All the products now obtained from oil can be provided by thermal conversion of the solid fuels biomass and coal. As a feedstock, biomass has many advantages over coal and has the potential to supply up to 20% of US energy by the year 2000 and significant amounts of energy for other countries. However, it is imperative that in producing biomass for energy we practice careful land use. Combustion is the simplest method of producing heat from biomass, using either the traditional fixed-bed combustion on a grate or the fluidized-bed and suspended combustion techniques now being developed. Pyrolysis of biomass is a particularly attractive process if all three products - gas, wood tars, and charcoal - can be used. Gasification of biomass with air is perhaps the most flexible and best-developed process for conversion of biomass to fuel today, yielding a low energy gas that can be burned in existing gas/oil boilers or in engines. Oxygen gasification yields a gas with higher energy content that can be used in pipelines or to fire turbines. In addition, this gas can be used for producing methanol, ammonia, or gasoline by indirect liquefaction. Fast pyrolysis of biomass produces a gas rich in ethylene …

Conceptual design studies of a tokamak Engineering Test Facility (ETF) are being carried out as a joint laboratory-industry effort at the ETF Design Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Designs are being developed for two reactors, one with a bundle divertor and one with a poloidal divertor. These machines, which are designed for ignition and a burn time of 100 s, both have a major radius of 5.4 m, a plasma minor radius of 1.3 m, and a D-shaped plasma elongation of 1.6. The plasma chamber must be conditioned at 10/sup -7/ torr. During the 35-s dwell between burns, the chamber must be pumped down from 5 x 10/sup -3/ torr to 3 x 10/sup -5/ torr. In the design with the bundle divertor four pairs of compound cryopumps, each pump with a 2-m/sup 2/ cryosorption pumping surface, are installed to pump down the plasma chamber. In the design with the poloidal divertor the plasma chamber is evacuated with the ten pairs of compound cryopumps, each pump with a cryosorption pumping surface of 4.32 m/sup 2/, installed to handle the divertor load. In both cases the pumps are installed in pairs so that one set can be regenerated while …

In estimating the probabilities of human error in the performance of a series of tasks in a nuclear power plant, the situation-specific characteristics of the series must be considered. A critical factor not to be overlooked in this estimation is the dependence or independence that pertains to any of the several pairs of task performances. In discussing the quantification of the effects of dependence, the event tree symbology described will be used. In any series of tasks, the only dependence considered for quantification in this document will be that existing between the task of interest and the immediately preceeding task. Tasks performed earlier in the series may have some effect on the end task, but this effect is considered negligible.

Twenty-one papers are included. Separate abstracts were prepared for each one. (MHR)

A three-day ETF Interim Design Review was conducted on July 23-25, 1980, at the Sheraton Potomac Inn in Rockville, Maryland. The intent of the review was to provide a forum for an in-depth assessment and critique of all facets of the ETF design by members of the fusion community. The review began with an opening plenary session at which an overview of the ETF design was presented by D. Steiner, manager of the ETF Design Center, complemented by a physics overview by P.H. Rutherford, chairman of the ETF/INTOR Physics Committee. This was followed by six concurrent review sessions over the next day and a half. The review closed with a plenary session at which the Design Review Board presented its findings. This document consists of the viewgraphs for the opening plenary session and an edited version of the presentations made by Steiner and Rutherford.

A process is described for making waste glass that circumvents the problems of dissolving nuclear waste in molten glass at high temperatures. Because the reactive mixing process is independent of the inherent viscosity of the melt, any glass composition can be prepared with equal facility. Separation of the mixing and melting operations permits novel glass fabrication methods to be employed.

Six experiments were conducted in the Semiscale Mod-3 system to investigate the effect of primary coolant pump operation on thermal-hydraulic behavior during a small break loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). They were three cold leg break and three hot leg break experiments. The break size simulated was 2.5% (of cold leg pipe flow area), representing a circular opening in the side of a PWR pipe of approximately 11 cm. For each of the experiments, emergency core coolant (ECC) was injected into the cold legs at scaled flowrates corresponding to the availability of a single high pressure injection system train.

A method for verifying the validity of timing routines for benchmarking and other timing measurements at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) is described. A program written for this purpose uses two methods. The first method compares stopwatch times and system-computed times, where a system-computed time is the result of a call to the system timing routine. The second method requires calculating elapsed machine cycles. The program is modular and uses standard Fortran. With only a few changes, it is possible across all LASL systems and can be used on non-LASL systems as well. A complete benchmark job mix should include a program of this type.

Although current oil shale developments in the Piceance Basin appear to have had little impact on ecosystems, it is important to recognize that planned expansion of the industry in the Basin will greatly magnify the potential for serious perturbations of the Piceance environs. The relatively small scale of the present oil shale activities in the Basin provides the biologist with a unique opportunity to establish and conduct quantitative studies designed to measure impacts as they occur. This paper is intended to focus attention on some of the problems, perspectives and recommended approaches to conducting ecosystem effects studies that will provide criteria for evaluation and mitigation of impacts should they occur. The purpose of this paper is not to criticize past and current environmental studies on oil shale, but in light of anticipated growth of the industry, to focus attention on the need to carefully define, design and execute ecological effects studies to quantify and provide mitigation criteria for impacts that will undoubtedly result from accelerated industry activities.

Relative to the use of public roads, railroads offer several advantages for the movement of radioactive wastes. These include the ability to accommodate large, heavy containers, the ability to transfer large volumes in a single movement, and the safety of a dedicated, centrally controlled right-of-way. The principal disadvantage of railroads is that the shipper has considerably less freedom to specify the route a shipment will take. The lower density of the railroad network, the need to coordinate waste shipments with other traffic in the system, and the private ownership of the US network all reduce the shippers routing power. Although the shipper can dictate an exact route, this could require the use of a special train at an increased cost. Before considering the general use of special trains to move radioactive wastes, it is first desirable to determine how these materials would move as general rail traffic. This paper describes the development of a system to predict routes of general rail traffic at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

The National Security and Resources Study Center at LASL provides the basis for a general model used in this simulation. The NSRSC is a 59,000 ft/sup 2/ library and conference facility. A simplified model of the solar heating system is used. The adaptive optimal control technique is described and applied and the results are discussed. (MHR)

The purposes of the Borehold Plugging Program are: to identify issues associated with sealing boreholes and shafts; to establish a data base from which to assess the importance of these issues; and to develop sealing criteria, materials, and demonstrative test for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The Bell Canyon Test described in this report is one part of that program. Its purpose was to evaluate, in situ, the state of the art in borehole plugs and to identify and resolve problems encountered in evaluating a typical plug installation in anhydrite. The test results are summarized from the work of Peterson and Christensen and divided into two portions: system integrity and wellbore characterization tests prior to plug installation, and a series of tests to evaluate isolation characteristics of the 1.8-m-long plug. Conclusions of the Bell Canyon Test are: brine and fresh-water grouts, with acceptable physical properties in the fluid and hardened states, have been developed; the field data, taken together with laboratory data, suggest that the predominant flow into the test region occurs through the cement plug/borehold interface region, with lesser contributions occurring through the wellbore damage zone, the plug core, and the surrounding undisturbed anhydrite bed; and the 1.8-m-long …

The Sixth International Conference on Fluidized Bed Combustion was held April 9-11, 1980, at the Atlanta Hilton, Atlanta, Georgia. It was sponsored by the US Department of Energy, the Electric Power Research Institute, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. Forty-five papers from Vol. III of the proceedings have been entered individually into EDB and ERA. Two papers had been entered previously from other sources. (LTN)

Benchmark integral-experiment values from six fast critical-reactor assemblies and two standard neutron fields are combined with corresponding calculations using group cross sections based on ENDF/B-V in a least-squares data adjustment using evaluated covariances from ENDF/B-V and supporting covariance evaluations. Purpose is to produce an adjusted cross-section and covariance library which is based on well-documented data and methods and which is suitable for fast-reactor design. By use of such a library, data- and methods-related biases of calculated performance parameters should be reduced and uncertainties of the calculated values minimized. Consistency of the extensive data base is analyzed using the chi-square test. This adjusted library ORACLE will be available shortly.

Phase transitions between rotational and vibrational nuclei are discussed from the point of view of the variable moment of inertia model. A three-dimensional plot of the ground-state moments of inertia of even-even nuclei vs N and Z is shown. 3 figures. (RWR)

The General-Purpose Heat Source (GPHS) will supply power for future space missions. The GPHS fuel pellets are fabricated by hot pressing a blended mixture of /sup 238/PuO/sub 2/ granules prepared from calcined plutonium oxalate. Results of a test program which led to the development of the production process are described.

Thirteen papers are included. Separate abstracts were prepared for each one. (MHR)

The Bonneville Power Administration operates the transmission system that joins the Pacific Northwest and southern California. A 30-MJ (8.4-kWh) Superconducting Magnet Energy Storage (SMES) unit with a 10-MW converter can provide system damping for low frequency oscillations. The unit is scheduled to operate in 1982. Progress during FY 80 is described. The conductor has been fully tested both electrically and mechanically, all of the necessary copper and superconductor has been purchased, and the first production lengths of cable have been fabricated. All major components of the electrical and cryogenic systems except the gas recovery unit have been received, but the refrigerator, converter, and one transformer were damaged during shipment. The dewar is being procured, and the coil support system has been designed. Support work at LASL to prepare for subsystem testing is nearly complete.

A discussion of the status of quality assurance activities in solar energy conversion technologies and of the needs for further efforts in this area is presented. The importance of reliability and quality assurance activities to various end users is briefly discussed. Some details of such activities in wind, active heating and cooling, and photovoltaic technologies are given. Suggestions for an inegrated reliability, quality assurance program are presented and their importance to the growth of solar energy application is discussed.

Methods used to obtain the evaluated prompt fisson neutron spectrum N(E) and the average prompt neutron multiplicity anti ..nu../sub p/ are reviewed. The relative influence of experimental data; interpolated, extrapolated, and fitted experimental data; systematics; and nuclear theory are considered for the cases where (a) abundant experimental data exist, (b) some experimental data exist, and (c) no experimental data exist. The Maxwellian and Watt distributions, and the determination of the parameters of these distributions by data fitting, are described and compared to recent new theoretical work on the calculation of N(E). Similarly, various expressions for anti ..gamma../sub p/ that have been obtained by data fitting and systematics are described and compared to recent new theoretical work. Complications in the evaluation of N(E) and anti ..gamma../sub p/ due to the onset of multiple-chance fission and the interrelationships between N(E), anti ..gamma delta../sub p/ and the multiple-chance fission cross section are discussed using the example of the fission of /sup 235/U. Some statistics and comments are given on the evaluations of N(E) and anti ..gamma../sub p/ contained in ENDF/B-V, and a number of concluding recommendations are made for future evaluation work.

/sup 195/Pt NMR lineshapes as well as relaxation data are presented in three different samples of platinum metal particles (46%, 26%, and 15% dispersion) supported on alumina. The electronic properties of these particles are very much different from that of bulk Pt metal. A prominent peak in the lineshape has been identified as a surface resonance which arises from Pt nuclei on the surface of the Pt particles. We find that these surface Pt atoms are non-metallic when coated with adsorbed molecules.

Isotopically enriched nuclear targets are prepared directly in the electromagnetic mass separators by allowing the resolved ion species to impinge on a suitable substrate. The calutron, a multi-milliampere mass separator, has been successful in producing ion-implanted targets for nuclear research and in the doping of semiconductors. The typical accelerating energy for this method is 40 keV, although this can be increased by using multiply-charged ions. For highly enriched targets from materials where the desired isotope is of low natural abundance, the 180/sup 0/ Oak Ridge Sector Isotope Separator has proven particularly successful. This machine, which is an exceptionally high-resolution separator, is interfaced with an on-line computer for surveillance and control. Isotonic enhancement factors of 4 x 10/sup 5/ have been achieved for targets prepared in this machine.

The first test that compares the polarization (P) and the analyzing power (A) from measurements in a nuclear reaction and its inverse is reported. The reactions chosen for the P-A comparisons were the two-nucleon transfers /sup 7/Li(/sup 3/He,p)/sup 9/Be and /sup 9/Be(/sup 3/He,p)/sup 11/B, with 14-MeV incident /sup 3/He ions, and their inverses studied at the same CM energies. An astonishingly large P-A difference is found. The clear implication is that time-reversal invariance (TRI) is broken in some component of the nuclear interaction, since the polarization-analyzing power equality follows directly from TRI. 5 figures. (RWR)

SENSIT computes the sensitivity and uncertainty of a calculated integral response (such as a dose rate) due to input cross sections and their uncertainties. Sensitivity profiles are computed for neutron and gamma-ray reaction cross sections of standard multigroup cross section sets and for secondary energy distributions (SEDs) of multigroup scattering matrices. In the design sensitivity mode, SENSIT computes changes in an integral response due to design changes and gives the appropriate sensitivity coefficients. Cross section uncertainty analyses are performed for three types of input data uncertainties: cross-section covariance matrices for pairs of multigroup reaction cross sections, spectral shape uncertainty parameters for secondary energy distributions (integral SED uncertainties), and covariance matrices for energy-dependent response functions. For all three types of data uncertainties SENSIT computes the resulting variance and estimated standard deviation in an integral response of interest, on the basis of generalized perturbation theory. SENSIT attempts to be more comprehensive than earlier sensitivity analysis codes, such as SWANLAKE.