The BNL water supply system meets all water quality standards and has sufficient pumping and storage capacity to meet current and anticipated future operational demands. Because BNL's water supply is drawn from the shallow Upper Glacial aquifer, BNL's source water is susceptible to contamination. The quality of the water supply is being protected through (1) a comprehensive program of engineered and operational controls of existing aquifer contamination and potential sources of new contamination, (2) groundwater monitoring, and (3) potable water treatment. The BNL Source Water Assessment found that the source water for BNL's Western Well Field (comprised of Supply Wells 4, 6, and 7) has relatively few threats of contamination and identified potential sources are already being carefully managed. The source water for BNL's Eastern Well Field (comprised of Supply Wells 10, 11, and 12) has a moderate number of threats to water quality, primarily from several existing volatile organic compound and tritium plumes. The g-2 Tritium Plume and portions of the Operable Unit III VOC plume fall within the delineated source water area for the Eastern Well Field. In addition, portions of the much slower migrating strontium-90 plumes associated with the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor, Waste Concentration Facility and …

The BNL water supply system meets all water quality standards and has sufficient pumping and storage capacity to meet current and anticipated future operational demands. Because BNL's water supply is drawn from the shallow Upper Glacial aquifer, BNL's source water is susceptible to contamination. The quality of the water supply is being protected through (1) a comprehensive program of engineered and operational controls of existing aquifer contamination and potential sources of new contamination, (2) groundwater monitoring, and (3) potable water treatment. The BNL Source Water Assessment found that the source water for BNL's Western Well Field (comprised of Supply Wells 4, 6, and 7) has relatively few threats of contamination and identified potential sources are already being carefully managed. The source water for BNL's Eastern Well Field (comprised of Supply Wells 10, 11, and 12) has a moderate number of threats to water quality, primarily from several existing volatile organic compound and tritium plumes. The g-2 Tritium Plume and portions of the Operable Unit III VOC plume fall within the delineated source water area for the Eastern Well Field. In addition, portions of the much slower migrating strontium-90 plumes associated with the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor, Waste Concentration Facility and …

Long Length Contaminated Equipment Removal System Receiver Trailers and Transport Trailers require identification and control for the design, requirements and operations baseline documents. This plan serves as those controls for the subject trailers.

Following issuance of the original document (i.e., rev. 0), it was decided to change the terminology for the calculated average concentrations derived from the inventory limit and the volumetric capacity of the unit. In the original document, the concentration values were termed ''limits''. This terminology proved problematic in managing the inventory limits through the deviation process. Thus, these values are now termed ''concentration guidelines''. Since the average concentration values presented in the UDQ serve no essential purpose, they were removed from the table. It was also decided to delete the table of materials acceptable for trench disposal (Table 2 of the original document). This table was only envisioned to be a listing of example materials. The intent of the PA, as well as the UDQ, is that any material, except for activated metal, meeting the trench WAC is acceptable.

Following issuance of the original document (i.e., rev. 0), it was discovered that an error was made in stating the dimensions and volume of the Engineered Trench and the incorrect volume was used in calculating the concentration limits (i.e. the inventory limit divided by the volumetric waste capacity of the unit) in the tables. The terminology of calling the average concentrations ''limits'' proved problematic in managing the inventory limits through the deviation process. Since the average concentration values presented serve no essential purpose (Waste Acceptance Criteria are derived from the inventory limits), they were removed from the tables. Also, the name of the disposal unit was changed from the MegaTrench to the Engineered Trench. For clarification, a statement was added that differences in dimensions of disposal units of less than about 10 percent are inconsequential from a PA perspective.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. government controls the export of high performance computers to sensitive destinations on the basis of foreign policy and national security concerns. The current control system for high performance computers is ineffective because it focuses on controlling individual machines and cannot prevent countries of concern from linking or clustering many lower performance uncontrolled computers to collectively perform at higher levels than current export control allows. The current system uses the measure of millions of theoretical operations per second as a way to classify and control high power computers meant for export. However, this system, as well as three remedies suggested by the Department of Commerce, do not solve the problems posed by clustering."

During this grant period substantial progress was made in the characterization of the TIR1 gene in Arabidopsis. Studies showed that the TIR1 protein is part of a protein complex that includes AtCUL1, ASK1 and RBX1. This complex, called SCF-TIR1, functions in the ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation pathway. Our work is the first report of an SCF complex in a plant system. The results of our studies are described in more detail in the report together with a publication resulting from this study.

Negative ions tend to stratify in electronegative plasmas with hot electrons (electron temperature Te much larger than ion temperature Ti, Te > Ti ). The boundary separating a plasma containing negative ions, and a plasma, without negative ions, is usually thin, so that the negative ion density falls rapidly to zero-forming a negative ion density front. We review theoretical, experimental and numerical results giving the spatio-temporal evolution of negative ion density fronts during plasma ignition, the steady state, and extinction (afterglow). During plasma ignition, negative ion fronts are the result of the break of smooth plasma density profiles during nonlinear convection. In a steady-state plasma, the fronts are boundary layers with steepening of ion density profiles due to nonlinear convection also. But during plasma extinction, the ion fronts are of a completely different nature. Negative ions diffuse freely in the plasma core (no convection), whereas the negative ion front propagates towards the chamber walls with a nearly constant velocity. The concept of fronts turns out to be very effective in analysis of plasma density profile evolution in strongly non-isothermal plasmas.

Subtleties of implementing the standard perfectly conducting wall boundary condition in a general toroidal geometry are clarified for a mixed scalar magnetic field representation. An iterative scheme based on Ohm's law is given.

None

None

This study estimates the potential for public policies and R and D programs to foster clean energy technology solutions to the energy and environmental challenges facing the nation. These challenges include global climate change, air pollution, oil dependence, and inefficiencies in the production and use of energy. The study uses a scenario-based approach to examine alternative portfolios of public policies and technologies. Although the report makes no policy recommendations, it does present policies that could lead to impressive advances in the development and deployment of clean energy technologies without significant net economic impacts.

The transport of charged species in collisional currentless plasmas is traditionally thought of as a diffusion-like process. In this paper, it is demonstrated that, in contrast to two-component plasma, containing electrons and positive ions, the transport of additional ions in multi-species plasmas is not governed by diffusion, rather described by nonlinear convection. As a particular example, plasmas with the presence of negative ions have been studied. The velocity of a small perturbation of negative ions was found analytically and validated by numerical simulation. As a result of nonlinear convection, initially smooth ion density profiles break and form strongly inhomogeneous shock-like fronts. These fronts are different from collisionless shocks and shocks in fully ionized plasma. The structure of the fronts has been found analytically and numerically.

The U.S. Department of Energy plans to vitrify Hanford's underground storage tank wastes. The vitrified wastes will be divided into low-activity and high-level fractions. There is an effort to reduce the quantity of high-activity wastes by removing nonradioactive components because of the high costs involved in treating high-level waste. Pretreatment options, such as caustic leaching, to selectively remove nonradioactive components are being investigated. The effectiveness of these proposed processes for removing nonradioactive components depends on the chemical phases in the tank sludges. This review summarizes the chemical phases identified to date in Hanford tank sludges.

The U.S. Department of Energy plans to vitrify Hanford's underground storage tank wastes. The vitrified wastes will be divided into low-activity and high-level fractions. There is an effort to reduce the quantity of high-activity wastes by removing nonradioactive components because of the high costs involved in treating high-level waste. Pretreatment options, such as caustic leaching, to selectively remove nonradioactive components are being investigated. The effectiveness of these proposed processes for removing nonradioactive components depends on the chemical phases in the tank sludges. This review summarizes the chemical phases identified to date in Hanford tank sludges.

The US Department of Energy plans to vitrify Hanford's tank wastes. The vitrified wastes will be divided into low-activity and high-level fractions. There is an effort to reduce the quantity of high-activity wastes by removing nonradioactive components because of the high costs involved in treating high-level waste. Pretreatment options, such as caustic leaching, to selectively remove nonradioactive components are being investigated. The effectiveness of these proposed processes for removing nonradioactive components depends on the chemical phases in the tank sludges. This review summarizes the chemical phases identified to date in Hanford tank sludges.

The Tank Waste Configuration Management (TWRS) Configuration Management Implementation Plan descibes the execution of the configuration management (CM) that the contractor uses to manage and integrate its programmatic and functional operations to perform work.

Over the past decade, fixed-speed, utility-scale wind turbines have technically advanced to a point where they can economically complete against nuclear and fossil-fuel-based power plants in geographical areas with a sufficient wind resource. The objective of this subcontract was to compare various electrical topologies allowing variable-speed turbine operation, identify the most suitable for a 275-kW (or larger) utility-scale wind turbine, and then design, build, lab test, and field test this variable-speed generation subsystem based on the previously identified optimum approach. Preliminary tests of the controls for a doubly fed variable-speed generation system rated at 750 kW were performed on a wind turbine. A 275-kW VSGS was thoroughly tested in the laboratory and on a wind turbine. Using field-oriented control, excellent dynamic behavior of the drive train was demonstrated, acoustic tests revealed an 11 dB reduction in turbine noise in low-wind, low-RPM operation compared to fixed-speed operation. The overall efficiency of the electrical system suffered from inadequate efficiency of the power converter at low power. Consequently, a different converter topology has been proposed that will satisfy both efficiency and power quality requirements for future use. This report provides information on all aspects of the project, including events that were unanticipated at …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Currently, veterans who are disabled while serving their country are compensated for average reduction in earning capacity. Monthly compensation is based on the severity of a veteran's disability. After an initial rating for compensation has been determined, veterans who believe their condition has worsened may file a claim with the Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA) to reevaluate their disability rating. These repeat claims outnumbered initial disability applications by nearly three to one in fiscal year 1999, dominating VA's workload. To help reduce the volume of repeat claims, the Veterans' Claims Adjudication Commission asked Congress to consider paying less severely disabled veterans compensation in a lump sum. GAO surveyed veterans who are now being compensated on their reaction to a lump sum option. Veterans had mixed views. Many veterans and military personnel could see advantages and disadvantages to this new option. They also suggested some strategies that they believed could minimize the financial risks a lump sum payment option might introduce."

The mission of the Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Project Cold Vacuum Drying Facility (CVDF) is to achieve the earliest possible removal of free water from Multi-Canister Overpacks (MCOs). The MCOs contain metallic uranium SNF that have been removed from the 100K Area fuel storage water basins (i.e., the K East and K West Basins) at the US. Department of Energy Hanford Site in Southeastern Washington state. Removal of free water is necessary to halt water-induced corrosion of exposed uranium surfaces and to allow the MCOs and their SNF payloads to be safely transported to the Hanford Site 200 East Area and stored within the SNF Project Canister Storage Building (CSB). The CVDF is located within a few hundred yards of the basins, southwest of the 165KW Power Control Building and the 105KW Reactor Building. The site area required for the facility and vehicle circulation is approximately 2 acres. Access and egress is provided by the main entrance to the 100K inner area using existing roadways. The CVDF will remove free. water from the MCOs to reduce the potential for continued fuel-water corrosion reactions. The cold vacuum drying process involves the draining of bulk water from the MCO and subsequent vacuum …

None

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report summarizes GAO's findings on the economic and social effects of "convenience gambling." The National Gambling Impact Study Commission defines convenience gambling as the placement of slot machines or video poker terminals in restaurants, bars, drugstores, and other businesses to attract local residents rather than tourists. Although data from the communities GAO studied indicated that legalized convenience gambling increased tax revenues and created jobs, local government officials said that its presence discouraged some businesses from coming into the community. Although government officials in these communities suggested that convenience gambling contributed to bankruptcy filings, GAO was unable to find evidence of such a link. Many factors prevented GAO from clearly identifying the social effects of gambling in the communities studied. GAO was able to gather anecdotal evidence that suggested a link between certain social problems and gambling, but hard evidence to support those findings was lacking."

In the months approaching China's resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong on July 1, 1997, policy analysts are trying to assess how the territory will fare under Chinese rule. The answer is important to U.S. interests because of the enormous U.S. economic presence in Hong Kong; because any adverse developments in Hong Kong are likely to affect U.S.-China relations; and because China's promise to give Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy under the "one-China, two-systems" policy has major implications for Taiwan. But given the political situation, the American ability to affect the course of events in Hong Kong seems marginal unless the U.S. decides to confront Beijing more directly. Developments in U.S.-China relations in 1994-1995 suggest Washington might be hesitant to do so.

Groundwater is monitored at the Hanford Site to fulfill a variety of state and federal regulations, including the Atomic Energy Act of 1954; the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976; the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980; and Washington Administrative Code. Separate monitoring plans are prepared for various requirements, but sampling is coordinated and data are shared among users to avoid duplication of effort. The U.S. Department of Energy manages these activities through the Hanford Groundwater Monitoring Project. This document is an integrated monitoring plan for the groundwater project. It documents well and constituent lists for monitoring required by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and its implementing orders; includes other, established monitoring plans by reference; and appends a master well/constituent/ frequency matrix for the entire site. The objectives of monitoring fall into three general categories: plume and trend tracking, treatment/ storage/disposal unit monitoring, and remediation performance monitoring. Criteria for selecting Atomic Energy Act of 1954 monitoring networks include locations of wells in relation to known plumes or contaminant sources, well depth and construction, historical data, proximity to the Columbia River, water supplies, or other areas of special interest, and well use for other programs. Constituent …