The Earth's climate is determined by a number of complex connected physical, chemical and biological processes occurring in the atmosphere, land and ocean. The radiative properties of the atmosphere, a major controlling factor of the Earth's climate, are strongly affected by the biophysical state of the Earth's surface and by the atmospheric abundance of a variety of trace constituents. These constituents include long-lived greenhouse gases (LLGHGs) such as carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}), methane (CH{sub 4}) and nitrous oxide (N{sub 2}O), as well as other radiatively active constituents such as ozone and different types of aerosol particles. The composition of the atmosphere is determined by processes such as natural and anthropogenic emissions of gases and aerosols, transport at a variety of scales, chemical and microphysical transformations, wet scavenging and surface uptake by the land and terrestrial ecosystems, and by the ocean and its ecosystems. These processes and, more generally the rates of biogeochemical cycling, are affected by climate change, and involve interactions between and within the different components of the Earth system. These interactions are generally nonlinear and may produce negative or positive feedbacks to the climate system. An important aspect of climate research is to identify potential feedbacks and assess …

Executive Order 13123 calls for the Federal government to conserve water as well as energy in its 500,000 facilities. To help set priorities among water-saving measures, the Federal Energy Management Program conducted a study of Federal water use in 1997. The study indicated that the government consumes more than 50% of its water in just three types of Federal facilities: housing, hospitals, and office buildings. These facilities have enough kitchens, rest rooms, and laundry areas to provide facility managers with many opportunities to begin reducing their water use (and utility costs) with appropriate water-saving fixtures and products. Therefore, this Federal Technology Alert focuses on domestic technologies, products, and appliances such as water-efficient faucets, showerheads, toilets, urinals, washing machines, and dishwashers. Conserving water also saves the energy needed to treat, pump, and heat that water in homes, businesses, and other buildings.

A sourcebook designed to provide steam system users with a reference outlining opportunities to improve system performance and optimize energy efficiency in industrial energy systems.

This chapter covers the fundamental science, synthesis, characterization, physicochemical properties and applications of oxide nanomaterials. Explains fundamental aspects that determine the growth and behavior of these systems, briefly examines synthetic procedures using bottom-up and top-down fabrication technologies, discusses the sophisticated experimental techniques and state of the art theory results used to characterize the physico-chemical properties of oxide solids and describe the current knowledge concerning key oxide materials with important technological applications.

Using a myth vs. fact format, this fact sheet addresses common public misconceptions about compressed natural gas buses.

This booklet contains the agenda and abstracts for the 2004 U.S. DOE Solar Energy Technologies Program Review Meeting. The meeting was held in Denver, Colorado, October 25-28, 2004. More than 240 abstracts are contained in this publication. Topic areas for the research papers include laboratory research, program management, policy analysis, and deployment of solar technologies.

It is generally accepted that the information necessary to specify the native, functional, three-dimensional structure of a protein is encoded entirely within its amino acid sequence; however, efficient reversible folding and unfolding is observed only with a subset of small single-domain proteins. Refolding experiments often lead to the formation of kinetically-trapped, misfolded species that aggregate, even in dilute solution. In the cellular environment, the barriers to efficient protein folding and maintenance of native structure are even larger due to the nature of this process. First, nascent polypeptides must fold in an extremely crowded environment where the concentration of macromolecules approaches 300-400 mg/mL and on average, each ribosome is within its own diameter of another ribosome (1-3). These conditions of severe molecular crowding, coupled with high concentrations of nascent polypeptide chains, favor nonspecific aggregation over productive folding (3). Second, folding of newly-translated polypeptides occurs in the context of their vehtorial synthesis process. Amino acids are added to a growing nascent chain at the rate of {approx}5 residues per set, which means that for a 300 residue protein its N-terminus will be exposed to the cytosol {approx}1 min before its C-terminus and be free to begin the folding process. However, because protein …

The Vermont Consumer's Guide for Small Wind Electric Systems provides consumers with enough information to help them determine if a small wind electric system can provide all or a portion of the energy they need for their home or business based on their wind resource, energy needs, and their economics. Topics discussed in the guide include: how to make your home more energy efficient, how to choose the right size turbine, the parts of a wind electric system, determining if there is enough wind resource on your site, choosing the best site for your turbine, connecting your system to the utility grid, and if it's possible to become independent of the utility grid using wind energy. In addition, the cover of the guide contains a state wind resource map and a list of state incentives and state contacts for more information.

A knowledge of the spectra of ionized atoms is of importance in many fields. They can be studied in a wide variety of light sources. In recent years techniques coming under the broad heatings of fast beams and ion traps have been used extensively for such investigations. This article considers the advantages that various techniques have for particular applications.

This report assesses steam generation and use in the pulp and paper, chemical, and petroleum refining industries, and estimates the potential for energy savings from implementation of steam system performance and efficiency improvements.

Traditionally, knowledge in heterogeneous catalysis has come through empirical research. Nowadays, there is a clear interest to change this since millions of dollars in products are generated every year in the chemical and petrochemical industries through catalytic processes. To obtain a fundamental knowledge of the factors that determine the activity of heterogeneous catalysts is a challenge for modern science since many of these systems are very complex in nature. In principle, when a molecule adsorbs on the surface of a heterogeneous catalyst, it can interact with a large number of bonding sites. It is known that the chemical properties of these bonding sites depend strongly on the chemical environment around them. Thus, there can be big variations in chemical reactivity when going from one region to another in the surface of a heterogeneous catalyst. A main objective is to understand how the structural and electronic properties of a surface affect the energetics for adsorption processes and the paths for dissociation and chemical reactions. In recent years, advances in instrumentation and experimental procedures have allowed a large series of detailed works on the surface chemistry of heterogeneous catalysts. In many cases, these experimental studies have shown interesting and unique phenomena. Theory …

The Universal Interconnection Technology (UIT) Workshop - sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Distributed Energy and Electric Reliability (DEER) Program, and Distribution and Interconnection R&D - was held July 25-26, 2002, in Chicago, Ill., to: (1) Examine the need for a modular universal interconnection technology; (2) Identify UIT functional and technical requirements; (3) Assess the feasibility of and potential roadblocks to UIT; (4) Create an action plan for UIT development. These proceedings begin with an overview of the workshop. The body of the proceedings provides a series of industry representative-prepared papers on UIT functions and features, present interconnection technology, approaches to modularization and expandability, and technical issues in UIT development as well as detailed summaries of group discussions. Presentations, a list of participants, a copy of the agenda, and contact information are provided in the appendices of this document.

This book is a reproduction of the original 1952 publication, which is the only bound copy of the history of Winnsboro, Texas. It includes information about the original settlers, the general organization of the city, the railroad system, the original schools, churches and businesses in Winnsboro, as well as information about agriculture and farming.