Final report of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves describing their activities, findings, and recommendations for change to ensure the reserve components of the U.S. military are organized, trained, equipped, compensated, and supported to best meet the needs of the U.S. national security. This final report was informed by 7 days of public hearings, involving 115 witnesses; 52 Commission meetings; more than 850 interviews; and the detailed analysis of thousands of documents. It contains six major conclusions and 95 recommendations, supported by 163 findings.

The Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) Safeguards Campaign aims to develop safeguards technologies and processes that will significantly reduce the risk of proliferation in the U.S. nuclear fuel cycle of tomorrow. The Safeguards Enhancement Study was chartered with identifying promising research and development (R&D) directions over timescales both near-term and long-term, and under safeguards oversight both domestic and international. This technology development roadmap documents recognized gaps and needs in the safeguarding of nuclear fuel cycles, and outlines corresponding performance targets for each of those needs. Drawing on the collective expertise of technologists and user-representatives, a list of over 30 technologies that have the potential to meet those needs was developed, along with brief summaries of each candidate technology. Each summary describes the potential impact of that technology, key research questions to be addressed, and prospective development milestones that could lead to a definitive viability or performance assessment. Important programmatic linkages between U.S. agencies and offices are also described, reflecting the emergence of several safeguards R&D programs in the U.S. and the reinvigoration of nuclear fuel cycles across the globe.

Research progress on understanding magnetic steel core losses is presented in this report. Three major aspects have been thoroughly investigated: 1, experimental characterization of core losses, 2, fundamental physical understanding of core losses and development of core loss formulas, and 3, design of more efficient machine based on the new formulations. Considerable progress has been achieved during the four years of research and the main achievements are summarized in the following: For the experimental characterization, a specially designed advanced commercial test bench was commissioned in addition to the development of a laboratory system with advanced capabilities. The measured properties are core losses at low and higher frequencies, with sinusoidal and non-sinusoidal excitations, at different temperatures, with different measurement apparatus (Toroids, Epstein etc). An engineering-based core loss formula has been developed which considers skin effect. The formula can predict core losses for both sinusoidal and non-sinusoidal flux densities and frequencies up to 4000 Hz. The formula is further tested in electric machines. The formula error range is 1.1% - 7.6% while the standard formulas can have % errors between -8.5% {-+} 44.7%. Two general core loss formulas, valid for different frequencies and thickness, have been developed by analytically and numerically solving …

Many approaches exist to enable advanced mode, low temperature combustion systems for diesel engines - such as premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI), Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) or other HCCI-like combustion modes. The fuel properties and the quantity, distribution and temperature profile of air, fuel and residual fraction in the cylinder can have a marked effect on the heat release rate and combustion phasing. Figure 1 shows that a systems approach is required for HCCI-like combustion. While the exact requirements remain unclear (and will vary depending on fuel, engine size and application), some form of substantially variable valve actuation is a likely element in such a system. Variable valve actuation, for both intake and exhaust valve events, is a potent tool for controlling the parameters that are critical to HCCI-like combustion and expanding its operational range. Additionally, VVA can be used to optimize the combustion process as well as exhaust temperatures and impact the after treatment system requirements and its associated cost. Delphi Corporation has major manufacturing and product development and applied R&D expertise in the valve train area. Historical R&D experience includes the development of fully variable electro-hydraulic valve train on research engines as well as several generations of …

This paper discusses the roles and responsibilities of each position within the Combustion Byproducts Recyclcing Consortium.

A new concept of electrostatic precipitator (ESP), named a Staged ESP (an Energy & Environmental Research Center proprietary), was conceived in June 2004. The concept is based on a simple design that can be retrofitted on existing coal-fired power plants to provide high particulate matter (PM) collection efficiency without compromising reliability. A prototype of Staged ESP was designed, fabricated, and tested in two different combustion coal flue gases with different fly ash resistivities. Several design parameters of the Staged ESP were evaluated under various operating conditions to optimize PM collection performance. A set of particulate sampling data, including aerodynamic particle sizer, scanning mobility particle sizer, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Method 5 data, was collected to determine PM emissions of the Staged ESP configurations. These data were compared against data collected with a conventional ESP configuration. Compared to PM capture performance in conventional ESPs, an additional 30% to 70% reductions on total PM emissions were achieved for Staged ESPs in flue gas with medium- to high-resistivity fly ashes. Experimental data proved that the Staged ESP concept is capable of achieving higher PM collection efficiency, especially for particles in the submicrometer size range typically thought difficult to capture in an ESP.

Ashlines: To promote and support the commercially viable and environmentally sound recycling of coal combustion byproducts for productive uses through scientific research, development, and field testing.

Soil microbial metabolic activities play an important role in determining CO{sub 2}, CH{sub 4}, and N{sub 2}O fluxes from terrestrial ecosystems. To verify and evaluate CO{sub 2} sequestration potential by wetland restoration in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), as well as to address concern over restoration effects on CH{sub 4} and N{sub 2}O emissions, laboratory and in situ microcosm studies on microbial cycling of CO{sub 2}, CH{sub 4}, and N{sub 2}O were initiated. In addition, to evaluate the feasibility of the use of remote sensing to detect soil gas flux from wetlands, a remote-sensing investigation was also conducted. Results of the laboratory microcosm study unequivocally proved that restoration of PPR wetlands does sequester atmospheric CO{sub 2}. Under the experimental conditions, the simulated restored wetlands did not promote neither N{sub 2}O nor CH{sub 4} fluxes. Application of ammonia enhanced both N{sub 2}O and CH{sub 4} emission, indicating that restoration of PPR wetlands may reduce both N{sub 2}O and CH{sub 4} emission by cutting N-fertilizer input. Enhancement of CO{sub 2} emission by the N-fertilizer was observed, and this observation revealed an overlooked fact that application of N-fertilizer may potentially increase CO{sub 2} emission. In addition, the CO{sub 2} results also demonstrate that …

This report concerns efforts to increase oil well productivity and efficiency via a method of heating the oil-bearing rock of the well, a technique known as Thermochemical Gas-Dynamic Fracturing (TGDF). The technique uses either a chemical reaction or a combustion event to raise the temperature of the rock of the well, thereby increasing oil velocity, and oil pumping rate. Such technology has shown promise for future application to both older wellheads and also new sites. The need for such technologies in the oil extraction field, along with the merits of the TGDF technology is examined in Chapter 1. The theoretical basis underpinning applications of TGDF is explained in Chapter 2. It is shown that productivity of depleted well can be increased by one order of magnitude after heating a reservoir region of radius 15-20 m around the well by 100 degrees 1-2 times per year. Two variants of thermal stimulation are considered: uniform heating and optimal temperature distribution in the formation region around the perforation zone. It is demonstrated that the well productivity attained by using equal amounts of thermal energy is higher by a factor of 3 to 4 in the case of optimal temperature distribution as compared to …

Each year, over 100 million tons of solid byproducts are produced by coal-burning electric utilities in the United States. Annual production of flue gas desulfurization (FGD) byproducts continues to increase as the result of more stringent sulfur emission restrictions. In addition, stricter limits on NOx emissions mandated by the 1990 Clean Air Act have resulted in utility burner/boiler modifications that frequently yield higher carbon concentrations in fly ash, which restricts the use of the ash as a cement replacement. Controlling ammonia in ash is also of concern. If newer, “clean coal” combustion and gasification technologies are adopted, their byproducts may also present a management challenge. The objective of the Combustion Byproducts Recycling Consortium (CBRC) is to develop and demonstrate technologies to address issues related to the recycling of byproducts associated with coal combustion processes. A goal of CBRC is that these technologies, by the year 2010, will lead to an overall ash utilization rate from the current 34% to 50% by such measures as increasing the current rate of FGD byproduct use and increasing in the number of uses considered “allowable” under state regulations. Another issue of interest to the CBRC would be to examine the environmental impact of both …

Each year, over 100 million tons of solid byproducts are produced by coal-burning electric utilities in the United States. Annual production of flue gas desulfurization (FGD) byproducts continues to increase as the result of more stringent sulfur emission restrictions. In addition, stricter limits on NOx emissions mandated by the 1990 Clean Air Act have resulted in utility burner/boiler modifications that frequently yield higher carbon concentrations in fly ash, which restricts the use of the ash as a cement replacement. Controlling ammonia in ash is also of concern. If newer, 'clean coal' combustion and gasification technologies are adopted, their byproducts may also present a management challenge. The objective of the Combustion Byproducts Recycling Consortium (CBRC) is to develop and demonstrate technologies to address issues related to the recycling of byproducts associated with coal combustion processes. A goal of CBRC is that these technologies, by the year 2010, will lead to an overall ash utilization rate from the current 34% to 50% by such measures as increasing the current rate of FGD byproduct use and increasing in the number of uses considered 'allowable' under state regulations. Another issue of interest to the CBRC would be to examine the environmental impact of both …

The purpose of the project was to assist U.S. Steel in the evaluation, selection, planning, design, and testing of potential approaches to help meet U.S. Steel's goal for low-particulate matter emissions and regulatory compliance. The energy-intensive process for producing iron pellets includes treating the pellets in high-temperature kilns in which the iron is converted from magnetite to hematite. The kilns can be fired with either natural gas or a combination of gas and coal or biomass fuel and are equipped with wet venturi scrubbers for particulate control. Particulate measurements at the inlet and outlet of the scrubbers and analysis of size-fractionated particulate samples led to an understanding of the effect of process variables on the measured emissions and an approach to meet regulatory compliance.

Project X is a high intensity proton facility conceived to support a world-leading program in neutrino and flavor physics over the next two decades at Fermilab. Project X is an integral part of the Fermilab Roadmap as described in the Fermilab Steering Group Report. Project X is based on an 8 GeV superconducting H-linac, paired with the existing (but modified) Main Injector and Recycler Ring, to provide in excess of 2 MW of beam power throughout the energy range 60-120 GeV, simultaneous with at least 100 kW of beam power at 8 GeV. The linac utilizes technology in common with the ILC over the energy range 0.6-8.0 GeV. Beam current parameters can be made identical to ILC resulting in identical rf generation and distribution systems. This alignment of ILC and Project X technologies allows for a shared development effort. The initial 0.6 GeV of the linac draws heavily on technology developed by Argonne National Laboratory for a facility for rare isotope beams. It is anticipated that the exact configuration and operating parameters of the linac will be defined through the R&D program and will retain alignment with the ILC plan as it evolves over this period. Utilization of the Recycler …

Highway Fuel Economy Test (HWFET) and Federal Test Procedure 75 (FTP-75) tests were conducted on four 2007 model vehicles; a Chevrolet Impala flex-fuel and three non-flex-fuel vehicles: a Ford Fusion, a Toyota Camry, and a Chevrolet Impala. This investigation utilized a range of undenatured ethanol/Tier II gasoline blend levels from 0% to 85%. HWFET testing on ethanol blend levels of E20 in the flex fuel Chevrolet Impala and E30 in the non-flex-fuel Ford Fusion and Toyota Camry resulted in miles-per-gallon (mpg) fuel economy greater than Tier 2 gasoline, while E40 in the non-flex-fuel Chevrolet Impala resulted in an optimum mpg based on per-gallon fuel Btu content. Exhaust emission values for non-methane organic gases (NMOG), carbon monoxide (CO), and nitrogen oxides (NO{sub x}) obtained from both the FTP-75 and the HWFET driving cycles were at or below EPA Tier II, Light-Duty Vehicles, Bin 5 levels for all vehicles tested with one exception. The flex-fuel Chevrolet Impala exceeded the NMOG standard for the FTP-75 on E-20 and Tier II gasoline.

In this program, Universal Display Corporation and University of Michigan proposed to integrate three innovative concepts to meet the DOE's Solid State Lighting (SSL) goals: (1) high-efficiency phosphorescent organic light emitting device (PHOLED{trademark}) technology, (2) a white lighting design that is based on a series of red, green and blue OLED stripes, and (3) the use of a novel cost-effective, high rate, mask-less deposition process called organic vapor jet printing (OVJP). Our PHOLED technology offers up to four-times higher power efficiency than other OLED approaches for general lighting. We believe that one of the most promising approaches to maximizing the efficiency of OLED lighting sources is to produce stripes of the three primary colors at such a pitch (200-500 {mu}m) that they appear as a uniform white light to an observer greater than 1 meter (m) away from the illumination source. Earlier work from a SBIR Phase 1 entitled 'White Illumination Sources Using Striped Phosphorescent OLEDs' suggests that stripe widths of less than 500 {mu}m appear uniform from a distance of 1m without the need for an external diffuser. In this program, we intend to combine continued advances in this PHOLED technology with the striped RGB lighting design to demonstrate …

Western Research Institute (WRI), in conjunction with Western Farmers Electric Cooperative (WFEC), has teamed with Clean Air Engineering of Pittsburgh PA to conduct a mercury monitoring program at the WEFC Hugo plant in Oklahoma. Sponsored by US Department of Energy Cooperative Agreement DE-FC-26-98FT40323, the program included the following members of the Subbituminous Energy Coalition (SEC) as co-sponsors: Missouri Basin Power Project; DTE Energy; Entergy; Grand River Dam Authority; and Nebraska Public Power District. This research effort had five objectives: (1) determine the mass balance of mercury for subbituminous coal-fired power plant; (2) assess the distribution of mercury species in the flue gas (3) perform a comparison of three different Hg test methods; (4) investigate the long-term (six months) mercury variability at a subbituminous coal-fired power plant; and (5) assess operation and maintenance of the Method 324 and Horiba CEMS utilizing plant personnel.

The overall objective of this research effort was to provide a potentially commercial thermal treatment of fly ash to decrease the interaction between fly ash and the surfactants used to entrain air in concrete when fly ash replaces a portion of the Portland cement in oncrete. The thermal treatment resulting from this research effort, and described in this report, fulfill the above objective. This report describes the thermal treatment developed and applies the treatment to six different fly ashes subsequently used to prepare concrete test cylinders hat show little or no difference in compressibility when compared to concrete test cylinders prepared using untreated fly ash.

The Combustion Byproducts Recycling Consortium (CBRC) program was developed as a focused program to remove and/or minimize the barriers for effective management of over 123 million tons of coal combustion byproducts (CCBs) annually generated in the USA. At the time of launching the CBRC in 1998, about 25% of CCBs were beneficially utilized while the remaining was disposed in on-site or off-site landfills. During the ten (10) year tenure of CBRC (1998-2008), after a critical review, 52 projects were funded nationwide. By region, the East, Midwest, and West had 21, 18, and 13 projects funded, respectively. Almost all projects were cooperative projects involving industry, government, and academia. The CBRC projects, to a large extent, successfully addressed the problems of large-scale utilization of CCBs. A few projects, such as the two Eastern Region projects that addressed the use of fly ash in foundry applications, might be thought of as a somewhat smaller application in comparison to construction and agricultural uses, but as a novel niche use, they set the stage to draw interest that fly ash substitution for Portland cement might not attract. With consideration of the large increase in flue gas desulfurization (FGD) gypsum in response to EPA regulations, agricultural …

The purpose of this letter is to notify you that the Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy's Innovations for Existing Plants Program has been zeroed out in the President's Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 budget.

Due to increasing oil demand, oil companies are moving into arctic environments and deep-water areas for oil production. In these regions of lower temperatures, wax deposits begin to form when the temperature in the wellbore falls below wax appearance temperature (WAT). This condition leads to reduced production rates and larger pressure drops. Wax problems in production wells are very costly due to production down time for removal of wax. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a solution to wax deposition. In order to develop a solution to wax deposition, it is essential to characterize the crude oil and study phase behavior properties. The main objective of this project was to characterize Alaskan North Slope crude oil and study the phase behavior, which was further used to develop a dynamic wax deposition model. This report summarizes the results of the various experimental studies. The subtasks completed during this study include measurement of density, molecular weight, viscosity, pour point, wax appearance temperature, wax content, rate of wax deposition using cold finger, compositional characterization of crude oil and wax obtained from wax content, gas-oil ratio, and phase behavior experiments including constant composition expansion and differential liberation. Also, included in this report is the …

Methane (CH{sub 4}) in natural gas is a major energy source in the U.S., and is used extensively on Alaska's North Slope, including the oilfields in Prudhoe Bay, the community of Barrow, and the National Petroleum Reserve, Alaska (NPRA). Smaller villages, however, are dependent on imported diesel fuel for both power and heating, resulting in some of the highest energy costs in the U.S. and crippling local economies. Numerous CH{sub 4} gas seeps have been observed on wetlands near Atqasuk, Alaska (in the NPRA), and initial measurements have indicated flow rates of 3,000-5,000 ft{sup 3} day{sup -1} (60-100 kg CH{sub 4} day{sup -1}). Gas samples collected in 1996 indicated biogenic origin, although more recent sampling indicated a mixture of biogenic and thermogenic gas. In this study, we (1) quantified the amount of CH{sub 4} generated by several seeps and evaluated their potential use as an unconventional gas source for the village of Atqasuk; (2) collected gas and analyzed its composition from multiple seeps several miles apart to see if the source is the same, or if gas is being generated locally from isolated biogenic sources; and (3) assessed the potential magnitude of natural CH{sub 4} gas seeps for future use …

Scientists are front and center in quantifying and solving environmental problems. Yet, as a spate of recent news articles in scientific journals point out, much can be done to enhance sustainability within the scientific enterprise itself, particularly by trimming the energy use associated with research facilities and the equipment therein (i,ii,iii, iv). Sponsors of research unwittingly spend on the order of $10 billion each year on energy in the U.S. alone, and the underlying inefficiencies drain funds from the research enterprise while causing 80 MT CO2-equivalent greenhouse-gas emissions (see Box). These are significant sums considering the opportunity costs in terms of the amount of additional research that could be funded and emissions that could be reduced if the underlying energy was used more efficiently. By following commercially proven best practices in facility design and operation, scientists--and the sponsors of science--can cost-effectively halve these costs, while doing their part to put society on alow-carbon diet.

Investigations have been conducted focused on the fundamental material properties of AIN and high AI-content AIGaN alloys and further developed MOCVD growth technologies for obtaining these materials with improved crystalline quality and conductivities.

Through an extensive literature survey we find that there is very limited amount of work on fault zone hydrology, particularly in the field using borehole testing. The common elements of a fault include a core, and damage zones. The core usually acts as a barrier to the flow across it, whereas the damage zone controls the flow either parallel to the strike or dip of a fault. In most of cases the damage zone isthe one that is controlling the flow in the fault zone and the surroundings. The permeability of damage zone is in the range of two to three orders of magnitude higher than the protolith. The fault core can have permeability up to seven orders of magnitude lower than the damage zone. The fault types (normal, reverse, and strike-slip) by themselves do not appear to be a clear classifier of the hydrology of fault zones. However, there still remains a possibility that other additional geologic attributes and scaling relationships can be used to predict or bracket the range of hydrologic behavior of fault zones. AMT (Audio frequency Magneto Telluric) and seismic reflection techniques are often used to locate faults. Geochemical signatures and temperature distributions are often used …