Nanomaterials and nanotechnology methods have been an integral part of international research over the past decade. Because many traditional water treatment technologies (e.g. membrane filtration, biofouling, scale inhibition, etc.) depend on nanoscale processes, it is reasonable to expect one outcome of nanotechnology research to be better, nano-engineered water treatment approaches. The most immediate, and possibly greatest, impact of nanotechnology on desalination methods will likely be the development of membranes engineered at the near-molecular level. Aquaporin proteins that channel water across cell membranes with very low energy inputs point to the potential for dramatically improved performance. Aquaporin-laced polymer membranes and aquaporin-mimicking carbon nanotubes and metal oxide membranes developed in the lab support this. A critical limitation to widespread use of nanoengineered desalination membranes will be their scalability to industrial fabrication processes. Subsequent, long-term improvements in nanoengineered membranes may result in self-healing membranes that ideally are (1) more resistant to biofouling, (2) have biocidal properties, and/or (3) selectively target trace contaminants.

The E-Area Low-Level Waste Facility (ELLWF) consists of a number of disposal units described in the Performance Assessment (PA)(WSRC, 2008b) and Composite Analysis (CA)(WSRC, 1997; WSRC, 1999): Low-Activity Waste (LAW) Vault, Intermediate Level (IL) Vault, Trenches (Slit Trenches [STs], Engineered Trenches [ETs], and Component-in-Grout [CIG] Trenches), and Naval Reactor Component Disposal Areas (NRCDAs). This annual review evaluates the adequacy of the approved 2008 ELLWF PA along with the Special Analyses (SAs) approved since the PA was issued. The review also verifies that the Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 low-level waste (LLW) disposal operations were conducted within the bounds of the PA/SA baseline, the Savannah River Site (SRS) CA, and the Department of Energy (DOE) Disposal Authorization Statement (DAS). Important factors considered in this review include waste receipts, results from monitoring and research and development (R&D) programs, and the adequacy of controls derived from the PA/SA baseline. Sections 1.0 and 2.0 of this review are a summary of the adequacy of the PA/SA and CA, respectively. An evaluation of the FY2010 waste receipts and the resultant impact on the ELLWF is summarized in Section 3.1. The results of the monitoring program, R&D program, and other relevant factors are found in Section 3.2, …

Pursuant to the Mercury Export Ban Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-414), DOE was directed to designate a facility or facilities for the long-term management and storage of elemental mercury generated within the United States. Therefore, DOE has analyzed the storage of up to 10,000 metric tons (11,000 tons) of elemental mercury in a facility(ies) constructed and operated in accordance with the Solid Waste Disposal Act, as amended by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (74 FR 31723). DOE prepared this Final Mercury Storage EIS in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), as amended (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.), the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) implementing regulations (40 CFR 1500–1508), and DOE’s NEPA implementing procedures (10 CFR 1021) to evaluate reasonable alternatives for a facility(ies) for the long-term management and storage of elemental mercury. This Final Mercury Storage EIS analyzes the potential environmental, human health, and socioeconomic impacts of elemental mercury storage at seven candidate locations: Grand Junction Disposal Site near Grand Junction, Colorado; Hanford Site near Richland, Washington; Hawthorne Army Depot near Hawthorne, Nevada; Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls, Idaho; Kansas City Plant in Kansas City, Missouri; Savannah River Site near Aiken, South Carolina; and …

In order to keep the electricity grid stable and the lights on, the power system relies on certain responses from its generating fleet. This presentation evaluates the potential for wind turbines and wind power plants to provide these services and assist the grid during critical times.

Presents how to create effective community weatherization assistance programs to foster sustainable behavior.

Experimental evidence has established that neutrino flavor states evolve over time. A neutrino of a particular flavor that travels some distance can be detected in a different neutrino flavor state. The Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS) is a long-baseline experiment that is designed to study this phenomenon, called neutrino oscillations. MINOS is based at Fermilab near Chicago, IL, and consists of two detectors: the Near Detector located at Fermilab, and the Far Detector, which is located in an old iron mine in Soudan, MN. Both detectors are exposed to a beam of muon neutrinos from the NuMI beamline, and MINOS measures the fraction of muon neutrinos that disappear after traveling the 734 km between the two detectors. One can measure the atmospheric neutrino mass splitting and mixing angle by observing the energy-dependence of this muon neutrino disappearance. MINOS has made several prior measurements of these parameters. Here I describe recently-developed techniques used to enhance our sensitivity to the oscillation parameters, and I present the results obtained when they are applied to a dataset that is twice as large as has been previously analyzed. We measure the mass splitting {Delta}m{sub 23}{sup 2} = (2.32{sub -0.08}{sup +0.12}) x 10{sup -3} eV{sup …

The study of neutrino oscillations has necessitated a new generation of neutrino experiments that are exploring neutrino-nuclear scattering processes. We focus in particular on charged-current quasi-elastic scattering, a particularly important channel that has been extensively investigated both in the bubble-chamber era and by current experiments. Recent results have led to theoretical reexamination of this process. We review the standard picture of quasi-elastic scattering as developed in electron scattering, review and discuss experimental results, and discuss additional nuclear effects such as exchange currents and short-range correlations that may play a significant role in neutrino-nucleus scattering.

This thesis describes a search for a new hadronic resonance in 3.2 fb{sup -1} of data using the Collider Detector at Fermilab. The Fermilab Tevatron accelerator collides beams of protons and antiprotons at a center of mass energy of {radical}s = 1.96 TeV. A unique approach is presented to extract multijet resonances from the large QCD background. Although the search is model independent, a pair produced supersymmetric gluino decaying through R-parity violation into three partons each is used to test our sensitivity to new physics. We measure these partons as jets, and require a minimum of six jets in an event. We make use of the kinematic features and correlations and use an ensemble of jet combinations to distinguish signal from multijet QCD backgrounds. Our background estimates also include all-hadronic t{bar t} decays that have a signature similar to signal. We observe no significant excess in an invariant mass range of 77 GeV/c{sup 2} to 240 GeV/c{sup 2} and place 95% C.L. limits on {sigma}(p{bar p} {yields} {tilde g}{tilde g} {yields} 3jets + 3jets) as a function of gluino invariant mass.

The AGR-1 irradiation experiment ended on November 6, 2009, after 620 effective full power days in the Advanced Test Reactor, achieving a peak burnup of 19.6% FIMA. The test train was shipped to the Materials and Fuels Complex in March 2010 for post-irradiation examination. The first PIE activities included non-destructive examination of the test train, followed by disassembly of the test train and individual capsules and detailed inspection of the capsule contents, including the fuel compacts and the graphite fuel holders. Dimensional measurements of the compacts, graphite holders, and steel capsules shells were performed using a custom vision measurement system (for outer diameters and lengths) and conventional bore gauges (for inner diameters). Gamma spectrometry of the intact test train gave a preliminary look at the condition of the interior components. No evidence of damage to compacts or graphite components was evident from the isotopic and gross gamma scans. Neutron radiography of the intact Capsule 2 showed a high degree of detail of interior components and confirmed the observation that there was no major damage to the capsule. Disassembly of the capsules was initiated using procedures qualified during out-of-cell mockup testing. Difficulties were encountered during capsule disassembly due to irradiation-induced changes …

This report summarizes FY10 accomplishments of the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) Engineering Process Heat Applications group in support of hydrogen production technology development. This organization is responsible for systems needed to transfer high temperature heat from a high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) reactor (being developed by the INL NGNP Project) to electric power generation and to potential industrial applications including the production of hydrogen.

We present a new measurement of the inclusive forward-backward t{bar t} production asymmetry and its rapidity and mass dependence. The measurements are performed with data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.3 fb{sup -1} of p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV, recorded with the CDF II Detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. Significant inclusive asymmetries are observed in both the laboratory frame and the t{bar t} rest frame, and in both cases are found to be consistent with CP conservation under interchange of t and {bar t}. In the t{bar t} rest frame, the asymmetry is observed to increase with the t{bar t} rapidity difference, {Delta}y, and with the invariant mass M{sub t{bar t}} of the t{bar t} system. Fully corrected parton-level asymmetries are derived in two regions of each variable, and the asymmetry is found to be most significant at large {Delta}y and M{sub t{bar t}}. For M{sub t{bar t}} {ge} 450 GeV/c{sup 2}, the parton-level asymmetry in the t{bar t} rest frame is A{sup t{bar t}} = 0.475 {+-} 0.114 compared to a next-to-leading order QCD prediction of 0.088 {+-} 0.013.

We present recent CDF results on the properties of hadrons containing heavy quarks. These include measurements of charm and {Sigma}{sub b}{sup -}{Sigma}*{sub b}{sup -} baryon's masses, lifetimes and masses of {Omega}{sub b}{sup -}, {Xi}{sub b}{sup -} and B{sub c}{sup -} and a measurement of exclusive B{sup +}, B{sup 0} and {Lambda}{sub b} lifetimes as well as lifetime ratios (charge conjugate modes are implied throughout the text). We also summarize new measurements of exotic particles X(3872) and Y(4140).

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Building on the legacy of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-I and II), SDSS-III is a program of four spectroscopic surveys on three scientific themes: dark energy and cosmological parameters, the history and structure of the Milky Way, and the population of giant planets around other stars. The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) will measure redshifts of 1.5 million massive galaxies and Ly{alpha} forest spectra of 150,000 quasars, using the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature of large scale structure to obtain percent-level determinations of the distance scale and Hubble expansion rate at z < 0.7 and at z {approx} 2.5. SEGUE-2, a now-completed continuation of the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration, measured medium-resolution (R = {lambda}/{Delta}{lambda} 1800) optical spectra of 118,000 stars in a variety of target categories, probing chemical evolution, stellar kinematics and substructure, and the mass profile of the dark matter halo from the solar neighborhood to distances of 100 kpc. APOGEE, the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment, will obtain high-resolution (R {approx} 30,000), high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N {ge} 100 per resolution element), H-band (1.51 {micro}m < {lambda} < 1.70 {micro}m) spectra of 10{sup 5} evolved, late-type stars, measuring separate abundances for {approx} 15 elements …

Since understanding and quantifying cosmic ray induced radioactive backgrounds in copper and germanium are important to the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, methods are needed for monitoring the levels of such backgrounds produced in materials being transported and processed for the experiment. This report focuses on work conducted at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to develop a muon witness system as a one way of monitoring induced activities. The operational goal of this apparatus is to characterize cosmic ray exposure of materials. The cosmic ray flux at the Earth’s surface is composed of several types of particles, including neutrons, muons, gamma rays and protons. These particles induce nuclear reactions, generating isotopes that contribute to the radiological background. Underground, the main mechanism of activation is by muon produced spallation neutrons since the hadron component of cosmic rays is removed at depths greater than a few tens of meters. This is a sub-dominant contributor above ground, but muons become predominant in underground experiments. For low-background experiments cosmogenic production of certain isotopes, such as 68Ge and 60Co, must be accounted for in the background budgets. Muons act as minimum ionizing particles, depositing a fixed amount of energy per unit length in a material, and have a very …

We report on the development of the vertex detector pixel readout chips based on multi-tier vertically integrated electronics for the International Linear Collider. Some testing results of the VIP2a prototype are presented. The chip is the second iteration of the silicon implementation of the prototype, data-pushed concept of the readout developed at Fermilab. The device was fabricated in the 3D MIT-LL 0.15 {micro}m fully depleted SOI process. The prototype is a three-tier design, featuring 30 x 30 {micro}m{sup 2} pixels, laid out in an array of 48 x 48 pixels.

Concentrated purchasing patterns of plug-in vehicles may result in localized distribution transformer overload scenarios. Prolonged periods of transformer overloading causes service life decrements, and in worst-case scenarios, results in tripped thermal relays and residential service outages. This analysis will review distribution transformer load models developed in the IEC 60076 standard, and apply the model to a neighborhood with plug-in hybrids. Residential distribution transformers are sized such that night-time cooling provides thermal recovery from heavy load conditions during the daytime utility peak. It is expected that PHEVs will primarily be charged at night in a residential setting. If not managed properly, some distribution transformers could become overloaded, leading to a reduction in transformer life expectancy, thus increasing costs to utilities and consumers. A Monte-Carlo scheme simulated each day of the year, evaluating 100 load scenarios as it swept through the following variables: number of vehicle per transformer, transformer size, and charging rate. A general method for determining expected transformer aging rate will be developed, based on the energy needs of plug-in vehicles loading a residential transformer.

Recent measurements of the D0 experiment related to the search for new phenomena beyond the Standard Model are reviewed. The new measurement of the like-sign dimuon charge asymmetry reveals a 3.2{sigma} deviation from the SM prediction, while the updated study of the B{sub s} {yields} J/{psi}{phi} decay demonstrates a better agreement with the SM. All experimental results on the CP violation in mixing are currently consistent with each other. The D0 collaboration has much more statistics to analyze, and all these results can be significantly improved in the future.

An ideal red phosphor for blue LEDs is one of the biggest challenges for the solid-state lighting industry. The appropriate phosphor material should have good adsorption and emission properties, good thermal and chemical stability, minimal thermal quenching, high quantum yield, and is preferably inexpensive and easy to fabricate. Tantalates possess many of these criteria, and lithium lanthanum tantalate materials warrant thorough investigation. In this study, we investigated red luminescence of two lithium lanthanum tantalates via three mechanisms: (1) Eu-doping, (2) Mn-doping and (3) self-activation of the tantalum polyhedra. Of these three mechanisms, Mn-doping proved to be the most promising. These materials exhibit two very broad adsorption peaks; one in the UV and one in the blue region of the spectrum; both can be exploited in LED applications. Furthermore, Mn-doping can be accomplished in two ways; ion-exchange and direct solid-state synthesis. One of the two lithium lanthanum tantalate phases investigated proved to be a superior host for Mn-luminescence, suggesting the crystal chemistry of the host lattice is important.

Representative accident source terms patterned after the NUREG-1465 Source Term have been developed for high burnup fuel in BWRs and PWRs and for MOX fuel in a PWR with an ice-condenser containment. These source terms have been derived using nonparametric order statistics to develop distributions for the timing of radionuclide release during four accident phases and for release fractions of nine chemical classes of radionuclides as calculated with the MELCOR 1.8.5 accident analysis computer code. The accident phases are those defined in the NUREG-1465 Source Term - gap release, in-vessel release, ex-vessel release, and late in-vessel release. Important differences among the accident source terms derived here and the NUREG-1465 Source Term are not attributable to either fuel burnup or use of MOX fuel. Rather, differences among the source terms are due predominantly to improved understanding of the physics of core meltdown accidents. Heat losses from the degrading reactor core prolong the process of in-vessel release of radionuclides. Improved understanding of the chemistries of tellurium and cesium under reactor accidents changes the predicted behavior characteristics of these radioactive elements relative to what was assumed in the derivation of the NUREG-1465 Source Term. An additional radionuclide chemical class has been defined to …

The dCache disk caching file system has been chosen by a majority of LHC experiments Tier 1 centers for their data storage needs. It is also deployed at many Tier 2 centers. The Storage Resource Manager (SRM) is a standardized grid storage interface and a single point of remote entry into dCache, and hence is a critical component. SRM must scale to increasing transaction rates and remain resilient against changing usage patterns. The initial implementation of the SRM service in dCache suffered from an inability to support clustered deployment, and its performance was limited by the hardware of a single node. Using the Terracotta platform, we added the ability to horizontally scale the dCache SRM service to run on multiple nodes in a cluster configuration, coupled with network load balancing. This gives site administrators the ability to increase the performance and reliability of SRM service to face the ever-increasing requirements of LHC data handling. In this paper we will describe the previous limitations of the architecture SRM server and how the Terracotta platform allowed us to readily convert single node service into a highly scalable clustered application.

The Hydrogen Technologies and Systems Center (HTSC) at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) uses a systems engineering and integration approach to hydrogen research and development to help the United States make the transition to a new energy future - a future built on diverse and abundant domestic renewable resources and integrated hydrogen systems. Research focuses on renewable hydrogen production, delivery, and storage; fuel cells and fuel cell manufacturing; technology validation; safety, codes, and standards; analysis; education; and market transformation. Hydrogen can be used in fuel cells to power vehicles and to provide electricity and heat for homes and offices. This flexibility, combined with our increasing demand for energy, opens the door for hydrogen power systems. HTSC collaborates with DOE, other government agencies, industry, communities, universities, national laboratories, and other stakeholders to promote a clean and secure energy future.

This report summarizes the data obtained in a 12-month comparison of three gasoline hybrid electric delivery vehicles with three comparable diesel vehicles. The data show that there was no statistical difference between operating cost per mile of the two groups of vehicles. As expected, tailpipe emissions were considerably lower across all drive cycles for the gHEV than for the diesel vehicle.

Computer-aided engineering (CAE) is a proven pathway, especially in the automotive industry, to improve performance by resolving the relevant physics in complex systems, shortening the product development design cycle, thus reducing cost, and providing an efficient way to evaluate parameters for robust designs. Academic models include the relevant physics details, but neglect engineering complexities. Industry models include the relevant macroscopic geometry and system conditions, but simplify the fundamental physics too much. Most of the CAE battery tools for in-house use are custom model codes and require expert users. There is a need to make these battery modeling and design tools more accessible to end users such as battery developers, pack integrators, and vehicle makers. Developing integrated and physics-based CAE battery tools can reduce the design, build, test, break, re-design, re-build, and re-test cycle and help lower costs. NREL has been involved in developing various models to predict the thermal and electrochemical performance of large-format cells and has used in commercial three-dimensional finite-element analysis and computational fluid dynamics to study battery pack thermal issues. These NREL cell and pack design tools can be integrated to help support the automotive industry and to accelerate battery design.