Asthe budget has moved from a position of large deficitsto large surpluses, then back to deficit again, a debate has emerged about the desirability of retiring the national debt. Although the national debt would not be retired under current baseline forecasts, it remains an important element of the budget surplus debate. By the end of the baseline window, the national debt is forecast to reach its lowest level in the post-war period as a percentage of GDP despite the dramatic deterioration in the surplus forecastsince 2001. This report will explore the economic issues surrounding budget surpluses and debt retirement

During the second session of the 107th Congress, the House and Senate will consider many different budgetary measures. Most of these measures will pertain to FY2003 (which will begin on October 1, 2002) and beyond, but some may make adjustments to the budget for FY2002. As the congressional session progresses, this issue brief will describe House and Senate action on major budgetary legislation within the framework of the congressional budget process and other procedural requirements.

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This report provides information about the Human Cloning where a human embryo produced via cloning involves the process called somatic cell nuclear transfer. The nuclear of the egg is removed and replaced with a mature body cell.

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A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Army wants an artillery system with greater firepower, range, and mobility than its current self-propelled howitzer. In 1994, the Army began to develop the Crusader, an advanced artillery system consisting of a self-propelled 155-millimeter howitzer and a resupply vehicle. The Department of Defense (DOD) will decide next year whether the Crusader program should enter its system development and demonstration stage, which will require the commitment of major resources. GAO found that the Crusader program has made considerable progress in developing key technologies and reducing its size and weight. However, more progress and knowledge is needed to minimize the risk of cost overruns, schedule delays, and performance shortfalls. The Crusader program will likely enter product development with most of its critical technologies less mature than best practices recommend. Most of the Crusader's critical technologies have been demonstrated in a relevant environment but not in the more demanding operational environment. Although the Army is reducing the Crusader's weight so that two vehicles can be deployed on a C-17 aircraft, the deployability advantage gained does not appear significant. The reduction in the Crusader system's weight would only decrease …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The central banks of major industrialized countries have agreed on common policy objectives and presented them in the Core Principles for Systematically Important Payment Systems. Intended to help promote safer and more efficient payment systems worldwide, the Core Principles outline specific policy recommendations for systematically important payment systems and describe the responsibilities of the central banks. All of the central banks GAO studied seek to ensure that their wholesale payment systems operate smoothly and minimize systemic risk. All of the central banks provide settlement services for their countries' wholesale payment systems. Some central banks also provide wholesale clearing services. Other central banks own the system but have little operational involvement in clearing, while others participate in partnerships with the private sector. All of the central banks GAO studied provide settlement for some retail payment systems. Some, but not all, central banks exercise regulatory authority over retail payment systems in their countries. Central banks also tend to have less operational involvement in countries where there is a relatively concentrated banking industry. In some cases, laws governing payments and the structure of the financial services industry direct the …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Montgomery GI Bill provides a monthly stipend to pay postsecondary education expenses for veterans and eligible service members. Concerns have been raised about whether GI benefits adequately cover educational costs and whether the receipt of GI benefits affects other federal financial assistance available to postsecondary students under Title IV of the Higher Education Act and the Internal Revenue Code. Under Title IV, GI benefits do not affect the amount of aid veterans receive under the Pell grant and subsidized Stafford loan programs but may affect the amount they receive in unsubsidized loans and through campus-based aid programs. Depending on the program, GI benefits may be considered as another source of financial assistance for students, which may decrease a veteran student's financial need and thus the amount of need-based aid provided. With regard to available federal tax incentives, the receipt of GI benefits does not preclude veterans from claiming such benefits but may affect the amount they would be eligible to claim. On average, veterans and nonveterans with comparable characteristics are awarded similar amounts of federal Title IV aid. When GI benefits are included, the total …

Combined Cooling Heat and Power (CHP) is a master term for onsite power generation technologies that sequentially produce electrical or mechanical energy and useful thermal energy. Some form of CHP has existed for more than 100 years and it is now achieving a greater level of acceptance due to an increasing need for reliable power service and energy cost management. Capturing and using the heat produced as a byproduct of generating electricity from fuel sources increases the usable energy that can be obtained from the original fuel source. CHP technologies have the potential to reduce energy consumption through increased efficiency--decreasing energy bills as well as pollution. The EPA recognizes CHP as a potent climate change mitigation measure. The U.S. Department of Energy (D.O.E.) Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) is assisting Federal agencies to realize their energy efficiency goals. CHP is an efficiency measure that is receiving growing attention because of its sizable potential to provide efficiency, environmental, and reliability benefits. CHP therefore benefits the host facility, the electric infrastructure, and the U.S. society as a whole. This report and study seeks to make a preliminary inquiry into near term CHP opportunities for federal facilities in selected U.S. regions. It offers …

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) is the centerpiece of the nuclear physics program at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The physics program encompasses both heavy ion physics and spin physics with polarized protons. A series of three accelerators provide the ions for injection into the two counter-rotating RHIC accelerator-collider rings. A fourth machine, the proton linac, provides polarized protons to the injector chain. RHIC has been designed to accelerate and collide all ion species from protons to uranium. We are presently limited to a mass of gold by the tandem preinjector limitations. RHIC has accelerated and stored gold ions for data taking from the injection energy of 10 GeV/nucleon to a maximum of 100 GeV/nucleon. Polarized protons have been delivered at 100 GeV for physics data taking. Most of the design parameters of RHIC have been achieved. The number of beam bunches, emittances, energy, bunch length and inter-section region optics parameters have been achieved. Beam intensity is routinely available at 75% of design and the average luminosity is presently at 30% of design value.

With the first injection of neutral beams into the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) [Ono, et al., Nucl. Fusion 40 (2000) 557] a broad spectrum of fluctuations consisting of nearly equally spaced peaks in the frequency range from about 0.2 to 1.2 times the ion cyclotron frequency was observed. The frequencies scale with toroidal field and plasma density consistently with Alfvin waves. From these and other observations, the modes have been identified as Compressional Alfvin Eigenmodes (CAE). It has also recently been found that the ratio of the measured ion and electron temperatures in NSTX during neutral-beam heating is anomalously high [Bell, Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 46 (2001) 206]. To explain the anomaly in the ratio of ion to electron temperature, it has been suggested that the CAE, driven by the beam ions, stochastically heat the thermal ions [Gates, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87 (2001) 205003]. In this paper, it is shown through studies of the power balance that stochastic heating of the thermal ions by the observed CAE alone is not solely responsible for the anomaly in the ion to electron temperature ratio.

Hydrogen combustion may represent a threat to containment integrity in a VVER-440/213 plant owing to the combination of high pressure and high temperature. A study has been carried out using the GASFLOW 2.1 three-dimensional CFD code to evaluate the hydrogen distribution in the containment during a beyond design basis accident. The VVER-440/213 containment input model consists of two 3D blocks connected via one-dimensional (1D) ducts. One 3D block contains the reactor building and the accident localization tower with the suppression pools. Another 3D block models the air traps. 1D ducts represent the check valves connecting the accident localization tower with the air traps. The VVER pressure suppression system, called ''bubbler condenser,'' was modeled as a distributed heat sink with water thermodynamic properties. This model accounts for the energy balance. However, it is not currently possible to model dynamic phenomena associated with the water pools (e.g., vent clearing, level change). The GASFLOW 2.1 calculation gave detailed results for the spatial distribution of thermal-hydraulic parameters and gas concentrations. The range and trend of the parameters are reasonable and valuable. There are particularly interesting circulation patterns around the steam generators, in the bubbler tower and other primary system compartments. In case of the …

''Temporary shelter-in place'' is the combination of prompt shelter-in-place (SIP) to minimize initial exposure to airborne hazardous material, followed by timely action to terminate this protection to minimize exposure to hazardous vapor accumulations in the shelter once the air outside becomes less hazardous than the air inside the shelter. Temporary SIP, if properly executed, is considered to be an effective way to protect populations from hazardous chemical vapors, especially from high concentrations for short periods. This is supported by laboratory and field experiments. The need for timely termination of temporary SIP as protection from infiltrated vapors is an integral component of a temporary SIP strategy. It was from this premise that Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) was asked to develop methodologies for deciding when and how to terminate SIP. These methodologies, in turn, could be the basis for site-specific operational guidelines (e.g., decision matrix, decision-tree, or algorithm) for terminating SIP on each of the eight Army chemical stockpile storage sites, and in the off-post communities surrounding them. This project consists of two tasks. Task 1 was to collect and analyze existing literature that might be relevant to the termination of temporary SIP. This report is the product of Task 1. Task …

Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site (RFETS) near Golden, Colorado is the first major nuclear weapons site within the DOE complex that has been declared a full closure site. RFETS has been given the challenge of closing the site by 2006. Key to meeting this challenge is the removal of all waste from the site followed by site restoration. Crucial to meeting this challenge is Kaiser-Hill's (RFETS Operating Contractor) ability to dispose of significant quantities of ''orphan'' wastes. Orphan wastes are those with no current disposition for treatment or disposal. Once such waste stream, generically referred to as Transuranic oils, poses a significant threat to meeting the closure schedule. Historically, this waste stream, which consist of a variety of oil contaminated with a range of organic solvents were treated by simply mixing with Environstone. This treatment method rendered a solidified waste form, but unfortunately not a TRUPACT-II transportable waste. So for the last ten years, RFETS has been accumulating these TRU oils while searching for a non-controversial treatment option.

The research reactor DIORIT at the Paul Scherrer Institute was decommissioned in 1993 and is now being dismantled. One of the materials to be conditioned is activated reactor graphite, approximately 45 tons. A cost effective conditioning method has been developed. The graphite is crushed to less than 6 mm and added to concrete and grout. This graphite concrete is used as matrix for embedding dismantling waste in containers. The waste containers that would have been needed for separate conditioning and disposal of activated reactor graphite are thus saved. Applying the new method, the cost can be reduced from about 55 SFr/kg to about 17 SFr/kg graphite.

In a period of approximately 40 years prior to 1994, the German Federal Government had spent about {approx} 15 billion to promote nuclear technology. These funds were earmarked for R&D projects as well as demonstration facilities which took up operation between 1960 and 1980. These BMBF (Federal Ministry for Research) facilities were mainly located at the sites of the federal research centers at Juelich and Karlsruhe (the research reactors AVR, FR2, FRJ-1, KNK, and MZFR, the pilot reprocessing plant WAK) but included also the pilot plants SNR-300 and THTR-300 for fast breeder and high-temperature gas-cooled reactor development, respectively, and finally the salt mine Asse which had been used for waste emplacement prior to conversion into an underground research laboratory. In the meantime, almost all of these facilities were shut down and are now in a state of decommissioning and dismantling. This is mainly due to the facts that R&D needs are satisfied or do not exist any more and that, secondly, the lack of political consensus led to the cancellation of advanced nuclear technology.

Siempelkamp Nukleartechnik GmbH is engaged in the optimization of decommissioning processes for several years. With respect of the complexity of the projects, the time frame and the budget it is necessary to find more effective ways to handle those tasks in the near future. The decommissioning and dismantling will be achieved in six steps taking into account that some processing equipment can be dismantled before and the rest only after the High Active Liquid Waste Concentrate (HAWC) has been vitrified approximately by mid of 2005. After the successful beginning of the remote dismantling of the main process cells from March 2000, the next remote dismantling project at the WAK was initiated April 2000.

Approximately 60 g of an iron-enriched borosilicate glass was made in the radiochemical labs of the Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC). The glass was made to demonstrate the immobilization of the radioisotopes contained on representative Argentine ion exchange resins (similar to those used at the Embalse plant). The product was approximately 90% amorphous and was quite durable as measured by the release rates from the Product Consistency Test (PCT). The release rates were considerably better than those of the U. S. High Level Waste (HLW) benchmark DWPF EA glass. The release rate of the Cs-137 was predictably similar to that of Na and Li. No Co-60 or Sr-90 was measured in the PCT leachate. The mass balances for the inactive additives were quite good. Of the radioisotopes, approximately 71% of Cs-137 was accounted for in the glass product. This was similar to the Na mass balance. Approximately 89% of the Co-60 was accounted for in the glass product.

The Synthetic and Virtual Environmental Media (SAVEM) Program, developed at the DOE Environmental Measurements Laboratory, responds directly to issues of improved data quality, increased regulatory confidence, analytical laboratory waste minimization, pollution prevention, worker safety/radiation exposure risk reduction, and environmental stewardship. The SAVEM radiochemistry information analysis system uses digitally generated spectra to accurately model gamma-ray emission characteristics of radiological samples. A digital virtual sample can be specified that has the characteristics of any environmental media such as soil, sediment, or vegetation, and which exhibits the spectral characteristics of more than 2,000 gamma-emitting nuclides. The SAVEM system can duplicate the characteristics of 2,361 individual radionuclides with 47,902 gamma lines.

Amchitka Island, Alaska, was at one time an integral player in the nation's defense program. Located in the North Pacific Ocean in the Aleutian Island archipelago, the island was intermittently inhabited by several key government agencies, including the U.S. Army, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (predecessor agency to the U.S. Department of Energy), and the U.S. Navy. Since 1993, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has conducted extensive investigations on Amchitka to determine the nature and extent of contamination resulting from historic nuclear testing. The uninhabited island was the site of three high-yield nuclear tests from 1965 to 1971. These test locations are now part of the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Operations Office's Environmental Management Program. In the summer of 2001, the DOE launched a large-scale remediation effort on Amchitka to perform agreed-upon corrective actions to the surface of the island. Due to the lack of resources available on Amchitka and logistical difficulties with conducting work at such a remote location, the DOE partnered with the Navy and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to share certain specified costs and resources. Attempting to negotiate the partnerships while organizing and implementing the surface remediation on Amchitka proved to be …

The development of the nuclear techniques in Romania and the commissioning of the WWR-S research reactor belonging to the Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering-(NIPNE) demand to deal with the storage and disposal of radioactive waste. The institute decided to store the radioactive waste inside a building that belonged to the Defense of Capital City System (the Army) called ''Fort'' which is located on the Magurele site. There are still about 800 packages containing cement conditioned radioactive in the storage facility of NIPNE which need to be repackaged, because they are in an advanced state of degradation. The new package obtained the regulatory design approval. It consists in an internal basket in which the degraded package are placed, a cement containment system, and an external cask in which the basket are placed and conditioned with the cement.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Nuclear Security Administration of the Nevada Operations Office (NNSA/NV) operates and maintains two active facilities on the Nevada Test Site (NTS) that dispose defense-generated low-level radioactive waste (LLW), mixed radioactive waste, and ''classified waste'' in shallow trenches and pits. The operation and maintenance of the LLW disposal sites are self-regulated by the DOE under DOE Order 435.1. This Order requires formal review of a performance assessment (PA) and composite analysis (CA; assessment of all interacting radiological sources) for each LLW disposal system followed by an active maintenance program that extends through and beyond the site closure program. The Nevada disposal facilities continue to receive NTS-generated LLW and defense-generated LLW from across the DOE complex. The PA/CAs for the sites have been conditionally approved and the facilities are now under a formal maintenance program that requires testing of conceptual models, quantifying and attempting to reduce uncertainty, and implementing confirmatory and long-term background monitoring, all leading to eventual closure of the disposal sites. To streamline and reduce the cost of the maintenance program, the NNSA/NV is converting the deterministic PA/CAs to probabilistic models using GoldSim, a probabilistic simulation computer code. The output of probabilistic models …

Critical Inquiry, has not only been successful in increasing university student retention rate but also in improving student academic performance beyond the initial year of transition into the University. The seminar course herein reviewed is a balanced combination of student personal and academic skill development combined with a solid background in modern nuclear systems. It is a valid premise to assume that entering students as well as stakeholders of the general public demonstrate equal levels of capability. Nuclear systems is designed to give a broad and basic knowledge of nuclear power, medical, industrial, research, and military systems (nuclear systems) in 20-25 hours.

Environmental restoration activities at the Department of Energy Savannah River Site (SRS) utilize innovative site characterization approaches and technologies that minimize waste generation. Characterization is typically conducted in phases, first by collecting large quantities of inexpensive data, followed by targeted minimally invasive drilling to collect depth-discrete soil/groundwater data, and concluded with the installation of permanent multi-level groundwater monitoring wells. Waste-reducing characterization methods utilize non-traditional drilling practices (sonic drilling), minimally intrusive (geoprobe, cone penetrometer) and non-intrusive (3-D seismic, ground penetration radar, aerial monitoring) investigative tools. Various types of sensor probes (moisture sensors, gamma spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, laser induced and X-ray fluorescence) and hydrophobic membranes (FLUTe) are used in conjunction with depth-discrete sampling techniques to obtain high-resolution 3-D plume profiles. Groundwater monitoring (short/long-term) approaches utilize multi-level sampling technologies (Strata-Sampler, Cone-Sipper, Solinst Waterloo, Westbay) and low-cost diffusion samplers for seepline/surface water sampling. Upon collection of soil and groundwater data, information is portrayed in a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) format for interpretation and planning purposes. At the SRS, the use of non-traditional drilling methods and minimally/non intrusive investigation approaches along with in-situ sampling methods has minimized waste generation and improved the effectiveness and efficiency of characterization activities.