A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Departments of Defense (DOD) and State and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have relied extensively on contractors to carry out a range of services in Iraq and Afghanistan. While recognizing the benefits of using contractors, GAO and others have noted the challenges and risks associated with an increased reliance on contractors and the ability of agencies to manage their growing number of contractors. As directed by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, GAO analyzed DOD, State, and USAID data on contracting activities in Iraq and Afghanistan for fiscal year 2007 and the first half of fiscal year 2008 including (1) the number and value of contracts and the extent they were awarded competitively; (2) the number of contractor personnel, including those performing security functions; and (3) the number of contractor personnel who were killed or wounded. GAO also reviewed the status of the three agencies' memorandum of understanding (MOU) related to maintaining data on contracts and contractor personnel. GAO reviewed selected contract files and compared personnel data to other available sources to assess the reliability of the data reported …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "A Senate report related to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 asked GAO to compare quality management practices used by the Department of Defense (DOD) and its contractors to those used by leading commercial companies and make suggestions for improvement. To do this, GAO (1) determined the impact of quality problems on selected weapon systems and prime contractor practices that contributed to the problems; (2) identified commercial practices that can be used to improve DOD weapon systems; (3) identified problems that DOD must overcome; and (4) identified recent DOD initiatives that could improve quality. GAO examined 11 DOD weapon systems with known quality problems and met with quality officials from DOD, defense prime contractors, and five leading commercial companies that produce complex products and/or are recognized for quality products."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Navy initiated its Fleet Response Plan (FRP) in March 2003 as a critical enabler to help meet the new demands of the twenty-first century security environment. FRP represents a major change in the way the Navy manages its forces, and is intended to more rapidly prepare and then sustain readiness in ships and squadrons. To achieve the desired capabilities under FRP, the Navy has altered its training, maintenance, and manning practices. The Navy expects this new readiness approach will enable its forces to provide presence and engagement in forward areas, as well as surge a greater number of ships on short notice. The Navy intends to achieve this goal without increasing its operations and maintenance budget of about $40 billion for each of the next 5 years. However, GAO previously reported that the Navy had not fully incorporated a sound management approach to guide and assess implementation of FRP. As a result, GAO was asked to examine the extent to which the Navy has (1) made progress in implementing a sound management approach for FRP and (2) evaluated the long-term risks and tradeoffs of FRP-related …

This report compares the film industry incentive programs of other states with the Texas incentive program and examines their respective economic and fiscal impacts. In Texas, the economic impact of the moving media industry approached $345 million in 2007. This report also identifies strategies proposed to enhance Texas' future competitive position in the moving media industry.

This brochure describes the 2005 demonstration home designed by NREL and the Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver. The completed home produced 24% more energy than it consumed over 12 months.

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As part of the proficiency training for the Radiological Mapping mission of the Aerial Measuring System (AMS), a survey team from the Remote Sensing Laboratory-Nellis (RSL-Nellis) conducted an aerial radiological survey of selected areas of the city of North Las Vegas for the purpose of mapping natural radiation background and locating any man-made radioactive sources. Survey areas were selected in collaboration with the City Manager's office and included four separate areas: (1) Las Vegas Motor Speedway (10.6 square miles); (2) North Las Vegas Downtown Area (9.2 square miles); (3) I-15 Industrial Corridor (7.4 square miles); and (4) Future site of University of Nevada Las Vegas campus (17.4 square miles). The survey was conducted in three phases: Phase 1 on December 11-12, 2007 (Areas 1 and 2), Phase 2 on February 28, 2008 (Area 3), and Phase 3 on March 19, 2008 (Area 4). The total completed survey covered a total of 44.6 square miles. The flight lines (without the turns) over the surveyed areas are presented in Figures 1, 2, 3, and 4. A total of eight 2.5-hour-long flights were performed at an altitude of 150 ft above ground level (AGL) with 300 feet of flight-line spacing. Water line and …

The U.S. Department of Energy?s Wind Powering America Program is committed to educating state-level policymakers and other stakeholders about the economic, CO2 emissions, and water conservation impacts of wind power. This analysis highlights the expected impacts of 1000 MW of wind power in Pennsylvania. Although construction and operation of 1000 MW of wind power is a significant effort, six states have already reached the 1000-MW mark. We forecast the cumulative economic benefits from 1000 MW of development in Pennsylvania to be $1.2 billion, annual CO2 reductions are estimated at 3.4 million tons, and annual water savings are 1,837 million gallons.

CHARICE (CHARacteristics-based inverse analysis of Isentropic Compression Experiments) is a computer application, previously documented in SAND2007-4948, that analyzes velocity waveform data from ramp-wave experiments to determine a material's quasi-isentropic loading response in stress and density using an iterative characteristics-based approach. This short report documents only the changes in CHARICE release version 1.1 relative to release version 1.0, and is not intended to stand alone. CHARICE version 1.1 corrects an error in the algorithm of the method, fixes several bugs, improves robustness and performance, provides more useful error descriptions, and adds a number of minor features.

This brochure details the New American Home 2009, which demonstrates the use of innovative building materials, cutting-edge design, and the latest construction techniques.

The Solar Advisor Model (SAM) provides a consistent framework for analyzing and comparing power system costs and performance across the range of solar technologies and markets, from photovoltaic systems for residential and commercial markets to concentrating solar power and large photovoltaic systems for utility markets. This manual describes Version 2.0 of the software, which can model photovoltaic and concentrating solar power technologies for electric applications for several markets. The current version of the Solar Advisor Model does not model solar heating and lighting technologies.

To find routes to achieving nearly 10% power conversion efficiency based on a new generation of organic photovoltaic cells using vapor-deposited, small-molecular-weight organic materials.

This Corrective Action Decision Document (CADD)/Closure Report (CR) has been prepared for Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 545, Dumps, Waste Disposal Sites, and Buried Radioactive Materials, in Areas 2, 3, 9, and 20 of the Nevada Test Site, Nevada, in accordance with the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order that was agreed to by the State of Nevada; U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Management; U.S. Department of Defense; and DOE, Legacy Management (1996, as amended February 2008). Corrective Action Unit 545 is comprised of the following eight Corrective Action Sites (CASs): • 02-09-01, Mud Disposal Area • 03-08-03, Mud Disposal Site • 03-17-01, Waste Consolidation Site 3B • 03-23-02, Waste Disposal Site • 03-23-05, Europium Disposal Site • 03-99-14, Radioactive Material Disposal Area • 09-23-02, U-9y Drilling Mud Disposal Crater • 20-19-01, Waste Disposal Site While all eight CASs are addressed in this CADD/CR, sufficient information was available for the following three CASs; therefore, a field investigation was not conducted at these sites: • For CAS 03-08-03, though the potential for subsidence of the craters was judged to be extremely unlikely, the data quality objective (DQO) meeting participants agreed that sufficient information existed about disposal and releases at the site …

This document describes an approach for preliminary (Phase I) flow and transport modeling for the Rainier Mesa/Shoshone Mountain (RMSM) Corrective Action Unit (CAU). This modeling will take place before the planned Phase II round of data collection to better identify the remaining data gaps before the fieldwork begins. Because of the geologic complexity, limited number of borings, and large vertical gradients, there is considerable uncertainty in the conceptual model for flow; thus different conceptual models will be evaluated, in addition to different framework and recharge models. The transport simulations will not be used to formally calculate the Contaminant Boundary at this time. The modeling (Phase II) will occur only after the available data are considered sufficient in scope and quality.

This report details the methodology used by DOE to calculate levelized cost of wind energy and demonstrates the variation in COE estimates due to different financing assumptions independent of wind generation technology.

GIT and IEC developed thin-film Si bottom cell and showed that deposition of top cell in tandem device did not reduce bottom cell performance.

Document answers frequently asked questions about ethanol as a transportation fuel, including those on production, environmental effects, and vehicles.

The purpose of this report is to provide a concise but comprehensive overview of Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility instrumentation status. The report is divided into the following five sections: (1) new instrumentation in the process of being acquired and deployed, (2) field campaigns, (3) existing instrumentation and progress on improvements or upgrades, (4) proposed future instrumentation, and (5) Small Business Innovation Research instrument development.

This quarterly Web-based newsletter features articles relating to alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles, idle reduction technologies, and fuel economy measures.

Stainless steels are used for the construction of numerous spent nuclear fuel or radioactive material containers that may be subjected to high strains and moderate strain rates during accidental drop events. Mechanical characteristics of these base materials and their welds under dynamic loads in the strain rate range of concern (1 to 300 per second) are not well documented. However, research is being performed at the Idaho National Laboratory to quantify these characteristics. The work presented herein discusses tensile impact testing of dual-marked 304/304L and 316/316L stainless steel material specimens. Both base material and welded material specimens were tested at -20 oF, room temperature, 300 oF, and 600 oF conditions. Utilizing a drop weight impact test machine and 1/4-inch and 1/2-inch thick dog bone-shaped test specimens, a strain rate range of approximately 4 to 40 per second (depending on initial temperature conditions) was achieved. Factors were determined that reflect the amount of increased strain energy the material can absorb due to strain rate effects. Using the factors, elevated true stress-strain curves for these materials at various strain rates and temperatures were generated. By incorporating the strain rate elevated true stress-strain material curves into an inelastic finite element computer program as …

Solar energy conversion is increasingly being recognized as one of the principal ways to meet future energy needs without causing detrimental environmental impact. Hybrid organic-inorganic solar cells (SCs) are attracting particular interest due to the potential for low cost manufacturing and for use in new applications, such as consumer electronics, architectural integration and light-weight sensors. Key materials advantages of these next generation SCs over conventional semiconductor SCs are in design opportunities--since the different functions of the SCs are carried out by different materials, there are greater materials choices for producing optimized structures. In this project, we explore the hybrid organic-inorganic solar cell system that consists of oxide, primarily ZnO, nanostructures as the electron transporter and poly-(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) as the light-absorber and hole transporter. It builds on our capabilities in the solution synthesis of nanostructured semiconducting oxide arrays to this photovoltaic (PV) technology. The three challenges in this hybrid material system for solar applications are (1) achieving inorganic nanostructures with critical spacing that matches the exciton diffusion in the polymer, {approx} 10 nm, (2) infiltrating the polymer completely into the dense nanostructure arrays, and (3) optimizing the interfacial properties to facilitate efficient charge transfer. We have gained an understanding and control …

This case study describes how the Industrial Technologies Program helps steel companies find ways to improve the efficiency of energy-intensive process heating and steam systems by performing Save Energy Now energy assessments.

The 2008 Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC) was held in Washington, D.C., from March 4-6, 2008, and involved nearly 9,000 people from 125 countries. The event brought together worldwide leaders in renewable energy (RE) from governments, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to discuss the role that renewables can play in alleviating poverty, growing economies, and passing on a healthy planet to future generations. The conference concluded with more than 140 governments, international organizations, and private-sector representatives pledging to advance the uptake of renewable energy. The U.S. government authorized the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to estimate the carbon dioxide (CO2) savings that would result from the pledges made at the 2008 conference. This report describes the methodology and assumptions used by NREL in quantifying the potential CO2 reductions derived from those pledges.

Assessments were performed to evaluate compliance with the airborne radionuclide emission monitoring requirements in the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP – U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Title 40, Part 61, Subpart H) and Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 246-247: Radiation Protection – Air Emissions. In these NESHAP assessments, potential unabated offsite doses were evaluated for emission locations at buildings that are part of the consolidated laboratory campus of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. This report describes the inventory-based methods and provides the results for the NESHAP assessment performed in 2007.