There is a critical need for new environmentally friendly processes in the United States chemical industry as legislative and economic pressures push the industry to zero-waste and cradle-to-grave responsibility for the products they produce. Carbohydrates represent a plentiful, renewable resource, which for some processes might economically replace fossil feedstocks. While the conversion of biomass to fuels, is still not generally economical, the selective synthesis of a commodity or fine chemical, however, could compete effectively if appropriate catalytic conversion systems can be found. Oxygenated organics, found in a variety of products such as nylon and polyester, are particularly attractive targets. We believe that with concerted research efforts, homogeneous transition metal catalyzed reactions could play a significant role in bringing about this future green chemistry technology.

This issue of the Biofuels News focuses on a new industry in renewable transportation fuel. BC International (BCI) became the first company to dedicate a facility to produce ethanol from agricultural residues. Also, featured is an article on the potential of switchgrass as an energy crop.

More than three hundred homes are being built in a northwest Chicago suburb that demonstrate the ''whole house'' design concept. The homes cost approximately the same as competitive houses of the same size but use approximately 50% less energy for heating and cooling.

Case study of an energy-efficient Habitat for Humanity house that uses 30% less energy than conventional residential construction. The project was part of the Jimmy Carter Work Project in rural Appalachia in 1997.

This is the second issue of the second volume (Fall 1999) of a quarterly bulletin produced under the Department of Energy's Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP). It's intended for Federal solar energy champions, i.e., all those who are planning or working on projects in which solar and other renewable energy technologies are being installed in Federal government facilities. Contents include articles describing the implications of Executive Order 13123 for Federal renewable energy installations, and recent solar energy projects of the Departments of Defense and the Interior, the General Services Administration, and the U.S. Postal Service.

This issue of Alternative Fuel News discusses Executive Order 13149 which is designed to not only increase the use of alternative fuel by federal agencies but also to increase the use of fuel efficient vehicles in the federal fleet. Also highlighted is the 6th National Clean Cities Conference and Expo held in San Diego, May 7-10, 2000, which attracted nearly 1,000 people for three action-packed days of alternative fuel activities. The work to develop a market for alternative fuels is more important than ever.

Building America Developments on-line newsletter highlights the Erie-Ellington Homes publicly-funded housing project in Boston, Massachusetts. A Building America and industry partnership that produced energy-efficient manufactured homes built with foam core panels is featured. Also, Habitat for Humanity dedicates two energy-efficient test houses in East Tennessee, and affordable, healthy homes are offered in metro Atlanta. Upcoming events in the Building America Program are also listed.

This is the second issue of the third volume (Fall 2000) of a technical bulletin produced for the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP). It is intended for Federal solar energy champions, that is, energy officers, contracting officials, facility managers, and others who participate in projects in which solar and other renewable energy technologies are installed in Federal government facilities in order to meet the directives of Executive Order 13123 and the President's Million Solar Roofs Initiative. This issue recognizes the contributions of the Federal agencies and specific individuals who enabled the government to meet its goal of installing 2,000 solar energy systems (and related systems) on Federal roofs by the year 2000. Although only about 30 solar energy champions were given awards, they represent hundreds of government employees who are working to save energy, money, and the environment through energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Hosting a Showcase Demonstration Event describes how industrial manufacturers can showcase energy efficiency technologies that they have implemented in their plants. Companies can gain access to a wide variety of technical assistance and resources when they agree to host a showcase demonstration and this fact sheet explains how to participate.

An industry-led initiative to identify key goals and strategies for the windows industry with an emphasis on energy conservation, enhanced quality, fast delivery, and low installed cost.

Wind Power Today is an annual publication that provides an overview of the U.S. Department of Energy's Wind Energy Program. The purpose of Wind Power Today is to show how DOE's Wind Energy Program supports wind turbine research and deployment in hopes of furthering the advancement of wind technologies that produce clean, low-cost, reliable energy. Content objectives include: educate readers about the advantages and potential for widespread deployment of wind energy; explain the program's objectives and goals; describe the program's accomplishments in research and application; examine the barriers to widespread deployment; describe the benefits of continued research and development; facilitate technology transfer; and attract cooperative wind energy projects with industry.

We have measured the Ag and Pd M{sub 5}VV Auger spectrum in coincidence with Ag and Pd 4d{sub 5/2} photoelectrons for the Ag/Cu(100) and Pd/Cu(100) systems, respectively, as a function of admetal coverage. These systems form surface alloys (i.e. random substitutional alloys in the first atomic layer) for impurity concentrations in the 0.1 monolayer range. For these systems, the centroid of the impurity 4d levels is expected to shift away from the Fermi level by {approx}1 eV [Ruban et al., Journal of Molecular Catalysis. A 115 (1997) 421], an effect that should be easily seen in coincidence core-valence-valence Auger spectra. We find that the impurity Auger spectra of both systems shift in a manner that is consistent with d-band moving away from EF. However, the shift for Pd is considerably smaller than expected, and a shift almost absent for Ag. The disagreement between theory and experiment is most likely caused by the neglect of lattice relaxations in the calculations.

In widely distributed systems generally, and in science-oriented Grids in particular, software, CPU time, storage, etc., are treated as"services" -- they can be allocated and used with service guarantees that allows them to be integrated into systems that perform complex tasks. Network communication is currently not a service -- it is provided, in general, as a"best effort" capability with no guarantees and only statistical predictability. In order for Grids (and most types of systems with widely distributed components) to be successful in performing the sustained, complex tasks of large-scale science -- e.g., the multi-disciplinary simulation of next generation climate modeling and management and analysis of the petabytes of data that will come from the next generation of scientific instrument (which is very soon for the LHC at CERN) -- networks must provide communication capability that is service-oriented: That is it must be configurable, schedulable, predictable, and reliable. In order to accomplish this, the research and education network community is undertaking a strategy that involves changes in network architecture to support multiple classes of service; development and deployment of service-oriented communication services, and; monitoring and reporting in a form that is directly useful to the application-oriented system so that it may …

At the end of 2002, the Experimental Breeder Reactor Two (EBR-II) facility became a U.S. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) permitted site, and the RCRA permit1 compelled further treatment of the residual sodium in order to convert it into a less reactive chemical form and remove the by-products from the facility, so that a state of RCRA 'closure' for the facility may be achieved (42 U.S.C. 6901-6992k, 2002). In response to this regulatory driver, and in recognition of project budgetary and safety constraints, it was decided to treat the residual sodium in the EBR-II primary and secondary sodium systems using a process known as 'carbonation.' In early EBR-II post-operation documentation, this process is also called 'passivation.' In the carbonation process (Sherman and Henslee, 2005), the system containing residual sodium is flushed with humidified carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}). The water vapor in the flush gas reacts with residual sodium to form sodium hydroxide (NaOH), and the CO{sub 2} in the flush gas reacts with the newly formed NaOH to make sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO{sub 3}). Hydrogen gas (H{sub 2}) is produced as a by-product. The chemical reactions occur at the exposed surface of the residual sodium. The NaHCO{sub 3} layer that …