The results of the environmental surveillance program conducted at Site A/Plot M in the Palos Forest Preserve area for CY 1991 are presented. The surveillance program is the ongoing remedial action that resulted from the 1976--1978 radiological characterization of the site. That study determined that very low levels of hydrogen-3 (as tritiated water) had migrated from the burial ground and were present in two nearby hand-pumped picnic wells. The current program consists of sample collection and analysis of air, surface and subsurface water, and bottom sediment. The results of the analyses are used to (1) determine the migration pathway of water from the burial ground (Plot M) to the hand-pumped picnic wells, (2) establish if buried radionuclides other than hydrogen-3 have migrated, and (3) generally characterize the radiological environment of the area. Hydrogen-3 in the Red Gate Woods picnic wells was still detected this year, but the average and maximum concentrations were significantly less than found earlier. Tritiated water continues to be detected in a number of wells, boreholes, dolomite holes, and surface stream. For many years it was the only radionclide found to have migrated in measurable quantities. Analyses since 1984 have indicated the presence of low levels of …

This report is on the status of US/Polish efforts to reduce air pollution from low emission sources (coalfired house stoves and local boilers) in Krakow, Poland. The region around Krakow in Southern Poland is one of the most heavily polluted areas in the world. In 1989, while visiting Poland, President George Bush made a commitment on behalf of the US to assist in the reclamation of the Krakow environment; Congress in 1990 authorized $20 million to address pollutants from low emissions sources,'' that is, from facilities with low stacks. The low emission sources are responsible for 35 percent of SO{sub x} emissions, significant NO{sub x} emissions, and are the primary source of particulate and organic emissions. The Krakow Clean Fossil Fuels and Energy Efficiency Project, sponsored by the US Agency for International Development and implemented by the US Department of Energy, is designed to reduce these emissions by improving the efficiency of coal use in Krakow's 130,000 coal stoves and 1300 small coal-fired boilerhouses, by reducing demand for energy for space conditioning through thermal integrity improvements, and/or by switching to alternative fuels. The project includes a comprehensive testing program, engineering analyses, and economic assessments to determine the most attractive strategy …

Research is continuing in attempting to increase both the ethanol concentration and product ratio (acetate to ethanol) from the C. ljungdahlii fermentation. Both batch and continuous reactors are being used for this purpose. The purpose of this report is four-fold. First, the data presented in PETC Report No. 2-4-91 (June--September, 1991) are analyzed and interpreted using normalized specific growth and production rates. This technique eliminates experimental variation due to differences in inoculum history. Secondly, the effects of the sulfur gases H{sub 2}S and COS on the performance of C. ljungdahlii are presented and discussed. Although these are preliminary results, they illustrate the tolerance of the bacterium to low levels of sulfur gases. Thirdly, the results of continuous stirred tank reactor studies are presented, where cell and product concentrations are shown as a function of agitation rate and gas flow rate. Finally, additional data are presented showing the performance of C. ljungdahlii in a CSTR with cell recycle.

Tasks reported on this term include optimization of chlorided Pt- alumina catalysts, testing of the optimum Pt/Cl alumina catalysts, preparation and testing of zirconia superacid catalyst. (VC)

This document is a primer on solar radiation data. General uses of solar energy are presented. The manner in which solar radiation data is used to aid engineers in optimizing the use of solar thermal conversion and photovoltaic conversion is discussed. Methods for acquiring and assimilating the solar radiation data are illustrated. This would include the design and use of pyranometers and pyrheliometers. Seasonal and geographical variations in solar flux reaching the earth are evaluated. Other uses of compiled data include the determination of meteorological impacts of atmospheric disturbances such as volcano eruptions.

This paper presents trends in oil-fired residential heating appliance design that take advantage of recent research which promises significantly lower pollutant emissions, improved performance, and efficiency.

This implementing procedures document (IPD) was prepared for use in implementing tasks under the standard review plan update and development program (SRP-UDP). The IPD provides comprehensive guidance and detailed procedures for SRP-UDP tasks. The IPD is mandatory for contractors performing work for the SRP-UDP. It is guidance for the staff. At the completion of the SRP-UDP, the IPD will be revised (to remove the UDP aspects) and will replace NRR Office Letter No. 800 as long-term maintenance procedures.

The following research programs from the Center for Radiological Research of Columbia University are described: Design and development of a new wall-less ultra miniature proportional counter for nanodosimetry; some recent measurements of ionization distributions for heavy ions at nanometer site sizes with a wall-less proportional counter; a calculation of exciton energies in periodic systems with helical symmetry: application to a hydrogen fluoride chain; electron energy-loss function in polynucleotide and the question of plasmon excitation; a non-parametric, microdosimetric-based approach to the evaluation of the biological effects of low doses of ionizing radiation; high-LET radiation risk assessment at medium doses; high-LET radiobiological effects: increased lesion severity or increased lesion proximity; photoneutrons generated by high energy medical linacs; the biological effectiveness of neutrons; implications for radiation protection; molecular characterization of oncogenes induced by neutrons; and the inverse dose-rate effect for oncogenic transformation by charged particles is LET dependent.

The thermochemical conversion of biomass feedstocks to liquid transportation fuels can be accomplished by three processes, namely gasification, high-pressure liquefaction, and pyrolysis. In this study, the pyrolysis option is selected which is followed by the catalytic upgrading of pyrolysis vapors to aromatic and olefinic hydrocarbons (PYROCAT process). The aromatics constitute a high-octane gasoline blend, while the olefins can be utilized as feedstocks for various chemicals. The PYROCAT process has been studied in a laboratory-scale fixed-bed catalytic reactor. Consecutive biomass samples were pyrolyzed rapidly in steam at 550{degree}C and atmospheric pressure, and then the pyrolysis vapors were passed over a zeolite catalyst. The catalytic upgrading products were monitored in real-time using molecular-beam mass-spectrometry (MBMS). The yields of major products were estimated from mass-spectral data. Several zeolite catalysts were screened in the upgrading process and promising catalysts with high yields were identified. Feedstocks studied included: the woody biomass species aspen (Populus tremuloides), basswood (Tilia americana), and willow (Salix alba); the three isolated components of wood lignin, xylan and cellulose; and the herbaceous species bagasse (Saccharum spp. hybrid), wheat straw (Triticum aestivum), and Sericea lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneata). 17 refs.

The final closure of Waste Area Grouping (WAG) 6 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will include the plugging and abandonment of many existing wells and boreholes and the installation of diversion trenches for groundwater control. These activities will generate soil that must be dewatered before it can be disposed of. Three different types of dewatering equipment{emdash}rotary vacuum drum filters, automatic discharge pressure filters, and centrifuges{emdash}have been evaluated to assess their suitability for the WAG 6 project. Because of its lower cost and minimal prescreening requirements, it is recommended that a centrifuge be used to dewater the WAG 6 soils.

The photolysis of methyldesoxybenzoin in sodium dodecyl sulfate micellar solutions, produces benzaldehyde and styrene as disproportionation products of the triplet geminate radical pair. We have found that both the benzaldehyde and the recovered methyldeoxybenzoin are enriched in 13-C. These results provide the first direct evidence that both recombination and disproportionation are identically selective to the magnetic isotope effect, an important point anticipated by theory, but previously untested. An investigation of the photostereoisomerization of the diasteromers of 2,4-diphenylpentane-3-one in micellar solutions has allowed a quantitative analysis of the probabilities of recombination of the micellized primary geminate radical pair toward formation of different combination products. The results show that within the confidence provided by highly accurate data, the primary geminate radical pairs recombine to regenerate the precursor substrate structure or diastereomer with equal probability.

Knowledge of the heat deposition profile is crucial to all transport analysis of beam heated discharges. The heat deposition profile can be inferred from the fast ion birth profile which, in turn, is directly related to the loss of neutral atoms from the beam. This loss can be measured spectroscopically be the decrease in amplitude of spectral emissions from the beam as it penetrates the plasma. The spectra are complicated by the motional Stark effect which produces a manifold of nine bright peaks for each of the three beam energy components. A code has been written to analyze this kind of data. In the first phase of this work, spectra from tokamak shots are fit with a Stark splitting and Doppler shift model that ties together the geometry of several spatial positions when they are fit simultaneously. In the second phase, a relative position-to-position intensity calibration will be applied to these results to obtain the spectral amplitudes from which beam atom loss can be estimated. This paper reports on the computer code for the first phase. Sample fits to real tokamak spectral data are shown.

A task group has revised the dosimetric model of the respiratory tract used to calculate annual limits on intake of radionuclides. The revised model can be used to project respiratory tract doses for workers and members of the public from airborne radionuclides and to assess past exposures. Doses calculated for specific extrathoracic and thoracic tissues can be adjusted to account for differences in radiosensitivity and summed to yield two values of dose for the respiratory tract that are applicable to the ICRP tissue weighted dosimetry system.

The relative biological effectiveness (RBE) for low-LET radiation is known to depend on such factors as LET and dose rate. Microdosimetric calculations indicate that the biological target size could also be an important parameter, and calculations predict that the RBE for effects produced by hits in target sizes below about 100 nm should be unity for all low LET radiation. We have measured that RBE for gene conversion in yeast (a small target) for five different low LET photon sources, and the results were consistent with an RBE of unity, which agrees with microdosimetric predictions. 4 refs.

This report describes progress during the first year of a three-year research program to develop 12%-efficient CuInSe{sub 2} (CIS) submodules with area greater than 900 cm{sup 2}. To meet this objective, the program was divided into five tasks: (1) windows, contacts, substrates; (2) absorber material; (3) device structure; (4) submodule design and encapsulation; and (5) process optimization. In the first year of the program, work was concentrated on the first three tasks with an objective to demonstrate a 9%-efficient CIS solar cell. 7 refs.

Concentrations of uranium were determined in asparagus collected from eight locations near and ten locations on the Hanford Site southcentral Washington State. Only one location (Sagemoor) had samples with elevated concentrations. The presence of elevated uranium in asparagus at Sagemoor may be explained by the elevated levels in irrigation water. These levels of uranium are comparable to levels previously reported upstream and downstream of the 300-FF-1 Operable Unit on the Hanford Site (0.0008 {mu}g/g), but were below the 0.020-{mu}g/g level reported for brush collected at Sagemoor in a 1982 study. Concentrations at all other onsite and offsite sample locations were considerably lower than concentrations reported immediately upstream and downstream of the 300-FF-1 Operable Unit. Using an earlier analysis of the uranium concentrations in asparagus collected from the Hanford Site constitutes a very small fraction of the US Department of Energy effective dose equivalent limit of 100 mrem.

A workshop was held at APS to address reliability goals for accelerator systems. Seventy-one individuals participated in the workshop, including 30 from other institutions. The goals of the workshop were to: (1) Give attendees an introduction to the basic concepts of reliability analysis. (2) Exchange information on operating experience at existing accelerator facilities and strategies for achieving reliability at facilities under design or in construction. (3) Discuss reliability goals for APS and the means of their achievement. This report contains the working group summary report an APS's following systems: RF Systems; Power Supplies; Magnet Systems; Interlock and Diagnostics; and Vacuum Systems.

Amorphous silicon is a thin film option that has the potential for a cost-effective product for large-scale utility photovoltaics application. The initial efficiencies for single-junction and multijunction amorphous silicon cells and modules have increased significantly over the past 10 years. The emphasis of research and development has changed to stabilized efficiency, especially that of multijunction modules. NREL has measured 6.3%--7.2% stabilized amorphous silicon module efficiencies for US products, and 8.1% stable efficiencies have been reported by Fuji Electric. This represents a significant increase over the stabilized efficiencies of modules manufactured only a few years ago. An increasing portion of the amorphous silicon US government funding is now for manufacturing technology development to reduce cost. The funding for amorphous silicon for photovoltaics by Japan over the last 5 years has been about 50% greater than that in the United State, and by Germany in the last 2--3 years more than twice that of the US Amorphous silicon is the only thin-film technology that is selling large-area commercial modules. The cost for amorphous silicon modules is now in the $4.50 range; it is a strong function of plant production capacity and is expected to be reduced to $1.00--1.50/W{sub p} for plants with …

For over 50 years, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) has evolved to supply electric power to more than 170 customer utilities and direct service industries across 14,800 miles of high voltage transmission lines. BPA's Office of Engineering provides the planning, development, and engineering for the required expansion, upgrade, and replacement of the transmission system. The purpose of this 10-Year Plan is to present strategies to maintain a reliable energy delivery system within changing public, business, technological, and environmental climates. The issues and trends discussed in this document and our strategies for addressing them provide the background for the Office of Engineering programs and projects. With a budget in the hundreds of millions annually and increasing public concern, we welcome the opportunity to communicate with our customers. In addition to the factors, trends and issues described in this document are two appendices containing project costs and program and staffing levels. These figures are preliminary with estimates current as of May 13, 1992.

The Environmental Regulatory Update Table provides information on regulatory initiatives of interest to DOE operations and contractor staff with environmental management responsibilities. The table is updated bi-monthly with information from the Federal Register and other sources, including direct contact with regulatory agencies. Each table entry provides a chronological record of the rulemaking process for that initiative with an abstract and a projection of further action.

Electrostatic turbulence and transport measurements are performed on the Tokapole-II tokamak at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as the safety-factor and the edge equilibrium gradients and varied substantially. Tokapole-II is a poloidal divertor tokamak capable of operating at a wide range of safety factors due to its unique magnetic limiter configuration. It also has retractable material limiters in a large scrape-off region, which permits the study of edge boundary conditions like density and temperature gradients. The turbulence is independent of safety factor, but strongly sensitive to the local density gradient, which itself depends upon the limiter configuration. When a material limiter is inserted in a high <qa> discharge, the density gradient is increased locally together with a local increase of the turbulence. On the other hand, limiter insertion in low <qa> discharges did not increase the density gradient as much and the turbulence properties are unchanged with respect to the magnetic limiter case. It is conducted then, that electrostatic turbulence is caused by the density gradient. Although the electrostatic fluctuation driven transport is enhanced in the large density gradient case, it is in all cases to small to explain the observed energy confinement times. To explore instabilities with small wavelengths, a …

This oral presentation is about the Espanola Power Savers Project which involves both the utility and for the community. I'm going to spend much of my time today discussing why this project makes sense for the community, but I would like to start with a brief word about why community-based conservation makes sense for utilities. A number of reasons are listed to show why conservation is today's energy resource of choice. But if, for a moment, we take that as a given and ask why community-based conservation programs are the right way to develop that resource, the answer is simple: They work

In this report, we present an improved, feasible and potentially cost effective method of cleaning and beneficiating ultrafine coal. Increased mechanization of mining methods and the need towards depyritization, and demineralization have led to an increase in the quantity of coal fines generated in recent times. For example, the amount of {minus}100 mesh coal occurring in coal preparation plant feeds now typically varies from 5 to 25% of the total feed. Environmental constraints coupled with the greatly increased cost of coal have made it increasingly important to recover more of these fines. Our method chemically modifies the surface of such coals by a series of gaseous phase treatments employing Friedel-Crafts reactions. By using olefins (ethene, propene and butene) and hydrogen chloride catalyst at elevated temperature, the surface hydrophobicity of coal is enhanced. This increased hydrophobicity is manifest in surface phenomena which reflect conditions at the solid/liquid interphase (zeta potential) and those which reflect conditions at the solid/liquid/gas interphases (contact angle, wettability and floatability).

The transformation of anodically formed nickel hydroxide/oxy-hydroxide electrodes has been investigated. A mechanism is proposed for the anodic oxidation reaction, in which the reaction interface between the reduced and oxidized phases of the electrode evolves in a nodular topography that leads to inefficient utilization of the active electrode material. In the proposed nodular transformation model for the anodic oxidation reaction, nickel hydroxide is oxidized to nickel oxy-hydroxide in the region near the metal substrate. Since the nickel oxy-hydroxide is considerably more conductive than the surrounding nickel hydroxide, as further oxidation occurs, nodular features grow rapidly to the film/electrolyte interface. Upon emerging at the electrolyte interface, the reaction boundary between the nickel hydroxide and oxy-hydroxide phases spreads laterally across the film/electrolyte interface, creating an overlayer of nickel oxy-hydroxide and trapping uncharged regions of nickel hydroxide within the film. The nickel oxy-hydroxide overlayer surface facilitates the oxygen evolution side reaction. Scanning tunneling microscopy of the electrode in its charged state revealed evidence of 80 {endash} 100 Angstrom nickel oxy-hydroxide nodules in the nickel hydroxide film. In situ spectroscopic ellipsometer measurements of films held at various constant potentials agree quantitatively with optical models appropriate to the nodular growth and subsequent overgrowth of the …