This report evaluates the feasibility of disposing U.S. high-level radioactive waste in granite several hundred meters below the surface of the earth. The U.S. has many granite formations with positive attributes for permanent disposal. Similar crystalline formations have been extensively studied by international programs, two of which, in Sweden and Finland, are the host rocks of submitted or imminent repository license applications. This report is enabled by the advanced work of the international community to establish functional and operational requirements for disposal of a range of waste forms in granite media. In this report we develop scoping performance analyses, based on the applicable features, events, and processes (FEPs) identified by international investigators, to support generic conclusions regarding post-closure safety. Unlike the safety analyses for disposal in salt, shale/clay, or deep boreholes, the safety analysis for a mined granite repository depends largely on waste package preservation. In crystalline rock, waste packages are preserved by the high mechanical stability of the excavations, the diffusive barrier of the buffer, and favorable chemical conditions. The buffer is preserved by low groundwater fluxes, favorable chemical conditions, backfill, and the rigid confines of the host rock. An added advantage of a mined granite repository is that …

Prior to commercial operation, large solar systems in utility-size power plants need to pass a performance acceptance test conducted by the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor or owners. In lieu of the present absence of ASME or other international test codes developed for this purpose, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has undertaken the development of interim guidelines to provide recommendations for test procedures that can yield results of a high level of accuracy consistent with good engineering knowledge and practice. Progress on interim guidelines was presented at SolarPACES 2010. Significant additions and modifications were made to the guidelines since that time, resulting in a final report published by NREL in April 2011. This paper summarizes those changes, which emphasize criteria for assuring thermal equilibrium and steady state conditions within the solar field.

This paper summarizes the potential market for process heat produced by a high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR), the environmental benefits reduced CO2 emissions will have on these markets, and the typical economics of projects using these applications. It gives examples of HTGR technological applications to industrial processes in the typical co-generation supply of process heat and electricity, the conversion of coal to transportation fuels and chemical process feedstock, and the production of ammonia as a feedstock for the production of ammonia derivatives, including fertilizer. It also demonstrates how uncertainties in capital costs and financial factors affect the economics of HTGR technology by analyzing the use of HTGR technology in the application of HTGR and high temperature steam electrolysis processes to produce hydrogen.

This fact sheet is an overview of the Department of Energy's Solar Energy Technologies program.

Precision measurements of the masses and widths of the bottom baryon resonances {Sigma}{sub b} and {Sigma}*{sub b} and charm baryons {Lambda}{sub c}(2595), {Lambda}{sub c}(2625), {Sigma}{sub c}(2455), and {Sigma}{sub c}(2520) are reported. A new measurement of {Lambda}{sub b} production is described. The studies include the first measurement of the widths and isospin mass splittings of the members of the {Sigma}{sub b} family. The charm baryons are examined through their strong decays to the {Lambda}{sub c} ground state, and measurements of their mass differences relative to the ground state, and corresponding decay widths, are reported. The data were collected by the CDF and D0 detectors for 1.96 TeV proton-antiproton collisions during Run II at the Fermilab Tevatron.

At Fermilab, we have prototyped a GPU-accelerated network performance monitoring system, called G-NetMon, to support large-scale scientific collaborations. Our system exploits the data parallelism that exists within network flow data to provide fast analysis of bulk data movement between Fermilab and collaboration sites. Experiments demonstrate that our G-NetMon can rapidly detect sub-optimal bulk data movements.

This report presents the data qualification status of fuel irradiation data from the first four reactor cycles (147A, 148A, 148B, and 149A) of the on-going second Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR-2) experiment as recorded in the NGNP Data Management and Analysis System (NDMAS). This includes data received by NDMAS from the period June 22, 2010 through May 21, 2011. AGR-2 is the second in a series of eight planned irradiation experiments for the AGR Fuel Development and Qualification Program, which supports development of the very high temperature gas-cooled reactor (VHTR) under the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) Project. Irradiation of the AGR-2 test train is being performed at the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and is planned for 600 effective full power days (approximately 2.75 calendar years) (PLN-3798). The experiment is intended to demonstrate the performance of UCO (uranium oxycarbide) and UO2 (uranium dioxide) fuel produced in a large coater. Data qualification status of the AGR-1 experiment was reported in INL/EXT-10-17943 (Abbott et al. 2010).

In-situ decommissioning of Reactors P- and R- at the Savannah River Site will require filling the reactor vessels with a special concrete based on materials such as magnesium phosphate, calcium aluminate or silica fume. Then the reactor vessels will be overlain with an 8 ft. thick layer of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) steel reinforced concrete, called the 'Cap Concrete'. The integrity of this protective layer must be assured to last for a sufficiently long period of time to avoid ingress of water into the reactor vessel and possible movement of radioactive contamination into the environment. During drying of this Cap Concrete however, shrinkage strains are set up in the concrete as a result of diffusion and evaporation of water from the top surface. This shrinkage varies with depth in the poured slab due to a non-uniform moisture distribution. This differential shrinkage results in restraint of the upper layers with larger shrinkage by lower layers with lesser displacements. Tensile stresses can develop at the surface from the strain gradients in the bulk slab, which can lead to surface cracking. Further, a mechanism called creep occurs during the curing period or early age produces strains under the action of restraining forces. To …

Updated analyses of mortality data are presented on 46,970 workers employed 1948-1999 at Rocketdyne (Atomics International). Overall, 5,801 workers were involved in radiation activities, including 2,232 who were monitored for intakes of radionuclides, and 41,169 workers were engaged in rocket testing or other non-radiation activities. The worker population is unique in that lifetime occupational doses from all places of employment were sought, updated and incorporated into the analyses. Further, radiation doses from intakes of 14 different radionuclides were calculated for 16 organs or tissues using biokinetic models of the International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP). Because only negligible exposures were received by the 247 workers monitored for radiation activities after 1999, the mean dose from external radiation remained essentially the same at 13.5 mSv (maximum 1 Sv) as reported previously, as did the mean lung dose from external and internal radiation combined at 19.0 mSv (maximum 3.6 Sv). An additional 9 years of follow-up, from December 31,1999 through 2008, increased the person-years of observation for the radiation workers by 21.7% to 196,674 (mean 33.9 years) and the number of cancer deaths by 50% to 684. Analyses included external comparisons with the general population and the computation of standardized mortality ratios …

Projects for the very high temperature reactor (VHTR) Technology Development Office provide data in support of Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing of the VHTR. Fuel and materials to be used in the reactor are tested and characterized to quantify performance in high temperature and high fluence environments. The VHTR program has established the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) Data Management and Analysis System (NDMAS) to ensure that VHTR data are qualified for use, stored in a readily accessible electronic form, and analyzed to extract useful results. This document focuses on the first NDMAS objective. It describes the High Temperature Materials characterization data stream, the processing of these data within NDMAS, and reports the interim fiscal year (FY) 2011 qualification status of the data. Data qualification activities within NDMAS for specific types of data are determined by the data qualification category assigned by the data generator. The High Temperature Materials data are being collected under the Nuclear Quality Assurance (NQA)-1 guidelines and will be qualified data. For NQA-1 qualified data, the qualification activities include: (1) capture testing to confirm that the data stored within NDMAS are identical to the raw data supplied, (2) accuracy testing to confirm that the data are an …

This document highlights the key accomplishments in Green IT of the 17 DOE labs.

A reconnaissance assessment of the carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) sequestration potential within the Triassic age rift trend sediments of South Carolina, Georgia and the northern Florida Rift trend was performed for the Office of Fossil Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). This rift trend also extends into eastern Alabama, and has been termed the South Georgia Rift by previous authors, but is termed the South Carolina, Georgia, northern Florida, and eastern Alabama Rift (SGFAR) trend in this report to better describe the extent of the trend. The objectives of the study were to: (1) integrate all pertinent geologic information (literature reviews, drilling logs, seismic data, etc.) to create an understanding of the structural aspects of the basin trend (basin trend location and configuration, and the thickness of the sedimentary rock fill), (2) estimate the rough CO{sub 2} storage capacity (using conservative inputs), and (3) assess the general viability of the basins as sites of large-scale CO{sub 2} sequestration (determine if additional studies are appropriate). The CO{sub 2} estimates for the trend include South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida only. The study determined that the basins within the SGFAR trend have sufficient sedimentary fill to have a large potential storage capacity …

Complex Adaptive Systems of Systems, or CASoS, are vastly complex ecological, sociological, economic and/or technical systems which we must understand to design a secure future for the nation and the world. Perturbations/disruptions in CASoS have the potential for far-reaching effects due to pervasive interdependencies and attendant vulnerabilities to cascades in associated systems. Phoenix was initiated to address this high-impact problem space as engineers. Our overarching goals are maximizing security, maximizing health, and minimizing risk. We design interventions, or problem solutions, that influence CASoS to achieve specific aspirations. Through application to real-world problems, Phoenix is evolving the principles and discipline of CASoS Engineering while growing a community of practice and the CASoS engineers to populate it. Both grounded in reality and working to extend our understanding and control of that reality, Phoenix is at the same time a solution within a CASoS and a CASoS itself.

This paper introduces technical opportunities, means, and methods for incorporating renewable energy (RE) technologies into building designs and operations. It provides an overview of RE resources and available technologies used successfully to offset building electrical and thermal energy loads. Methods for applying these technologies in buildings and the role of building energy efficiency in successful RE projects are addressed along with tips for implementing successful RE projects.

This report tries to first generalize the requirements of the power system as it relates to the needs of operating reserves. It also includes a survey of operating reserves and how they are managed internationally in system operations today and then how new studies and research are proposing they may be managed in the future with higher penetrations of variable generation.

Due to current data collection technology, our ability to gather data has surpassed our ability to analyze it. In particular, k-means, one of the simplest and fastest clustering algorithms, is ill-equipped to handle extremely large datasets on even the most powerful machines. Our new algorithm uses a sample from a dataset to decrease runtime by reducing the amount of data analyzed. We perform a simulation study to compare our sampling based k-means to the standard k-means algorithm by analyzing both the speed and accuracy of the two methods. Results show that our algorithm is significantly more efficient than the existing algorithm with comparable accuracy. Further work on this project might include a more comprehensive study both on more varied test datasets as well as on real weather datasets. This is especially important considering that this preliminary study was performed on rather tame datasets. Also, these datasets should analyze the performance of the algorithm on varied values of k. Lastly, this paper showed that the algorithm was accurate for relatively low sample sizes. We would like to analyze this further to see how accurate the algorithm is for even lower sample sizes. We could find the lowest sample sizes, by manipulating …

The overall objective of this work is to improve the holistic value of energy development strategies by integrating management criteria for water availability, water quality, and ecosystem health into the energy system planning process. The Snake River Basin (SRB) in southern Idaho is used as a case study to show options for improving full economic utilization of aquatic resources given multiple scenarios such as changing climate, additional regulations, and increasing population. Through the incorporation of multiple management criteria, potential crosscutting solutions to energy and water issues in the SRB can be developed. The final result of this work will be a multi-criteria decision support tool - usable by policy makers and researchers alike - that will give insight into the behavior of the management criteria over time and will allow the user to experiment with a range of potential solutions. Because several basins in the arid west are dealing with similar water, energy, and ecosystem issues, the tool and conclusions will be transferable to a wide range of locations and applications. This is a very large, multi-year project to be completed in phases. This paper deals with interactions between the hydrologic system and water use at a basin level. Future …

A new data mining algorithm was developed to identify the strongest correlations between capacitance data (measured between -1.5 V and +0.49 V) and 1st and 2nd level performance metrics (efficiency, open-circuit voltage (VOC), short-circuit current density (JSC), and fill-factor (FF)) during the stress testing of voltage-stabilized CdS/CdTe devices. When considering only correlations between 1st and 2nd level metrics, 96.5% of the observed variation in efficiency was attributed to FF. The overall decrease in VOC after 1000 hours of open-circuit, light-soak stress at 60 degrees C was about 1.5%. As determined by our algorithm, the most consistent correlation existing between FF and 3rd level metric capacitance data at all stages during stress testing was between FF and the apparent CdTe acceptor density (Na) calculated at a voltage of +0.49 V during forward voltage scans. Since the contribution of back contact capacitance to total capacitance increases with increasing positive voltage, this result suggests that FF degradation is associated with decreases in Na near the CdTe/back contact interface. Also of interest, it appears that capacitance data at these higher voltages appears to more accurately fit the one-sided abrupt junction model.

As societies shift to 'greener' means of transportation using electricity-driven vehicles one critical challenge we face is the creation of a robust and resilient infrastructure of recharging stations. A particular issue here is the optimal location of service stations. In this work, we consider the placement of battery replacing service station in a city network for which the normal traffic flow is known. For such known traffic flow, the service stations are placed such that the expected performance is maximized without changing the traffic flow. This is done for different scenarios in which roads, road junctions and service stations can fail with a given probability. To account for such failure probabilities, the previously developed facility interception model is extended. Results show that service station failures have a minimal impact on the performance following robust placement while road and road junction failures have larger impacts which are not mitigated easily by robust placement.

Aerodynamic noise from wind turbine rotors leads to constraints in both rotor design and turbine siting. The primary source of aerodynamic noise on wind turbine rotors is the interaction of turbulent boundary layers on the blades with the blade trailing edges. This report surveys concepts that have been proposed for trailing edge noise reduction, with emphasis on concepts that have been tested at either sub-scale or full-scale. These concepts include trailing edge serrations, low-noise airfoil designs, trailing edge brushes, and porous trailing edges. The demonstrated noise reductions of these concepts are cited, along with their impacts on aerodynamic performance. An assessment is made of future research opportunities in trailing edge noise reduction for wind turbine rotors.

The combined effect of impedance and higher order chromaticity can act on the beam in a nontrivial manner which can cause a tune shift which depends on the relative momenta with respect to the 'on momentum' particle ({Delta}p/p). Experimentally, this tune shift affects the measurement of the linear chromaticity which is traditionally measured with a change of {Delta}p/p. The theory behind this effect will be derived in this paper. Computer simulations and experimental data from the Tevatron will be used to support the theory.

We present recent results from searches for new physics beyond supersymmetry performed at the Tevatron accelerator at Fermilab. The CDF and D0 analyses presented here utilized data of integrated luminosity up to 6 fb{sup -1}. We cover leptonic and bosonic resonances interpreted in the Randall-Sundrum graviton and new-boson models, rare final states, and the search for vector-like quarks. The search for new phenomena beyond the weak-scale supersymmetry is a vital part of the Fermilab program. Both CDF and D0 experiments at the Tevatron collider actively look for signals not expected by the standard model (SM) or minimal supersymmetric models. The searches can be sorted in three categories: (a) searches for generic resonances that can be interpreted in several new-physics models; (b) searches for exotic combinations of final-state objects or abnormal kinematics (not necessarily predicted by current theories); and (c) model-dependent searches that test a particular theory. We present here latest results from all these categories: searches for new dilepton and diboson resonances (interpreted as gravitons and new gauge bosons), searches for anomalous {gamma} + E{sub T} + X production, and searches for vector-like quarks.

In order to realize the high physics potential of a Muon Collider (MC) a high luminosity of {mu}{sup +}{mu}{sup -}-collisions at the Interaction Point (IP) in the TeV range must be achieved ({approx}10{sup 34} cm{sup -2}s{sup -1}). To reach this goal, a number of demanding requirements on the collider optics and the IR hardware - arising from the short muon lifetime and from relatively large values of the transverse emittance and momentum spread in muon beams that can realistically be obtained with ionization cooling should be satisfied. These requirements are aggravated by limitations on the quadrupole gradients as well as by the necessity to protect superconducting magnets and collider detectors from muon decay products. The overall detector performance in this domain is strongly dependent on the background particle rates in various sub-detectors. The deleterious effects of the background and radiation environment produced by the beam in the ring are very important issues in the Interaction Region (IR), detector and Machine-Detector Interface (MDI) designs. This report is based on studies presented very recently.

Agricultural residues have significant potential as a feedstock for bioenergy production, but removing these residues can have negative impacts on soil health. Models and datasets that can support decisions about sustainable agricultural residue removal are available; however, no tools currently exist capable of simultaneously addressing all environmental factors that can limit availability of residue. The VE-Suite model integration framework has been used to couple a set of environmental process models to support agricultural residue removal decisions. The RUSLE2, WEPS, and Soil Conditioning Index models have been integrated. A disparate set of databases providing the soils, climate, and management practice data required to run these models have also been integrated. The integrated system has been demonstrated for two example cases. First, an assessment using high spatial fidelity crop yield data has been run for a single farm. This analysis shows the significant variance in sustainably accessible residue across a single farm and crop year. A second example is an aggregate assessment of agricultural residues available in the state of Iowa. This implementation of the integrated systems model demonstrates the capability to run a vast range of scenarios required to represent a large geographic region.