Production of biomass by corn-like plantations has been demonstrated by a number of researchers. These forest analogs of agronomic cropping systems have the potential to yield substantially more biomass per unit area than traditional forests. Care is needed in choosing the appropriate sites, species, spacing, and harvesting strategies. Opportunities for increased yields have been suggested for fertilization and irrigation. Utilization of the biomass from these dense plantations for energy was the focus of this study. Although the amount of energy potential of the biomass is important, the energy output must be greater than the energy input for biomass to have a positive benefit to society. Further, in order to completely evaluate the net energy of the system it is necessary to examine the energy out-to-in ratios on the basis of usable energy (for example, usable heat, process steam and electricity), as well as all of the energies expended in producing, harvesting, transporting and processing the biomass. The objective of this study is to establish and analyze the energy inputs for selected management strategies in order to evaluate the sensitivity and variability of the energy inputs in the net energy analysis, and based on the net energy analysis to recommend a …

A versatile fallout model was developed to assess complex civil defense and military effect issues. Large technical and scenario uncertainties require a fast, adaptable, time-dependent model to obtain technically defensible fallout results in complex demographic scenarios. The KDFOC2 capability, coupled with other data bases, provides the essential tools to consider tradeoffs between various plans and features in different nuclear scenarios and estimate the technical uncertainties in the predictions. All available data were used to validate the model. In many ways, the capability is unmatched in its ability to predict fallout hazards to a society.

Progress has been made in the synthesis and characterization of new resins for sequestering inorganic and organic compounds. The capabilities of the poly(dithiocarbamate) resin have been extended, a new poly(acrylamidoxime) resin prepared and characterized, and a series of resins for organic compounds prepared and tested. Limited actual sample analyses have been performed with these resins. A new inductively coupled plasma source, spectrometer, and computer system have been received and they are undergoing tests and installation. With this system in place, the multielement analysis of metals during the forthcoming period will insure the application of sequestering resins to practical analysis of energy-related materials. An automated sample handling and data system has been designed, some components purchased, and construction is scheduled for 1980.

A combination of literature survey and independent analysis determined three relationships for the prediction of the critical (or minimum recoverable) particle size in a solid bowl centrifuge. The relationships were derived based on three different theories of fluid behavior within the centrifuge; (1) laminar film flow (laminar film model), (2) plug flow (Sharples Model), and parabolic flow (modified Sharples Model). The critical particle size for the centrifuge used in Cs-PTA recovery in the CAW process predicted by the three relationships range from 0.19 to 0.34 ..mu..m (1 ..mu..m = 10/sup -6/m). The laminar film model gives the most conservative estimate of critical particle size (0.34 ..mu..m) and the resulting relationship is recommended for use to predict solid bowl centrifuge performance. Three correction factors are incorporated into the predictive equations to account for the effects of fluid turbulence near the centrifuge feed point, fluid lag and hindered settling. Of these factors, turbulence near the feed point (which is accounted for by using an effective centrifuge length) has the greatest impact, increasing the predicted critical particle size by 15%, while the combination of fluid lag and hindered settling factors increase the recoverable particle size by 4%. The overall effect of the correction …

The purpose of this work is to demonstrate whether there is a cost benefit to Pacific Gas and Electric Company in replacing the present iron catalyst/caustic/peroxide system used in the direct contact condenser units with an alternative approach using surface condensers and the Stretford System for hydrogen sulfide abatement.

Geysers Power Plant Units 1-12 conceptual study of two H{sub 2}S abatement systems. The study is to provide a cost benefit and technical analysis of the existing (iron/caustic/peroxide) abatement system compared to retrofitting Units 1-12 with surface condensers and vent gases processing with the Stretford process. The study is based on the understanding that both H{sub 2}S abatement system compared meet the Air Pollution Board's requirements for H{sub 2}S emissions. The summary of this paper is that it is economical to convert from the existing abatement (iron/caustic/peroxide) to the alternative (surface condenser/Stretford) by a substantial amount. There is also a most economical timing sequence to accomplish the conversion to the surface condenser/Stretford abatement. The project if started immediately would be finished and operating by 1984. It is felt that the surface condenser/Stretford abatement system will ultimately meet the Air Pollution Board's requirements and improve the capacity factor of the Geysers power plant Units 1-12.

The bibliography contains 1067 citations from the literature of critical and near-critical nuclear experiments. It provides an up-to-date index to reports containing useful data for many types of criticality studies. Most of the reports can provide specifications for relatively simple critical configurations necessary for validating nuclear constants and calculational techniques. The reports of more than 1143 experimentors at 38 international facilities since 1943 are cross-referenced. The collection contains the prototypes of many different designs of nuclear reactors and studies performed to insure the safe use of fissile materials in chemical processing plants, storage facilities, and transportation containers. The bibliography has three volumes. Volume 1 contains the main listing of citations with abstracts. Volume 2 is a set of indexes organized by report number, publication date, experimental facility, and author name. Volume 3 provides a subject index, concorded on the significant keyphrases derived from titles, and an index of keyterms derived from titles, and an index of keyterms extracted from titles and abstracts. The bibliography was printed by computer as a selection from a computerized system at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory contaning information and data on criticality experiments.

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Abstracts (172) of basic and applied research of papers accepted for publication are presented. An author index is included. (PCS)

Comprehensive characterization work was performed on shales from Hardin County, Illinois (N-4). A total of 39 samples (19 for Battelle and 20 for other DOE contractors) were collected from this site. N-4 shales are basically characterized by complete absence of hydrocarbon gases and rather low organics (C-H) contents. In the absence of hydrocarbon gases, no meaningful correlations could be observed between the characterization data and potential productive capacity of the well.

Nuclear fuels should produce cheaper electricity than coal, considering their high specific energy and low cost. To exploit these properties, the scheme proposed here replaces the expensive reactor/steam-turbine system with an engine in which the expansion of a gas heated by a nuclear explosion raises a mass of liquid, thereby producing stored hydraulic energy. This energy could be converted to electricity by hydroelectric generation with water as the working fluid or by magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) generation with molten metal. A rough cost analysis suggests the hydroelectric system could reduce the present cost of electricity by two-thirds, and the MHD system by even more. Such cheap power would make feasible large-scale electrolysis to produce hydrogen and other fuels and chemical raw materials.

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The authors were asked to estimate the net employment gains in the geothermal industry from 1980 to 1985 and 1990. Method was by survey. Response rates were high, so the estimates here likely reflect industry knowledge and outlooks at the start of the most active construction decade of the U.S. geothermal industry. An untitled table following Table IV-1 is of great interest because it breaks out employment requirement estimates for different phases/aspects of project development, i.e., exploration and resource assessment, exploratory drilling, production drilling, power plant construction, feed system (field piping) construction, field operation and maintenance, power plant operation and maintenance, and transmission line construction. Estimates like these are rare in the U.S. geothermal literature. While these estimates are dated, they comprise an historical economic baseline from which improvements in labor use in the geothermal industry might be constructed. (DJE 2005)

Questions concerning the health effects and risks of exposure to ionizing radiations are presented and answered on a popular level. Definitions are given for various working terms. A defense is made of the radiation protection policies of Westinghouse Hanford Company. (ACR)

The overall test program includes pump assembly, installation, testing, removal from the test loop, disassembly and final inspection of the entire pump. Testing will include checkout tests, head/flow and efficiency characterizations at selected speeds and sodium temperatures, suction performance determination, a 2000 hour design point endurance test, a 300 hour off design endurance test, and thermal transient tests. The pump will be cleaned of sodium, disassembled, and examined before the 2000 hour endurance test and after the thermal transient tests to determine the effects that long-term operation at 200 percent NPSH margin and off design operation at the same flow and NPSH have on the pump components.

Weekly report of the Texas Crop and Livestock Reporting Service on turkey poult numbers in Texas and compared with other states. It includes compiled statistics across six consecutive weeks during two years for turkey eggs set and poults hatched.

The feasibility of using electrostatic space-charge fields to extract, accelerate, focus and bunch ions from a background plasma onto a pellet target is considered experimentally. The efficient extraction and acceleration of ions from a background plasma nearly to full anode potential is reported, and preliminary evidence of bunching and focussing is indicated. Methods are discussed for obtaining a stable plasma at low enough pressures to reduce the formation of doubly ionized helium and for improving the noise to signal ratio on the ion current probe. Present efforts to consistently reproduce a sufficiently dense background plasma so that time-of-flight data can be obtained are mentioned.

Congress has available a variety of statutory and non-statutory techniques, other than the "legislative veto," that have been used to overturn Federal agency rules, prevent their enforcement, limit their impact, or hinder their promulgation. This survey of the different statutory instruments of congressional control—direct overturn of rules, modification of agency jurisdiction, limitations in authorizing and appropriating statutes, requiring inter-agency consultation, and advance notification to the Congress—discusses a variety of mechanisms that vary in their use and their specificity, range of impact, and length of effect.

Tests have been performed to determine the corrosive nature of sea water on delta plutonium at 25/sup 0/C. Corrosion rates were determined by measuring the time dependence of mass loss at constant pressure and the time dependence of hydrogen evolution in a sealed vessel. Test coupons were completely immersed in a standard solution of synthetic sea water for periods ranging from 1 hour to 144 hours. Weight loss measurements show that delta plutonium corrodes at an average rate of 5.01 mg/(cm/sup 2/ hr) while hydrogen is formed at an average rate of 1.6 x 10/sup -5/ mol/(cm/sup 2/ hr). The corrosion process is a hydrolysis reaction that produces hydrated plutonium(IV) oxide and hydrogen. The reaction apparently occurs along the grain boundaries of the metal.