The project has developed a nanoporous membrane based water vapor separation technology that can be used for recovering energy and water from low-temperature industrial waste gas streams with high moisture contents. This kind of exhaust stream is widely present in many industrial processes including the forest products and paper industry, food industry, chemical industry, cement industry, metal industry, and petroleum industry. The technology can recover not only the sensible heat but also high-purity water along with its considerable latent heat. Waste heats from such streams are considered very difficult to recover by conventional technology because of poor heat transfer performance of heat-exchanger type equipment at low temperature and moisture-related corrosion issues. During the one-year Concept Definition stage of the project, the goal was to prove the concept and technology in the laboratory and identify any issues that need to be addressed in future development of this technology. In this project, computational modeling and simulation have been conducted to investigate the performance of a nanoporous material based technology, transport membrane condenser (TMC), for waste heat and water recovery from low grade industrial flue gases. A series of theoretical and computational analyses have provided insight and support in advanced TMC design and …

The project has developed a nanoporous membrane based water vapor separation technology that can be used for recovering energy and water from low-temperature industrial waste gas streams with high moisture contents. This kind of exhaust stream is widely present in many industrial processes including the forest products and paper industry, food industry, chemical industry, cement industry, metal industry, and petroleum industry. The technology can recover not only the sensible heat but also high-purity water along with its considerable latent heat. Waste heats from such streams are considered very difficult to recover by conventional technology because of poor heat transfer performance of heat-exchanger type equipment at low temperature and moisture-related corrosion issues. During the one-year Concept Definition stage of the project, the goal was to prove the concept and technology in the laboratory and identify any issues that need to be addressed in future development of this technology. In this project, computational modeling and simulation have been conducted to investigate the performance of a nanoporous material based technology, transport membrane condenser (TMC), for waste heat and water recovery from low grade industrial flue gases. A series of theoretical and computational analyses have provided insight and support in advanced TMC design and …

Everest, Kansas, is a small rural community (population approximately 300) located in the southeast corner of Brown County, in the northeastern corner of Kansas. Carbon tetrachloride and chloroform contamination in groundwater at Everest was initially identified in 1997 as a result of testing performed under the Commodity Credit Corporation/U.S. Department of Agriculture (CCC/USDA) private well sampling program conducted by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE). The KDHE collected samples from seven private wells in and near Everest. Carbon tetrachloride and chloroform were found in only one of the wells, the Donnie Nigh domestic well (owned at that time by Tim Gale), approximately 3/8 mi northwest of the former Everest CCC/USDA facility. Carbon tetrachloride and chloroform were detected at 121 {mu}g/L and 4 {mu}g/L, respectively. Nitrate was found at 12.62 mg/L. The USDA subsequently connected the Nigh residence to the Everest public water supply system. The findings of the 2011 monitoring at Everest support the following conclusions: (1) Measurements of groundwater levels obtained manually during annual monitoring in 2009-2011 (and through the use of automatic recorders in 2002-2010) have consistently indicated an initial direction of groundwater flow from the former CCC/USDA facility to the north-northwest and toward the Nigh …

This report discusses China's Currency Policy: An Analysis of the Economic Issues.

This report examines the relationships between selected variables of economic strength and crime. It begins with an overview of crime rates during times of economic recession in the United States. It then reviews the existing literature in the field analyzing various data sets that examine whether the unemployment rate and foreclosures can be related to increases in the national crime rate.

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This report will summarize basic scientific concepts in genetics and will provide an overview of genetic tests, their main characteristics, and the key policy issues they raise.

It is the purpose of this report to assess the effects of the absence of intelligence authorization legislation subsequent to FY2005 and indicate the substantial but limited effects of the FY2010 Intelligence Authorization Act (P.L. 111-259). It is recognized that the statutory requirements have been met by the catchall provisions in appropriations acts.

The safe management of nuclear waste arising from nuclear activities is an issue of great importance for the protection of human health and the environment now and in the future. The primary goal of this report is to identify the current situation and practices being utilized across the globe to manage and store low and intermediate level radioactive waste. The countries included in this report were selected based on their nuclear power capabilities and involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle. This report highlights the nuclear waste management laws and regulations, current disposal practices, and future plans for facilities of the selected international nuclear countries. For each country presented, background information and the history of nuclear facilities are also summarized to frame the country's nuclear activities and set stage for the management practices employed. The production of nuclear energy, including all the steps in the nuclear fuel cycle, results in the generation of radioactive waste. However, radioactive waste may also be generated by other activities such as medical, laboratory, research institution, or industrial use of radioisotopes and sealed radiation sources, defense and weapons programs, and processing (mostly large scale) of mineral ores or other materials containing naturally occurring radionuclides. Radioactive waste …

Analysis, and low-power cold tests are described on a modified design intended for the Ka-band pulsed magnicon now in use for high-gradient accelerator R and D and rare elementary particle searches at the Yale University Beam Physics Laboratory. The modification is mainly to the output cavity of the magnicon, which presently operates in the TM310 mode. It is proposed to substitute for this a dual-chamber TE311 cavity structure. The first chamber is to extract about 40% of the beam power (about 25 MW) at 34.272 GHz, while the second chamber is to convey the power to four WR-28 output waveguides. Minor design changes are also proposed for the penultimate 11.424 GHz cavity and the beam collector. The intention of these design changes is to allow the magnicon to operate reliably 24/7, with minor sensitivity to operating parameters.

This report looks at inadequacies present in the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) which prevent the Center from adequately performing its duty. These inadequacies include issues with agency organization, lack of resources, and a focus on threats from Yemen over domestic threats.

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The Next Generation Safeguards Professional Network (NGSPN) was established in 2009 by Oak Ridge National Laboratory targeted towards the engagement of young professionals employed in safeguards across the many national laboratories. NGSPN focuses on providing a mechanism for young safeguards professionals to connect and foster professional relationships, facilitating knowledge transfer between current safeguards experts and the next generation of experts, and acting as an entity to represent the interests of the international community of young and mid-career safeguards professionals. This is accomplished in part with a yearly meeting held at a national laboratory site. In 2011, this meeting was held at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. This report documents the events and results of that meeting.

HEATS Project: The University of Minnesota is developing a solar thermochemical reactor that will efficiently produce fuel from sunlight, using solar energy to produce heat to break chemical bonds. The University of Minnesota is envisioning producing the fuel by using partial redox cycles and ceria-based reactive materials. The team will achieve unprecedented solar-to-fuel conversion efficiencies of more than 10% (where current state-of-the-art efficiency is 1%) by combined efforts and innovations in material development, and reactor design with effective heat recovery mechanisms and demonstration. This new technology will allow for the effective use of vast domestic solar resources to produce precursors to synthetic fuels that could replace gasoline.

HEATS Project: The University of Florida is developing a windowless high-temperature chemical reactor that converts concentrated solar thermal energy to syngas, which can be used to produce gasoline. The overarching project goal is lowering the cost of the solar thermochemical production of syngas for clean and synthetic hydrocarbon fuels like petroleum. The team will develop processes that rely on water and recycled CO2 as the sole feed-stock, and concentrated solar radiation as the sole energy source, to power the reactor to produce fuel efficiently. Successful large-scale deployment of this solar thermochemical fuel production could substantially improve our national and economic security by replacing imported oil with domestically produced solar fuels.

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This document provides information on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) area, regional, and Watermaster office locations.

Sheet from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) listing contact information for each of the 16 Texas regional offices as well as the watermasters. The back includes a map showing the counties included in each of the corresponding regions.

This report contains the fiscal year 2012 budget request, authorization, and appropriations for the Department of Defense.

LLNL Internal Dosimetry Program - The new procedure satisfies the requirement to determine {sup 235}U/{sup 238}U ratio in bioassay urine samples. MDA - The L{sub C} and MDA{sub 95} for {sup 235}U are well below the required detection limit of 0.00035 {mu}g/L. Turn around time - Analysis of 10 samples plus 2 QCs can be completed in one work day (8 hours).

This research program investigated and quantified the capability of direct electron beam destruction of volatile organic compounds and organic hazardous air pollutants in model industrial waste streams and calculated the energy savings that would be realized by the widespread adoption of the technology over traditional pollution control methods. Specifically, this research determined the quantity of electron beam dose required to remove 19 of the most important non-halogenated air pollutants from waste streams and constructed a technical and economic model for the implementation of the technology in key industries including petroleum refining, organic & solvent chemical production, food & beverage production, and forest & paper products manufacturing. Energy savings of 75 - 90% and green house gas reductions of 66 - 95% were calculated for the target market segments.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Events surrounding the 2007 financial crisis raised questions about the governance of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks (Reserve Banks), particularly the boards of directors' roles in activities related to supervision and regulation. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act required GAO to review the governance of the Reserve Banks. This report (1) analyzes the level of diversity on the boards of directors and assesses the extent to which the process of identifying possible directors and appointing them results in diversity on the boards, (2) evaluates the effectiveness of policies and practices for identifying and managing conflicts of interest for Reserve Bank directors, and (3) compares Reserve Bank governance practices with the practices of selected organizations."

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In this paper, we compare experimental shock and capsule trajectories to design calculations using the radiation-hydrodynamics code HYDRA. The measured trajectories from surrogate ignition targets are consistent with reducing the x-ray flux on the capsule by about 85%. A new method of extracting the radiation temperature as seen by the capsule from x-ray intensity and image data shows that about half of the apparent 15% flux deficit in the data with respect to the simulations can be explained by HYDRA overestimating the x-ray flux on the capsule. The National Ignition Campaign (NIC) point-design target is designed to reach a peak fuel-layer velocity of 370 km/s by ablating 90% of its plastic (CH) ablator. The 192-beam National Ignition Facility laser drives a gold hohlraum to a radiation temperature (T{sub RAD}) of 300 eV with a 20 ns-long, 420 TW, 1.3 MJ laser pulse. The hohlraum x-rays couple to the CH ablator in order to apply the required pressure to the outside of the capsule. In this paper, we compare experimental measurements of the hohlraum T{sub RAD} and the implosion trajectory with design calculations using the code hydra. The measured radial positions of the leading shock wave and the unablated shell are …