The project was designed to take 95/sup 0/F water from an existing well and process it through a heat exchanger carrying supply water for our boiler make up and domestic hot water systems. The temperature of this water runs from 55/sup 0/F to 65/sup 0/F. In operation it was possible to raise the temperature of this water an average of approximately 12/sup 0/F. The amount of energy captured was recorded and it was found that one can capture approximately 199 x 10/sup 6/ Btu/Mo. Using current energy costs and a boiler efficiency factor of .8 a potential annual savings of approximately $11,104/year was calculated. The total cost of the project was $31,893.68. Using these figures a simple pay back period of 2.9 years was calculated.

The goal of this project was to construct a low-technology, maintenance-free dc electrical generator suited for use with low-speed rotating machines such as windmills or waterwheels. The generator consists of permanent magnets affixed to the circumference of the rotating device, and stationary coils mounted on a semicircular frame. As the device rotates, the magnets move past the coils and magnetically induce an ac voltage in the coils. This voltage is rectified and stored in a battery. No gears, belts, or brushes are used, so the generator operates quietly and without maintenance. The purpose of mounting the magnets at the circumference of the rotating device is to achieve high relative velocities between magnets and coils even at slow rotations, in the hope of extracting energy from very light winds or slowly flowing water. Such a generator was constructed as part of a ten-foot-diameter windmill to test the concept. The generator easily reaches charging voltages at low speeds, and operates quietly without mechanical wear. But the charging current is very low in comparison to a wind turbine of conventional design. The experiment allows fundamental design problems to be identified.

Two mirror machine concepts are being studied as early-time, low-cost, neutron-producing devices for testing and demonstrating reactor-relevant fusion technology. The first of these concepts is for a new, small, driven, steady-state, D-T reactor, called the Technology Demonstration Facility (TDF). The second concept is for upgrades to the MFTF-B machine that burn tritium and run for pulse lengths of some hours. Both devices operate in the Kelley mode in order to provide high-wall loadings of 14-MeV neutrons, thereby providing a valuable test bed for reactor-relevant hardware and subsystems. Either one of these devices could be running in the early 1990's with first wall fluxes between 1.4 and 2.0 MW m/sup -2/.

A 440-day single-pass continuous-flow leaching experiment was conducted at LLNL from September 1980 to December 1981. The data obtained for only one-third of the experiment are presented. The laboratory and data analysis of the remaining portion is still in progress at this time and a second report will follow at the end of FY83. This report concerns itself with the study of PNL 76-68 glass beads interacting with crushed uranium flow basalt and a simulated basalt groundwater under controlled conditions of temperature (25/sup 0/C and 75/sup 0/C) and flow rate (1, 10, and 300 ml/day). The main purpose of the experiment was to determine the absorption on basalt of Pu, Np, and some of the stable elements such as B, Mo, U, and Cs, as they were leached from the glass beads. Results are presented, as incremental and cumulative leach rates and sorption rates have been calculated for Pu, Np, B, Mo and U. also sorption profiles as a function of temperature and flow rate are graphically shown for Pu, Np, and U.

The Mirror Fusion Test Facility (MFTF-B) now under construction at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory represents more than an order-of-magnitude step from earlier magnetic-mirror experiments toward a future mirror fusion reactor. In fact, when the device begins operating in 1986, the Lawson criteria of ntau = 10/sup 14/ cm/sup -3/.s will almost be achieved for D-T equivalent operation, thus signifying scientific breakeven. Major steps have been taken to develop MFTF-B technologies for tandem mirrors. Steady-state, high-field, superconducting magnets at reactor-revelant scales are used in the machine. The 30-s beam pulses, ECRH, and ICRH will also introduce steady-state technologies in those systems.

Progress is reported on the development of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) systems that will provide synthetic fuels (e.g., methanol), energy-intensive products such as ammonia (for fertilizers and chemicals), and aluminum. The work also includes assessment and design concepts for hybrid plants, such as geothermal-OTEC (GEOTEC) plants. Another effort that began in the spring of 1982 is a technical advisory role to DOE with respect to their management of the conceptual and preliminary design activity of industry teams that are designing a shelf-mounted offshore OTEC pilot plant that could deliver power to Oahu, Hawaii. In addition, a program is underway to evaluate and test the Pneumatic Wave-Energy Conversion System (PWECS), an ocean-energy device consisting of a turbine that is air-driven as a result of wave action in a chamber. This Quarterly Report summarizes the work on the various tasks as of 31 March 1983.

The U.S. Interagency Geothermal Coordinating Council was a multi-agency group charged with identifying and reducing barriers to geothermal energy development in the U.S. Many of the issues covered related to regulations for and progress in the leasing of Federal lands in the West for power development. The IGCC reports are important sources of historical information.

Interesting modelling of intense electron flow has been done with implicit particle-in-cell simulation codes. In this report, the direct implicit PIC simulation approach is applied to simulations that include full electromagnetic fields. The resulting algorithm offers advantages relative to moment implicit electromagnetic algorithms and may help in our quest for robust and simpler implicit codes.

As a satellite to the MARS (Mirror Advanced Reactor Study) a smaller, near-term device has been scoped, called the FPD (Fusion Power Demonstration). Envisioned as the next logical step toward a power reactor, it would advance the mirror fusion program beyond MFTF-B and provide an intermediate step toward commercial fusion power. Breakeven net electric power capability would be the goal such that no net utility power would be required to sustain the operation. A phased implementation is envisioned, with a deuterium checkout first to verify the plasma systems before significant neutron activation has occurred. Major tritium-related facilities would be installed with the second phase to produce sufficient fusion power to supply the recirculating power to maintain the neutral beams, ECRH, magnets and other auxiliary equipment.

None

This report documents the subsystem technology assessment. For the purpose of this report, five subsystems were defined for a space reactor electric system, and the report is organized around these subsystems: reactor; shielding; primary heat transport; power conversion and processing; and heat rejection. The purpose of the assessment was to determine the current technology status and the technology potentials for different types of the five subsystems. The cost and schedule needed to develop these potentials were estimated, and sets of development-compatible subsystems were identified.

This report presents the results of preliminary space reactor electric system integration studies performed by Rockwell International's Energy Systems Group (ESG). The preliminary studies investigated a broad range of reactor electric system concepts for powers of 25 and 100 KWe. The purpose of the studies was to provide timely system information of suitable accuracy to support ongoing mission planning activities. The preliminary system studies were performed by assembling the five different subsystems that are used in a system: the reactor, the shielding, the primary heat transport, the power conversion-processing, and the heat rejection subsystems. The subsystem data in this report were largely based on Rockwell's recently prepared Subsystem Technology Assessment Report. Nine generic types of reactor subsystems were used in these system studies. Several levels of technology were used for each type of reactor subsystem. Seven generic types of power conversion-processing subsystems were used, and several levels of technology were again used for each type. In addition, various types and levels of technology were used for the shielding, primary heat transport, and heat rejection subsystems. A total of 60 systems were studied.

COBRA, in general, performs a thermal-hydraulic analysis of an actual pin bundle by subdividing the bundle cross-section into coolant subchannels, pin sectors, duct wall sectors. Its calculation includes heat convected axially upward through coolant mass flow, heat flow between pin sectors and adjoining subchannels, and heat and mass flow between coolant subchannels. COBRA-3M is a version of COBRA built for LMFBR applications, that includes a sophisticated thermal model of fuel pins and duct wall. COBRA-3M that can explicitly model a wider variety of pin bundle configurations than 3M would allow and includes significant improvements to its thermal modeling. COBRA-PI is currently being used for thermal-hydraulic analysis of hypothetical LMFBR accident transients in both power and flow. Pin bundles currently being analyzed explicitly range from 7 to 37 pins of axial lengths ranging from approx. 0.3-2.0 meters.

Progress in a two year study of a 1200 MWe commercial tandem mirror reactor (MARS - Mirror Advanced Reactor Study) has reached the point where major reactor system technologies are identified. New design features of the magnets, blankets, plug heating systems and direct converter are described. With the innovation of radial drift pumping to maintain low plug density, reactor recirculating power fraction is reduced to 20%. Dominance of radial ion and impurity losses into the halo permits gridless, circular direct converters to be dramatically reduced in size. Comparisons of MARS with the Starfire tokamak design are made.

The nuclear performance of a candidate fission-suppressed, U233-producing blanket is assessed. It is predicted to have a breeding ratio (fusile + fissile) of 1.68 and produce U233 at a rate of 8030 kg/year from 3140 MW of DT fusion and a blanket coverage of 96%. Blanket energy multiplication is estimated to vary between 1.3 and 2.0 as the U233/Th232 ratio varies between 0 and 0.5%. Heterogeneous effects in the blanket's pebble-bed configuration were found to be important and more detailed analysis is needed to more accurately predict Li6 content required and U233 fission power versus U233 content.

None

The tunnel in this model of construction is 3-1/2 feet wide by 5 feet high. It is assumed that the tunnel contains a rail system and guidance system for: (1) An enclosed car used for transport of 2 people and some tools. (2) A magnet mover. This robot could pick up a magnet and transport it at about 10 miles per hour. (3) An alignment robot. The alignment robot would intercept E.M. waves (microwaves, lasers) to determine its position in the tunnel. Then workers could come along inside the tunnel hoop and nail it together and to the floor. The trench would then be back-filled with a 1 foot berm on top. A rail system would be installed and a support stand for the magnet.

It has been proposed by R.R. Wilson and L. Lederman that it may be advantageous and cheaper to construct a large accelerator (> 10 TeV) with superferric magnets (approx. 2.5 Tesla). We take as a premise that a sufficiently large piece of land is available for the accelerator (see paper on Site and Tunnel), that is, one is not limited by the radius of the tunnel. The word superferric has been interpreted to mean a super conducting magnet where the coils are used principally to drive the field in the steel. We also add the constraint of simplicity and keep the coil shaped in a rectangle with no more than a few turns.

A new integrated power and breeding blanket is described. The blanket incorporates features that make it suitable for synthetic fuel production. It is matched to the thermal and electrical requirements of the General atomic water-splitting process for producing hydrogen. The fusion reaction is the Tandem Mirror Reactor (TMR) using Mirror Advanced Reactor Study (MARS) physics. The canister blanket is a high temperature, pressure balanced, cross-flow heat exchanger contained within a low activity, independently cooled, moderate temperature, first wall structural envelope. The canister uses Li/sub 2/O as the moderator/breeder and helium as the coolant. In situ tritium control, combined with slip stream processing and self-healing permeation barriers, assures a hydrogen product essentially free of tritium. The blanket is particularly adapted to synfuels production but is equally useful for electricity production or co-generation.

The two-year Mirror Advanced Reactor Study (MARS) has resulted in the conceptual design of a commercial, electricity-producing fusion reactor based on tandem mirror confinement. The physics basis for the MARS reactor was developed through work in two highly coupled areas of plasma engineering: magnetics and plasma performance.

Efforts directed at finding a 10 kHz switch to replace the current 1 kHz gas blown spark gap have culminated in a prototype for an upgrade of ATA. The design and performance of this prototype as well as possible options and recommendations concerning an eventual upgrade are described. 4 references, 9 figures.

This paper is organized in the following manner. In the second section we discussed absorption; the dependence of scattered light signatures of parametric instabilities occurring at n/sub e/ less than or equal to n/sub c//4 on corona size is shown in section three; and evidence for suprathermal electron production in these long-scale length plasmas is presented in section four. The results and conclusions are finally summarized in section five.

Iron dominated magnets are characterized in the limit of infinite permeability by a pole shape that is a magnetic equipotential. Deviations from this ideal because of finite permeability are associated with differences in path length, local saturation, flux concentration in slotted pole if crenellation is used, and sub surface voids. For moderate field levels the variation in flux path length throughout the iron lowers the magnetic potential on the iron surface more for the longer paths. As the excitation increases the permeability is lowered in regions of high flux density. Crenellation in this region offers some degree of control over the permeability by concentrating the flux. To a lesser degree sub surface voids can be used to control the reluctance of a flux path. The net result suggests that the shape of the effective air gap can be adjusted to be a magnetic equipotential sensibly equivalent to the ideal pole shape for infinite permeability.

The emission of positrons from supernova ejecta is dicussed in terms of the galactic-center annihilation radiation. The positrons from the radioactive sequences /sup 56/Ni..-->../sup 56/Co..-->../sup 56/Fe are the most numerous source from supernova. Only type I supernova will allow a significant fraction to escape the expanding ejecta. For a neutron star model of a type I SN a fraction 4 x 10/sup -3/ of the escaped positron is enough to create the observed several year fluctuation of the annihilation radiation. The likelihood of this model is discussed in terms of other astrophysical evidence as well as the type I SN light curve.