC (now AWS Truewind) to assess the effects of wind timing on the value of electric power from potential wind farm locations in California and the Northwest. (Data from this dataset are referred to as ''TrueWind data'' throughout this report.) The intra-annual wind speed variations reported in the TrueWind datasets have not previously been used in published work, however, so we also compare them to a collection of anemometer wind speed measurements and to a limited set of actual wind farm production data. The research reported in this paper seeks to answer three specific questions: (1) How large of an effect can the temporal variation of wind power have on the value of wind in different wind resource areas? (2) Which locations are affected most positively or negatively by the seasonal and diurnal timing of wind speeds? (3) How compatible are wind resources in the Northwest and California with wholesale power prices and loads in either region? The latter question is motivated by the fact that wind power projects in the Northwest could sell their output into California …

This research explores methods for identifying a whether a load is sending a signal to the utility SCADA system. Such a system can identify whether various loads are signialing using existing SCADA infrastructure, that is, without added, high cost communications infrastructure.

To reduce the effect of global warming on our climate, the levels of CO{sub 2} emissions should be reduced. One way to do this is to increase the efficiency of electricity production from fossil fuels. This will in turn reduce the amount of CO{sub 2} emissions for a given power output. Using US practice for efficiency calculations, then a move from a typical US plant running at 37% efficiency to a 760 C /38.5 MPa (1400 F/5580 psi) plant running at 48% efficiency would reduce CO2 emissions by 170kg/MW.hr or 25%. This report presents a literature review and roadmap for the materials development required to produce a 760 C (1400 F) / 38.5MPa (5580 psi) steam turbine without use of cooling steam to reduce the material temperature. The report reviews the materials solutions available for operation in components exposed to temperatures in the range of 600 to 760 C, i.e. above the current range of operating conditions for today's turbines. A roadmap of the timescale and approximate cost for carrying out the required development is also included. The nano-structured austenitic alloy CF8C+ was investigated during the program, and the mechanical behavior of this alloy is presented and discussed as an …

Research supported by this grant has significantly advanced fundamental understanding of the thermal conductance of solid-liquid interfaces, and the thermal conductivity of nanofluids and nanoscale composite materials. • The thermal conductance of interfaces between carbon nanotubes and a surrounding matrix of organic molecules is exceptionally small and this small value of the interface conductance limits the enhancement in thermal conductivity that can be achieved by loading a fluid or a polymer with nanotubes. • The thermal conductance of interfaces between metal nanoparticles coated with hydrophilic surfactants and water is relatively high and surprisingly independent of the details of the chemical structure of the surfactant. • We extended our experimental methods to enable studies of planar interfaces between surfactant-coated metals and water where the chemical functionalization can be varied between strongly hydrophobic and strongly hydrophilic. The thermal conductance of hydrophobic interfaces establishes an upper-limit of 0.25 nm on the thickness of the vapor-layer that is often proposed to exist at hydrophobic interfaces. • Our high-precision measurements of fluid suspensions show that the thermal conductivity of fluids is not significantly enhanced by loading with a small volume fraction of spherical nanoparticles. These experimental results directly contradict some of the anomalous results in …

The National Academies (NA) provides support for the activities related to the long-term follow up of the health of the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki being conducted by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) laboratories in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The NA serves as scientific and administrative liaison between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and RERF, and performs tasks in the areas of scientific oversight, information/public interface, fiscal oversight, and personnel management. The project includes recruitment and support of approximately 10 NA employees who work at RERF in Japan. Specific activities are performed consistent with the cooperative agreement’s Statement of Work between DOE and NA and consistent with an Annual Work Plan developed by DOE and NA.

This document serves as the Topical Report documenting work completed by Washington State University (WSU) under U.S. Department of Energy Grant, Developing Innovative Wall Systems that Improve Hygrothermal Performance of Residential Buildings. This project was conducted in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and includes the participation of several industry partners including Weyerhaeuser, APA - The Engineered Wood Association, CertainTeed Corporation and Fortifiber. This document summarizes work completed by Washington State University August 2002 through June 2006. WSU's primary experimental role is the design and implementation of a field testing protocol that monitored long term changes in the hygrothermal response of wall systems. During the project period WSU constructed a test facility, developed a matrix of test wall designs, constructed and installed test walls in the test facility, installed instrumentation in the test walls and recorded data from the test wall specimens. Each year reports were published documenting the hygrothermal response of the test wall systems. Public presentation of the results was, and will continue to be, made available to the building industry at large by industry partners and the University.

One of the technical barriers for ceramic membranes is its scale up potential. The conventional ceramic membranes/modules originally developed for liquid phase applications are costly and not suitable for high temperature applications. One of the objectives under this project is the development of a ceramic membrane/module, which is economical and suitable for high temperature applications proposed under this project (200-300 C). During this period, we initiated the fabrication of a prototype ceramic membrane module which can be (1) qualified for the proposed application temperature, and (2) cost acceptable for large scale applications. A prototype ceramic membrane bundle (3-inch diameter and 35-inch L) has been prepared, which passes the temperature stability requirement. It also meets the low end of the burst pressure requirement, i.e., 500-750 psi. In the next period, we will continue the improvement of this prototype module to upgrade its burst pressure to 1000 to 1500 psi range. In addition, bench-top experimental study has been conducted in this period to verify satisfactorily the simulated results for the process scheme developed in the last report, which took into the consideration of streamlining the pre- and post-treatment. The sensitivity analysis indicates that membrane surface area requirement is a key operating parameter …

This report discusses the idea of replacing our current income tax system with a flat-rate tax, including background and analysis and various Congressional proposals.

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) offer societal benefits through their ability to displace the use of petroleum fuels. Petroleum fuels represent a polluting and politically destabilizing energy carrier. PHEV technologies can move transportation away from petroleum fuel sources by enabling domestically generated electricity and liquids bio-fuels to serve as a carrier for transportation energy. Additionally, the All-Electric-Range (AER) offered by PHEVs can significantly reduce demand for expensive and polluting liquid fuels. The GATE funding received during the 1998 through 2004 funding cycle by the UC Davis Hybrid Electric Vehicle Center (HEVC) was used to advance and train researchers in PHEV technologies. GATE funding was used to construct a rigorous PHEV curriculum, provide financial support for HEVC researchers, and provide material support for research efforts. A rigorous curriculum was developed through the UC Davis Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering Department to train HEVC researchers. Students' research benefited from this course work by advancing the graduate student researchers' understanding of key PHEV design considerations. GATE support assisted HEVC researchers in authoring technical articles and producing patents. By supporting HEVC researchers multiple Master's theses were written as well as journal articles and publications. The topics from these publications include Continuously Variable Transmission control strategies …

We performed continuum mechanics simulations to examine the behavior of energetic materials in Ballistic Chamber Impact (BIC) experiments, using an Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian code (ALE3D). Our simulations revealed that interface friction plays an important role in inducing the formation of shear bands, which result in 'hot spots' for ignition. The temperature localization during BIC impact was found to be significant in materials with high yield strength. In those materials, there are multiple locations inside shear bands can achieve temperatures exceeding the threshold temperature for reaction. In addition, we investigated the relevant parameters influencing the pressure profile of a BIC test by numerical analysis from a simple phenomenological model. To our surprise, we found that the peaks of BIC pressure profiles not only can be a result of multi-center chemical reactions, but can also arise from factors associated apparatus configuration.

In light water reactors (LWRs), vessel internal components made of nickel-base alloys are susceptible to environmentally assisted cracking. A better understanding of the causes and mechanisms of this cracking may permit less conservative estimates of damage accumulation and requirements on inspection intervals. A program is being conducted at Argonne National Laboratory to evaluate the resistance of Ni alloys and their welds to environmentally assisted cracking in simulated LWR coolant environments. This report presents crack growth rate (CGR) results for Alloy 182 shielded-metal-arc weld metal in a simulated pressurized water reactor (PWR) environment at 320 C. Crack growth tests were conducted on 1-T compact tension specimens with different weld orientations from both double-J and deep-groove welds. The results indicate little or no environmental enhancement of fatigue CGRs of Alloy 182 weld metal in the PWR environment. The CGRs of Alloy 182 in the PWR environment are a factor of {approx}5 higher than those of Alloy 600 in air under the same loading conditions. The stress corrosion cracking for the Alloy 182 weld is close to the average behavior of Alloy 600 in the PWR environment. The weld orientation was found to have a profound effect on the magnitude of crack growth: …

This project has documented and demonstrated the feasibility of technologies and operational choices for companies who operate the large installed fleet of integral engine compressors in pipeline service. Continued operations of this fleet is required to meet the projected growth of the U.S. gas market. Applying project results will meet the goals of the DOE-NETL Natural Gas Infrastructure program to enhance integrity, extend life, improve efficiency, and increase capacity, while managing NOx emissions. These benefits will translate into lower cost, more reliable gas transmission, and options for increasing deliverability from the existing infrastructure on high demand days. The power cylinders on large bore slow-speed integral engine/compressors do not in general combust equally. Variations in cylinder pressure between power cylinders occur cycle-to-cycle. These variations affect both individual cylinder performance and unit average performance. The magnitude of the variations in power cylinder combustion is dependent on a variety of parameters, including air/fuel ratio. Large variations in cylinder performance and peak firing pressure can lead to detonation and misfires, both of which can be damaging to the unit. Reducing the variation in combustion pressure, and moving the high and low performing cylinders closer to the mean is the goal of engine balancing. The …