The objective of this report is to present the results of a 1987 telephone survey on attitudes and behaviors toward energy conservation and to compare them with the results of similar surveys in 1983 and 1985. The surveys were conducted in the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) service area: Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Western Montana. Data collected during the surveys were analyzed by Pacific Northwest Laboratory to assist the BPA in its energy conservation program planning, design, and marketing.

This research accomplished two goals. The first was to develop a computer program to simulate a cascade dissolver system. This program would be used to predict the bulk rate of dissolution in incinerator ash. The other goal was to verify the model in a single-stage dissolver system using Dy/sub 2/O/sub 3/. PuO/sub 2/ (and all of the species in the incinerator ash) was assumed to exist as spherical particles. A model was used to calculate the bulk rate of plutonium oxide dissolution using fluoride as a catalyst. Once the bulk rate of PuO/sub 2/ dissolution and the dissolution rate of all soluble species were calculated, mass and energy balances were written. A computer program simulating the cascade dissolver system was then developed. Tests were conducted on a single-stage dissolver. A simulated incinerator ash mixture was made and added to the dissolver. CaF/sub 2/ was added to the mixture as a catalyst. A 9M HNO/sub 3/ solution was pumped into the dissolver system. Samples of the dissolver effluent were analyzed for dissolved and F concentrations. The computer program proved satisfactory in predicting the F concentrations in the dissolver effluent. The experimental sparge air flow rate was predicted to within 5.5%. The …

''Station Blackout,'' which is the complete loss of alternating current (AC) electrical power in a nuclear power plant, has been designated as Unresolved Safety Issue A-44. Because many safety systems required for reactor core decay heat removal and containment heat removal depend on AC power, the consequences of a station blackout could be severe. This report documents the findings of technical studies performed as part of the program to resolve this issue. The important factors analyzed include: the fequency of loss of offsite power; the probability that emergency or onsite AC power supplies would be unavailable; the capability and reliability of decay heat removal systems independent of AC power; and the likelihood that offsite power would be restored before systems that cannot operate for extended periods without AC power fail, thus resulting in core damage. This report also addresses effects of different designs, locations, and operational features on the estimated frequency of core damage resulting from station blackout events.

This is the third quarterly report of DOE Contract No. DE-AC22- 87PC79864, entitled Modeling of Integrated Environmental Control Systems for Coal-Fired Power Plants.'' This report summarizes accomplishments during the period April 1, 1988 to June 30, 1988. Our efforts during the last quarter focused on, (1) completion of a sulfuric acid plant model (used in conjunction with by-product recovery processes for SO{sub 2}/NO{sub x} removal) and, (2) an update the NOXSO process model. Other accomplishments involved revision and expansion of the enthalpy data algorithms used for process energy balances. The sections below present the details of these developments. References are included at the end of each section.

The objective of this study is to determine the optimum electrolyte composition for molten carbonate fuel cells. To accomplish this, the contractor will provide: (1) Comprehensive reports of on-going efforts to optimize carbonate composition. (2) A list of characteristics affected by electrolyte composition variations (e.g. ionic conductivity, vapor pressure, melting range, gas solubility, exchange current densities on NiO, corrosion and cathode dissolution effects). (3) Assessment of the overall effects that these characteristics have on state-of-the-art cell voltage and lifetime.

Information on the applicants to the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science for the 1988 fall semester.

Annual report of activities of the Argonne National Laboratory Physics Division, including ATLAS research, medium-energy nuclear physics and weak interactions, theoretical nuclear physics, and atomic and various molecular physics research.

This special report analyzes the causes of the deterioration in America’s trade performance and examines the importance of U.S. manufacturing in helping the nation improve its position in international trade. The report was requested by Senator John Heinz as part of an assessment of technology, innovation and U.S. trade requested by the Senate Committee on Finance; the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; and the House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs. A final report will be published in 1989.

Changes in how physicians and hospitals are paid have made individual consumers, health insurers, employers, and medical providers more sensitive to the cost implications of their decisions. At the same time, these policy changes have elevated the importance of having consumers be informed about the quality of medical providers. Purchasers of medical care (individual consumers, employers, health insurers) need to know about any differences in quality so that they can weigh quality along with cost in making decisions.

This is OTA’S third report on U.S. foreign aid and African agriculture and the most comprehensive look at a single program. It complements a larger, more general work in press on enhancing agriculture in Africa and its already-published companion report on the Sahel Development Program. The House Foreign Affairs Committee, its Subcommittee on Africa, and the House Select Committee on Hunger requested this study. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on African Affairs, endorsed their request.

This paper summarizes what is known about the effectiveness of AIDS education programs and programs in other health-related areas. Also documented are AIDS education programs currently being funded by selected Federal agencies. What is known and not known about the effectiveness of past education can guide the design of future AIDS education and the research agendas of Federal agencies.

Since the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity (HTS), research laboratories around the world have pushed the temperature limits steadily upward, opening the way to commercial applications with potentially revolutionary impacts. The scientific race is becoming a commercial race, one featuring U.S. and Japanese companies, and one that the United States could lose. Indeed, American firms may already be falling behind in commercializing the technology of superconductivity.

This report examines how and why students are drawn toward or deterred from pursuing a career in science or engineering. Schools, families, peers, informal education efforts-such as museums, science centers, special programs, and television— all play a role. The subtitle of this report—Grade School to Grad School—emphasizes that many factors and institutions must be understood as all one system.

This assessment responds to a joint request from the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation to analyze the military and commercial opportunities presented by new structural materials technologies, and to outline the Federal policy objectives that are consistent with those opportunities.

The basic objective of the Heavy Ion Fusion Accelerator Research (HIFAR) program is to assess the suitability of heavy ion accelerators as igniters for Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF). A specific accelerator technology, the induction linac, has been studied at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and has reached the point at which its viability for ICF applications can be assessed over the next few years. The HIFAR program addresses the generation of high-power, high-brightness beams of heavy ions, the understanding of the scaling laws in this novel physics regime, and the validation of new accelerator strategies, to cut costs. Key elements to be addressed include: beam quality limits set by transverse and longitudinal beam physics; development of induction accelerating modules, and multiple-beam hardware, at affordable costs; acceleration of multiple beams with current amplification -- both new features in a linac -- without significant dilution of the optical quality of beams; and final bunching, transport, and accurate focusing on a small target.

The purpose of this document is to describe the guidelines and processes to be used by the Department of Energy (DOE) with input from the affected states and tribes to select alternate disposal sites in compliance with each established cooperative agreement. This document supersedes two previous DOE documents, Criteria for Evaluating Disposal Sites (DOE, 1982) and Alternate Site Selection Process (ASSP) for UMTRA Project Sites (DOE, 1986). This revision of the ASSP was prepared in response to the proposed groundwater protection standards that amend 40 CF 192. The principal modifications are to the ASSP screening criteria for hydrological and geological conditions at candidate disposal sites. The revised screening and selection criteria will assist the project in selecting disposal sites where the probability of compliance with the proposed groundwater standards is high. The ASSP described in Section 2.0 consists of three phases: Phases I -- designation of a search region; Phase II -- preliminary screening of the designated search region; and Phase III -- identification and evaluation of candidate sites. Section 3.0 discusses how the results of the ASSP will be reported. This process provides a technically sound and publicly defensible approach for identifying potentially suitable disposal sites. 4 refs., 1 …

This research is directed towards the development of engineering guidelines that define the application of distributed fuel addition as a technique for NOx abatement. It is expected that multiple fuel and air addition in the post-flame of a combustion process will increase free radical concentrations which destroy nitrogenous species and thus help them decay toward their equilibrium concentrations, which can be very low in that region of the combustor. Screening experiments were conducted on a laboratory scale downfired combustor. The objective was to compare NOx emissions arising from various combustion configurations, including fuel and/or air staging. Although the primary focus of this research is on NO control, a secondary effort was directed towards the measurement of N2O emissions from various coal combustion processes. N2O has been identified as a trace gas responsible for stratospheric ozone depletion, and has been hypothesized to arise from combustion processes, in amounts roughly proportional to NO emissions. Results presented in this report showed that the ratio N2O/NO was far from constant. The introduction of secondary air into a combustion process was accompanied an increase in N2O emissions. The measured N2O was always less than 10 ppm even under the most favorable combustion conditions. Reburning with …

From abstract: The Workshop on Computerization of Welding Information, sponsored by the National Bureau of Standards and the American Welding Institute, was held August 5-6, 1986 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Forty-two welding engineers, welding managers, and computer scientists gathered to discuss the necessity and design of databases for welding information. Each subject was introduced by specialists in that area.

This investigation consisted of theoretical, laboratory, and field study phases with the overall objective of determining the importance of pressure-driven flow of soil gas in the transport of volatile organic compounds (VOC) from soil into a house. In the first phase, the mechanisms of advection, diffusion, and retardation of VOC in soil were evaluated. Using the theory of fluid mechanics and empirical for equilibrium partitioning of VOC among gas, aqueous, and solid phase of soil, a one-dimensional advection-diffusion equation or the transport of gas-phase VOC through soil was developed. An experimental apparatus and method were developed for the direct observation of pressure-driven transport of VOC through soil under controlled laboratory conditions. The retardation of sulfur hexafluoride (SF/sub 6/) and hexafluorobenzene with respect to the flow of the bulk gas was measured in soil-column experiments using different soils and soil-moisture conditions. The results were in good agreement with theoretical predictions. Since SF/sub 6/ was not lost by sorption to soil, it was selected for use as a tracer gas in the field study to study the advective flow of soil gas. The overall objective of the investigation was directly addressed by the field study. This study was conducted at a house …

A tracer test for the Dixie Valley, Nevada, geothermal resource is planned for the summer of 1988, in order to study the fluid flow paths that will develop under typical operating conditions. During the test six production wells will provide the power plant with steam sufficient for generation of 60 MWe, requiring fluid production at a rate of approximately 600 kg/sec. Up to 75% by mass of the extracted fluid will be reinjected into the reservoir, using four injection wells. Tracer will be added to the injected fluid for a twenty-minute period, and subsequently the produced fluid will be monitored for the tracer. 5 refs., 9 figs., 5 tabs.

We conducted a survey of commercially available methods for analysis of beryllium and depleted uranium in aerosols and soils to find a reliable, cost-effective, and sufficiently precise method for researchers involved in environmental testing at the Yuma Proving Ground, Yuma, Arizona. Criteria used for evaluation include cost, method of analysis, specificity, sensitivity, reproducibility, applicability, and commercial availability. We found that atomic absorption spectrometry with graphite furnace meets these criteria for testing samples for beryllium. We found that this method can also be used to test samples for depleted uranium. However, atomic absorption with graphite furnace is not as sensitive a measurement method for depleted uranium as it is for beryllium, so we recommend that quality control of depleted uranium analysis be maintained by testing 10 of every 1000 samples by neutron activation analysis. We also evaluated 45 companies and institutions that provide analyses of beryllium and depleted uranium. 5 refs., 1 tab.

We generalize a new concept of local correction of nonlinearities due to multipole content by giving it a mathematical description. We present a general method which allows for a general reduction of all the distortions produced by a given set of multipole errors. The method can be applied to correct an arbitrary distribution of the errors in any transport system, such as transport lines, linacs, synchrotrons and storage rings. 11 refs., 3 figs., 2 tabs.

A simple and effective method was developed for contamination of high-level waste containers. This method of chemical decontamination is applicable to a wide variety of contaminated equipment found in the nuclear industry. The process employs a oxidant system (Ce(IV)) in nitric acid (HNO/sub 3/) solution to chemically mill a thin layer from the canister surface. Contaminated canisters are simply immersed in the solution at a controlled temperature and Ce(IV) concentration level. The spent solution is discarded to the high-level waste stream and added to subsequent glass batches. The Ce(IV)/HNO/sub 3/ solution has been shown to be effective in chemically milling the surface of stainless steel, similar to the electropolishing process, but without the need for an applied electrical current. West Valley (WV) staff had previously evaluated several canister decontamination methods, including electropolishing, liquid abrasive blast, high-pressure water wash, and ultrasonic cleaning, before the Ce(IV)/HNO/sub 3/ redox solution on treatment was selected. The initial concept involved continuous electrochemical regeneration of the ceric ion. Extensive in-cell pumping and close-coupled heat transfer and electrochemical equipment were required. The objective of this study, was to simplify the original concept. 2 refs., 16 figs., 4 tabs.

Three copper-based alloys, CDA 102 (oxygen-free copper), CDA 613 (Cu-7Al), and CDA 715 (Cu-30Ni), are being considered along with three austenitic candidates as possible materials for fabrication of containers for disposal of high-level radioactive waste. The waste will include spent fuel assemblies from reactors as well as high-level reprocessing wastes in borosilicate glass and will be sent to the prospective repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, for disposal. The containers must maintain mechanical integrity for 50 yr after emplacement to allow for retrieval of waste during the preclosure phase of repository operation. Containment is required to be substantially complete for up to 300 to 1000 yr. During the early period, the containers will be exposed to high temperatures and high gamma radiation fields from the decay of high-level waste. The final closure joint will be critical to the integrity of the containers. This volume surveys the available data on the metallurgy of the copper-based candidate alloys and the welding techniques employed to join these materials. The focus of this volume is on the methods applicable to remote-handling procedures in a hot-cell environment with limited possibility of postweld heat treatment. The three copper-based candidates are ranked on the basis of the various …