An evaluation is given of DOE's recommendation of the Elk River complex in North Carolina for siting the second repository. Twelve recommendations are made including a strong suggestion that the Cherokee Tribe appeal both through political and legal avenues for inclusion as an affected area primarily due to projected impacts upon economy and public health as a consequence of the potential for reduced tourism.

The work of Steve Jones and others in muon-catalyzed cold fusion of deuterium and hydrogen suggests the possibility of such fusion catalyzed by ions, or combinations of atoms, or more-or-less free electrons in solid and liquid materials. A hint that this might occur naturally comes from the heat generated in volcanic action in subduction zones on the earth. It is questionable whether the potential energy of material raised to the height of a midocean ridge and falling to the depth of an ocean trench can produce the geothermal effects seen in the volcanoes of subduction zones. If the ridge, the trench, the plates, and the asthenosphere are merely visible effects of deeper density-gradient driven circulations, it is still uncertain that observed energy-concentration effects fit the models.

Recovery of krypton from implosion of glass microballoons has been studied in the development of a radiochemical diagnostic for determination of <rho r> /sub fuel/. Collection onto metal surfaces following implosions performed on the OMEGA laser with 1-3 TW (1-2 kJ) of 0.35 ..mu..m light is consistent with an ion implantation mechanism. The dependence of the intrinsic collection efficiency on the energy fluence to the collector surface and its variation in implosions carried out under the same nominal conditions indicate ion energies extending to at least 0.1 MeV and energy distribution functions that are sensitive to the details of the implosion dynamics. Intrinsic sticking efficiencies approaching 0.5 can be obtained in the limit of low total energy fluence to the collector surface (less than or equal to 0.1 J cm/sup -2/).