A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Ground ambulance providers' costs per transport for 2010 varied widely. The median cost per transport for the providers in GAO's sample was $429, ranging from $224 to $2,204 per transport. Provider characteristics that affected cost per transport were volume of transports (including both Medicare and non-Medicare transports), intensity of transports (the proportion of Medicare transports that were nonemergency), and the extent to which providers received government subsidies. Higher volume of transports, higher proportions of nonemergency transports, and lower government subsidies were associated with lower costs per transport. Providers reported that personnel cost was the largest cost component in their 2010 total costs and the biggest contributor to increases in their total costs from 2009 to 2010."

Report containing the annual financial report of the Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner of Texas, including revenues, expenditures, assets, and debts.

Report containing the annual financial report of the Texas Department of Savings and Mortgage Lending, including revenues, expenditures, assets, and debts.

None

This report provides background on young people in and exiting from foster care, and the federal support that is available to these youth as they transition to adulthood. It begins with a discussion of the characteristics of youth who have had contact with the child welfare system, including those who entered care, as well as those who exited care via emancipation. The report then provides an overview of the federal foster care system, including the Chafee Foster Care Independence program (CFCIP), and provisions in federal foster care law that are intended to help prepare youth for adulthood. The report goes on to discuss other federal support—through other programs—for youth aging out of care in the areas of education, health care, employment, and housing.

The upgrade of the LHC collimation system expects installation of additional collimators in the dispersion suppressor areas around the LHC ring. The longitudinal space for the collimators could be provided by replacing some 8.33 T Nb-Ti LHC main dipoles with shorter 11 T Nb/sub 3/Sn dipoles compatible with the LHC lattice and main systems. To demonstrate this possibility FNAL and CERN have started a joint program with the goal of building a 5.5 m long twin-aperture dipole prototype suitable for installation in the LHC. The first step of this program is the development of a 2 m long single-aperture demonstrator dipole with the nominal field of 11 T at the LHC nominal current of 11.85 kA and 60 mm bore with ~20% margin. This paper describes the design, construction and test results of the first single-aperture Nb/sub 3/Sn demonstrator dipole model.

In prismatic block High Temperature Reactors (HTR), highly absorbing material such a burnable poison (BP) cause local flux depressions and large gradients in the flux across the blocks which can be a challenge to capture accurately with traditional homogenization methods. The purpose of this paper is to quantify the error associated with spatial homogenization, spectral condensation and discretization and to highlight what is needed for improved neutronics treatments of burnable poisons for the prismatic HTR. A new triangular based mesh is designed to separate the BP regions from the fuel assembly. A set of packages including Serpent (Monte Carlo), Xuthos (1storder Sn), Pronghorn (diffusion), INSTANT (Pn) and RattleSnake (2ndorder Sn) is used for this study. The results from the deterministic calculations show that the cross sections generated directly in Serpent are not sufficient to accurately reproduce the reference Monte Carlo solution in all cases. The BP treatment produces good results, but this is mainly due to error cancellation. However, the Super Cell (SC) approach yields cross sections that are consistent with cross sections prepared on an “exact” full core calculation. In addition, very good agreement exists between the various deterministic transport and diffusion codes in both eigenvalue and power distributions. …

NREL studies smart sensors and dynamic control systems to help homeowners conserve energy, save money, and live comfortably.

Executive Summary The Office of Nuclear Energy, Fuel Cycle R&D, Material Protection and Control Technology (MPACT) Campaign is supporting a multi-institutional collaboration to study the feasibility of using Lead Slowing Down Spectroscopy (LSDS) to conduct direct, independent and accurate assay of fissile isotopes in used fuel assemblies. The collaboration consists of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Idaho State University (ISU). There are three main challenges to implementing LSDS to assay used fuel assemblies. These challenges are the development of an algorithm for interpreting the data with an acceptable accuracy for the fissile masses, the development of suitable detectors for the technique, and the experimental benchmarking of the approach. This report is a summary of the progress in these areas made by the collaboration during FY2012. Significant progress was made on the project in FY2012. Extensive characterization of a “semi-empirical” algorithm was conducted. For example, we studied the impact on the accuracy of this algorithm by the minimization of the calibration set, uncertainties in the calibration masses, and by the choice of time window. Issues such a lead size, number of required neutrons, placement of the neutron source and the impact of …

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Storage Systems (ESS) Program, through the support of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), facilitated the development of the protocol provided in this report. The focus of the protocol is to provide a uniform way of measuring, quantifying, and reporting the performance of EESs in various applications; something that does not exist today and, as such, is hampering the consideration and use of this technology in the market. The availability of an application-specific protocol for use in measuring and expressing performance-related metrics of ESSs will allow technology developers, power-grid operators and other end-users to evaluate the performance of energy storage technologies on a uniform and comparable basis. This will help differentiate technologies and products for specific application(s) and provide transparency in how performance is measured. It also will assist utilities and other consumers of ESSs make more informed decisions as they consider the potential application and use of ESSs, as well as form the basis for documentation that might be required to justify utility investment in such technologies.

None

None

The Battery Life Estimator (BLE) Manual has been prepared to assist developers in their efforts to estimate the calendar life of advanced batteries for automotive applications. Testing requirements and procedures are defined by the various manuals previously published under the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC). The purpose of this manual is to describe and standardize a method for estimating calendar life based on statistical models and degradation data acquired from typical USABC battery testing.

None

The NGNP Graphite R&D program is currently establishing the safe operating envelope of graphite core components for a Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) design. The program is generating quantitative data necessary for predicting the behavior and operating performance of the new nuclear graphite grades. To determine the in-service behavior of the graphite for pebble bed and prismatic designs, the Advanced Graphite Creep (AGC) experiment is underway. This experiment is examining the properties and behavior of nuclear grade graphite over a large spectrum of temperatures, neutron fluences and compressive loads. Each experiment consists of over 400 graphite specimens that are characterized prior to irradiation and following irradiation. Six experiments are planned with the first, AGC-1, currently being irradiated in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) and pre-irradiation characterization of the second, AGC-2, completed. This data package establishes the readiness of 512 specimens for assembly into the AGC-2 capsule.

None

None

The Advanced Test Reactor National Scientific User Facility (ATR NSUF) and Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) formed an agreement to test representative alloys used as reactor structural materials as a pilot program toward establishing guidelines for future ATR NSUF research programs. This report contains results from the portion of this program established as Phase I (of three phases) that entails baseline fracture toughness, stress corrosion cracking (SCC), and tensile testing of selected materials for comparison to similar tests conducted at GE Global Research. The intent of this Phase I research program is to determine baseline properties for the materials of interest prior to irradiation, and to ensure comparability between laboratories using similar testing techniques, prior to applying these techniques to the same materials after having been irradiated at the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR). The materials chosen for this research are the nickel based super alloy X-750, and nitrogen strengthened austenitic stainless steel XM-19. A spare core shroud upper support bracket of alloy X-750 was purchased by EPRI from Southern Co. and a section of XM-19 plate was purchased by EPRI from GE-Hitachi. These materials were sectioned at GE Global Research and provided to INL.

This paper presents a parametric analysis using a numerical model of a new concept in desiccant and evaporative air conditioning. The concept consists of two stages: a liquid desiccant dehumidifier and a dew-point evaporative cooler. Each stage consists of stacked air channel pairs separated by a plastic sheet. In the first stage, a liquid desiccant film removes moisture from the process (supply-side) air through a membrane. An evaporatively-cooled exhaust airstream on the other side of the plastic sheet cools the desiccant. The second-stage indirect evaporative cooler sensibly cools the dried process air. We analyze the tradeoff between device size and energy efficiency. This tradeoff depends strongly on process air channel thicknesses, the ratio of first-stage to second-stage area, and the second-stage exhaust air flow rate. A sensitivity analysis reiterates the importance of the process air boundary layers and suggests a need for increasing airside heat and mass transfer enhancements.

At nuclear facilities, domestically and internationally, most measurement systems used for nuclear materials’ control and accountability rely on He-3 detectors. Due to resource shortages, alternatives to He-3 systems are needed. This paper presents preliminary simulation and experimental efforts to develop a fast-neutron-multiplicity counter based on liquid organic scintillators. This mission also provides the opportunity to broaden the capabilities of such safeguards measurement systems to improve current neutron-multiplicity techniques and expand the scope to encompass advanced nuclear fuels.

Presentation about fuel cell backup power technology validation activities at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is one of the world’s premier test reactors for studying the effects of intense neutron radiation on reactor materials and fuels. The ATR began operation in 1967, and has operated continuously since then, averaging approximately 250 operating days per year. The combination of high flux, large test volumes, and multiple experiment configuration options provide unique testing opportunities for nuclear fuels and material researchers. The ATR is a pressurized, light-water moderated and cooled, beryllium-reflected highly-enriched uranium fueled, reactor with a maximum operating power of 250 MWth. The ATR peak thermal flux can reach 1.0 x1015 n/cm2-sec, and the core configuration creates five main reactor power lobes (regions) that can be operated at different powers during the same operating cycle. In addition to these nine flux traps there are 68 irradiation positions in the reactor core reflector tank. The test positions range from 0.5” to 5.0” in diameter and are all 48” in length, the active length of the fuel. The INL also has several hot cells and other laboratories in which irradiated material can be examined to study material radiation effects. In 2007 the US Department of Energy (DOE) designated …

Electric-drive vehicles utilizing lithium-ion batteries experience wholly different degradation patterns than do conventional vehicles, depending on geographic ambient conditions and consumer driving and charging patterns. A semi-empirical life-predictive model for the lithium-ion graphite/nickel-cobalt-aluminum chemistry is presented that accounts for physically justified calendar and cycling fade mechanisms. An analysis of battery life for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles considers 782 duty-cycles from travel survey data superimposed with climate data from multiple geographic locations around the United States. Based on predicted wear distributions, opportunities for extending battery life including modification of battery operating limits, thermal and charge control are discussed.

Under the L Basin corrosion surveillance program furniture rack coupons immersed for 14 years (FY2009 coupons) and 16 years (FY2011 coupons) were analyzed and the results trended with coupons exposed for shorter times. In addition, a section harvested from an actual furniture rack that was immersed for 14 years was analyzed for pitting in the weld and heat-affected-zone (HAZ) regions. The L Basin operations maintained very good water quality over the entire immersion period for these samples. These results for FY2009 and FY2011 coupons showed that the average pit depths for the 6061 and 6063 base metal are 1 and 2 mils, respectively, while those for the weld and HAZ are 3 and 4 mils, respectively. The results for the weld and HAZ regions are similar to coupons removed during the period of FY2003 to FY2007. These similarities indicate that the pit development occurred quickly followed by slow kinetics of increase in pit depth. For the actual furniture rack sample average pits of 5 and 2 mils were measured for the HAZ and weld, respectively. These results demonstrate that pitting corrosion of the aluminum furniture racks used to support the spent fuel occurs in waters of good quality. The corrosion …