A number of Important Issues in energy research and development which warrant special attention by the Energy Research and Development Office (ERDO) are identified and examined. Six matters considered to be of sufficient weight to be labeled Important Issues are: nuclear reactor siting policy: nuclear energy centers; the development of solar electric power; exploitation of western oil shale; improvements in mining technology for coal; assuring uranium fuel supplies; and automotive energy systems. The environmental issue is treated separately. Actions that ERDO can take to help resolve the issues are discussed.

This Number System Cross Reference Guide constitutes a ready reference for programing the MCS-8 Microcomputer or designing logic systems. Columns give the number equivalents of decimal, binary, octal, and hexidecimal systems for decimal numbers zero through 255, as well as a corresponding teletype character opposite each row of equivalent numbers. (RWR)

Included are descriptions of welding methods and joint design, welding equipment, and qualification tests. (DG)

DODT (Display Octal Debugging Technique) is a program written for the MCS-8 that allows the user to modify a program via the solid-state keyboard. The program occupies 766 octal words. The minimum system requirements for using DODT are as follows: MCS-8 computer set with TV display option and Solid State Keyboard option; DODT programmable read only memories (PROM) at memory page 000 and 001; 256 word (RAM) at page 10. (RWR)

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In an experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory we have compared the production of large transverse momentum hadrons from targets of W, Ti, and Be bombarded by 300 GeV protons. The hadron yields were measured at 90{sup o} in the proton-nucleon c.m. system with a magnetic spectrometer equipped with 2 Cerenkov counters and a hadron calorimeter. The production cross-sections have a dependence on the atomic number A that grows with P{sub perpendicular}, eventually leveling off proportional to A{sup1.1}.

The general plutonium equilibrium problem is solved with logarithms and a logarithmic form of the plutonium characteristic equation is suggested. Other topics include numerical methods for estimating the equilibrium acidity in plutonium solutions, a characteristic equation for the iron-plutonium reaction, a method for finding some forbidden combinations of solution variables, and properties of plutonium-238 radiation concentration cells. (auth)

Experiments have been conducted to assess the corrosion and fire hazards of plutonium metal stored in sealed produce cans.

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Topics reported on during the reporting period include: removal of molybdenum from molybdenum-coated ceramic particles; oxidation of PPO fuel spheres during oxygen-16 treatment; and heat transfer and thermal conductivity of multihundred watt

The 2000-group TART code and the ENDL cross section library were used to calculate the fissions as a function of depth in the flat Pu plate experiment of Czirr and Bramblett (Nucl. Sci. Eng., fissions with the Pu target in to the number with the target out; secondary fissions in the target do not contribute. Results from experiment and Monte Carlo calculations are given for thicknesses from 0.06 to 3.13 g/cm/sup 2/ in nine energy groups from 2.15 eV to 10 keV. It was found that the TART 2000-group structure was it adequate since vast increases in the number of groups did not change the results. Where the total and fission cross section data are well known, the calculations and experiment were in reasonably good agreement. The only region of disagreement was in the unresolved resonance region above 300 eV. (11 figures, 1 table) (RWR)

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