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This book traces the early history of nuclear power regulation in the US. It focuses on the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the federal agency that until 1975 was primarily responsible for planning and carrying out programs to protect public health and safety from the hazards of the civilian use of nuclear energy. It also describes the role of other groups that figured significantly in the development of regulatory policies, including the congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, federal agencies other than the AEC, state governments, the nuclear industry, and scientific organizations. And it considers changes in public perceptions of and attitudes toward atomic energy and the dangers of radiation exposure. The context in which regulatory programs evolved is a rich and complex mixture of political, legislative, legal, technological, scientific, and administrative history. The basic purpose of this book is to provide the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which inherited responsibility for nuclear safety after Congress disbanded the AEC, and the general public with information on the historical antecedents and background of regulatory issues.

There is a critical need for new environmentally friendly processes in the United States chemical industry as legislative and economic pressures push the industry to zero-waste and cradle-to-grave responsibility for the products they produce. Carbohydrates represent a plentiful, renewable resource, which for some processes might economically replace fossil feedstocks. While the conversion of biomass to fuels, is still not generally economical, the selective synthesis of a commodity or fine chemical, however, could compete effectively if appropriate catalytic conversion systems can be found. Oxygenated organics, found in a variety of products such as nylon and polyester, are particularly attractive targets. We believe that with concerted research efforts, homogeneous transition metal catalyzed reactions could play a significant role in bringing about this future green chemistry technology.

This paper is about the parallel implementation of a high-resolution, spectral element, primitive equation model of a homogeneous equatorial ocean. The present work shows that the high-order domain decomposition methods can be efficiently implemented in a massively parallel computing environment to solve large-scale CFD problems, such as the general circulation of the ocean.

Bioethanol is alcohol fuel made from cellulosic biomass-renewable resources such as trees, grasses, much of the material in municipal solid waste, and forestry and agricultural residues. Compared to the fossil fuels it will displace, bioethanol contributes little or no net CO2 to the earth's atmosphere.

Nickel hydroxides have been used as the active material in the positive electrodes of several alkaline batteries for over a century. These materials continue to attract a lot of attention because of the commercial importance of nickel-cadmium and nickel-metal hydride batteries. This review gives a brief overview of the structure of nickel hydroxide battery electrodes and a more detailed review of the solid state chemistry and electrochemistry of the electrode materials. Emphasis is on work done since 1989.

Foliar damage to trees by air pollution in Central and Eastern Europe has been a major scientific and political issue. Emissions of toxic gases such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides can have wide-ranging effects on local and regional vegetation that can be compounded by other environmental stresses to plant growth. Since uptake and physiological effects of these gases on tree leaves are largely mediated by stomata, surrogate methods for estimating pollutant conductances into leaves and forest canopies may lead to risk assessments for major vegetation types that can then be used in regional planning. Management options to ameliorate or mitigate air pollutant damage to forests and losses in productivity are likely to be more difficult to widely implement than on-the-stack emissions abatement, Informed management and policy decisions regarding Central and Eastern European forests are dependent on the development of quantitative tools and models for risk assessment of the effects of atmospheric pollutants on ecosystem health and productivity.