A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Oil leaks from aboveground tanks have contaminated soil and water, threatening human health and wildlife. To prevent damage from oil spills, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) rule in 1973. EPA's 10 regions inspect oil storage facilities to ensure compliance with the rule. EPA estimates that about 571,000 facilities are subject to this rule. Some states also regulate oil storage tanks. GAO determined (1) how EPA regions implement the SPCC program, (2) the data EPA has to implement and evaluate the program, and (3) whether some states' tank programs suggest ways for EPA to improve its program. GAO surveyed all 10 EPA regions and interviewed officials in EPA and six states selected on the basis of experts' recommendations, among other criteria."

This report considers the debate on the efficacy of U.S. efforts to stabilize Afghanistan. Moreover, the report discusses how the Bush Administration's review of the progress resulted as inadequate, and thus ways of changing progress are being considered. The report also discusses the NATO led troops in the region.

A report of an archaeological survey of the city of Weinert for the proposed modifications to the existing wastewater treatment plant.

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This report describes Reclamation's approach to managing aging infrastructure as well as that of two other agencies--- the Army Corps of Engineers and the natural Resources Conservative Service--- involved with significant portfolios of dams and related infrastructures.

This report contains background and an overview of the reauthorization issues of the coastal zone management.

This report provides a background on the comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban treaty and its current developments.

This is a Phase I report on a project to significantly enhance existing subsurface simulation software using leadership-class computing resources, allowing researchers to solve problems with greater speed and accuracy. Subsurface computer simulation is used for monitoring the behavior of contaminants around nuclear waste disposal and storage areas, groundwater flow, environmental remediation, carbon sequestration, methane hydrate production, and geothermal energy reservoir analysis. The Phase I project was a collaborative effort between Thunderhead Engineering (project lead and developers of a commercial pre- and post-processor for the TOUGH2 simulator) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (developers of the TOUGH2 simulator for subsurface flow). The Phase I project successfully identified the technical approaches to be implemented in Phase II.

This report contains the economic conditions and selected forecasts in the U.S. in 2008.

With the advancement in fine coal cleaning technology, recovery of fine coal (minus 28 mesh) has become an attractive route for the U.S. coal industry. The clean coal recovered using the advanced flotation technology i.e. column flotation, contains on average 20% solids and 80% water, with an average particle size of 35 microns. Fine coal slurry is usually dewatered using a vacuum dewatering technique, providing a material with about 25 to 30 percent moisture. The process developed in this project will improve dewatering of fine (0.6mm) coal slurry to less than 20 percent moisture. Thus, thermal drying of dewatered wet coal will be eliminated. This will provide significant energy savings for the coal industry along with some environmental benefits. A 1% increase in recovery of coal and producing a filter cake material of less than 20 % moisture will amount to energy savings of 1900 trillion Btu/yr/unit. In terms of the amount of coal it will be about 0.8% of the total coal being used in the USA for electric power generation. It is difficult to dewater the fine clean coal slurry to about 20% moisture level using the conventional dewatering techniques. The finer the particle, the larger the surface …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005, requires all full-power television stations in the United States to cease analog broadcasting by February 17, 2009, known as the digital television (DTV) transition. Prior to the transition date, the television broadcast industry must take a series of actions to ensure that over-the-air programming will continue to be available to television households once the transition is complete. For example, broadcast stations must obtain, install, and test the necessary equipment needed to finalize their digital facilities, and some stations will need to coordinate the movement of channels on the day the analog signal ceases transmission. This requested report examines (1) the status of broadcast stations in transitioning to digital, (2) the extent to which broadcast stations are encountering issues, and (3) the actions the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has taken to guide broadcasters in the digital transition. To address these issues, GAO conducted a Web-based survey of full-power television broadcast stations. GAO surveyed 1,682 stations and obtained completed questionnaires from 1,122 stations, for a response rate of 66.7 percent. GAO also reviewed legal, agency, and industry documents …

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Linde's Low Temperature Oxidation (LoTOx{trademark}) process has been demonstrated successfully to remove more than 90% of the NOx emitted from coal-fired boilers. Preliminary findings have shown that the LoTOx{trademark} process can be as effective for mercury emissions control as well. In the LoTOx{trademark} system, ozone is injected into a reaction duct, where NO and NO{sub 2} in the flue gas are selectively oxidized at relatively low temperatures and converted to higher nitrogen oxides, which are highly water soluble. Elemental mercury in the flue gas also reacts with ozone to form oxidized mercury, which unlike elemental mercury is water-soluble. Nitrogen oxides and oxidized mercury in the reaction duct and residual ozone, if any, are effectively removed in a wet scrubber. Thus, LoTOx{trademark} appears to be a viable technology for multi-pollutant emission control. To prove the feasibility of mercury oxidation with ozone in support of marketing LoTOx{trademark} for multi-pollutant emission control, Linde has performed a series of bench-scale tests with simulated flue gas streams. However, in order to enable Linde to evaluate the performance of the process with a flue gas stream that is more representative of a coal-fired boiler; one of Linde's bench-scale LoTOx{trademark} units was installed at WRI's combustion test …

This final technical report describes work performed for the project 'Experimental Investigation and High Resolution Numerical Simulator of In-Situ Combustion Processes', DE-FC26-03NT15405. In summary, this work improved our understanding of in-situ combustion (ISC) process physics and oil recovery. This understanding was translated into improved conceptual models and a suite of software algorithms that extended predictive capabilities. We pursued experimental, theoretical, and numerical tasks during the performance period. The specific project objectives were (i) identification, experimentally, of chemical additives/injectants that improve combustion performance and delineation of the physics of improved performance, (ii) establishment of a benchmark one-dimensional, experimental data set for verification of in-situ combustion dynamics computed by simulators, (iii) develop improved numerical methods that can be used to describe in-situ combustion more accurately, and (iv) to lay the underpinnings of a highly efficient, 3D, in-situ combustion simulator using adaptive mesh refinement techniques and parallelization. We believe that project goals were met and exceeded as discussed.

In this project, one of our goals is to develop atmospheric models, in which innovative ideas on improving the quality of moisture predictions can be tested. Our other goal is to develop an explicit time integration scheme based on the multi-point differencing (MED) that does the same job as an implicit trapezoidal scheme but uses information only from limited number of grid points. Below we discuss the work performed at UCLA toward these goals during the funding period indicated above.

The main objective of this DOE project is to demonstrate that the performance and long-term stability of the state-of-the-art LSCF cathode can be enhanced by a catalytically active coating (e.g., LSM or SSC). We have successfully developed a methodology for reliably evaluating the intrinsic surface catalytic properties of cathode materials. One of the key components of the test cell is a dense LSCF film, which will function as the current collector for the electrode material under evaluation to eliminate the effect of ionic and electronic transport. Since it is dense, the effect of geometry would be eliminated as well. From the dependence of the electrode polarization resistance on the thickness of a dense LSCF electrode and on partial pressure of oxygen, we have confirmed that the surface catalytic activity of LSCF limits the performances of LSCF-based cathodes. Further, we have demonstrated, using test cells of different configurations, that the performance of LSCF-based electrodes can be significantly enhanced by infiltration of a thin film of LSM or SSC. In addition, the stability of LSCF-based cathodes was also improved by infiltration of LSM or SSC. While the concept feasibility of the electrode architecture is demonstrated, many details are yet to be determined. …

In 2006 the gundrilling oil used at Honeywell FM&T (Federal Manufacturing and Technology) was known as 50-50. This name was selected because the oil is a mixture of two machining oils, Milpro 634 and Pennex N47. Unfortunately, Honeywell FM&T was notified that one component, Pennex N47, would be discontinued by the manufacturer. At this point the Honeywell FM&T team decided to select a single oil to eliminate mixing and procurement of two products. In addition, the team also wanted to select new oil with lower viscosity than the 50-50 mixture. Lower (than 50-50) viscosity oil was recommended by Nagel the manufacturer of the new TBT gundrilling machines. To this end Honeywell FM&T evaluated seven cutting oils in order to select a substitute that would achieve acceptable gundrilling results. This work resulted in the selection of Castrol Ilocut 334 based on cutting performance and human factors. The Castrol oil can easily achieve up to 8 holes per drill at a feed rate 30% greater than that achieved by the 50-50 oil. Once design agency approval is received, this oil will be installed as the drilling oil for all FM&T stems. This oil will also be used for other reservoir machining operations …

This report provides the status and developments of the Hague convention on intercountry adoption.

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This report discusses FY2008 appropriations bill, H.R. 2764, providing $485 billion in regular FY2008 appropriations for most agencies of the government.

Soot formation and abatement processes are some of the most important and challenging problems in hydrocarbon combustion. The key reactions involved in the formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH’s), the precursors to soot, remain elusive. Small aromatic species such as C5H5, C6H6 and their derivatives are believed to play a pivotal role in incipient soot formation. The goal of this project is to establish a kinetic database for elementary reactions relevant to soot formation in its incipient stages. In the past year, we have completed by CRDS the kinetics for the formation and decomposition of C6H5C2H2O2 in the C6H5C2H2 +O2 reaction and the formation of C10H7O2 in the C10H7 + O2 reaction by directly monitoring C6H5C2H2O2 and C10H7O2 radicals in the visible region; their mechanisms have been elucidated computationally by quantum-chemical calculations. The O + C2H5OH reaction has been studied experimentally and computationally and the OH + HNCN reaction has been investigated by ab initio molecular orbital calculation. In addition, a new pulsed slit molecular beam system has been constructed and tested for spectroscopic studies of aromatic radicals and their derivatives by the cavity ringdown technique (CRDS).

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR) has developed an innovative gasifier concept that uses rocket engine experience to significantly improve gasifier performance, life, and cost compared to current state-of-the-art systems. The PWR gasifier concept uses a compact and highly efficient (>50%) dry solids pump that has excellent availability (>99.5%). PWR is currently developing this dry solids pump under a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) cooperative agreement. The conceptual design on two dry solids pumps were completed under this agreement and one pump concept was selected for preliminary design. A preliminary design review (PDR) of the selected pump was presented on September 20, 2007 to PWR management and numerous technical specialists. Feedback from the PDR review team has been factored into the design and a Delta-PDR was held on April 9, 2008.

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