The Hanford Reach National Monument consists of several units, one of which is the Fitzner/Eberhardt Arid Lands Ecology Reserve (ALE) Unit. This unit is approximately 311 km2 of shrub-steppe habitat located to the south and west of Highway 240. To fulfill internal U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) requirements prior to any radiological clearance of land, DOE must evaluate the potential for residual radioactive contamination on this land and determine compliance with the requirements of DOE Order 5400.5. Historical soil monitoring conducted on ALE indicated soil concentrations of radionuclides were well below the Authorized Limits. However, the historical sampling was done at a limited number of sampling locations. Therefore, additional soil sampling was conducted to determine if the concentrations of radionuclides in soil on the ALE Unit were below the Authorized Limits. This report contains the results of 50 additional soil samples. The 50 soil samples collected from the ALE Unit all had concentrations of radionuclides far below the Authorized Limits. The average concentrations for all detectable radionuclides were less than the estimated Hanford Site background. Furthermore, the maximum observed soil concentrations for the radionuclides included in the Authorized Limits would result in a potential annual dose of 0.14 mrem …

In this article we analyze the impact of B-physics and Higgs physics at LEP on standard and non-standard Higgs bosons searches at the Tevatron and the LHC, within the framework of minimal flavor violating supersymmetric models. The B-physics constraints we consider come from the experimental measurements of the rare B-decays b {yields} s{gamma} and B{sub u} {yields} {tau}{nu} and the experimental limit on the B{sub s} {yields} {mu}{sup +}{mu}{sup -} branching ratio. We show that these constraints are severe for large values of the trilinear soft breaking parameter A{sub t}, rendering the non-standard Higgs searches at hadron colliders less promising. On the contrary these bounds are relaxed for small values of A{sub t} and large values of the Higgsino mass parameter {mu}, enhancing the prospects for the direct detection of non-standard Higgs bosons at both colliders. We also consider the available ATLAS and CMS projected sensitivities in the standard model Higgs search channels, and we discuss the LHC's ability in probing the whole MSSM parameter space. In addition we also consider the expected Tevatron collider sensitivities in the standard model Higgs h {yields} b{bar b} channel to show that it may be able to find 3 {sigma} evidence in the …

This process design and technoeconomic evaluation addresses the conversion of biomass to ethanol via thermochemical pathways that are expected to be demonstrated at the pilot level by 2012.

Pack cementation-like Cerium based surface treatments have been found to be effective in enhancing the oxidation resistance of ferritic steels (Crofer 22APU) for solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) applications. The application of either a CeN- or CeO2 based surface treatment results in a decrease in weight gain by a factor of three after 4000 hours exposure to air+3%H2O at 800oC. Similar oxide scales formed on treated and untreated surfaces, with a continuous Cr-Mn outer oxide layer and a continuous inner Cr2O3 layer formed on the surface. However, the thickness of the scales, and the amount of internal oxidation were significantly reduced with the treatment, leading to the decrease in oxidation rate. This presentation will detail the influence of the treatment on the electrical properties of the interconnect. Half-cell experiments (LSM cathode sandwiched between two steel interconnects) and full SOFC button cell experiments were run with treated and untreated interconnects. Preliminary results indicate the Ce treatment can improve SOFC performance.

Many mining regions in the United States contain extensive areas of flooded underground mines. The water within these mines represents a significant and widespread opportunity for extracting low-grade, geothermal energy. Based on current energy prices, geothermal heat pump systems using mine water could reduce the annual costs for heating to over 70 percent compared to conventional heating methods (natural gas or heating oil). These same systems could reduce annual cooling costs by up to 50 percent over standard air conditioning in many areas of the country. (Formatted full-text version is released by permission of publisher)

The focus of this project is the open-circuit voltage of the CdTe thin-film solar cell. CdTe continues to be one of the leading materials for large-scale cost-effective production of photovoltaics, but the efficiency of the CdTe solar cell has been stagnant for the last few years. At the manufacturing front, the CdTe technology is fast paced and moving forward with U.S.-based First Solar LLC leading the world in CdTe module production. To support the industry efforts and continue the advancement of this technology, it will be necessary to continue improvements in solar cell efficiency. A closer look at the state-of-the-art performance levels puts the three solar cell efficiency parameters of short-circuit current density (JSC), open-circuit voltage (VOC), and fill factor (FF) in the 24-26 mA/cm2, 844?850 mV, and 74%-76% ranges respectively. During the late 1090s, efforts to improve cell efficiency were primarily concerned with increasing JSC, simply by using thinner CdS window layers to enhance the blue response (<510 nm) of the CdTe cell. These efforts led to underscoring the important role 'buffers' (or high-resistivity transparent films) play in CdTe cells. The use of transparent bi-layers (low-p/high-p) as the front contact is becoming a 'standard' feature of the CdTe cell.

Over the next several decades, a profound transformation of the global energy enterprise will occur driven largely by population growth and economic development. How this growing demand for energy is met poses one of the most complex and challenging issues of our time. The current national energy dialogue reflects the challenge in simultaneously considering the social, political, economic, and technical issues as the energy system is defined, technical targets are established, and programs and investments are implemented to meet those technical targets. This paper examines the general concepts and options for meeting this challenge.

The MFDRC was formed in 1998 to advance the state-of-the-art in simulating multiphase turbulent flows by developing advanced computational models for gas-solid flows that are experimentally validated over a wide range of industrially relevant conditions. The goal was to transfer the resulting validated models to interested US commercial CFD software vendors, who would then propagate the models as part of new code versions to their customers in the US chemical industry. Since the lack of detailed data sets at industrially relevant conditions is the major roadblock to developing and validating multiphase turbulence models, a significant component of the work involved flow measurements on an industrial-scale riser contributed by Westinghouse, which was subsequently installed at SNL. Model comparisons were performed against these datasets by LANL. A parallel Office of Industrial Technology (OIT) project within the consortium made similar comparisons between riser measurements and models at NETL. Measured flow quantities of interest included volume fraction, velocity, and velocity-fluctuation profiles for both gas and solid phases at various locations in the riser. Some additional techniques were required for these measurements beyond what was currently available. PNNL’s role on the project was to work with the SNL experimental team to develop and test two …

This Streamlined Approach for Environmental Restoration (SAFER) Plan addresses closure for Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 124, Areas 8, 15, and 16 Storage Tanks, identified in the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order. Corrective Action Unit 124 consists of five Corrective Action Sites (CASs) located in Areas 8, 15, and 16 of the Nevada Test Site as follows: • 08-02-01, Underground Storage Tank • 15-02-01, Irrigation Piping • 16-02-03, Underground Storage Tank • 16-02-04, Fuel Oil Piping • 16-99-04, Fuel Line (Buried) and UST This plan provides the methodology of field activities necessary to gather information to close each CAS. There is sufficient information and process knowledge from historical documentation and investigations of similar sites regarding the expected nature and extent of potential contaminants to recommend closure of CAU 124 using the SAFER process.

The DOE Biomass Program recently implemented the Biofuels Initiative, or 30x30 program, with the dual goal of reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil by making cellulosic ethanol cost competitive with gasoline by 2012 and by replacing 30 percent of gasoline consumption with biofuels by 2030. Experience to date with increasing ethanol production suggests that it distorts agricultural markets and therefore raises concerns about the sustainability of the DOE 30 X 30 effort: Can the U.S. agricultural system produce sufficient feedstocks for biofuel production and meet the food price and availability expectations of American consumers without causing environmental degradation that would curtail the production of both food and fuel? Efforts are underway to develop computer-based modeling tools that address this concern and support the DOE 30 X 30 goals. Beyond technical agronomic and economic concerns, however, such models must account for the publics’ growing interest in sustainable agriculture and in the mitigation of predicted global climate change. This paper discusses ongoing work at the Center for Advanced Energy Studies that investigates the potential consequences and long-term sustainability of projected biomass harvests by identifying and incorporating “sustainable harvest indicators” in a computer modeling strategy.

Clean Cities Now is the official publication of the Clean Cities initiative. Articles include program-specific news, coalition news, industry news, and more.

This manual is intended as a guide for Nuclear Science References (NSR) compilers. The basic conventions followed at the National Nuclear Data Center (NNDC), which are compatible with the maintenance and updating of and retrieval from the Nuclear Science References (NSR) file, are outlined. The NSR database originated at the Nuclear Data Project (NDP) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as part of a project for systematic evaluation of nuclear structure data.1 Each entry in this computer file corresponds to a bibliographic reference that is uniquely identified by a Keynumber and is describable by a Topic and Keywords. It has been used since 1969 to produce bibliographic citations for evaluations published in Nuclear Data Sheets. Periodic additions to the file were published as the ''Recent References'' issues of Nuclear Data Sheets prior to 2005. In October 1980, the maintenance and updating of the NSR file became the responsibility of the NNDC at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The basic structure and contents of the NSR file remained unchanged during the transfer. In Chapter 2, the elements of the NSR file such as the valid record identifiers, record contents, and text fields are enumerated. Relevant comments regarding a new entry into the NSR file …

This presentation provides the composite data products from Spring 2007 from NREL's Controlled Hydrogen Fleet and Infrastructure Demonstration and Validation Project.

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Idaho National Laboratory (INL), under its programmatic responsibility for managing the University Research Reactor Conversions, has completed the conversion of the reactor at the University of Florida. This project was successfully completed through an integrated and collaborative effort involving the INL, Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), DOE (Headquarters and Field Office), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Universities, and contractors involved in analyses, fuel design and fabrication, and SNF shipping and disposition. With the work completed with these two universities, and in anticipation of other impending conversion projects, INL convened and engaged the project participants in a structured discussion to capture lessons learned. The objectives of this meeting were to capture the observations, insights, issues, concerns, and ideas of those involved in the reactor conversions so that future efforts can be conducted with greater effectiveness, efficiency, and with fewer challenges.

The purpose of this project is to organize the databases/information and organize and move the tissues from the long-term dog (4,000 dogs) and mouse (over 30,000 mice) radiation experiments done at Argonne National Laboratory during the 1970's and 80's to Northwestern University. These studies were done with the intention of understanding the effects of exposure to radiation at a variety of different doses, dose-rates, and radiation qualities on end-points such as life-shortening, carcinogenesis, cause of death, shifts in disease incidence and other biological parameters. Organ and tissue samples from these animals including cancers, metastases and other significant degenerative and inflammatory lesions and those in a regular protocol of normal tissues were preserved in paraffin blocks, tissue impressions and sections and represent a great resource for the radiation biology community. These collections are particularly significant since these experiments are not likely to be repeated because of the extreme cost of monies and time for such large-scale animal studies. The long-term goal is to make these tissues and databases available to the wider scientific community so that questions such as tissue sensitivity, early and late effects, low dose and protracted dose responses of normal and tumor tissues, etc. can be examined and …

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Crud (radioactive corrosion products formed inside nuclear reactors is a major problem in commercial power-producing nuclear reactors. Although there are numerous studies of simulated (non-radioactive) crud, characteristics of crud from actual reactors are rarely studied. This study reports scanning electron microscope (SEM) studies of fragments of crud from a commercially operating boiling water reactor. Chemical analyses in the SEM indicated that the crud closest to the outer surfaces of the fuel pins in some areas had Fe:Zn ratios close to 2:1, which decreased away from the fuel pin in some of the fragments. In combination with transmission electron microsope analyses (published elsewhere), these results suggest that the innermost layer of crud in some areas may consist of franklinite (ZnFe2O4, also called zinc spinel), while outer layers in these areas may be predominantly iron oxides.

Simulations and experiments have been carried out to explore using a plastic scintillator as a dosimetry probe in the vicinity of a pulsed bremsstrahlung source in the range 4 to 20 MeV. Taking advantage of the tissue-equivalent properties of this detector in conjunction with the use of a fast digital signal processor near real-time dosimetry was shown to be possible. The importance of accounting for a broad energy electron beam in bremsstrahlung production, and photon scattering and build-up, in correctly interpreting dosimetry results at long stand-off distances is highlighted by comparing real world experiments with ideal geometry simulations. Close agreement was found between absorbed energy calculations based upon spectroscopic techniques and calculations based upon signal integration, showing a ratio between 10 MeV absorbed dose to 12 MeV absorbed dose of 0.66 at a distance of 91.4 m from the accelerator. This is compared with an idealized model simulation with a monoenergetic electron beam and without scattering, where the ratio was 0.46.

New fuel, cladding, and structural materials offer the potential for safer and more economic energy from existing reactor and advanced nuclear reactor designs. However, insufficient data are available to characterize these materials in high temperature, radiation conditions. To evaluate candidate material performance, robust instrumentation is needed that can survive these conditions. However, traditional thermocouples either drift due to degradation at high temperatures (above 1100 °C) or due to transmutation of thermocouple components. Thermocouples are needed which can withstand both high temperature and high radiation environments. To address this instrumentation need, the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) recently developed the design and evaluated the performance of a high temperature radiation-resistant thermocouple that contains commercially-available alloys of molybdenum and niobium (Rempe, 2006). Candidate thermocouple component materials were first identified based on their ability to withstand high temperature and radiation. Then, components were selected based on data obtained from materials interaction tests, ductility investigations, and resolution evaluations. Results from long duration (over 4000 hours) tests at high temperatures (up to 1400 °C) and thermal cycling tests demonstrate the stability and reliability of the INL-developed design. Tests in INL’s Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) are underway to demonstrate the in-pile performance of these thermocouples. However, several …

Supported liquid membranes are a class of materials that allow the researcher to utilize the wealth of knowledge available on liquid properties as a direct guide in the development of a capture technology. These membranes also have the advantage of liquid phase diffusivities higher than those observed in polymeric membranes which grant proportionally greater permeabilities. The primary shortcoming of the supported liquid membranes demonstrated in past research has been the lack of stability caused by volatilization of the transport liquid. Ionic liquids, which possess high carbon dioxide solubility relative to light gases such as hydrogen, are an excellent candidate for this type of membrane since they have negligible vapor pressure and are not susceptible to evaporation. A study has been conducted evaluating the use of several ionic liquids, including 1-hexyl-3-methyl-imidazolium bis(trifuoromethylsulfonyl)imide, 1-butyl-3-methyl-imidazolium nitrate, and 1-ethyl-3-methyl-imidazolium sulfate in supported ionic liquid membranes for the capture of carbon dioxide from streams containing hydrogen. In a joint project, researchers at the University of Notre Dame lent expertise in ionic liquid synthesis and characterization, and researchers at the National Energy Technology Laboratory incorporated candidate ionic liquids into supports and evaluated the resulting materials for membrane performance. Initial results have been very promising with carbon …

This report talks Beam Condition Monitoring with Diamonds at CDF

A summary of the latest results of Standard Model Higgs boson searches from CDF and D0 presented at the DIS 2007 conference is reported in this paper. All analyses presented use 1 fb{sup -1} of Tevatron data. The strategy of the different analyses is determined by the Higgs production mechanism and decay channel.

The Office of Space and Defense Power Systems of the Department of Energy (DOE) provides Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) for applications where conventional power systems are not feasible. For example, radioisotope thermoelectric generators were supplied by the DOE to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for deep space missions including the Cassini Mission launched in October of 1997 to study the planet Saturn. For the Cassini Mission, ORNL produced carbon-bonded carbon fiber (CBCF) insulator sets, iridium alloy blanks and foil, and clad vent sets (CVS) used in the generators. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has been involved in developing materials and technology and producing components for the DOE for more than three decades. This report reflects program guidance from the Office of Space and Defense Power Systems for fiscal year (FY) 2006. Production activities for prime quality (prime) CBCF insulator sets, iridium alloy blanks and foil, and CVS are summarized in this report. Technology activities are also reported that were conducted to improve the manufacturing processes, characterize materials, or to develop information for new radioisotope power systems.

The popularity of UAVs has increased dramatically because of their successful deployment in military operations, their ability to preserve human life, and the continual improvements in wireless communication that serves to increase their capabilities. We believe the usefulness of UAVs would be dramatically increased if formation flight were added to the list of capabilities. Currently, sustained formation flight with a cluster of UAVs has only been achieved with two nodes by the Multi-UAV Testbed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (Park, 2004) Formation flight is a complex operation requiring the ability to adjust the flight patterns on the fly and correct for wind gusts, terrain, and differences in node equipment. All of which increases the amount of inner node communication. Since one of the problems with MANET communication is network congestion, we believe a first step towards formation flight can be made through improved inner node communication. We have investigated current communication routing protocols and developed an altered hybrid routing protocol in order to provide communication with less network congestion.