Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a hold and save harmless provision that requires a county to indemnify another party for damages creates a debt within the meaning of article XI, section 7 of the Texas Constitution (RQ-1001)

The tritium breeding blanket is one of the most important components of a fusion reactor because it directly involves both energy extraction and tritium production, both of which are critical to fusion power. Because of their overall desirable properties, lithium-containing ceramic solids are recognized as attractive tritium breeding materials for fusion reactor blankets. Indeed, their inherent thermal stability and chemical inertness are significant safety advantages. In numerous in-pile experiments, these materials have performed well, showing good thermal stability and good tritium release characteristics. Tritium release is particularly facile when an argon or helium purge gas containing hydrogen, typically at levels of about 0.1%, is used. However, the addition of hydrogen to the purge gas imposes a penalty when it comes to recovery of the tritium produced in the blanket. In particular, a large amount of hydrogen in the purge gas will necessitate a large multiple-stage tritium purification unit, which could translate into higher costs. Optimizing tritium release while minimizing the amount of hydrogen necessary in the purge gas requires a deeper understanding of the tritium release process, especially the interactions of hydrogen with the surface of the lithium ceramic. This paper reviews the status of ceramic breeder research and highlights …

Metallic waste is a residual of the electrometallurgical treatment of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) spent fuel. The treatment is based on electrorefining the fuel in molten salt, and currently it remains in the demonstration phase at the Fuel Conditioning Facility (FCF) at Argonne National Laboratory-West (ANL-W). A reference metallic waste form is produced by mixing 15% zirconium with the stainless steel cladding hulls, which remain in the fuel dissolution baskets (FDB's) after electrorefining, to form a metal alloy. Estimates of uranium in this waste form are of importance to both operations and sensitive materials control and accountability (MC and A). Accurate estimates of the uranium in this product provide important information regarding the dissolution of uranium and the efficiency of the electrorefining process. Under certain operating conditions, non-negligible amounts of uranium were found in this stream, which made it an area of interest for MC and A. The estimates of uranium in this waste stream are currently provided through analysis of cladding hulls samples. The collected cladding hulls data and the errors associated with the data are discussed here, in addition to the effects of these errors on the overall facility ID variance.

The principal objective of the Sundown Slaughter Unit (SSU) CO2 Huff- n- Puff (H- n- P) project is to determine the feasibility and practicality of the technology in a waterflooded shallow shelf carbonate environment. Sundown Slaughter Unit is the second demonstration site associated with this project, following the unsuccessful test at Central Vacuum Unit. The ultimate goal will be to develop guidelines based on commonly available data that other operators in the industry can use to investigate the applicability of the process within other fields. The technology transfer objective of the project is to disseminate the knowledge gained through an innovative plan in support of the Department of Energy's (DOE) objective of increasing domestic oil production and deferring the abandonment of shallow shelf carbonate (SSC) reservoirs. Tasks associated with this objective are carried out in what is a timely effort for near- term goals. The goal of this Sundown Slaughter Unit Project is to demonstrate the CO2 Huff- n- Puff process in a waterflooded, light oil, shallow shelf carbonate reservoir within the Permian Basin. The CO2 Huff- n- Puff process is a proven enhanced oil recovery technology for Louisiana- Texas gulf coast sandstone reservoirs. The reader is referred to three …

The research program focused on two main themes: (i) magnetic helicity and (ii) current drive by low-frequency waves. At first these themes seemed unrelated, but as time progressed, they became interwoven, and ultimately closely connected. A sub-theme is that while the MHD model of a plasma stimulates many intriguing counter-intuitive ideas for creating and sustaining magnetic confinement configurations, usually the crux of these schemes involves some sort of breakdown of MHD, i.e., involves physics which transcends MHD.

The water vapor content for air in drier ducts, ovens, furnaces and the like is determined by a measurement of sound speed which is done by measuring the time difference between sound pulses reflected by two reflectors spaced a known distance apart in a guide tube. The transmitter-receiver is located at one end of the tube. The tube has enough number of holes to allow the hot moist air to get into the probe tube. A non-porous tube containing dry air placed in the same duct provides a similar measurement of dry-sound speed. The ratio of the two speeds of sound or the two measured time intervals is a simple function of the water vapor content practically independent of temperature thereby providing a very accurate measurement of water vapor content over an extremely wide range of temperatures. The sensor is accurate, immune to harsh environments, has an extremely low time constant, has absolutely no hysteresis and needs no calibration.

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Letter detailing the audit of General Revenue fund distribution to three universities.