This report considers the fall in agricultural exports between 1996 and 1999 in the United States. To solve this issue, much of the debate surrounds changing U.S. trade policies. The problem with this solution is that countries have not always honored existing trade agreements.

This report presents the 1999 calendar year update of the Air Emission Inventory for the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). The INEEL Air Emission Inventory documents sources and emissions of nonradionuclide pollutants from operations at the INEEL. The report describes the emission inventory process and all of the sources at the INEEL, and provides nonradionuclide emissions estimates for stationary sources.

This report presents the 1999 calendar year update of the Air Emission Inventory for the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). The INEEL Air Emission Inventory documents sources and emissions of nonradionuclide pollutants from operations at the INEEL. The report describes the emission inventory process and all of the sources at the INEEL, and provides nonradionuclide emissions estimates for stationary sources.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the regulatory programs that target specific pollutants or sources of pollution under the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, focusing on: (1) examples of emission sources subject to regulation under more than one program authorized by the act; and (2) the status of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) efforts to facilitate compliance for such sources."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO discussed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) implementation of the Clean Air Act Amendments and on sources regulated by multiple provisions of the act, focusing on: (1) the status of EPA's implementation of requirements established by the 1990 amendments; (2) the views from the stakeholders--state governments, local programs, industries that are regulated under the act, and environmental advocacy groups--on the issues that either helped or hindered the implementation of the 1990 amendments; (3) examples of emission sources subject to regulation under more than one Clean Air Act program; and (4) the status of EPA's efforts to facilitate compliance for such sources."

This report discusses aircraft noise regulations as they relate to hushkits, which is a combination of strategies designed to reduce aircraft noise. These strategies can include new technologies, redesigned engine enclosures, replacement engine components, entirely new engines, or a combination of any of the above. This report dicusses the new EU regulation limiting hushkitted commercial jet aircraft in the EU, the United States' response to this regulation, and the effect this could have on international air travel relations.

Optimization of GaInP{sub 2}/GaAs dual and GaInP{sub 2}/GaAs/Ge triple junction cells, and development of future generation monolithic multi-junction cells will involve the development of suitable high bandgap tunnel junctions. There are three criteria that a tunnel junction must meet. First, the resistance of the junction must be kept low enough so that the series resistance of the overall device is not increased. For AMO, 1 sun operation, the tunnel junction resistance should be below 5 x 10{sup {minus}2} {Omega}-cm. Secondly, the peak current density for the tunnel junction must also be larger than the J{sub sc} of the cell so that the tunnel junction I-V curve does not have a deleterious effect on the I-V curve of the multi-junction device. Finally, the tunnel junction must be optically transparent, i.e., there must be a minimum of optical absorption of photons that will be collected by the underlying subcells. The paper reports the investigation of four high bandgap tunnel junctions grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Immigration and Naturalization Service's (INS) implementation of a strategy to combat alien smuggling, focusing on: (1) the nature and extent of alien smuggling into the United States; (2) INS' strategy for combatting alien smuggling; and (3) how well the strategy has been implemented and the results to date."

This manual has been prepared to help establish a consistent baseline of management practices across all ALS projects. It describes the initial process of planning a project, with a specific focus on the production of a formal project plan. We feel that the primary weakness in ALS project management efforts to date stems from a failure to appreciate the importance of ''up-front'' project planning. In this document, we present a guide (with examples) to preparing the documents necessary to properly plan, monitor, and control a project's activities. While following the manual will certainly not guarantee good project management, failure to address the issues we raise will dramatically reduce the chance of success. Here we define success as meeting the technical goals on schedule and within the prescribed budget.

In this special issue of Alternative Fuel News, the authors summarize DOE's current position on the local government and private fleet rulemaking that has been under consideration. The authors also look at the new area of focus, niche markets. Your participation and input are invited as the authors craft new directions for the nation's transportation future.

Limitations on petroleum-based diesel fuel in California could occur pursuant to the 1998 declaration by California's Air Resources Board (CARB) that the particulate matter component of diesel exhaust is a carcinogen, therefore a toxic air contaminant (TAC) subject to the state's Proposition 65. It is the declared intention of CARB not to ban or restrict diesel fuel, per se, at this time. Assuming no total ban, Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) explored two feasible ''mid-course'' strategies, each of which results in some degree of (conventional) diesel displacement. In the first case, with substantial displacement of compression ignition by spark ignition engines, diesel fuel is assumed admissible for ignition assistance as a pilot fuel in natural gas (NG)-powered heavy-duty vehicles. Gasoline demand in California increases by 32.2 million liters (8.5 million gallons) per day overall, about 21 percent above projected 2010 baseline demand. Natural gas demand increases by 13.6 million diesel liter (3.6 million gallon) equivalents per day, about 7 percent above projected (total) consumption level. In the second case, ressionignition engines utilize substitutes for petroleum-based diesel having similar ignition and performance properties. For each case we estimated localized air emission plus generalized greenhouse gas and energy changes. Fuel replacement by di-methyl …

Based on prior work at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ambient-temperature passive magnetic bearings are being adapted for use in high-power flywheel energy storage systems developed at the Trinity Flywheel Power company. En route to this goal specialized test stands have been built and computer codes have been written to aid in the development of the component parts of these bearing systems. The Livermore passive magnetic bearing system involves three types of elements, as follows: (1) Axially symmetric levitation elements, energized by permanent magnets., (2) electrodynamic ''stabilizers'' employing axially symmetric arrays of permanent magnet bars (''Halbach arrays'') on the rotating system, interacting with specially wound electrically shorted stator circuits, and, (3) eddy-current-type vibration dampers, employing axially symmetric rotating pole assemblies interacting with stationary metallic discs. The theory of the Livermore passive magnetic bearing concept describes specific quantitative stability criteria. The satisfaction of these criteria will insure that, when rotating above a low critical speed, a bearing system made up of the three elements described above will be dynamically stable. That is, it will not only be stable for small displacements from equilibrium (''Earnshaw-stable''), but will also be stable against whirl-type instabilities of the types that can arise from displacement-dependent drag …

The Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Canister Storage Building (CSB) is the interim storage facility for the K-Basin SNF at the US. Department of Energy (DOE) Hanford Site. The SNF is packaged in multi-canister overpacks (MCOs). The MCOs are placed inside transport casks, then delivered to the service station inside the CSB. At the service station, the MCO handling machine (MHM) moves the MCO from the cask to a storage tube or one of two sample/weld stations. There are 220 standard storage tubes and six overpack storage tubes in a below grade reinforced concrete vault. Each storage tube can hold two MCOs.

An analysis of the reaction chemistry and operational factors associated with processing uranium and uranium hydride powders is presented, focusing on a specific operation in the Development Division which was subjected to the Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) process. Primary emphasis is on the thermodynamic factors leading to pyrophoricity in common atmospheres. The discussion covers feed powders, cold-pressed and hot-pressed materials, and stray material resulting from the operations. The sensitivity of the various forms of material to pyrophoricity in common atmospheres is discussed. Operational recommendations for performing the work described are given.

A goal of the Mesaverde project was to better define the depositional system of the Mesaverde in hopes that it would provide insight to new or by-passed targets for oil exploration. The new, detailed studies of the Mesaverde give us a better understanding of the lateral variability in depositional environments and facies. Recognition of this lateral variability and establishment of the criteria for separating deltaic, strandplain-barrier, and estuarine deposits from each other permit development of better hydrocarbon exploration models, because the sandstone geometry differs in each depositional system. Although these insights will provide better exploration models for gas exploration, it does not appear that they will be instrumental in finding more oil. Oil in the Mesaverde Group is produced from isolated fields on the Chaco slope; only a few wells define each field. Production is from sandstone beds in the upper part of the Point Lookout Sandstone or from individual fluvial channel sandstones in the Menefee. Stratigraphic traps rather than structural traps are more important. Source of the oil in the Menefee and Point Lookout may be from interbedded organic-rich mudstones or coals rather than from the Lewis Shale. The Lewis Shale appears to contain more type III organic matter …

Within the context of the Fissile Materials Disposition Program of the U.S. Department of Energy we analyzed rod removal transient experiments performed at the Kurchatov Institute in a full-scale mockup of VVER reactors, The transients were started (via water inlet) in slightly (few cents) supercritical configurations with all the control rods withdrawn. After a few minutes, control rods banks or individual control rods were f and t inserted and later withdrawn (returning to the initial state). Available experimental data include the relative time profiles of nine incore and excore detectors. Because of the mild nature of the transients (very low power and no more than 2 $ reactivities) we decided to use a quasistatic approach. The time-dependent flux is factorized into two terms: a function of phase space, given by the solution of the static equation with parametric excitation; and a function of time, given by the solution of the point kinetic equations with time-dependent kinetics para meters. Due to the nature of the experiment, cold conditions, control rods withdrawn and critical state with water level, the power distributions, measured and calculated, are quite unusual, with the inner part of the core heavily shielded. Measured power levels at the center …

Several soil and water samples were collected along the Four Mile Creek (FMC) seepline at the F and H Areas of the Savannah River Site. The samples were analyzed for concentrations of metals, radionuclides, and inorganic constituents. The results of the analyses are summarized for the soil and water samples.

The current BNFL Inc. flowsheet for the pretreatment of the Hanford High-Level tank wastes includes the use of Superlig{reg_sign} materials for the removal of {sup 137}Cs and {sup 99}Tc from the aqueous fraction of the waste. The cesium-selective Superlig{reg_sign} 644 (SL-644) and the technetium-selective Superlig{reg_sign} 639 (SL-639) have been evaluated in tests with actual waste samples. These materials have a finite processing lifetime in the plant and will need to be disposed of. The composition and level of residual radionuclide contamination is important for assessing various disposal pathways for the Superlig{reg_sign} materials. This report contains the results of analyses of subsamples of the SL-639 and SL 644 materials that have been used in small column testing of actual waste samples at the Radiochemical Processing Laboratory. The wastes that have been tested include samples from Tanks 241-AW-101 and 241-AN-107. The analyses of the spent resins include inductively coupled plasma/atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) for metals, cold vapor atomic absorption (CVAA) spectroscopy for mercury, gamma energy analysis (GEA) for radionuclides and inductively coupled plasma/mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for selected metals and radionuclides. While these results provide an indication of the analyte concentrations that may be left on the spent resin, they do not fully …

The French and British nuclear programs have prepared a series of natural uranium oxide fuel samples spiked with small amounts of the individual fission products which makeup a large fraction of the total neutron absorption by fission products in spent nuclear fuel. Both programs have utilized these samples in experimental reactors and have inferred the worth of the individual fission products. These results have been used to validate the cross sections used in criticality safety calculations. These measurements constitute a major element in support of spent fuel burnup credit in these countries.

As required by the Department of Energy (DOE) order on radioactive waste management (DOE 1999a) as implemented by the Maintenance Plan for the Hanford Immobilized Low-Activity Tank Waste Performance Assessment (Mann 2000a), an annual summary of the adequacy of the Hanford Immobilized Low-Activity Tank Waste Performance Assessment (ILAW PA) must be submitted to DOE headquarters each year that a performance assessment is not submitted. Considering the results of data collection and analysis, the conclusions of the 1998 version of the ILAW PA (Mann 1998) as conditionally approved (DOE 1999b) remain valid, but new information indicates more conservatism in the results than previously estimated. A white paper (Mann 2000b) is attached as Appendix A to justify this statement. Recent ILAW performance estimates used on the waste form and geochemical data have resulted in increased confidence that the disposal of ILAW will meet performance objectives. The ILAW performance assessment program will continue to interact with science and technology activities, disposal facility design staff, and operations, as well as to continue to collect new waste form and disposal system data to further increase the understanding of the impacts of the disposal of ILAW. The next full performance assessment should be issued in the …

This article focuses on an esoteric but practical use of automated reasoning that may indeed be new to many, especially those concerned primarily with verification of both hardware and software. Specifically, featured are a discussion and some methodology for taking an existing design -- of a circuit, a chip, a program, or the like--and refining and improving it in various ways. Although the methodology is general and does not require the use of a specific program, McCune's program OTTER does offer what is needed. OTTER has played and continues to play the key role in my research, and an interested person can gain access to this program in various ways, not the least of which is through the included CD-ROM in [3]. When success occurs, the result is a new design that may require fewer components, avoid the use of certain costly components, offer more reliability and ease of verification, and, perhaps most important, be more efficient in the contexts of speed and heat generation. Although the author has minimal experience in circuit design, circuit validation, program synthesis, program verification, and similar concerns, (at the encouragement of colleagues based on successes to be cited) he presents materials that might indeed …

Other written product issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the applicability of environmental laws to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), focusing on whether: (1) the National Nuclear Security Administration Act narrows the waivers of sovereign immunity contained in existing environmental, safety, and health laws that apply to the Department of Energy (DOE) and the NNSA; and (2) a bill now before the Committee on Commerce (H.R. 4288) might, if enacted, be interpreted to expand the application of existing environmental, safety, and health laws as they will be applied to the NNSA. GAO noted that the NNSA Act clearly states that current law will apply to the NNSA exactly as it applied to the NNSA's functions when performed previously by DOE. The continuation of current law necessarily carries forward all waivers of sovereign immunity in existing law, making further clarification superfluous. The proposed amendments in H.R. 4288 may have the inadvertent effect of expanding or confusing existing waivers of sovereign immunity."

Projections of performance from small-area devices to large-area windows and enterprise marketing have created high expectations for electrochromic glazings. As a result, this paper seeks to precipitate an objective dialog between material scientists and building-application scientists to determine whether actual large-area electrochromic devices will result in significant performance benefits and what material improvements are needed, if any, to make electrochromics more practical for commercial building applications. Few in-situ tests have been conducted with large-area electrochromic windows applied in buildings. This study presents monitored results from a full-scale field test of large-area electrochromic windows to illustrate how this technology will perform in commercial buildings. The visible transmittance (Tv) of the installed electrochromic ranged from 0.11 to 0.38. The data are limited to the winter period for a south-east-facing window. The effect of actual device performance on lighting energy use, direct sun control, discomfort glare, and interior illumination is discussed. No mechanical system loads were monitored. These data demonstrate the use of electrochromics in a moderate climate and focus on the most restrictive visual task: computer use in offices. Through this small demonstration, we were able to determine that electrochromic windows can indeed provide unmitigated transparent views and a level of dynamic …

The objective of this Class 3 project was to demonstrate that detailed reservoir characterization of slope and basin clastic reservoirs in sandstones of the Delaware Mountain Group in the Delaware Basin of West Texas and New Mexico is a cost effective way to recover a higher percentage of the original oil in place through strategic placement of infill wells and geologically based field development. Phase 1 of the project, reservoir characterization, was completed this year, and Phase 2 began. The project is focused on East Ford field, a representative Delaware Mountain Group field that produces from the upper Bell Canyon Formation (Ramsey sandstone). The field, discovered in 1960, is operated by Oral Petco, Inc., as the East Ford unit. A CO{sub 2} flood is being conducted in the unit, and this flood is the Phase 2 demonstration for the project.