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The corrosion of spent nuclear fuel and subsequent mobilization of radionuclides is of great concern in a geologic repository, particularly if conditions are oxidizing. Corroding A516 steel may offset these transport processes within the proposed waste packages at the Yucca Mountain Repository (YMR) by retaining radionuclides, creating locally reducing conditions, and reducing porosity. Ferrous iron, Fe{sup 2+}, has been shown to reduce UO{sub 2}{sup 2+} to UO{sub 2(s)} [1], and some ferrous iron-bearing ion-exchange materials adsorb radionuclides and heavy metals [2]. Of particular interest is magnetite, a potential corrosion product that has been shown to remove TcO{sub 4}{sup -} from solution [3]. Furthermore, if Fe{sup 2+} minerals, rather than fully oxidized minerals such as goethite, are produced during corrosion, then locally reducing conditions may be present. High electron availability leads to the reduction and subsequent immobilization of problematic dissolved species such as TcO{sub 4}{sup -}, NpO{sub 2}{sup +}, and UO{sub 2}{sup 2+} and can also inhibit corrosion of spent nuclear fuel. Finally, because the molar volume of iron material increases during corrosion due to oxygen and water incorporation, pore space may be significantly reduced over long time periods. The more water is occluded, the bulkier the corrosion products, and the …

OSRAM Opto Semiconductors (OSRAM) successfully completed development, fabrication and characterization of the large area, polymer based white light OLED prototype at their OLED Research and Development (R&D) facility in San Jose, CA. The program, funded by the Department of Energy (DOE), consisted of three key objectives: (1) Develop new polymer materials and device architectures--in order to improve the performance of organic light emitters. (2) Develop processing techniques--in order to demonstrate and enable the manufacturing of large area, white light and color tunable, solid state light sources. (3) Develop new electronics and driving schemes for organic light sources, including color-tunable light sources. The key performance goals are listed. A world record efficiency of 25 lm/W was established for the solution processed white organic device from the significant improvements made during the project. However, the challenges to transfer this technology from an R&D level to a large tile format such as, the robustness of the device and the coating uniformity of large area panels, remain. In this regard, the purity and the blend nature of the materials are two factors that need to be addressed in future work. During the first year, OSRAM's Materials and Device group (M&D) worked closely with the …

For years, the British and Irish governments sought to facilitate a peaceful settlement to the conflict in Northern Ireland. After many ups and downs, the two governments and the eight parties participating in peace talks announced an agreement on April 10, 1998. However, the implementation of the resulting Good Friday The agreement continues to be difficult. This report will be updated as events warrant.

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This month's issue has the following articles: (1) A Major Advance in Understanding Metals--Commentary by Tomas Diaz de la Rubia; (2) Materials Scientists Discover the Power of ParaDiS--A new supercomputer code is revealing how metals become stronger through the formation of dislocation line junctions; (3) A Wide New Window on the Universe--Livermore scientists and engineers are contributing to the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which will provide unprecedented digital maps of the changing night sky; (4) Built for Speed: Graphics Processors for General-Purpose Computing--Commercial graphics processors used in the computer gaming industry are providing low-cost solutions for high-performance data processing; and (5) Negative Plasma Densities Raise Questions--Livermore physicists shed light on anomalous results in x-ray interferometry of plasmas.

This month's issue has the following articles: (1) The Pursuit of Fusion Energy--Commentary by William H. Goldstein; (2) A Dynamo of a Plasma--The self-organizing magnetized plasmas in a Livermore fusion energy experiment are akin to solar flares and galactic jets; (3) How One Equation Changed the World--A three-page paper by Albert Einstein revolutionized physics by linking mass and energy; (4) Recycled Equations Help Verify Livermore Codes--New analytic solutions for imploding spherical shells give scientists additional tools for verifying codes; and (5) Dust That.s Worth Keeping--Scientists have solved the mystery of an astronomical spectral feature in interplanetary dust particles.

This report provides an overview of The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements. NEPA establishes national environmental policies that apply to the federal government and also prescribes certain procedural requirements for federal agency actions.

This report is categorized into five categories: (I) Most Recent Developments, (II) Background and Analysis, (III) Improving Fuel Economy: Other Policy Approaches, (IV) Legislation and (V) Congressional Hearing, Reports, and Documents.

We want to accurately know the energy spread and bunch length dependence on current in the ATF damping ring. One reason is to know the strength of the impedance: From the energy spread measurements we know whether or not we are above the threshold to the microwave instability, and from the energy spread and bunch length measurements we find out the extent of potential-well bunch lengthening (PWBL). Another reason for these measurements is to help in our understanding of the intra-beam scattering (IBS) effect in the ATF. The ATF as it is now, running below design energy and with the wigglers turned off, is strongly affected by IBS. To check for consistency with IBS theory of, for example, the measured vertical beam size, we need to know all dimensions of the beam, including the longitudinal one. But beyond this practical reason for studying IBS, IBS is currently a hot research topic at many accelerators around the world (see e.g. Ref. [1]), and the effect in actual machines is not well understood. Typically, when comparing theory with measurements fudge factors are needed to get agreement (see e.g. Ref. [1]). With its strong IBS effect, the ATF is an ideal machine for …

Insight into plasma microturbulence and transport is being sought using linear simulations of drift waves on the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX), following a study of drift wave modes on the Alcator C-Mod Tokamak. Microturbulence is likely generated by instabilities of drift waves, which cause transport of heat and particles. Understanding this transport is important because the containment of heat and particles is required for the achievement of practical nuclear fusion. Microtearing modes may cause high heat transport through high electron thermal conductivity. It is hoped that microtearing will be stable along with good electron transport in the proposed low collisionality International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). Stability of the microtearing mode is investigated for conditions at mid-radius in a high density NSTX high performance (H-mode) plasma, which is compared to the proposed ITER plasmas. The microtearing mode is driven by the electron temperature gradient, and believed to be mediated by ion collisions and magnetic shear. Calculations are based on input files produced by TRXPL following TRANSP (a time-dependent transport analysis code) analysis. The variability of unstable mode growth rates is examined as a function of ion and electron collisionalities using the parallel gyrokinetic computational code GS2. Results show the microtearing …

Federal farm support, food assistance, agricultural trade, marketing, and rural development policies are governed by a variety of separate laws. Many of these laws periodically have been evaluated, revised, and renewed through an omnibus, multi-year farm bill. This report discusses the "farm bill" and it's components.

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This report provides an overview and context of the FY2005 supplemental appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan, tsunami relief, and other activities.

2005 annual report of research conducted by the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, a research unit of The University of Georgia operating on the Savannah River Site, Aiken, South Carolina

This report details information regarding value-added tax as a new revenue source. Information such as background, analysis, and legislation is included.

Environmental surveillance of the Hanford Site and surrounding areas is conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Sampling is conducted to evaluate levels of radioactive and nonradioactive pollutants in the Hanford environs. This document contains the calendar year 2005 schedules for the routine and non-routine collection of samples for the Surface Environmental Surveillance Project (SESP) and Drinking Water Monitoring Project.

On December 12, 2005, the reference case projections from ''Annual Energy Outlook 2006'' (AEO 2006) were posted on the Energy Information Administration's (EIA) web site. We at LBNL have in the past compared the EIA's reference case long-term natural gas price forecasts from the AEO series to contemporaneous natural gas prices that can be locked in through the forward market, with the goal of better understanding fuel price risk and the role that renewables play in mitigating such risk (see, for example, http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/EMS/reports/53587.pdf or http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/ems/reports/54751.pdf). As such, we were curious to see how the latest AEO gas price forecast compares to the NYMEX natural gas futures strip. This brief memo presents our findings. As a refresher, our past work in this area has found that over the past five years, forward natural gas contracts (with prices that can be locked in--e.g., gas futures, swaps, and physical supply) have traded at a premium relative to contemporaneous long-term reference case gas price forecasts from the EIA. As such, we have concluded that, over the past five years at least, levelized cost comparisons of fixed-price renewable generation with variable price gas-fired generation that have been based on AEO natural gas price forecasts (rather …

Aerial refueling aircraft are key to air operations. The U.S. tanker fleet is large and effective, but old. Modernizing or replacing the current fleet of tankers presents the Department of Defense (DOD) with difficult choices in terms of desired capabilities, force structure, and budget. How this fleet will be maintained or replaced, and on what schedule, has proven controversial.

This Issue Brief examines DOD’s four largest tactical aircraft modernization programs. The background section provides a brief description of each program, and a discussion of how tactical aircraft fit into military air operations: the missions they typically perform and how they contrast to longer-range combat aircraft.

In March 2005, the Bush Administration announced a willingness to resume sales of F-16 combat aircraft to Pakistan. Potential sales to India are also being considered. These potential sales have political, military, and defense industrial base implications for the United States and the South Asia region. H.R. 1553 and S. 12 would impose nonproliferation conditions on these sales.

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In the aftermath of previous, presidentially-declared disasters, Congress has used the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program to help states and local governments finance recovery efforts, whether from natural or man-made disasters. This report will provide a general overview of the CDBG program and its use in disaster relief.

This report summarizes damage assessments and recovery efforts, with initial reports primarily anecdotal until more accurate assessments become available.