This development program is a joint effort among the Northeast Gas Association (formerly New York Gas Group), Foster-Miller, Inc., and the US Department of Energy (DOE) through the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). The total cost of the project is $772,525, with the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the US Department of Energy contributing $572,525, and the Northeast Gas Association contributing $200,000. The present report summarizes the accomplishments of the project during its fourth three-month period (from July 2003 through September 2003). The efforts of the project focused during this period in completing the assessment of the tether technology, which is intended to be used as the means of communication between robot and operator, in designing the MFL sensor module, in completing the kinematic studies, and in initiating tractor design. In addition, work on the ovality sensor progressed significantly, while work on system integration was initiated focusing at this point in time on module coupling. Results to date indicate that the robotic system under design will be able to meet most of the design specifications initially specified. Earlier concerns regarding the portability of the system are shown to be a non-issue, with new more detailed analysis showing that from a …

In this report we present an approach to deal with a problem encountered in different type of systems and specific configurations: the treatment of low density regions. This is the case of gas cooled reactors, voided configurations (evaluations of associated reactivity coefficients), beam region of external source driven systems, etc. The approach is to form the nodal response matrix using the first-order form of the transport equation, for then the cross section no longer appears in the denominator, as in the case of the standard formulation of the VARIANT code. Two different formulations are presented: the differential and integral ones. After applications to different difficult benchmark problems, it was concluded that the new formulations can treat low density regions.

Residual dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) contamination continues to be one of the most challenging remediation and characterization problems at SRS and sites around the world. Chlorinated solvents were usually released as DNAPLs to/the subsurface where they move in an unstable fashion driven by gravitational and,capillary forces. They are often retained in small discrete blobs in fine grain materials in the vadose zone and contaminate ground water by slow continuous release through dissolution and diffusion. Locating these small sources is a difficult but crucial part of remediating a contaminated site. Several methods have been developed to locate subsurface DNAPL but nearly all are intrusive and can only identify DNAPL in close proximity to the access hole. Minimally invasive geophysical methods to locate residual DNAPL have been proposed and developed but few methods are capable of the spatial resolution required. Complex resistivity measurements sensitive to DNAPL (perchloroethylene) interactions with clay (smectite) have recently been shown to have promise in laboratory experiments. Based on these laboratory results, field tests of the complex resistivity technique were performed at the A-014 outfall.

This Interagency Steering Committee on Radiation Standards (ISCORS) Technical Report provides a User's Guide for the RESRAD-BIOTA code. The RESRAD-BIOTA code is a tool for implementing a graded approach to biota dose evaluation. The RESRAD-BIOTA code was principally sponsored and developed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), with support from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), through the informal interagency Ecological Radiological Work Group (ECORAD-WG). The work group was led by DOE and coordinated under the oversight of ISCORS. The RESRAD-BIOTA code provides a complete spectrum of biota dose evaluation capabilities, from methods for general screening, to comprehensive receptor-specific dose estimation. The code was designed to be consistent with and provide a tool for implementing the DOE ''Graded Approach for Evaluating Radiation Doses to Aquatic and Terrestrial Biota'' (DOE voluntary consensus Technical Standard DOE-STD-1153-2002), and to provide advanced analysis capabilities in a manner that will support the anticipated needs of DOE and other agencies. These advanced analysis capabilities were generally developed through a consensus-based process among the participating agency representatives of the ECORAD-WG.

Some of the major difficulties encountered in the effort to achieve nuclear fusion by means of inertial confinement arise from the unstable behavior of the interface between the shell material and the nuclear fuel which develops upon implosion of the shell by direct or indirect laser drive. The fluid flows that develop (termed the Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) and the Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM) instabilities) cause the gassified shell material to mix with the nuclear fuel, causing a reduction in energy yield or no ignition altogether. The present research program addresses the Rayleigh-Taylor and the Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities with extensive laboratory and computational experiments. In the past year, three new activities have been initiated: a new shock tube experiment, involving the impulsive acceleration of a test gas-filled soap bubble, diagnosed with planar Mie scattering or planar induced fluorescence; a Rayleigh-Taylor experiment based on the use of a magnetorheological (MR) fluid to fix the initial shape of the interface between the MR fluid and water; and a series of computer calculations using the Raptor code (made available by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) to design and simulate the shock tube experiments.

Grant Number DE-FG02-98ER62665 Office of Energy Research of the U.S. Department of Energy Abstract Many Integrated Assessment Models (IAM) divide the world into a small number of highly aggregated regions. Non-OECD countries are aggregated geographically into continental and multiple-continental regions or economically by development level. Current research suggests that these large scale aggregations cannot accurately represent potential water resources-related climate change impacts. In addition, IAMs do not explicitly model the flow regulation impacts of reservoir and ground water systems, the economics of water supply, or the demand for water in economic activities. Using the International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT) model of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) as a case study, this research implemented a set of methodologies to provide accurate representation of water resource climate change impacts in Integrated Assessment Models. There were also detailed examinations of key issues related to aggregated modeling including: modeling water consumption versus water withdrawals; ground and surface water interactions; development of reservoir cost curves; modeling of surface areas of aggregated reservoirs for estimating evaporation losses; and evaluating the importance of spatial scale in river basin modeling. The major findings include: - Continental or national or even …

The National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center (NARAC) Products File is primarily used to transmit information about an atmospheric release calculation (a run) done on NARAC's centralized system to end user tools such as the NARAC iClient and the NARAC Web. This Products File uses the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) to store this information. Normally, the name of this file is products.xml. This document describes the structure and content of this products.xml file.

This report discusses six key questions related to the hydrogen economy and fuel cells.

The BES program enhanced the capability to integrate environmental sustainability concepts and social justice into multi-dimensional curricula.

This report provides an organizational chart of the Department of Homeland Security.

Support for Supercomputer Computations Research Institute infrastructure and the DQS/JQS project.

Since the capability to purify uranium (U) was terminated at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) in the early 1990's, excess highly enriched uranium (HEU) from the cleanout of uranium trioxide (UO3) production equipment will be shipped to the Savannah River Site (SRS) for disposition. The excess material will be dissolved in Phase I of HB-Line, purified by solvent extraction, and blended with normal U to an enrichment which can be used to fabricate fuel for Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) reactors. The proposed HB-Line processing strategy is to dissolve up to 3 kg of material per 18 L dissolver batch. To demonstrate the proposed processing strategy, two samples of the HEU were shipped to the Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC). The material was used in a series of small-scale experiments in which prototypical amounts were dissolved to characterize the offgas and measure the dissolution time under varying process conditions. Complete dissolution of the U was obtained in 15-30 min for experiments performed at 23-60 degrees Celsius. The HEU was dissolved in 3.5M HNO3 using the solids to liquid ratio proposed for use in HB-Line. The experiment performed at 23 degrees Celsius demonstrated that rapid heat generation during the …

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) final rule on clarifying the definition of routine maintenance under its New Source Review (NSR) process exempts industrial facilities from undergoing NSR if they are replacing safety, reliability, and efficiency rated components with new, functionally equivalent equipment and if the cost of the replacement components is under 20 percent of the replacement value of the process unit.