The purposes for which this grant was provided were specifically (1) to construct a tandem instrument that combined a low energy electron microscope (LEEM) with an ion beam source capably of irradiating a sample during observation of the surface using LEEM; and (2) to employ the new machine to whatever degree possible to observe the evolution of clean crystal surfaces during ion beam irradiation. A principal motivation was to investigate the fundamental behavior of radiation damage under circumstances for which the damage can be observed directly in real time as it occurs. A second main motivation was to create tunable perturbations of the defect (adatom and advacancy) equilibrium on clean crystal planes and in this way explore the fundamental kinetics of surface behavior that enters into numerous phenomena of interest to DOE including surface erosion, catalysis, and the damage to crystals caused by impacts of energetic particles. The funding has been employed to successfully pursue all the original goals, and additional opportunities that developed as a result of discoveries made in this research.

The structural chemistry of actinide main-group metal materials provides the fundamental basis for the understanding of structural coordination chemistry and the formation of materials with desired or predicted structural features. The main-group metal building blocks, comprising sulfur-group, phosphorous-group, or silicon-group elements, have shown versatility in oxidation state, coordination, and bonding preferences. These building blocks have allowed us to elucidate a series of structures that are unique to the actinide elements, although we can find structural relationships to transition metal and 4f-element materials. In the past year, we investigated controlled metathesis and self-propagating reactions between actinide metal halides and alkali metal salts of main-group metal chalcogenides such as K-P-S salts. Ternary plutonium thiophosphates have resulted from these reactions at low temperature in sealed ampules. we have also focused efforts to examine reactions of Th, U, and Pu halide salts with other alkali metal salts such as Na-Ge-S and Na-Si-Se and copper chloride to identify if self-propagating reactions may be used as a viable reaction to prepare new actinide materials and we prepared a series of U and Th copper chalcogenide materials. Magnetic measurements continued to be a focus of actinide materials prepared in our laboratory. We also contributed to the XANES …

4 Times Square is a 48-story environmentally responsible building in New York City. Developed by the Durst Organization, the building is the first project of its size to adopt standards for energy efficiency, indoor ecology, sustainable materials, and responsible construction, operations, and maintenance procedures. Designers used a whole-building approach--considering how the building's systems can work together most efficiently--and educated tenants on the benefits of the design.

This OIT BestPractices Case Study describes how the Equilon Enterprises oil refinery in Martinez, California undertook a plant-wide energy assessment that focused on three key areas: waste minimization, process debottlenecking, and operations optimization. The assessment yielded recommendations, which, if implemented, can save more than 6,000,000 MMBtu per year and an estimated $52,000,000 per year, plus improve process control and reduce waste.

A study was made of resins based on methyl-alpha-(D)-glucoside. Foams prepared using this resin and a prepolymer based on polymethylene polyphenyl isocyanate had excellent high temperature strength when tested At 400°F (301.1°C). Best results were obtained with methyl glucoside purchased as a 65-percent water solution containing 30 percent beta-methyl-glucoside.

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DOE's Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity is sponsoring 3 idle reduction demonstration projects for heavy-duty trucks. This report provides the status of the projects.

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Quarterly magazine with articles on recent additions to the Clean Cities Alternative Fuel Station Locator database, biodiesel buying co-ops, and developing the CNG infrastructure in Bangladesh. Also a memo from CIVITAS 2003.

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A brochure listing and describing Web sites and telephone numbers of resources for people interested in alternative fuels and related vehicles. Most are sponsored by DOE.

The main purpose of this project was to improve the fundamental mechanistic understanding and quantification of long-term colloid mobilization and colloid-facilitated transport of radionuclides in the vadose zone, with special emphasis on the semi-arid Hanford site. While we focused some of the experiments on hydrogeological and geochemical conditions of the Hanford site, many of our results apply to colloid and colloid-facilitated transport in general. Specific objectives were (1) to determine the mechanisms of colloid mobilization and colloid-facilitated radionuclide transport in undisturbed Hanford sediments under unsaturated flow, (2) to quantify in situ colloid mobilization and colloid-facilitated radionuclide transport from Hanford sediments under field conditions, and (3) to develop a field-scale conceptual and numerical model for colloid mobilization and transport at the Hanford vadose zone, and use that model to predict long-term colloid and colloid- facilitated radionuclide transport. To achieve these goals and objectives, we have used a combination of experimental, theoretical, and numerical methods at different spatial scales, ranging from microscopic investigations of single particle attachment and detachment to larger-scale field experiments using outdoor lysimeters at the Hanford site. Microscopic and single particle investigations provided fundamental insight into mechanisms of colloid interactions with the air-water interface. We could show that a …

This document is a close-out report on work performed by UCSD researchers in support of the Fusion Simulation Project Planning Activity.

A final report - publication of the results from a workshop held in June 2004 on Horizontal Gene Transfer in the Enviornment

HEATS Project: Sheetak is developing a new HVAC system to store the energy required for heating and cooling in EVs. This system will replace the traditional refrigerant-based vapor compressors and inefficient heaters used in today’s EVs with efficient, light, and rechargeable hot-and-cold thermal batteries. The high energy density thermal battery—which does not use any hazardous substances—can be recharged by an integrated solid-state thermoelectric energy converter while the vehicle is parked and its electrical battery is being charged. Sheetak’s converters can also run on the electric battery if needed and provide the required cooling and heating to the passengers—eliminating the space constraint and reducing the weight of EVs that use more traditional compressors and heaters.

The purpose of this report is to provide a concise status update for value-added products (VAP) implemented by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility. The report is divided into the following sections: (1) new VAPs for which development has begun, (2) progress on existing VAPs, (3) future VAPs that have been recently approved, (4) other work that leads to a VAP, and (5) top requested VAPs from the archive. New information is highlighted in blue text. New information about processed data by the developer is highlighted in red text.

The purpose of this report is to provide a concise status update for value-added products (VAP) implemented by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility. The report is divided into the following sections: (1) new VAPs for which development has begun, (2) progress on existing VAPs, (3) future VAPs that have been recently approved, (4) other work that leads to a VAP, and (5) top requested VAPs from the archive.

Executive Summary: Initially the funds were sufficient funds were awarded to support one graduate student and one post-doc. Lange, though other funds, also supported a graduate intern from ETH Zurich, Switzerland for a period of 6 months. The initial direction was to study the chemical solution deposition method to understand the microstructural and mechanical phenomena that currently limit the production of thick film, reliable superconductor wires. The study was focused on producing thicker buffer layer(s) on Ni-alloy substrates produced by the RABiTS method. It focused on the development of the microstructure during epitaxy, and the mechanical phenomena that produce cracks during dip-coating, pyrolysis (decomposition of precursors during heating), crystallization and epitaxy. The initial direction of producing thicker layers of a know buffer layer material was redirected by co-workers at ORNL, in an attempt to epitaxially synthesize a potential buffer layer material, LaMnO3, via the solution route. After a more than a period of 6 months that showed that the LaMnO3 reacted with the Ni-W substrate at temperatures that could produce epitaxy, reviewers at the annual program review strongly recommended that the research was not yielding positive results. The only positive result presented at the meeting was that much thicker films …

A high-chromium refractory material that provides improved resistance to coal slag penetration is presented. The refractory mixture comprises a blend of chromium oxide, aluminum oxide and phosphates. The refractory mixture may be blended with an aggregate and cured. In addition a phosphorous oxide may be blended with chromium oxide and aluminum oxide and additionally an aggregate. The refractory mixture reduces the rate of coal slag penetration into the surface of the cured refractory.

Software for automated test equipment can be tedious and monotonous making it just as error-prone as other software. Active defect prevention and detection are also important for test applications. Incomplete or unclear requirements, a cryptic syntax used for some test applications—especially script-based test sets, variability in syntax or structure, and changing requirements are among the problems encountered in one tester. Such problems are common to all software but can be particularly problematic in test equipment software intended to test another product. Each of these issues increases the probability of error injection during test application development. This report describes a test application development tool designed to address these issues and others for a particular piece of test equipment. By addressing these problems in the development environment, the tool has powerful built-in defect prevention and detection capabilities. Regular expressions are widely used in the development tool as a means of formally defining test equipment requirements for the test application and verifying conformance to those requirements. A novel means of using regular expressions to perform range checking was developed. A reduction in rework and increased productivity are the results. These capabilities are described along with lessons learned and their applicability to other test …

The Flooding Predictor™ is a patented advanced control technology proven in research at the Separations Research Program, University of Texas at Austin, to increase distillation column throughput by over 6%, while also increasing energy efficiency by 10%. The research was conducted under a U. S. Department of Energy Cooperative Agreement awarded to George Dzyacky of 2ndpoint, LLC. The Flooding Predictor™ works by detecting the incipient flood point and controlling the column closer to its actual hydraulic limit than historical practices have allowed. Further, the technology uses existing column instrumentation, meaning no additional refining infrastructure is required. Refiners often push distillation columns to maximize throughput, improve separation, or simply to achieve day-to-day optimization. Attempting to achieve such operating objectives is a tricky undertaking that can result in flooding. Operators and advanced control strategies alike rely on the conventional use of delta-pressure instrumentation to approximate the column’s approach to flood. But column delta-pressure is more an inference of the column’s approach to flood than it is an actual measurement of it. As a consequence, delta pressure limits are established conservatively in order to operate in a regime where the column is never expected to flood. As a result, there is much “left …

Abstract Fusion welding is used extensively in industries that support the nation's energy supply, defense, infrastructure, and standard of living. Safety and reliability of the welded joints are affected by their geometry, composition and structure. This report provides an account of the significant advances made in quantitative understanding of the geometry, composition and various aspects of the weldment structure with financial support from DOE/BES. In particular, this report provides an account of the research conducted under the grant DE-FG02-84ER45158 in this important area and lists all the publications that document the details of the technical accomplishments that resulted from the work. Investigations of heat transfer, fluid flow and alloying element vaporization during laser welding resulted in a new technique for the determination of the peak temperature in the weld pool and provided a new method to estimate weld metal composition. Studies on the interfacial phenomena in fusion welding resulted in quantitative understanding of the interrelationship between the weld metal composition and geometry and provided new knowledge as to when the surface active elements would affect the weldment geometry and when these elements would have no effect on the geometry. Partitioning of oxygen nitrogen and hydrogen between the welding environment and …

OAK - B135 Advancement in the use of renewable energy over the past decade is due, in part, to progress in coordinating renewable energy policies, programs and initiatives across all governmental levels and all sectors of business. Through recent efforts by IREC�s DSIRE project, information on existing federal, state, local, and utility programs and incentives has been easier for the general public and government agencies to access and, as a result, use of these programs is beginning to increase. Increasing awareness of incentives can directly and positively impact the use of renewable energy. The DSIRE project�s primary objective, therefore, is to provide a single resource for all available incentive programs. Information produced by DSIRE is of increasing value to an audience of: · State and local energy offices and regulatory agencies that may be considering new programs or initiatives, or extensions and expansions of past programs; · State regulatory agencies or utility commissions that have approval or influence over the creation of regulatory incentives; · Utility companies who may be considering the creation of new programs and incentives for renewable energy; · Consumers, businesses, and renewable energy industries that need timely information on such incentives for purchasing and business planning; …