This is a 1998 annual report for Environmental Restoration. Environmental Restoration's accomplishments were significant in 1998. The division, including its support organizations, completed one year without a lost time accident. It also met 111 enforceable agreement milestones on time, with more than 80% ahead of schedule. Funds used to meet these milestones were effectively utilized and $9.63 million in regulatory scope was added. Twelve new, innovative technologies were deployed, enabling ER to achieve significant progress on major field remediation projects, including: Remediation of 25 acres of radioactive burial ground; Removal of 1,300 batteries for recycling; Removal and safe storage of a radioactive underground tank; Extraction of 115,000 pounds of solvent; and Installation of 9 new recirculation wells and a second GeoSiphon Cell for additional removal of solvent Final Records of Decision were made for 9 base unit sites. No Further Action decisions were made for 61 additional sites.

For the past eleven years a group of institutes, centers, and universities throughout the country have sponsored a summer school in Santa Fe, New Mexico as part of an interdisciplinary effort to promote the understanding of complex systems. The goal of these summer schools is to provide graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and active research scientists with an introduction to the study of complex behavior in mathematical, physical, and living systems. The Center for Nonlinear Studies supported the eleventh in this series of highly successful schools in Santa Fe in June, 1998.

The Pacific Northwest Loads and Resources Study (White Book) is published annually by BPA and establishes the planning basis for supplying electricity to customers. It serves a dual purpose. First, the White Book presents projections of regional and Federal system load and resource capabilities, along with relevant definitions and explanations. Second, the White Book serves as a benchmark for annual BPA determinations made pursuant to the 1981 regional power sales contracts. Specifically, BPA uses the information in the White Book for determining the notice required when customers request to increase or decrease the amount of power purchased from BPA. The White Book compiles information obtained from several formalized resource planning reports and data submittals, including those from the Northwest Power Planning Council (Council) and the Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee (PNUCC). The White Book is not an operational planning guide, nor is it used for inventory planning to determine BPA revenues. Operation of the Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS) is based on a set of criteria different from that used for resource planning decisions. Operational planning is dependent upon real-time or near-term knowledge of system conditions, including expectations of river flows and runoff, market opportunities, availability of reservoir storage, …

The Accelerator Production of Tritium project (APT) utilizes a 1,700 MeV, 100 mA proton Linac. The radio frequency (RF) power is provided by 244 continuous wave (CW) klystron amplifiers at 350 MHz and 700 MHz. All but three of the klystrons operate at a frequency of 700 MHz. The 350 MHz klystrons have a nominal output power of 1.2 MW at a DC-to-RF conversion efficiency of 65%. They are modulating-anode klystrons and operate at a beam voltage and current of 95 kV and 20 A. The design is based on the CERN klystron. The 700 MHz klystron is a new development for APT. Three 700 MHz klystrons are currently under development. Two vendors are each developing a baseline klystron that has a nominal output power of 1.0 MW at a DC-to-RF conversion efficiency of 65%. A 700 MHz klystron is also under development that promises to provide an efficiency in excess of 70%. The 700 MHz klystrons operate at a maximum beam voltage of 95 kV and a maximum beam current of 17 A. The test results of these klystrons will be presented and the design features will be discussed.

This is the final report of a three-year, Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The physical relationships among accretion disks, quasars, black holes, collimated radio sources and galactic dynamos previously has been only weakly related without explicit cause and effect. We have constructed a physical evolution from large, primordial density perturbations to {open_quotes}damped Lyman alpha clouds,{close_quotes} to galaxy formation, to black holes, jets, and the the galactic dynamo. We have derived the general relativistic distortions of radiation emitted from close to the black hole and thereby have a new observational test of the central engine. The physics of accretion disks, the astrophysical dynamo, and magnetic reconnection are the least understood physical phenomena in astrophysics. They are still less understood in the general relativity (GR) field close to the black hole. This lack of physical understanding frustrates a quantitative evaluation of observations that define the evolution from the early universe to star formation. We have made progress in this understanding.

This program is designed to develop accurate yet practical computational methods, primarily based on time-dependent quantum mechanics, for studying the dynamics of polyatomic reactions beyond the atom-diatom systems. Efficient computational methodologies are developed and the applications of these methods to practical chemical reactions relevant to combustion processes are carried out. The program emphasizes the practical aspects of accurate quantum dynamics calculations in order to understand, explain and predict the dynamical properties of important combustion reactions. The aim of this research is to help provide not only qualitative dynamics information but also quantitative prediction of reaction dynamics of combustion reactions at the microscopic level. Through accurate theoretical calculations, the authors wish to be able to quantitatively predict reaction cross sections and rate constants of relatively small gas-phase reactions from first principles that are of direct interest to combustion. The long-term goal of this research is to develop practical computational methods that are capable of quantitatively predicting dynamics of more complex polyatomic gas-phase reactions that are of interest to combustion.

The authors examined the ability of a halophilic bacterium (WIPP 1A) isolated from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) site to accumulate uranium in order to determine the potential for biocolloid facilitated actinide transport. The bacterial cell surface functional groups involved in the complexation of the actinide were determined by titration. Uranium, added as uranyl nitrate, was removed from solution at pH 5 by cells but at pH 7 and 9 very little uranium was removed due to its limited solubility. Although present as soluble species, uranyl citrate at pH 5, 7, and 9, and uranyl carbonate at pH 9 were not removed by the bacterium because they were not bioavailable due to their neutral or negative charge. Addition of uranyl EDTA to brine at pH 5, 7, and 9 resulted in the immediate precipitation of U. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analysis revealed that uranium was not only associated with the cell surface but also accumulated intracellularly as uranium-enriched granules. Extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) analysis of the bacterial cells indicated the bulk sample contained more than one uranium phase. Nevertheless these results show the potential for the formation of actinide bearing bacterial …

This is the final report of a one-year, Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). This project investigated semi-active suspension systems based on real time nonlinear control of magneto-rheological (MR) shock absorbers. This effort was motivated by Laboratory interactions with the automobile industry and with the Defense Department. Background research and a literature search on semi-active suspensions was carried out. Numerical simulations of alternative nonlinear control algorithms were developed and adapted for use with an MR shock absorber. A benchtop demonstration system was designed, including control electronics and a mechanical demonstration fixture to hold the damper/spring assembly. A custom-made MR shock was specified and procured. Measurements were carried out at Los Alamos to characterize the performance of the device.

At present, the microscopic visualization of luminescent labels containing lanthanide(III) ions, primarily europium(III), as light-emitting centers is best performed with time-gated instrumentation, which by virtually eliminating the background fluorescence results in an improved signal to noise ratio. However, the use of the europium(III) macrocycle, Quantum Dye{trademark}, in conjunction with the strong luminescence enhancing effect (cofluorescence) of yttrium(III) or gadolinium(III), can eliminate the need for such specialized instrumentation. In the presence of Gd(III), the luminescence of the Eu(III)-macrocycles can be conveniently observed with conventional fluorescence instrumentation at previously unattainable low levels. The Eu(III) {sup 5}D{sub 0} {r_arrow} {sup 7}F{sub 2} emission of the Eu(III)-macrocycles was observed as an extremely sharp band with a maximum at 619 nm and a clearly resolved characteristic pattern. At very low Eu(III)-macrocycle concentrations, another sharp emission was detected at 614 nm, arising from traces of Eu(III) present in even the purest commercially available gadolinium products. Discrimination of the resolved emissions of the Eu(III)-macrocycle and Eu(III) contaminant should provide a means to further lower the limit of detection of the Eu(III)-macrocycle.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has a mission to foster a secure and reliable energy system that is environmentally and economically sustainable, to be a responsible steward of the Nation`s nuclear weapons, to clean up decommissioned facilities, and to support continued US leadership in science and technology. To effectively utilize and integrate its mission, DOE has created the Regional Environmental Technology and Business Development Office (RETBDO) serving as a Community Reuse Organization, a stakeholder organization, which represents interests and economic concerns of communities surrounding DOE sites that are being closed or reconfigured. RETBDO is a branch office of ADVANCE, a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization established in 1994. The mission of RETBDO is to diversify the economy by creating an environment conductive to improve the representation of minorities and small businesses in the region and to assure fair business participation in major environmental decision-making, technology based start-ups, expansion management, and the attractive of new ventures to the Southwest region, including, bu not limited to, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. This report describes the RETBDO program and its implementation.

This is the final report of a one-year, Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). In a modern information-controlled society the importance of fast computational algorithms facilitating data compression and image analysis cannot be overemphasized. Feature extraction and pattern recognition are key to many LANL projects and the same types of dimensionality reduction and compression used in source coding are also applicable to image understanding. The authors have begun developing wavelet coding which decomposes data into different length-scale and frequency bands. New transform-based source-coding techniques offer potential for achieving better, combined source-channel coding performance by using joint-optimization techniques. They initiated work on a system that compresses the video stream in real time, and which also takes the additional step of analyzing the video stream concurrently. By using object-based compression schemes (where an object is an identifiable feature of the video signal, repeatable in time or space), they believe that the analysis is directly related to the efficiency of the compression.

This is the final report of a three-year, Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The goal of this project was to apply neutron reflectometry and atomic force microscopy to the study of lipid membranes containing proteins. Standard sample preparation techniques were used to produce thin films of these materials appropriate for these techniques. However, these films were not stable, and a new sample preparation technique was required. Toward this goal, the authors have developed a new capability to produce large, freely suspended films of lipid multi-bilayers appropriate for these studies. This system includes a controlled temperature/humidity oven in which the films 5-cm x 5-cm are remotely drawn. The first neutron scattering experiments were then performed using this oven.

McDermott Technology, Inc. (MTI) is conducting a five-year project aimed at the development of practical, cost-effective strategies for reducing the emissions of hazardous air pollutants (commonly called air toxics) from coal-fired electric utility plants. The need for air toxic emissions controls may arise as the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency proceeds with implementation of Title III of the Clean Air Act Amendment (CAAA) of 1990. Data generated during the program will provide utilities with the technical and economic information necessary to reliably evaluate various air toxics emissions compliance options such as fuel switching, coal cleaning, and flue gas treatment. The development work is being carried out using the Clean Environment Development Facility (CEDF) wherein air toxics emissions control strategies can be developed under controlled conditions, and with proven predictability to commercial systems. Tests conducted in the CEDF provide high quality, repeatable, comparable data over a wide range of coal properties, operating conditions, and emissions control systems. Development work to date has concentrated on the capture of mercury, other trace metals, fine particulate, and hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride.

Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) is conducting a five-year project aimed at the development of practical, cost-effective strategies for reducing the emissions of hazardous air pollutants (commonly called air toxics) from coal-fired electric utility plants. The need for air toxic emissions controls may arise as the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency proceeds with implementation of Title III of the Clean Air Act Amendment (CAAA) of 1990. Data generated during the program will provide utilities with the technical and economic information necessary to reliably evaluate various air toxics emissions compliance options such as fuel switching, coal cleaning, and flue gas treatment. The development work is being carried out using B&W�s new Clean Environment Development Facility (CEDF) wherein air toxics emissions control strategies can be developed under controlled conditions, and with proven predictability to commercial systems. Tests conducted in the CEDF provide high quality, repeatable, comparable data over a wide range of coal properties, operating conditions, and emissions control systems. Development work to date has concentrated on the capture of mercury, other trace metals, fine particulate, and the inorganic species hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride.

McDermott Technology, Inc. (MTI) is conducting a five-year project aimed at the development of practical, cost-effective strategies for reducing the emissions of hazardous air pollutants (commonly called air toxics) from coal-fired electric utility plants. The need for air toxic emissions controls may arise as the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency proceeds with implementation of Title III of the Clean Air Act Amendment (CAAA) of 1990. Data generated during the program will provide utilities with the technical and economic information necessary to reliably evaluate various air toxics emissions compliance options such as fuel switching, coal cleaning, and flue gas treatment. The development work is being carried out using the Clean Environment Development Facility (CEDF) wherein air toxics emissions control strategies can be developed under controlled conditions, and with proven predictability to commercial systems. Tests conducted in the CEDF provide high quality, repeatable, comparable data over a wide range of coal properties, operating conditions, and emissions control systems. Development work to date has concentrated on the capture of mercury, other trace metals, fine particulate, and hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride.

McDermott Technology, Inc. (MTI) is conducting a five-year project aimed at the development of practical, cost-effective strategies for reducing the emissions of hazardous air pollutants (commonly called air toxics) from coal-fired electric utility plants. The need for air toxic emissions controls may arise as the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency proceeds with implementation of Title III of the Clean Air Act Amendment (CAAA) of 1990. Data generated during the program will provide utilities with the technical and economic information necessary to reliably evaluate various air toxics emissions compliance options such as fuel switching, coal cleaning, and flue gas treatment. The development work is being carried out using the Clean Environment Development Facility (CEDF) wherein air toxics emissions control strategies can be developed under controlled conditions, and with proven predictability to commercial systems. Tests conducted in the CEDF provide high quality, repeatable, comparable data over a wide range of coal properties, operating conditions, and emissions control systems. Development work to date has concentrated on the capture of mercury, other trace metals, fine particulate, and the inorganic species, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride.

The completed study focused on an area fracture-controlled highly unpredictable, fracture-controlled production near the Duchesne Fault Zone, Uinta Basin, in northeastern Utah. Production is seriously influenced by numerous high-angle faults and associated fractures--represented at the surface by a set of parallel, N80{degree}W-trending lineaments, and intricate fracture patterns in outcrop. Specific production is erratic and secondary recovery design is difficult because well-specific structural characterization and local fracture patterns are poorly understood. Furthermore, numerical models to simulate fluid flow in fractured reservoirs were either overly simplistic (did not adequately account for mechanical contrasts between matrix and fractures) or were extremely complex, requiring volumes of data typically not available to the operator. The contractors proposed implementing advanced geological, geomechanical and reservoir engineering methods to recognize and model the complex fracture networks exhibited at the surface and suggested in the shallow subsurface in the Duchesne Fault Zone. The intended methodology was to be developed in a data-limited environment, recognizing that operators in the basin will not have the financial resources or motivation to perform sophisticated and expensive reservoir engineering programs. User-friendly models for permeability, stress, and production using key geological and geophysical data, developed in this study can then be used to determine: economic …

Advanced, coal-based power plants will require durable and reliable hot gas filtration systems to remove particulate contaminants from the gas streams to protect downstream components such as turbine blades from erosion damage. It is expected that the filter elements in these systems will have to be made of ceramic materials to withstand goal service temperatures of 1600 F or higher. Recent demonstration projects and pilot plant tests have indicated that the current generation of ceramic hot gas filters (cross-flow and candle configurations) are failing prematurely. Two of the most promising materials that have been extensively evaluated are clay-bonded silicon carbide and alumina-mullite porous monoliths. These candidates, however, have been found to suffer progressive thermal shock fatigue damage, as a result of rapid cooling/heating cycles. Such temperature changes occur when the hot filters are back-pulsed with cooler gas to clean them, or in process upset conditions, where even larger gas temperature changes may occur quickly and unpredictably. In addition, the clay-bonded silicon carbide materials are susceptible to chemical attack of the glassy binder phase that holds the SiC particles together, resulting in softening, strength loss, creep, and eventual failure.

The objective of the Large-Scale Demonstration Project (LSDP) is to select and demonstrate potentially beneficial technologies at the Argonne National Laboratory East`s (ANL) Chicago Pile-5 (CP-5) Research Reactor. The purpose of the LSDP is to demonstrate that using innovative and improved deactivation and decommissioning (D and D) technologies from various sources can result in significant benefits, such as decreased cost and increased health and safety, as compared with baseline D and D technologies. This report describes a demonstration of the Advanced Recyclable Media System{reg_sign} technology which was employed by Surface Technology Systems, Inc. to remove coatings from a concrete floor. This demonstration is part of the CP-5 LSDP sponsored by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science and Technology Deactivation and Decommissioning Focus Area (DDFA). The Advanced Recyclable Media System{reg_sign} (ARMS) technology is an open blast technology which uses a soft recyclable media. The patented ARMS Engineered Blast Media consists of a fiber-reinforced polymer matrix which can be manufactured in various grades of abrasiveness. The fiber media can be remade and/or reused up to 20 times and can clean almost any surface (e.g., metal, wood, concrete, lead) and geometry including corners and the inside of air ducts.

The authors describe work on the development of polarized gaseous {sup 3}He cells, which are intended for use as neutron polarizers. Laser diode arrays polarize Rb vapor in a sample cell and the {sup 3}He is polarized via collisions. They describe development and tests of such a system at LANSCE.

The objective of this project is to develop a hot-gas desulfurization process scheme for control of H{sub 2}S in HTHP coal gas that can be more simply and economically integrated with known regenerable sorbents in DOE/METC-sponsored work than current leading hot-gas desulfurization technologies. In addition to being more economical, the process scheme to be developed must yield an elemental sulfur byproduct.

This is the final report of a one-year, Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The principal results of studies on crisis stability, deterrence, and latency are presented in their order of development. They capture the main features of stability analysis; relate first strike, crisis, and arms control stability as seen from US and Russian perspective; and address whether different metrics, uncertain damage preferences, or the deployment of defenses can be destabilizing. The report explores differences between unilateral and proportional force reductions in the region of deep reductions where concern shifts from stability to latency.

This is the final report of a one-year, Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The objective of this project was to develop a Java-based, electronic, medical-record system that can handle multimedia data and work over a wide-area network based on open standards, and that can utilize an existing database back end. The physician is to be totally unaware that there is a database behind the scenes and is only aware that he/she can access and manage the relevant information to treat the patient.

GE has achieved a leadership position in the worldwide gas turbine industry in both industrial/utility markets and in aircraft engines. This design and manufacturing base plus their close contact with the users provides the technology for creation of the next generation advanced power generation systems for both the industrial and utility industries. GE has been active in the definition of advanced turbine systems for several years. These systems will leverage the technology from the latest developments in the entire GE gas turbine product line. These products will be USA based in engineering and manufacturing and are marketed through the GE Industrial and Power Systems. Achieving the advanced turbine system goals of 60% efficiency, 8 ppmvd NO{sub x} and 10% electric power cost reduction imposes competing characteristics on the gas turbine system. Two basic technical issues arise from this. The turbine inlet temperature of the gas turbine must increase to achieve both efficiency and cost goals. However, higher temperatures move in the direction of increased NO{sub x} emission. Improved coating and materials technologies along with creative combustor design can result in solutions to achieve the ultimate goal. GE`s view of the market, in conjunction with the industrial and utility objectives requires …