This ALARA analysis of Radiological Control Criteria (RCC) considers alternatives to continued storage of certain DOE mixed wastes. It also considers the option of treating hazardous wastes generated by DOE facilities, which have a very low concentration of radionuclide contaminants, as purely hazardous waste. Alternative allowable contaminant levels examined correspond to doses to an individual ranging from 0.01 mrem/yr to 10 to 20 mrem/yr. Generic waste inventory data and radionuclide source terms are used in the assessment. Economic issues, potential health and safety issues, and qualitative factors relating to the use of RCCs are considered.

Migratory and resident fish in the Columbia River basin are exposed to stresses associated with hydroelectric power production, including pressure changes during turbine passage and dissolved gas supersaturation (resulting from the release of water from the spillway). The responses of fall Chinook salmon and bluegill sunfish to these two stresses, both singly and in combination, were investigated in the laboratory. A previous test series (Abernethy et al. 2001) evaluated the effects of passage through a Kaplan turbine under the ?worst case? pressure conditions. For this series of tests, pressure changes were modified to simulate passage through a Kaplan turbine under a more ?fish-friendly? mode of operation. The results were compared to results from Abernethy et al. (2001). Fish were exposed to total dissolved gas (TDG) levels of 100%, 120%, or 135% of saturation for 16-22 hours at either surface (101 kPa) or 30 ft (191 kPa) of pressure, then held at surface pressure at 100% saturation for a 48-hour observation period. Sensitivity of fall Chinook salmon to gas supersaturation was slightly higher than in the previous test series, with 15% mortality for surface-acclimated fish at 120% TDG, compared to 0% in the previous tests.

The concept of a ''Global Accelerator Network'' (GAN) has been put forward as a means for inter-regional collaboration in the operation of internationally constructed and operated frontier accelerator facilities. A workshop was held to allow representatives of the accelerator community and of the collaboratory development community to meet and discuss collaboration tools for the GAN environment. This workshop, called the Collaboration Tools for the Global Accelerator Network (GAN) Workshop, was held on August 26, 2002 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The goal was to provide input about collaboration tools in general and to provide a strawman for the GAN collaborative tools environment. The participants at the workshop represented accelerator physicists, high-energy physicists, operations, technology tool developers, and social scientists that study scientific collaboration.

Twenty-two scientists from around the nation and the world met to discuss the way that the molecules, structures, processes and concepts of the biological world could be used or mimicked in designing novel materials, processes or devices of potential practical significance. The emphasis was on basic research, although the long-term goal is, in addition to increased knowledge, the development of applications to further the mission of the Department of Energy.

Several metals systems were reviewed for their potential to act as resistive temperature devices. Platinum metal was selected as the metal of choice. Platinum was plated onto 5 mil copper wire, and then subsequently coated with Accusol's proprietary ceramic coating. The copper was etched out in an attempt to make a pure platinum, high resistive, resistive-temperature device. The platinum plating on the wire cracked during processing, resulting in a discontinuous layer of platinum, and the element could not be formed in this way.

Intensive animal feeding operations create large amounts of animal waste that must be safely disposed of in order to avoid environmental degradation. Cattle feedlots and chicken houses are two examples. In feedlots, cattle are confined to small pens and fed a high calorie grain diet in preparation for slaughter. In chicken houses, thousands of chickens are kept in close proximity. In both of these operations, millions of tons of manure are produced every year. In this project a co-firing technology is proposed which would use manure that cannot be used for fertilizer, for power generation. Since the animal manure has economic uses as both a fertilizer and as a fuel, it is properly referred to as feedlot biomass (FB) for cow manure, or litter biomass (LB) for chicken manure. The biomass will be used a as a fuel by mixing it with coal in a 90:10 blend and firing it in existing coal fired combustion devices. This technique is known as co-firing, and the high temperatures produced by the coal will allow the biomass to be completely combusted. Therefore, it is the goal of the current research to develop an animal biomass cofiring technology. A cofiring technology is being developed …

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The Bush Administration issued its plan for a national energy policy on May 16, 2001. The plan was controversial, characterized by some as leaner on conservation and renewables than Democratic proposals, and predisposed to trade off environmental considerations to increase supply. Comprehensive energy legislation was introduced in the Senate by both parties by late March (S. 388, S. 389, S. 596, S. 597). Bills reported by several House committees (H.R. 2436, H.R. 2460, H.R. 2511, and H.R. 2587) were combined in a single bill, H.R. 4, passed by the House, August 1, 2001. The House version of H.R. 4 would require a 5 billion gallon reduction in light-duty truck and SUV fuel consumption and would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to leasing.

The main goals of this project were the search for a predicted nonmetallic high-pressure phase of Li and finding the metallization conditions for LiH. It has been predicted by Neaton & Ashcroft at Cornell [1] that the lithium atoms would pair at pressures around 100 GPa and their valence electrons would become localized in the interstitial regions and therefore non-conducting. LiH, an ionic compound, provides the unique opportunity to understand the effects of coupling two elements with opposite tendencies at extreme conditions and to study fundamental principles such as metallization and pairing. We measured the electrical conductivity of liquid lithium at pressures up to 1.8 Mbar and 4-fold compression, achieved through shock reverberation experiments [2]. We found that the results were consistent with a departure of the electronic properties of lithium from the nearly free electron approximation at high pressures and with ionic pairing correlations in the Mbar regime. Given the expected small effect of the temperature on the conductivity at high densities, the apparent conductivity drop and the behavior of the ionic core at the highest pressures could be interpreted as a decrease of the overall volume available for the electrons. It may be interesting to see if the …

The Department of Defense operates six environmental programs: cleanup of past contamination at military facilities, acceleration of cleanup at military bases designated for closure, compliance with environmental laws and regulations that apply to ongoing military operations, pollution prevention, natural resource conservation, and environmental technology. In addition to these activities, the Department of Energy is responsible for managing defense nuclear waste and remediating contaminated sites. This report discusses the federal laws that established these programs, describes their scope and purpose, provides a history of appropriations, indicates the President’s budget request for FY2001, examines authorization and appropriations legislation for FY2001, and discusses other relevant legislation considered in the 106th Congress.

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House and Senate conferees on the FY2003 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 4546) are currently considering provisions that would lift the longstanding prohibition on concurrent receipt (simultaneous payment) of Department of Defense (DoD) retired pay and Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) disability benefits. The House-passed bill would phase in partial concurrent receipt by providing both retirement and VA benefits for those with disabilities of 60 percent or above by FY2007. The Senate-passed bill provides full concurrent receipt for military retirees with any disability rating in FY2003.

The goal of the project is to enable plant operators to detect with high sensitivity and reliability the onset of decalibration drifts in all of the instrumentation used as input to the reactor heat balance calculations. To achieve this objective, the collaborators developed and implemented at DBNPS an extension of the Multivariate State Estimation Technique (MSET) pattern recognition methodology pioneered by ANAL. The extension was implemented during the second phase of the project and fully achieved the project goal.

In this CRADA, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) assisted nLine Corporation of Austin, TX in the development of prototype semiconductor wafer inspection tools based on the direct-to-digital holographic (DDH) techniques invented at ORNL. Key components of this work included, testing of DDH for detection of defects in High Aspect Ratio (HAR) structures, development of image processing techniques to enhance detection capabilities through the use of both phase and intensity, and development of methods for autofocus on the DDH tools.

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This report discusses the issues for Congress related to fruits & vegetables. The contents include federal activities, programs, farm bill issues, & trade issues.

This report discusses the Issues for Congress on Fruits and Vegetables.The primary law that exclusively serves the produce industry is the perishable agriculture commodities act in the 1930(PACA).

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This list provides a sampling of the rapidly proliferating number of agricultural resources available on the Internet. It is not intended to be exhaustive. It is divided into 24 main categories and 16 subcategories.

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