Given the events of the past 25 years concerning energy and environmental issues and our reaction to them, what lessons can we learn? First, the individual American consumer wants and expects energy to be a stable commodity with low prices and easy availability. As evidenced by the heated debate over increasing the federal gasoline tax by $.05 per gallon (which would still leave Americans paying only one-third of what Europeans pay for gasoline), increases in energy prices elicit very strong public and political opposition. As further evidence, it has been argued that the general public support of the Gulf War was due, in part, to a recognition of the need to maintain a stable source of cheap oil from the region. The American public wants to maintain the benefits of cheap and abundant energy and expects its political leaders to make it happen. A second lesson is that if constraints on the energy supply do occur (e.g., the OPEC-imposed oil embargo) ardor environmental impacts from energy use do appear to be significant (e.g., SO{sub 2} and CO{sub 2} emissions), the preference is for a technology fix rather than a behavioral change. This is evidenced by our reliance on moving low-sulfur …

This report discusses the Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 1997 (H.R. 1122). The report summarizes the legislation and why President Clinton vetoed it. Moreover, the report includes President Clinton's recommendation to amend the bill for him to pass. The report also suggests that little data has been created on the issue, but that it utilizes what data has been created.

The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1997, H.R. 1122 was vetoed by President Clinton on October 10, 1997. This legislation would have made it a federal crime, punishable by fine and/or incarceration, for a physician to perform a partial birth abortion unless it was necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, illness, or injury. The partial-birth abortion legislation has stimulated a great deal of controversy. This report provides a brief overview of the abortion methods currently in use for which data have been published and some positions on the partial birth abortion legislation.

This report documents pilot and laboratory scale testing of activated carbon for use in the 200 Area Effluent Treatment Facility peroxide decomposer columns. Recommendations are made concerning column operating conditions and hardware design, the optimum type of carbon for use in the plant, and possible further studies.

Natural fractures exert a strong influence over oil production in Spraberry Trend Area reservoirs in the Permian Basin of west Texas. The importance of the fracture network has been known since the 1950s, but until recently, there has been very little detailed study of the fractures themselves. In 1996, a horizontal Spraberry well was cored as part of a DOE Class III Field Demonstration Project. Fractures from the horizontal core as well as other fractures encountered in vertical Spraberry cores were analyzed in detail for information on both large scale features including orientation and spacing and small-scale features such as the relationships between fracture mineralization and matrix rock composition. At least three sets of fractures are found within the upper and middle Spraberry cores. These sets have distinct orientations, spacing, mineralization, distribution with respect to lithology, and surface characteristics (Lorenz, 1997). Fractures found in the 1U zone of the upper Spraberry have a NE strike, and tend to be partly mineralized with barite, quartz, and dolomite. Distribution of these mineral phases can greatly affect conductivity between the fractures and the rock matrix. The 5U zone of the upper Spraberry contains fractures with NNE and ENE orientations. The NNE set of …

The purpose of this work was to investigate the utility of electronic aroma detection technologies for the detection and identification of accelerant residues in suspected arson debris. Through the analysis of known accelerant residues, a trained neural network was developed for classifying suspected arson samples. Three unknown fire debris samples were classified using this neural network. The item corresponding to diesel fuel was correctly identified every time. For the other two items, wide variations in sample concentration and excessive water content, producing high sample humidities, were shown to influence the sensor response. Sorbent sampling prior to aroma detection was demonstrated to reduce these problems and to allow proper neural network classification of the remaining items corresponding to kerosene and gasoline.

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This report is a guide on the Appropriations Process and the Congressional Budget Act.

A series of documents has been published in which the impact of various radionuclides released to the environment by Savannah River Site (SRS) operations has been assessed. The quantity released, the disposition of the radionuclides in the environment, and the dose to offsite individuals has been presented for activation products, carbon cesium, iodine, plutonium, selected fission products, strontium, technetium, tritium, uranium, and the noble gases. An assessment of the impact of nonradioactive mercury also has been published.This document assesses the impact of radioactive transuranics released from SRS facilities since the first reactor became operational late in 1953. The isotopes reported here are 239Np, 241Am, and 244Cm.

We describe the use of automatic differentiation (AD) to enhance a compressible Navier-Stokes model. With the solver, AD is used to accelerate convergence by more than an order of magnitude. Outside the solver, AD is used to compute the derivatives needed for optimization. We emphasize the potential for performance gains if the programmer does not treat AD as a black box, but instead utilizes high-level knowledge about the nature of the application.

Bioethanol is alcohol fuel made from cellulosic biomass-renewable resources such as trees, grasses, much of the material in municipal solid waste, and forestry and agricultural residues. Compared to the fossil fuels it will displace, bioethanol contributes little or no net CO2 to the earth's atmosphere.

We demonstrate a wavelength division multiplexing approach for byte-wide optical interconnects over multimode fiber optic ribbon cable using filters based on common plastic ferrules. A dual wavelength link with eight cascaded filter stages exhibits bit error rates {le}l0{sup -l4}.

This document identifies and documents the justification for the safety classification of the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) buildings and structures.

The overall objective of this study is to evaluate pertinent design and operational parameters that would enable successful application of activated carbon adsorption for the reduction of mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. The study will evaluate the most suitable impregnate such as sulfur, chloride and other chelating agents for its ability to enhance the adsorptive capacity of activated carbon for mercury vapor under various process conditions. The main process variables to be evaluated include temperature, mercury concentration and speciation, relative humidity, oxygen content, and presence of S0{sub 2} and NO{sub x} in the flue gas. The optimal amount of impregnate for each of these carbons will be determined based on the exhibited performance. Another important parameter which governs the applicability of adsorption technology for the flue gas clean up is the rate at which vapor phase mercury is being removed from the flue gas by activated carbon. Therefore, the second part of this study will evaluate the adsorption kinetics using the impregnated activated carbons listed above. The rate of mercury uptake will also be evaluated under the process conditions that are representative of coal-fired power plants. Concerned with the ability of the adsorbed mercury to migrate back into the …

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This document defines the QA activities that will be Pursued during the development of the WRAP I DMS Release 2 software.

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This Engineering Report (Conceptual Design) addresses remediation of the plutonium-bearing solutions currently in inventory at the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP). The recommendation from the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is that the solutions be treated thermally and stabilized as a solid for long term storage. For solutions which are not discardable, the baseline plan is to utilize a denitration process to stabilize the solutions prior to packaging for storage.

The Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) has been proposed as a production facility for tritium and medical isotopes. A range of postulated accidents related to ex-reactor irradiated fuel and target handling were identified and evaluated using new source terms for the higher fuel enrichment and for the tritium and medical isotope targets. In addition, two in-containment sodium spill accidents were re-evaluated to estimate effects of increased fuel enrichment and the presence of the Rapid Retrieval System. Radiological and toxicological consequences of the analyzed accidents were found to be well within applicable risk guidelines.

A goal of this work was to reduce the cost associated with hydrogen ion reagent `A`. Microautoclave tests were previously conducted using `A`/dry coal = 1.0. This quarter test were completed using a ratio of 2.0. Conversion was poor at the low ratio. Additional reagents did not improve the conversion.

The report documents the maximum exposure for transfer of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) Isotopic Heat Sources from the 324 Building and placed in interim storage at the Central Waste Complex (CWC). These results are to be reported in the Environmental Assessment DOE-EA- 1 21 1.

This report discusses fast-track negotiating authority, which provides that Congress will consider trade agreements within mandatory deadlines, with limited debate, and without amendment. Environmental provisions are eligible for the fast-track procedure only if they meet at least one of the principal trade negotiating objectives.

This report includes a brief analysis of federal research and development funding trends for the past six years as well as R&D funding projects to FY2000.

This document represents comments generated from a review of Transnuclear`s Final Design Package distributed on December 10, 1996 and a review of the Final Design Analysis Report meeting held on December 17 & 18, 1996. The Final design describes desicn features and presents final analyses @j performed to fabricate and operate the system while meeting the Cask/Transportation Functions and Requirements, WHC-SD-SNF-FRD-011, Rev. 0 and specification WHC-S-0396, Rev. 1.