This feasibility study has indicated that of the approximately 120,000 tons of steel available to be recycled from used oil filters (UOF's), a maximum blast furnace charge of 2% of the burden may be anticipated for short term use of a few months. The oil contained in the most readily processed UOF's being properly hot drained and crushed is approximately 12% to 14% by weight. This oil will be pyrolized at a rate of 98% resulting in additional fuel gas of 68% and a condensable hydrocarbon fraction of 30%, with the remaining 2% resulting as carbon being added into the burden. Based upon the writer's collected information and assessment, there appears to be no operational problems relating to the recycling of UOF's to the blast furnace. One steel plant in the US has been routinely charging UOF's at about 100 tons to 200 tons per month for many years. Extensive analysis and calculations appear to indicate no toxic consideration as a result of the pyrolysis of the small contained oil ( in the 'prepared' UOFs) within the blast furnace. However, a hydrocarbon condensate in the ''gasoline'' fraction will condense in the blast furnace scrubber water and may require additional processing …

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has ordered 500 light-duty electric carrier route vehicles (ECRV) mostly for their delivery carriers to use in several California locations. The 500 ECRVs have been defined as a demonstration fleet to support a decision of potentially ordering 5,500 additional ECRVs. Several different test methods are being used by the USPS to evaluate the 500-vehicle deployment. One of these test methods is the ECRV Customer Acceptance Test Program at Fountain Valley, California. Two newly manufactured ECRVs were delivered to the Fountain Valley Post Office and eighteen mail carriers primarily drove the ECRVs on ''park and loop'' mail delivery routes for a period of 2 days each. This ECRV testing consisted of 36 route tests, 18 tests per vehicle. The 18 mail carriers testing the ECRVs were surveyed for the opinions on the performance of the ECRVs. The U.S. Department of Energy, through its Field Operations Program, is supporting the USPS's ECRV testing activities both financially and with technical expertise. As part of this support, Field Operations Program personnel at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory have compiled this report based on the data generated by the USPS and its testing contractor (Ryerson, Master and …

Our work on the electrocatalyzed oxidation of methanol was initially motivated by the interest in methanol as an anodic reactant in fuel cells. The literature on electrochemical oxidation of alcohols can be roughly grouped into two sets: fuel cell studies and inorganic chemistry studies. Work on fuel cells primarily focuses on surface-catalyzed oxidation at bulk metal anodes, usually Pt or Pt/Ru alloys. In the surface science/electrochemistry approach to these studies, single molecule catalysts are generally not considered. In contrast, the inorganic community investigates the electrooxidation of alcohols in homogeneous systems. Ruthenium complexes have been the most common catalysts in these studies. The alcohol substrates are typically either secondary alcohols (e.g., isopropanol) such that the reaction stops after 2 e{sup -} oxidation to the aldehyde and 4 e{sup -} oxidation to the carboxylic acid can be observed. Methanol, which can also undergo 6 e{sup -} oxidation to CO{sub 2}, rarely appears in the homogeneous catalysis studies. Surface studies have shown that two types of metal centers with different functions result in more effective catalysts than a single metal; however, application of this concept to homogeneous systems has not been demonstrated. The major thrust of the work is to apply this insight …

These tests indicated that: (1) duration of exposure to bacterial strain CL0145A of Pseudomonas fluorescens is a key variable in obtaining zebra mussel mortality; (2) that given a choice of exposure periods up to 96 hr, the longer the exposure period, the higher the mean mortality that will be achieved; (3) that the first few hours that the mussels are exposed to the bacteria are the most important in achieving kill; (4) that the mortality achieved by exposure periods {>=}72 hr may be somewhat amplified by the degraded water quality conditions which can develop in recirculating water systems over such extended time periods.

The objective of the Advanced High-Temperature Reactor (AHTR) is to provide the very high temperatures necessary to enable low-cost (1) efficient thermochemical production of hydrogen and (2) efficient production of electricity. The proposed AHTR uses coated-particle graphite fuel similar to the fuel used in modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (MHTGRs), such as the General Atomics gas turbine-modular helium reactor (GT-MHR). However, unlike the MHTGRs, the AHTR uses a molten salt coolant with a pool configuration, similar to that of the PRISM liquid metal reactor. A multi-reheat helium Brayton (gas-turbine) cycle, with efficiencies >50%, is used to produce electricity. This approach (1) minimizes requirements for new technology development and (2) results in an advanced reactor concept that operates at essentially ambient pressures and at very high temperatures. The low-pressure molten-salt coolant, with its high heat capacity and natural circulation heat transfer capability, creates the potential for (1) exceptionally robust safety (including passive decay-heat removal) and (2) allows scaling to large reactor sizes [{approx}1000 Mw(e)] with passive safety systems to provide the potential for improved economics.

The overall objective of this project is to demonstrate that a development program based on advanced reservoir management methods can significantly improve oil recovery at the Nash Draw Pool (NDP). The plan includes developing a control area using standard reservoir management techniques and comparing its performance to an area developed using advanced reservoir management methods. Specific goals are (1) to demonstrate that an advanced development drilling and pressure maintenance program can significantly improve oil recovery compared to existing technology applications and (2) to transfer these advanced methodologies to oil and gas producers in the Permian Basin and elsewhere throughout the U.S. oil and gas industry.

On December 4, 1991, President George Bush signed into law the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA) to counter illicit drug production and trade in Latin America. For ten years, it has provided preferential, mostly duty-free, treatment of selected U.S. imports from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. The goal of ATPA is to encourage increased exports, thereby promoting development and providing an incentive for Andean farmers and other workers to pursue economic alternatives to the drug trade. This report discusses the ATPA, its background, and issues regarding its potential reauthorization.

Although the general environment of the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain is expected to be oxidizing in nature, the local chemistry within fuel canisters may be otherwise. The combination of low dissolved oxygen and corrosion of metallic fuels, such as Hanford's N-Reactor inventory, may produce reducing conditions. This condition may persist for periods sufficient to affect the corrosion and paragenesis of fuels and their reaction products. Starting in September 2001, unirradiated metallic uranium fuel was examined during batch tests under anoxic conditions. A series of tests carried out under inert atmosphere highlighted the rapid corrosion of the metallic uranium in EJ-13 water at 90 C. During the oxidation of the uranium, uranium dioxide fines spilled from the fuel surface generating copious amounts of colloids. The proportion of uranium-associated colloids accounted for nearly 50% to >99% of the uranium in solution after a brief period where no colloids were detected. The colloids were identified as individual (<10nm) and agglomerated uranium dioxide spheres as large as a few hundred nanometers in size. Silicate and alumino-silicate clays of diverse size and shape were also identified. The bulk size distribution as measured by dynamic light scattering was consistent with the microscopy observations in that …

Measurements of oxidation. These spectra are to the best of our knowledge the first reported in situ spectroscopic observation of homogeneous aqueous redox chemistry at temperatures beyond the critical temperature of waste. We also observed a time-dependence for the growth of the Cr(VI) XANES peak and have therefore obtained both kinetic information as well as structural information on the reactants and products at the reaction temperature. We feel that these new techniques, when employed on actual waste components will elucidate the underlying chemistry.

The principle objective of this project is to demonstrate the economic viability and widespread applicability of an innovative reservoir management and carbon dioxide (CO2) flood project development approach for improving CO2 flood project economics in shallow shelf carbonate (SSC) reservoirs.

The major mechanisms of radioactive material transport and fate in surface water are sources, dilution, advection and dispersion of radionuclides by flow and surface waves, radionuclide decay, and interaction between sediment and radionuclides. STREAM II, an aqueous transport module of the Savannah River Site emergency response WIND system, accounts for the source term, and the effects of dilution, advection and dispersion. Although the model has the capability to account for nuclear decay, due to the short time interval of interest for emergency response, the effect of nuclear decay is very small and so it is not employed. The interactions between the sediment and radionuclides are controlled by the flow conditions and physical and chemical characteristics of the radionuclides and the sediment constituents. The STREAM II version used in emergency response must provide results relatively quickly; it therefore does not model the effects of sediment deposition/resuspension. This study estimates the effects of sediment deposition/resuspension on aqueous plutonium transport in Fourmile Branch. There are no measured data on plutonium transport through surface water available for direct model calibration. Therefore, a literature search was conducted to find the range of plutonium partition coefficients based on laboratory experiments and field measurements. A sensitivity study …

This project was undertaken to understand fundamental aspects of carbon dioxide (CO2) induced asphaltene precipitation. Oil and asphaltene samples from the Rangely field in Colorado were used for most of the project. The project consisted of pure component and high-pressure, thermodynamic experiments, thermodynamic modeling, kinetic experiments and modeling, targeted corefloods and compositional modeling.

Objectives of this project was to understand asphaltene precipitation in General and carbon dioxide induced precipitation in particular. To this effect, thermodynamic and kinetic experiments with the Rangely crude oil were conducted and thermodynamic and reservoir models were developed.

This report provides background concerning various aspects of fuel ethanol, and a discussion of the current related policy issues.

This report provides background concerning various aspects of fuel ethanol, and a discussion of the current related policy issues

This report discusses the need for cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence agencies and for human intelligence (humint), the use of agents to gather information, to counter terrorism and the risks associated with humint.

Compact quasi-axisymmetric stellarators offer the possibility of combining the steady-state low-recirculating power, external control, and disruption resilience of previous stellarators with the low-aspect ratio, high beta-limit, and good confinement of advanced tokamaks. Quasi-axisymmetric equilibria have been developed for the proposed National Compact Stellarator Experiment (NCSX) with average aspect ratio approximately 4.4 and average elongation approximately 1.8. Even with bootstrap-current consistent profiles, they are passively stable to the ballooning, kink, vertical, Mercier, and neoclassical-tearing modes for b > 4%, without the need for external feedback or conducting walls. The bootstrap current generates only 1/4 of the magnetic rotational transform at b = 4% (the rest is from the coils). Transport simulations show adequate fast-ion confinement and thermal neoclassical transport similar to equivalent tokamaks. Modular coils have been designed which reproduce the physics properties, provide good flux surfaces, and allow flexible variation of the plasma shape to control the predicted MHD stability and transport properties.

The technical information required for the development of a basic steady-state process simulation of the vitrification treatment train of sodium bearing waste (SBW) at Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) is presented. The objective of the modeling effort is to provide the predictive capability required to optimize an entire treatment train and assess system-wide impacts of local changes at individual unit operations, with the aim of reducing the schedule and cost of future process/facility design efforts. All the information required a priori for engineers to construct and link unit operation modules in a commercial software simulator to represent the alternative treatment trains is presented. The information is of a mid- to high-level nature and consists of the following: (1) a description of twenty-four specific unit operations--their operating conditions and constraints, primary species and key outputs, and the initial modeling approaches that will be used in the first year of the simulation's development; (2) three potential configurations of the unit operations (trains) and their interdependencies via stream connections; and (3) representative stream compositional makeups.

The objective of the project is not just to commercially produce oil from the Pru Fee property, but rather to test which operational strategies best optimize total oil recovery at economically acceptable rates of production volumes and costs.

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STREAM II, an aqueous transport module of the Savannah River Site emergency response Weather INformation Display (WIND) system, accounts for the effects of dilution, advection and dispersion. Although the model has the capability to account for nuclear decay, due to the short time interval of interest for emergency response, the effect of nuclear decay is very small and so it is not employed. The interactions between the sediment and radionuclides are controlled by the flow conditions and physical and chemical characteristics of the radionuclides and the sediment constituents. The STREAM II-V2 used in emergency response does not model the effects of sediment deposition/resuspension to minimize computing time. The effects of sedimentation on cesium and plutonium transport in the Fourmile Branch were studied recently and the results from these studies indicated that the downstream cesium and plutonium peak concentrations were significantly reduced due to the effects of sedimentations. The STREAM II-V2 was upgraded to account for the effect of sedimentation on aqueous transport of cesium and plutonium released from H-Area.

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This is one report in the series of reports that discuss the campaign finance practices and related issues. Concerns over financing federal elections have become a seemingly perennial aspect of our political system, centered on the enduring issues of high campaign costs and reliance on interest groups for needed campaign funds. The report talks about the today’s paramount issues such as perceived loopholes in current law and the longstanding issues: overall costs, funding sources, and competition.

Isotopically enriched xenon isotopes are ideal for tracking the flow of relatively large volumes of groundwater. Dissolved noble gas tracers behave conservatively in the saturated zone, pose no health risk to drinking water supplies, and can be used with a large dynamic range. Different Xe isotopes can be used simultaneously at multiple recharge sources in a single experiment. Results from a tracer experiment at a California water district suggests that a small fraction of tracer moved from the recharge ponds through the thick, unconfined, coarse-grained alluvial aquifer to high capacity production wells at a horizontal velocity of 6 m/day. In contrast, mean water residence times indicate that the average rate of transport is 0.5 to 1 m/day.