A Habitat Evaluation Procedure (HEP) study was conducted on lands acquired and/or managed (4,568 acres total) by the Hellsgate Big Game Winter Range Wildlife Mitigation Project (Hellsgate project) to mitigate some of the losses associated with the original construction and operation of Grand Coulee Dam and inundation of habitats behind the dams. Three separate properties, totaling 2,224 acres were purchased in 1998. One property composed of two separate parcels, mostly grassland lies southeast of the town of Nespelem in Okanogan County (770 acres) and was formerly called the Hinman property. The former Hinman property lies within an area the Tribes have set aside for the protection and preservation of the sharp-tailed grouse (Agency Butte unit). This special management area minus the Hinman acquisition contains 2,388 acres in a long-term lease with the Tribes. The second property lies just south of the Silver Creek turnoff (Ferry County) and is bisected by the Hellsgate Road (part of the Friedlander unit). This parcel contains 60 acres of riparian and conifer forest cover. The third property (now named the Sand Hills unit) acquired for mitigation (1,394 acres) lies within the Hellsgate Reserve in Ferry County. This new acquisition links two existing mitigation parcels (the …

Water use in the pulp and paper industry is very significant, and the U.S. pulp and paper industries as well as other processing industries are actively pursuing water conservation and pollution prevention by in-process recycling of water. Bleach plant effluent is a large portion of the water discharged from a typical bleached kraft pulp mill. The recycling of bleach plant effluents to the kraft recovery cycle is widely regarded as an approach to low effluent bleached kraft pulp production. The focus of this work has been on developing an electrodialysis process for recycling the acidic bleach plant effluent of bleached Kraft pulp mills. Electrodialysis is uniquely suited as a selective kidney to remove non-process elements (NPEs) from bleach plant effluent before they reach the chemical recovery cycle. Using electrodialysis for selective NPE removal can prevent the problems caused by accumulation of inorganic NPEs in the pulping cycle and recovery boiler. In this work, acidic bleach plant filtrates from three mills using different bleaching sequences based on chlorine dioxide were characterized. The analyses showed no fundamental differences in the inorganic NPE composition or other characteristics among these filtrates. The majority of total dissolved solids in the effluents were found to be …

A fundamental part of geophysics is to make inferences about the interior of the earth on the basis of data collected at or near the surface of the earth. In almost all cases these measured data are only indirectly related to the properties of the earth that are of interest, so an inverse problem must be solved in order to obtain estimates of the physical properties within the earth. In February of 1999 the U.S. Department of Energy sponsored a workshop that was intended to examine the methods currently being used to solve geophysical inverse problems and to consider what new approaches should be explored in the future. The interdisciplinary area between inverse problems in geophysics and optimization methods in mathematics was specifically targeted as one where an interchange of ideas was likely to be fruitful. Thus about half of the participants were actively involved in solving geophysical inverse problems and about half were actively involved in research on general optimization methods. This report presents some of the topics that were explored at the workshop and the conclusions that were reached. In general, the objective of a geophysical inverse problem is to find an earth model, described by a set …

Through this funded project, our research group at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory has pioneered and been successful in preparing and evaluating the performance of prototypes of neutron, alpha, and gamma-ray detectors based on various types of nanoparticles. These include organic fluors [2,5-diphenyloxazole (PPO) and 1,4-bis-2-(5-phenyloxazolyl)-benzene (POPOP)]-doped polystyrene and polyvinyltoluene nanoparticles, highly crystalline inorganic ZnS-capped CdSe, ZnS, three-component CdSxSe1-x, Ce3+-doped Y2O3, and Ce3+-doped LaPO4 (LaPO4:Ce) nanocrystals (NCs) in polystyrene (PS) or polyvinyltoluene (PVT). Previously, this effort identified two strong candidate nanoparticles for neutron and gamma detection applications. These two NCs are LaPO4:Ce and CdSxSe1-x (Dai, S. et. al. manuscript in preparation; see Figures 1 and 2). Another key accomplishment of the previously funded project is the development of 6Li3PO4 nanoparticles as a neutron-absorbing material (Dai, S. et. al. manuscript in preparation). Because the size of these nanoparticles is well under the diffraction limit for visible light, the 6Li3PO4 nanoparticles can be utilized as a vehicle for doping large percentages of Li-6 into plastic scintillators for detection of thermal neutrons. Our preliminary results indicate that a transparent polymer composite containing as high as 16 wt% of the 6Li3PO4 nanoparticles can be fabricated. Figure 3 shows the pulse height spectra from thermal …

The monitoring of chemical constituents in manufacturing processes is of economic importance to most industries. The monitoring and control of chemical constituents may be of importance for product quality control or, in the case of process effluents, of environmental concern. The most common approach now employed for chemical process control is to collect samples which are returned to a conventional chemical analysis laboratory. This project attempts to demonstrate the use of microfabricated structures, referred to as 'lab-on-a-chip' devices, that accomplish chemical measurement tasks that emulate those performed in the conventional laboratory. The devices envisioned could be used as hand portable chemical analysis instruments where samples are analyzed in the field or as emplaced sensors for continuous 'real-time' monitoring. This project focuses on the development of filtration elements and solid phase extraction elements that can be monolithically integrated onto electrophoresis and chromatographic structures pioneered in the laboratory. Successful demonstration of these additional functional elements on integrated microfabricated devices allows lab-on-a-chip technologies to address real world samples that would be encountered in process control environments. The resultant technology has a broad application to industrial environmental monitoring problems. such as monitoring municipal water supplies, waste water effluent from industrial facilities, or monitoring of …

A procedure was developed to assign energy ratings to a photovoltaic (PV) module for five reference days that represent different climates.

The structure and effects of extended defects in rapid deposited polycrystalline Si thin films were studied using a combination of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and first-principles total energy calculations.

Technologies were investigated to determine viable processes for removing mercury from the calciner (NWCF) offgas system at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. Technologies for gas phase and aqueous phase treatment were evaluated. The technologies determined are intended to meet EPA Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) requirements under the Clean Air Act and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Currently, mercury accumulation in the calciner off-gas scrubbing system is transferred to the tank farm. These transfers lead to accumulation in the liquid heels of the tanks. The principal objective for aqueous phase mercury removal is heel mercury reduction. The system presents a challenge to traditional methods because of the presence of nitrogen oxides in the gas phase and high nitric acid in the aqueous scrubbing solution. Many old and new technologies were evaluated including sorbents and absorption in the gas phase and ion exchange, membranes/sorption, galvanic methods, and UV reduction in the aqueous phase. Process modifications and feed pre-treatment were also evaluated. Various properties of mercury and its compounds were summarized and speciation was predicted based on thermodynamics. Three systems (process modification, NOxidizer combustor, and electrochemical aqueous phase treatment) and additional technology testing were recommended.

This effort represents a contribution to the wider distributed energy resources (DER) research of the Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions (CERTS, http://certs.lbl.gov) that is intended to attack and, hopefully, resolve the technical barriers to DER adoption, particularly those that are unlikely to be of high priority to individual equipment vendors. The longer term goal of the Berkeley Lab effort is to guide the wider technical research towards the key technical problems by forecasting some likely patterns of DER adoption. In sharp contrast to traditional electricity utility planning, this work takes a customer-centric approach and focuses on DER adoption decision making at, what we currently think of as, the customer level. This study reports on Berkeley Lab's second year effort (completed in Federal fiscal year 2000, FY00) of a project aimed to anticipate patterns of customer adoption of distributed energy resources (DER). Marnay, et al., 2000 describes the earlier FY99 Berkeley Lab work. The results presented herein are not intended to represent definitive economic analyses of possible DER projects by any means. The paucity of data available and the importance of excluded factors, such as environmental implications, are simply too important to make such an analysis possible at this time. …

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Each content code uniquely identifies the generated waste and provides a system for tracking theprocess and packaging history. Each content code begins with a two-letter site abbreviation thatdesignates the physical location of the RH-TRU waste. The site-specific letter designations for eachof the DOE sites are provided in Table 2. All TRU waste generating/storage sites are included inTable 2 for completeness. Not all of the sites listed in Table 2 have generated/stored RH-TRU waste.

The first Specific Aim for this grant was to identify and characterize an average of 500 human insertion/deletion polymorphisms per grant year (1500 total). This task was carried out entirely at MMRF. They substantially exceeded this goal by confirming about 2,300 diallelic indels. Complete characterization information for these polymorphisms is available from the Marshfield web site. A manuscript describing results for the first 2,000 diallelic indels was published earlier this year in the American Journal of Human Genetics. The Second Specific Aim of the grant was to investigate and develop improved methods for analysis of diallelic polymorphisms using miniaturized DNA arrays. The initial genotyping technology efforts focused on various hybridization and extension protocols with oligo arrays on flow-through channel glass. Channel glass is a porous material that permits reagents to be passed through the arrays. They devoted roughly 19 months at the beginning of the grant in pursuit of this methodology, but for various technological reasons, progress was limited.

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This article is about the Chopping effect observed at cathodic arc initiation. It is argued that current chopping at the rising edge is similar to the current chopping effect that is well-known for the arc current approaching current-zero.

Construction of the Dalles, Bonneville, McNary, and John Day Dams on the Columbia River by the federal government resulted in a substantial loss of riparian bottomland along the Columbia River. Impacts associated with the Mid-Columbia Projects were assessed for several wildlife species using the Habitat Evaluation Procedures (HEP) developed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USDI-FWS 1980). The studies documented the loss of riparian habitat and established a baseline against which mitigation measures could be developed (USDI-FWS 1990 and USDE-BPA 1990). The impact assessments established a mitigation goal, a portion of which would be satisfied by the creation, restoration, and enhancement of riparian lands on tributaries to the Columbia River, including the Yakima Valley. The Yakama Nation (YN), the Northwest Power Planning Council, and the Bonneville Power Administration have agreed that the Yakama Nation would be funded to implement habitat restoration on lands within and adjacent to their reservation. Some of the targeted lands are owned by the Yakama Nation, some are trust lands, and some lands have been in private ownership. Since the early 1990s, the Yakama Nation has been in the process of assembling riparian lands into Wildlife Management Areas, and restoring natural hydrology and natural cover-types …

ParaDyn is a parallel version of the DYNA3D computer program, a three-dimensional explicit finite-element program for analyzing the dynamic response of solids and structures. The ParaDyn program has been used as a production tool for over three years for analyzing problems which range in size from a few tens of thousands of elements to between one-million and ten-million elements. ParaDyn runs on parallel computers provided by the Department of Energy Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) and the Department of Defense High Performance Computing and Modernization Program. Preprocessing and post-processing software utilities and tools are designed to facilitate the generation of partitioned domains for processors on a massively parallel computer and the visualization of both resultant data and boundary data generated in a parallel simulation. This manual provides a brief overview of the parallel implementation; describes techniques for running the ParaDyn program, tools and utilities; and provides examples of parallel simulations.

The interior voltage of a large metal can with thick walls struck directly by lightning was estimated using diffusion theory, aperture slot voltage theory, and experimental data. The hollow cylinder is closed at both ends. One end has a cap that is welded to the cylinder wall making a continuous electrical interface. The other end consists of a circular plate that is pressed into the cylinder wall and held under pressure with a threaded ring. From our experience with coupling measurements, this joint will be a weak link. It will allow more current to leak into the interior than from diffusion through the walls. Because the joint was designed for mechanical purposes, the electrical properties, such as continuity around the circumference, are not well controlled. Therefore, it is difficult to determine a single voltage attributed to this joint design with varying electrical characteristics. Instead, we will make a best effort of bounding the problem using both analytical calculations and data from tests of similar structures. The calculated internal cylinder voltage subjected to an extreme lightning strike from current diffusing through the wall is 19 volts. We estimate that the press-fit end plate will increase this voltage by a factor of …

We present a method for accelerating time dependent Monte Carlo radiative transfer calculations by using a discretization of the diffusion equation to calculate probabilities that are used to advance particles in regions with small mean free path. The method is demonstrated on problems with on 1 and 2 dimensional orthogonal grids. It results in decreases in run time of more than an order of magnitude on these problems, while producing answers with accuracy comparable to pure IMC simulations. We call the method Implicit Monte Carlo Diffusion, which we abbreviate IMD.

Performance assessment and design evaluation require a modeling tool that simultaneously accounts for processes occurring at a scale of a few tens of centimeters around individual waste packages and emplacement drifts, and also on behavior at the scale of the mountain. Many processes and features must be considered, including non-isothermal, multiphase-flow in rock of variable saturation and thermal radiation in open cavities. Also, given the nature of the fractured rock at Yucca Mountain, a dual-permeability approach is needed to represent permeability. A monolithic numerical model with all these features requires too large a computational cost to be an effective simulation tool, one that is used to examine sensitivity to key model assumptions and parameters. We have developed a multi-scale modeling approach that effectively simulates 3D discrete-heat-source, mountain-scale thermohydrologic behavior at Yucca Mountain and captures the natural variability of the site consistent with what we know from site characterization and waste-package-to-waste-package variability in heat output. We describe this approach and present results examining the role of infiltration flux, the most important natural-system parameter with respect to how thermohydrologic behavior influences the performance of the repository.

Using existing experimental data for neutron-induced total, elastic, inelastic, reaction and fission cross sections, as well as results from nuclear model calculations and evaluations from nuclear reaction data libraries, we derived an estimate for the cross sections for the {sup 235}U(n,2n) and {sup 239}Pu(n,2n) reactions for the neutron energy range from threshold to approximately 12 MeV. In effect, our approach is based on subtracting the fission and inelastic cross sections from the total reaction cross section where the difference is expected to yield the (n,2n) cross section. In addition to this subtraction approach, a ratio method and a differential method have also been explored. For {sup 235}U(n,2n), as a test case, we arrive at a cross section consistent with previous measurements, and for {sup 239}Pu(n,2n) we obtain a peak value of 400 {+-} 60 mb for the incident neutron energy range of 10 {le} E{sub n} {le} 12 MeV.

This newsletter is prepared for the NARUC Subcommittee on Renewable Energy to promote information sharing on state-level renewable electric activities. It is sponsored by the Office of Power Technologies of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Since 1994 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), with the help of several other laboratories and university groups, has been the lead laboratory for the Plutonium Immobilization Project (PIP). This involves, among other tasks, the development of a formulation and a fabrication process for a ceramic to be used in the immobilization of excess weapons-usable plutonium. This report reviews the history of the project as it relates to the development of the ceramic form. It describes the sample test plan for the pyrochlore-rich ceramic formulation that was selected, and it specifies the baseline formulation that has been adopted. It also presents compositional specifications (e.g. precursor compositions and mixing recipes) and other form and process specifications that are linked or potentially linked to the baseline formulation.

This paper describes the mechanical design of the downstream beam transport line for the second axis of the Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test (DARHT II) Facility. The DARHT-II project is a collaboration between LANL, LBNL and LLNL. DARHT II is a 20-MeV, 2000-Amperes, 2-{micro}sec linear induction accelerator designed to generate short bursts of x-rays for the purpose of radiographing dense objects. The downstream beam transport line is approximately 20-meter long region extending from the end of the accelerator to the bremsstrahlung target. Within this proposed transport line there are 15 conventional solenoid, quadrupole and dipole magnets; as well as several specialty magnets, which transport and focus the beam to the target and to the beam dumps. There are two high power beam dumps, which are designed to absorb 80-kJ per pulse during accelerator start-up and operation. Aspects of the mechanical design of these elements are presented.