This publication provides monthly statistics at the national, Census division, and State levels for net generation, fuel consumption, fuel stocks, quantity and quality of fuel, cost of fuel, electricity sales, revenue, and average revenue per kilowatthour of electricity sold. Data on net generation, fuel consumption, fuel stocks, quantity and cost of fuel are also displayed at the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) region level. Additionally, statistics at the company and plant level are published in the EPM on capability of new plants, net generation, fuel consumption, fuel stocks, quantity and quality of fuel, and cost of fuel. 4 figs., 63 tabs.

An accurate Mark I /sup 1///sub 5/-scale, boiling water reactor (BWR), pressure suppression facility was designed and constructed at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (LLL) in 11 months. Twenty-seven air tests using the facility are described. Cost was minimized by utilizing equipment borrowed from other LLL programs. The total value of borrowed equipment exceeded the program's budget of $2,020,000. Substantial flexibility in the facility was used to permit independent variation in the drywell pressure-time history, initial pressure in the drywell and toroidal wetwells, initial toroidal wetwell water level and downcomer length, vent line flow resistance, and vent line flow asymmetry. The two- and three-dimensional sectors of the toroidal wetwell provided significant data.

The objective of the proposed work is to demonstrate the operational and economic feasibility of using high-temperature ceramic filters for particulate control in a variety of coal gasification power generating systems.

A valve for damping out flow surges in a vacuum system is described. The surge-damping mechanism consists of a slotted, spring-loaded disk adjacent to the valve's vacuum port (the flow passage to the vacuum roughing pump). Under flow surge conditions, the differential pressure forces the disk into a sealing engagement with the vacuum port, thereby restricting the gas flow path to narrow slots in the disk's periphery. The increased flow damps out the flow surge. When pressure is equalized on both sides of the valve, the spring load moves the disk away from the port to restore full flow conductance through the valve.

Continuous dissolution of Zircaloy-2 in a titanium dissolver appears practical using as a dissolvent refluxing 3 M HNO/sub 2/-l.2 M HF--0.4 M HBF/sub 4/-0.6 M Cr(III)-0.4 M Cr(VI)--0.46 M Zr. Dissolution and corrosion rates were 10 mg/cm/sub 2/-min and 0.0 mil/mo in short term tests, respectively. A stable product solution containing 0.36 M Zr was obtained after addition of aluminum nitrate to complex fluoride ion. Another reagent investigated for use in continuous dissolution was 16 M HNO/sub 3/-2.6 M F-0.025 M HBF/sub 4/-1.4 M Zr with short term titanium corrosion rates of 0.0 mil/mo. However, Zircaloy-2 dissolution rates were only 3 mg/cm/sup 2/-min in the latter reagent. (auth)

This report provides background information on funding gaps since FY 1977, and it discusses the general practice of the federal government when a funding gap occurs.

This report examines the DHS contingency plan and the potential impacts of a lapse in annual appropriations on DHS operations, focusing primarily on the emergency furlough of personnel, and then discusses seven legislative vehicles that have mitigated or have the potential to mitigate those same impacts.

This report analyzes U.S. and international sanctions against Iran and provides examples of companies and countries that conduct business with Iran, based on a wide range of open-source reporting.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2000, federal agencies estimated they saved at least $900 million annually through data sharing initiatives. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) can use data from taxpayers and third parties to better ensure taxpayers meet their obligations. Likewise, Congress has authorized certain agencies access to taxpayer information collected by IRS to better determine benefit eligibility. In July 2004, we reported that data sharing between IRS and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has the potential to improve tax compliance as well as immigration eligibility decisions (GAO-04-972T). For this report, GAO determined (1) the potential benefits of data matching, and (2) the options and associated challenges."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Women aged 65 and over will account for a growing segment of the U.S. population over the next several decades. Despite increases in women's workforce behavior in the past 65 years, elderly women have persistently high rates of poverty. Thus, it is important to understand the differences between men's and women's retirement income, and how women may fare given future reforms to Social Security and pensions. GAO was asked to examine (1) how women's retirement income compares with men's and the reasons for differences; (2) how certain life events such as divorce, widowhood, and workforce interruptions affect women's retirement income; and (3) the possible effect on women's retirement income of certain changes to Social Security and pensions that seek to mitigate the effects of differences in workforce participation patterns. To address these objectives, GAO reviewed the relevant literature, interviewed academics and other retirement experts, and used a microsimulation model to project future retirement income. GAO provided a draft of this report to the departments of Labor and Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Social Security Administration. Cognizant agency officials provided technical comments which were incorporated …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) maintains a consolidated watch list of known or appropriately suspected terrorists and sends records from the list to agencies to support terrorism-related screening. Because the list is an important tool for combating terrorism, GAO examined (1) standards for including individuals on the list, (2) the outcomes of encounters with individuals on the list, (3) potential vulnerabilities and efforts to address them, and (4) actions taken to promote effective terrorism-related screening. To conduct this work, GAO reviewed documentation obtained from and interviewed officials at TSC, the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center, the Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies that perform terrorism-related screening."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO tested the effectiveness of general and application controls that support the Army Corps of Engineers' key financial system. This system processes military engineering, construction, and real estate projects and civil works projects involving the investigation, development, and maintenance of the nation's waters and related environmental resources. GAO found pervasive weaknesses in computer controls at the Corps' data processing centers. Other Corps sites revealed serious vulnerabilities that would allow both hackers and legitimate users with valid access privileges to improperly modify, inappropriately disclose, or destroy sensitive and financial data, including social security numbers and other personal information. These weaknesses undermine the Corps' ability to ensure the confidentiality and availability of data in the financial system."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense's (DOD) Logistics Strategic Plan is not comprehensive enough and does not provide an adequate overall logistics strategy to effectively guide the defense components' logistics plans. The military services, the Defense Logistics Agency, and the U.S. Transportation Command each developed separate logistics transformation and other implementation plans to support the Department-wide Logistics Strategic Plan. However, these plans also have weaknesses and are not likely to improve the overall economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of logistics activities."

A linear-induction-motor drive system to position machine tool slides has been developed on a test bed that utilizes an air-bearing slide, laser interferometer feedback, and a microprocessor-based servo system. Static and dynamic positioning accuracies of +-16 nm (+-0.6 ..mu..in) have been demonstrated.

In the course of a rather cursory examination of the elution of tetra-positive ions from the cation exchange resin Dowex 50 with hydrochloric acid solutions, the authors have discovered a very effective method of separating zirconium from hafnimu. In view of the great labor involved in preparing even reasonably pure hafnium compounds by existing methods, they feel that this procedure will prove very valuable to those interested in obtaining hafnium compounds free of zirconium. Although the conditions which give satisfactory separation were first worked out using microgram amounts of material and the radioactive tracer technique, the run described here, involving milligrams of material, illustrates the applicability of the method to the production of significant amounts of pure hafnium and zirconium.

The energy use in America's commercial and residential building sectors is large and growing. Over 38 quadrillion Btus (Quads) of primary energy were consumed in 2002, representing 39% of total U.S. energy consumption. While the energy use in buildings is expected to grow to 52 Quads by 2025, a large number of energy-related technologies exist that could curtail this increase. In recent years, improvements in such items as high efficiency refrigerators, compact fluorescent lights, high-SEER air conditioners, and improved building shells have all contributed to reducing energy use. Hundreds of other technology improvements have and will continue to improve the energy use in buildings. While many technologies are well understood and are gradually penetrating the market, more advanced technologies will be introduced in the future. The pace and extent of these advances can be improved through state and federal R&D. This report focuses on the long-term potential for energy-efficiency improvement in buildings. Five promising technologies have been selected for description to give an idea of the wide range of possibilities. They address the major areas of energy use in buildings: space conditioning (33% of building use), water heating (9%), and lighting (16%). Besides describing energy-using technologies (solid-state lighting and geothermal …

The LHC Interaction Region Quadrupoles (IRQ) will be shipped from Fermilab to CERN. The IRQ magnets are supported by glass fiber supports. A prototype cryostat support has been tested under various mechanical forces in order to check its mechanical behavior. These measurements have been made in order to validate a numerical model. A large range of mechanical loads simulates loads due to the shipment of the device, the weight of the cold mass as well as the cool down conditions. Its mechanical properties are measured by means of a dedicated arrangement operating at room temperature. This study appears to be essential to optimize the design of the support. The purpose of this note is to summarize the first measurements related to mechanical tests performed with the support.

From abstract: "Critical assembly tests have been made on the Pajarito Universal Machine to determine the safety limits of handstacking cubes of 95% U-235 in spherical geometries preparatory to making critical assemblies of U-235 in an "infinite" tuballoy tamper. The U-235 cubes were stacked as pseudospheres in a cavity at the top of a tuballoy block 12" high and 8" on a side, and the assembly tamped by locating it inside a doughnut shaped water tank whose tamping effect is equivalent to the tamping caused by personnel necessary for hand stacking."

A comprehensive safety analysis was performed on the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Heavy Element Facility, Building 251. The purpose of the analysis was to evaluate the building and its operations in order to inform LLNL and the Department of Energy of the risks they assume at Building 251. This was done by examining all of the energy sources and matching them with the physical and administrative barriers that control, prevent, or mitigate their hazards. Risk was evaluated for each source under both normal and catastrophic circumstances such as fire, flood, high wind, lighting, earthquake, and criticality. No significant safety deficiencies were found; it is concluded that the operation of the facility presents no unacceptable risk.

This report describes recent progress in a fundamental, three-year investigation of carbon formation and its effects on the activity and selectivity of promoted iron catalysts for Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis, the objectives of which are: determine rates and mechanisms of carbon deactivation of unsupported Fe and Fe/K catalysts during CO hydrogenation over a range of CO concentrations, CO:H{sub 2} ratios, and temperatures; model the rates of deactivation of the same catalysts in fixed-bed reactors. During the thirteenth quarter design of software for a computer-automated reactor system to be used in the kinetic and deactivation studies was continued. Further progress was made toward the completion of the control language, control routines, and software for operating this system. Progress was also made on the testing of the system hardware and software. H{sub 2} chemisorption capacities and activity selectivity data were also measured for three iron catalysts promoted with 1% alumina. 47 refs., 8 figs., 1 tab.

When Fermilab was designed in the late 1960's and early 1970's, it was anticipated that Neutrino target train servicing could be costly in terms of personnel radiation exposure. This was based in part on the expectation that target intensities of at least 1E13 protons/pulse would be required to produce several neutrino interactions in a large bubble chamber detector. This was indeed later proven to be the case and historically the Neutrino beamline has been targeted with about one half of the protons available from the Main Ring. It was believed that much of the occupational radiation dose from the Neutrino Area could be spared by utilization of a remote manipulator system, which was eventually installed. It is the purpose of this report to examine the use of the Fermilab remote manipulator system and evaluate its cost effectiveness and success as an ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) tool. 16 references, 11 figures.

The Fifth International Symposium in Resonance Ionization Spectroscopy and Its Applications was attended. The Joint Research Centre of the European Communities at Ispra, Italy was also visited. The traveler presented an invited talk, chaired a meeting session and gave an impromptu presentation on how current laser technology limits the development of commercial instrumentation based upon Resonance Ionization Spectroscopy. The conference was truely international with scientists from 19 countries and less than 1/4 from the US. The meeting also provided a health mixture of experimentalists and theoreticians. Technical developments reported included the use of electric field ionization from laser prepared Rydberg states as a way to reduce background signals and commercial development of an optical parametric oscillator for replacing pulsed dye laser. A speaker from the Soviet Union suggested their willingness to market hardware they have developed based upon the resonance ionization technique.

As part of the EIA program on petroleum, The US Petroleum Refining Industry in the 1980's, presents a historical analysis of the changes that took place in the US petroleum refining industry during the 1980's. It is intended to be of interest to analysts in the petroleum industry, state and federal government officials, Congress, and the general public. The report consists of six chapters and four appendices. Included is a detailed description of the major events and factors that affected the domestic refining industry during this period. Some of the changes that took place in the 1980's are the result of events that started in the 1970's. The impact of these events on US refinery configuration, operations, economics, and company ownership are examined. 23 figs., 11 tabs.

This document is the interface between the 300 Area Liquid Effluent Process Engineering (LEPE) group and the Waste Sampling and Characterization Facility (WSCF), concerning process control samples. It contains a schedule for process control samples at the 300 Area TEDF which describes the parameters to be measured, the frequency of sampling and analysis, the sampling point, and the purpose for each parameter.