The objective of this study was to measure the leaching and adsorption characteristics of uranium in six near-surface sediment samples collected from the 300 Area of the Hanford Site. Scanning electron micrographs of the samples showed that the uranium contamination in the sediments is most likely present as co-precipitates and/or discrete uranium particles. Molecular probe techniques also confirm the presence of crystalline discrete uranium bearing phases. In all cases, the uranium is present as oxidized uranium (uranyl [U(VI)]). Results from the column leach tests showed that uranium leaching did not follow a constant solubility paradigm. Four of the five contaminated sediments showed a large near instantaneous release of a few percent of the total uranium followed by a slower continual release. Steady-state uranium leachate concentrations were never measured and leaching characteristics and trends were not consistent among the samples. Dissolution kinetics were slow, and the measured leach curves most likely represent a slow kinetically controlled desorption or dissolution paradigm. Batch adsorption experiments were performed to investigate the effect of pH and uranium and carbonate solution concentrations on uranium adsorption onto the uncontaminated sediment. Uranium adsorption Kd values ranged from 0 to > 100 ml/g depending on which solution parameter was …

This report provides an overview of the 2002 farm bill and an update status of the farm bill.

Certain categories of mixed wastes that contain recoverable amounts of natural uranium can be processed for the recovery of valuable uranium, alone or together with other metals, at licensed uranium mills, and the resulting tailings permanently disposed of as 11e.(2) byproduct material in the mill's tailings impoundment, as an alternative to treatment and/or direct disposal at a mixed waste disposal facility. This paper discusses the regulatory background applicable to hazardous wastes, mixed wastes and uranium mills and, in particular, NRC's Alternate Feed Guidance under which alternate feed materials that contain certain types of mixed wastes may be processed and disposed of at uranium mills. The paper discusses the way in which the Alternate Feed Guidance has been interpreted in the past with respect to processing mixed wastes and the significance of recent changes in NRC's interpretation of the Alternate Feed Guidance that sets the stage for a broader range of mixed waste materials to be processed as alternate feed materials. The paper also reviews the le gal rationale and policy reasons why materials that would otherwise have to be treated and/or disposed of as mixed waste, at a mixed waste disposal facility, are exempt from RCRA when reprocessed as alternate …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) downsized its acquisition workforce by half in the past decade. It now faces serious imbalances in the skills and experience of its remaining workforce and the potential loss of highly specialized knowledge if many of its acquisition specialists retire. DOD created the Acquisition 2005 Task Force to study its civilian acquisition workforce and develop a strategy to replenish personnel losses. In response to a legislative mandate, DOD reported on its plans to implement the task force's recommendations as required by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002. DOD's report shows that it has made progress in reshaping its acquisition workforce. For example, DOD is working to remove barriers to its strategic planning initiative; continuing to test various human capital innovations; and has begun making significant changes to its acquisition workforce-training program. DOD's report provides information on implementation of the task force's recommendations and their status. However, for many initiatives, DOD did not clearly describe the actions taken or when they occurred, nor did it identify all planned actions and schedules for completing the initiatives."

The first remote-handled transuranic (RH-TRU) waste is expected to be permanently disposed of at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) during Fiscal Year (FY) 2003. The first RH-TRU waste shipments are scheduled from the Battelle Columbus Laboratories (BCL) to WIPP in order to facilitate compliance with BCL Decommissioning Project (BCLDP) milestones. Milestones requiring RH-TRU waste containerization and removal from the site by 2004 in order to meet a 2006 site closure goal, established by Congress in the Defense Facilities Closure Projects account, necessitated the establishment and implementation of a site-specific program to direct the packaging of BCLDP RH-TRU waste prior to the finalization of WIPP RH-TRU waste characterization requirements. The program was designed to collect waste data, including audio and videotape records of waste packaging, such that upon completion of waste packaging, comprehensive data records exist from which compliance with final WIPP RH-TRU waste characterization requirements can be demonstrated. With the BCLDP data records generated to date and the development by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-Carlsbad Field Office (CBFO) of preliminary documents proposing the WIPP RH-TRU waste characterization program, it is possible to evaluate the adequacy of the BCLDP program with respect to meeting proposed characterization objectives. The BCLDP …

The goal of this project was to assess the economic feasibility of CO2 flooding the naturally fractured Spraberry Trend Area in west Texas. This objective was accomplished through research in four areas: (1) extensive characterization of the reservoirs, (2) experimental studies of crude oil/brine/rock (COBR) interactions in the reservoirs, (3) reservoir performance analysis, and (4) experimental investigations on CO2 gravity drainage in Spraberry whole cores. This provides results of the final year of the six-year project for each of the four areas.

Sub-Saharan Africa has been far more severely affected by AIDS than any other part of the world. The United Nations reports that 25.3 million adults and children are infected with the HIV virus in the region, which has about 10% of the world's population but more than 70% of the worldwide total of infected people. This report discusses this issue in detail, including the cause of the African AIDS epidemic, the social and economic consequences, response and treatment, and U.S. policy.

This paper describes the organization, planning and initial implementation of a DOE OST program to deploy proven, cost effective technologies into D&D programs throughout the complex. The primary intent is to accelerate closure of the projects thereby saving considerable funds and at the same time being protective of worker health and the environment. Most of the technologies in the ''toolkit'' for this program have been demonstrated at a DOE site as part of a Large Scale Demonstration and Deployment Project (LSDDP). The Mound Tritium D&D LSDDP served as the base program for the technologies being deployed in this project but other LSDDP demonstrated technologies or ready-for-use commercial technologies will also be considered. The project team will evaluate needs provided by site D&D project managers, match technologies against those needs and rank deployments using a criteria listing. After selecting deployments the project will purchase the equipment and provide a deployment engineer to facilitate the technology implementation. Other cost associated with the use of the technology will be borne by the site including operating staff, safety and health reviews etc. A cost and performance report will be prepared following the deployment to document the results.

The removal of uranium-233 (233 U) from the auxiliary charcoal bed (ACB) of the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE), performed from January through May 2001, created both unique radiological challenges and widely-applicable lessons learned. In addition to the criticality concerns and alpha contamination, 233U has an associated intense gamma photon from the cocontaminant uranium-232 (232U) decaying to thallium-208 (208Tl). Therefore, rigorous contamination controls and significant shielding were implemented. Extensive, timed mock-up training was also imperative to minimize individual and collective personnel exposures. Back-up shielding and containment techniques (that had been previously developed for defense in depth) were used successfully to control significant, changed conditions. Additional controls were placed on tests and on recovery designs to assure a higher level of safety throughout the removal operations. This paper delineates the manner in which each difficulty was solved, while relating the relevance of the results and the methodology to other projects with high dose-rate, highly-contaminated ionizing radiation hazards. Because of the distinctive features of and current interest in molten salt technology, a brief overview is provided. Also presented is the detailed, practical application of radiological controls integrated into, rather than added after, each evolution of the project--thus demonstrating the broad-based benefits of …

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is operating under a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Hazardous Waste Facility Permit (HWFP) for contact-handled (CH) transuranic (TRU) waste. The HWFP contains limitations on allowable emissions from waste disposed in the underground. This environmental performance standard imposed on the WIPP consists of limiting volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from emplaced waste to ensure protection of human health and the environment. The standard is currently met by tracking individual waste container headspace gas concentrations, which are determined by headspace gas sampling and analysis of CH TRU waste containers. The WIPP is seeking a HWFP modification to allow the disposal of remote-handled (RH) TRU waste. Because RH TRU waste is limited to approximately 5% of the waste volume and is emplaced in the disposal room walls, it is possible to bound the potential RH TRU waste contribution to VOC emissions using conservative upper bounds. These conservative upper bounds were developed as an alternative to RH TRU waste canister headspace gas sampling and analysis. The methodology used to perform the calculations used to evaluate VOC emissions from emplaced RH TRU waste canisters applied the same equations as those used to evaluate VOC emissions in the …

This report is categorized into four categories: (I) Passenger Rail Service Deficits Prior to Amtrak, (II) Original Expectations for Amtrak: Administration, (III) Early Returns on Amtrak's Progress Toward Profitability, (IV) Have the Original Pre-Conditions for Amtrak Profitability Been Met?

In this paper we study one-dimensional three-phase flow through porous media of immiscible, incompressible fluids. The model uses the common multiphase flow extension of Darcy's equation, and does not include gravity and capillarity effects. Under these conditions, the mathematical problem reduces to a 2 x 2 system of conservation laws whose essential features are: (1) the system is strictly hyperbolic; (2) both characteristic fields are nongenuinely nonlinear, with single, connected inflection loci. These properties, which are natural extensions of the two-phase flow model, ensure that the solution is physically sensible. We present the complete analytical solution to the Riemann problem (constant initial and injected states) in detail, and describe the characteristic waves that may arise, concluding that only nine combinations of rarefactions, shocks and rarefaction-shocks are possible. We demonstrate that assuming the saturation paths of the solution are straightlines may result in inaccurate predictions for some realistic systems. Efficient algorithms for computing the exact solution are also given, making the analytical developments presented here readily applicable to interpretation of lab displacement experiments, and implementation of streamline simulators.

This paper describes four general categories of infrastructure interdependencies (physical, cyber, geographic, and logical) as they apply to the water/wastewater infrastructure, and provides an overview of one of the analytic approaches and tools used by Argonne National Laboratory to evaluate interdependencies. Also discussed are the dimensions of infrastructure interdependency that create spatial, temporal, and system representation complexities that make analyzing the water/wastewater infrastructure particularly challenging. An analytical model developed to incorporate the impacts of interdependencies on infrastructure repair times is briefly addressed.

Now that increasing numbers of nuclear power stations are reaching the end of their commercially useful lives, the management of the large quantities of very low level radioactive material that arises during their decommissioning has become a major subject of discussion, with very significant economic implications. Much of this material can, in an environmentally advantageous manner, be recycled for reuse without radiological restrictions. Much larger quantities--2-3 orders of magnitude larger--of material, radiologically similar to the candidate material for recycling from the nuclear industry, arise in non-nuclear industries like coal, fertilizer, oil and gas, mining, etc. In such industries, naturally occurring radioactivity is artificially concentrated in products, by-products or waste to form TENORM (Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material). It is only in the last decade that the international community has become aware of the prevalence of T ENORM, specially the activity levels and quantities arising in so many nonnuclear industries. The first reaction of international organizations seems to have been to propose ''double'' standards for the nuclear and non-nuclear industries, with very stringent release criteria for radioactive material from the regulated nuclear industry and up to a hundred times more liberal criteria for the release/exemption of TENORM from the as …

Archimedes Technology Group, Inc., is developing a plasma mass separator called the Archimedes Filter that separates waste oxide mixtures ion by ion into two mass groups: light and heavy. For the first time, it is feasible to separate large amounts of material atom by atom in a single pass device. Although vacuum ion based electromagnetic separations have been around for many decades, they have traditionally depended on ion beam manipulation. Neutral plasma devices, on the other hand, are much easier, less costly, and permit several orders of magnitude greater throughput. The Filter has many potential applications in areas where separation of species is otherwise difficult or expensive. In particular, radioactive waste sludges at Hanford have been a particularly difficult issue for pretreatment and immobilization. Over 75% of Hanford HLW oxide mass (excluding water, carbon, and nitrogen) has mass less than 59 g/mol. On the other hand, 99.9% of radionuclide activity has mass greater than 89 g/mol. Therefore, Filter mass separation tuned to this cutoff would have a dramatic effect on the amount of IHLW produced--in fact IHLW would be reduced by a factor of at least four. The Archimedes Filter is a brand new tool for the separations specialist's toolbox. …

The knowledge gained from scientific observation, experiment, and simulation is linked to the ability to analyze, understand, and manage the generated results. These abilities are increasingly at odds with the current, and future, capabilities to generate enormous quantities of raw scientific and engineering data from instruments, sensors, and computers. Many researchers are currently engaged in activities that seek to create new and novel methods for analyzing, understanding, and managing these vast collections of data. In this work, we present some of our research in addressing a particular type of problem in this broad undertaking. Much the scientific data of interest is in the form of observed, measured, or computed multivariate or multi-component vector field data--with either as physical or color data values. We are currently researching methods and techniques for working with this type of vector data through the use of a novel analysis technique. Our basic approach is to work with the vector field data in its natural physical or color space. When the data is viewed as a functional mapping of a domain, usually an index space, to a range, the physical or color values, potentially interesting characteristics of the data present themselves. These characteristics are useful in …

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Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittees.

Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Energy and Water.

For assessments of hard-to-detect radionuclides (HD-RN) contents in various type of radwastes at the NPP-A1, available empirical data referenced to 137Cs (actinides, 90Sr, 99Tc, 63Ni, 14C) and the theoretical assessment for the remaining HD-RN using calculated RN inventory and a simple model with effective relative (137Cs) spent fuel release fractions was applied. The analytical data of extended radiochemical analysis for the existing available operational radwaste forms have been reviewed for this purpose. 137Cs, 90Sr and 241Am were set up as release markers for partial spent fuel release groups of HD-RNs within which the total fractions of HD-RN released to the operational radwastes were assumed to be constant. It was shown by the assessment carried out that 137Cs and HD-RNs 129I, 99Tc, and partly 79Se and 14C are the main contributors to the disposal dose limit for the radioactive concentrate at NPP A-1. In the case of the radioactive sludge from the operational radwaste system the role of predominant dose contributors belongs to actinides 239,240Pu and 241Am. In the case of clearance of radioactive material from the NPP-A1 site, only the reference radionuclide, 137Cs was predicted to be the most dominant dose contributor. In all of these cases the estimated contributions …

One of the least controversial provisions of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (P.L. 94-163) established corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards for new passenger cars. This report presents a brief background and analysis regarding the price of crude oil that brought into sharp focus the fuel inefficiency of U.S. automobiles. The report also discusses the previous issues and the most recent developments regarding CAFE.

One of the least controversial provisions of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (P.L. 94-163) established corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards for new passenger cars. This report presents a brief background and analysis regarding the price of crude oil that brought into sharp focus the fuel inefficiency of U.S. automobiles. The report also discusses the previous issues and the most recent developments regarding CAFE.

The goal of the radiation modeling effort was to develop and implement a radiation algorithm that is fast and accurate for the underhood environment. As part of this CRADA, a net-radiation model was chosen to simulate radiative heat transfer in an underhood of a car. The assumptions (diffuse-gray and uniform radiative properties in each element) reduce the problem tremendously and all the view factors for radiation thermal calculations can be calculated once and for all at the beginning of the simulation. The cost for online integration of heat exchanges due to radiation is found to be less than 15% of the baseline CHAD code and thus very manageable. The off-line view factor calculation is constructed to be very modular and has been completely integrated to read CHAD grid files and the output from this code can be read into the latest version of CHAD. Further integration has to be performed to accomplish the same with STAR-CD. The main outcome of this effort is to obtain a highly scalable and portable simulation capability to model view factors for underhood environment (for e.g. a view factor calculation which took 14 hours on a single processor only took 14 minutes on 64 processors). …

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