Ford Motor Company, with ExxonMobil and FEV, participated in the Department of Energy's (DOE) Ultra-Clean Transportation Fuels Program with the goal to develop an innovative emission control system for light-duty diesel vehicles. The focus on diesel engine emissions was a direct result of the improved volumetric fuel economy (up to 50%) and lower CO2 emissions (up to 25%) over comparable gasoline engines shown in Europe. Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) with aqueous urea as the NOx reductant and a Catalyzed Diesel Particulate Filter (CDPF) were chosen as the primary emission control system components. The program expected to demonstrate more than 90% durable reduction in particulate matter (PM) and NOx emissions on a light-duty truck application, based on the FTP-75 drive cycle. Very low sulfur diesel fuel (<15 ppm-wt) enabled lower PM emissions, reduced fuel economy penalty due to the emission control system and improved long-term system durability. Significant progress was made toward a durable system to meet Tier 2 Bin 5 emission standards on a 6000 lbs light-duty truck. A 40% reduction in engine-out NOx emissions was achieved with a mid-size prototype diesel engine through engine recalibration and increased exhaust gas recirculation. Use of a rapid warm-up strategy and urea SCR …

We apply our recent analytic solutions to the radiation diffusion equation to problems of interest for ICF hohlraums. The solutions provide quantitative values for absorbed energy, which are of use for generating a desired radiation temperature vs. time within the hohlraum. In particular we use analytic fits to the Rosseland mean opacity and to the specific heat of combinations of materials (''cocktails'') designed to maximize the former while minimizing the latter. By doing so we find good agreement with numerical simulations and with experimental results. In particular we find that the wall loss savings of cocktails vs. the standard gold walled hohlraums have both pulse-length and temperature dependencies. Due to those dependencies we predict that NIF cocktail hohlraums will perform better than present day cocktail experiments. In addition, we apply our solutions to finding that density of foam hohlraum walls which minimizes wall loss by being of sufficiently low density to be supersonic, thus reducing kinetic energy losses, yet high enough density to not unduly suffer from enhanced specific heat capacity.

The authors wish to minimize ICF hohlraum wall loss, E, in order to operate the National Ignition Facility (NIF) far from its damage threshold and still provide the capsule with the drive it requires to reach ignition. In this paper they consider cocktail walls--a mixture of materials that can improve on the conventional pure Au walls. they use Hammer and Rosen (HR) (2003) which solved the radiation diffusion/hydrodynamics problem analytically. They take Au's T, {rho} dependencies of {kappa} (opacity) and e (specific heat) to be: {kappa} = {kappa}{sub 0} {rho}{sup 0.2}/T{sup 1.5} and e = e{sub 0}T{sup 1.6}/{rho}{sup 0.14}.

Wind power production varies on a diurnal and seasonal basis. In this report, we use wind speed data modeled by TrueWind Solutions, LLC (now AWS Truewind) to assess the effects of wind timing on the value of electric power from potential wind farm locations in California and the Northwest. (Data from this dataset are referred to as ''TrueWind data'' throughout this report.) The intra-annual wind speed variations reported in the TrueWind datasets have not previously been used in published work, however, so we also compare them to a collection of anemometer wind speed measurements and to a limited set of actual wind farm production data. The research reported in this paper seeks to answer three specific questions: (1) How large of an effect can the temporal variation of wind power have on the value of wind in different wind resource areas? (2) Which locations are affected most positively or negatively by the seasonal and diurnal timing of wind speeds? (3) How compatible are wind resources in the Northwest and California with wholesale power prices and loads in either region? The latter question is motivated by the fact that wind power projects in the Northwest could sell their output into California …

CAR undertook this investigation to better understand the costs and challenges of a local (state) regulation necessitating the implementation of alternative or advanced powertrain technology. CAR will attempt to add insight into the challenges that local regulations present to the automotive industry, and to contribute further to the discussion of how advanced powertrain technology may be used to meet such regulation. Any local law that (directly or indirectly) affects light duty motor vehicle fuel economy creates what in effect is a specialty market for powertrain technology. As such these small markets present significant challenges for automotive manufacturers. First, a small market with unique standards presents significant challenges to an industry that has sustained growth by relying on large volumes to achieve scale economies and deliver products at a cost acceptable to the consumer. Further, the challenges of the additional technology make it likely that any powertrain capable of meeting the stringent emissions standards will include costly additional components, and thus will be more costly to manufacture. It is likely that manufacturers would consider the following actions as steps to deliver products to meet the pending California regulatory requirements anticipated as a result of prior California legislation: (1) Substituting more fuel …

This project seeks to improve the basic understanding of the role of colloids in facilitating the transport of contaminants in the vadose zone. We focus on three major thrusts: (1) thermodynamic stability and mobility of colloids formed by reactions of sediments with highly alkaline tank waste solutions, (2) colloid-contaminant interactions, and (3) in-situ colloid mobilization and colloid facilitated contaminant transport occurring in both contaminated and uncontaminated Hanford sediments.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Until destroyed, Russia's stockpile of chemical weapons remains a proliferation threat, vulnerable to theft and diversion. Since 1992, Congress has authorized the Department of Defense (DOD) to provide more than $1 billion for the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program to help the Russian Federation construct a chemical weapons destruction facility (CWDF) at Shchuch'ye to eliminate about 14 percent of its stockpile. Over the past several years, DOD has faced numerous challenges that have increased the estimated cost of the facility from about $750 million to more than $1 billion and delayed the facility's operation from 2006 until 2009. DOD has attributed the increase cost and schedule to a variety of factors. In this report, we (1) assess the facility's progress, schedule, and cost and (2) review the status of Russia's efforts to destroy all of its chemical weapons."

In light water reactors (LWRs), vessel internal components made of nickel-base alloys are susceptible to environmentally assisted cracking. A better understanding of the causes and mechanisms of this cracking may permit less conservative estimates of damage accumulation and requirements on inspection intervals. A program is being conducted at Argonne National Laboratory to evaluate the resistance of Ni alloys and their welds to environmentally assisted cracking in simulated LWR coolant environments. This report presents crack growth rate (CGR) results for Alloy 182 shielded-metal-arc weld metal in a simulated pressurized water reactor (PWR) environment at 320 C. Crack growth tests were conducted on 1-T compact tension specimens with different weld orientations from both double-J and deep-groove welds. The results indicate little or no environmental enhancement of fatigue CGRs of Alloy 182 weld metal in the PWR environment. The CGRs of Alloy 182 in the PWR environment are a factor of {approx}5 higher than those of Alloy 600 in air under the same loading conditions. The stress corrosion cracking for the Alloy 182 weld is close to the average behavior of Alloy 600 in the PWR environment. The weld orientation was found to have a profound effect on the magnitude of crack growth: …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2003, the Bureau of the Census (Bureau) changed the day and location of the release of its Income and Poverty Estimates. Some data users believed the change was an effort to suppress unfavorable news and questioned the Bureau's data dissemination practices. GAO was asked to assess whether (1) the Bureau adhered to its dissemination practices for the 2003 and later releases, and (2) the Bureau and 13 other federal statistical agencies follow data release practices recommended by the National Research Council (NRC). GAO reviewed the Bureau's dissemination process for the 2003 thru 2005 Income and Poverty Estimates."

The House passed its version of the FY2007 defense authorization bill, H.R. 5122, on May 11. The bill authorizes $513 billion for national defense, including $50 billion in emergency funding for operations in Iraq and elsewhere in the first months of the fiscal year. The Senate Armed Services Committee marked up its version of the bill, S. 2766, on May 4. It also authorizes $513 billion, including emergency funding. Senate floor action appears likely in June. House subcommittee markup of the defense appropriations bill is tentatively scheduled for June 7.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has spent about $91 billion since the mid-1980s to develop a capability to destroy incoming ballistic missiles. In 2002, recognizing the new security environment after the September 11 attacks, President Bush directed that an initial set of defensive ballistic missile capabilities be put in place in 2004. Although DOD is developing the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) to meet an urgent need, preparing to operate and support a system under continuous development poses significant challenges. GAO was asked to assess the extent to which (1) DOD has made progress in planning to operate the BMDS, and (2) the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) provides complete and transparent data on BMDS operational costs."

The full funding policy is a federal budgeting rule imposed on DOD by Congress in the 1950s that requires the entire procurement cost of a weapon or piece of military equipment to be funded in the year in which the item is procured. Although technical in nature, the policy relates to Congress’ power of the purse and its responsibility for conducting oversight of Department of Defense (DOD) programs. Support for the policy has been periodically reaffirmed over the years by Congress, the Government Accountability Office, and DOD.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 (EEOICPA) authorized the Department of Energy (Energy) to help its former contractor employees file state workers' compensation claims for illnesses that could be linked to exposure to toxic substances during their employment. Concerned with the relatively small number of finalized cases and the overall effectiveness of the program, Congress asked GAO to review costs incurred by Energy to administer the program. Specifically, Congress asked GAO to determine whether (1) internal controls over program payments were adequately designed to provide reasonable assurance that improper payments to contractors would not be made or would be detected in the normal course of business and (2) program payments were properly supported as a valid use of government funds."

This research explores methods for identifying a whether a load is sending a signal to the utility SCADA system. Such a system can identify whether various loads are signialing using existing SCADA infrastructure, that is, without added, high cost communications infrastructure.

This document serves as the Topical Report documenting work completed by Washington State University (WSU) under U.S. Department of Energy Grant, Developing Innovative Wall Systems that Improve Hygrothermal Performance of Residential Buildings. This project was conducted in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and includes the participation of several industry partners including Weyerhaeuser, APA - The Engineered Wood Association, CertainTeed Corporation and Fortifiber. This document summarizes work completed by Washington State University August 2002 through June 2006. WSU's primary experimental role is the design and implementation of a field testing protocol that monitored long term changes in the hygrothermal response of wall systems. During the project period WSU constructed a test facility, developed a matrix of test wall designs, constructed and installed test walls in the test facility, installed instrumentation in the test walls and recorded data from the test wall specimens. Each year reports were published documenting the hygrothermal response of the test wall systems. Public presentation of the results was, and will continue to be, made available to the building industry at large by industry partners and the University.

Several different types of nanocrystalline metal oxide sorbents were synthesized and evaluated for capture of mercury (Hg) from coal-gasifier warm fuel gas. Detailed experimental studies were carried out to understand the fundamental mechanism of interaction between mercury and nanocrystalline sorbents over a range of fuel gas conditions. The metal oxide sorbents evaluated in this work included those prepared by GTI's subcontractor NanoScale Materials, Inc. (NanoScale) as well as those prepared in-house. These sorbents were evaluated for mercury capture in GTI's Mercury Sorbent Testing System. Initial experiments were focused on sorbent evaluation for mercury capture in N{sub 2} stream over the temperature range 423-533 K. These exploratory studies demonstrated that NanoActive Cr{sub 2}O{sub 3} along with its supported form was the most active of the sorbent evaluated. The capture of Hg decreased with temperature, which suggested that physical adsorption was the dominant mechanism of Hg capture. Desorption studies on spent sorbents indicated that a major portion of Hg was attached to the sorbent by strong bonds, which suggested that Hg was oxidized by the O atoms of the metal oxides, thus forming a strong Hg-O bond with the oxide. Initial screening studies also indicated that sulfided form of CuO/alumina was the …

The developments of oil and gas fields in deep waters (5000 ft and more) will become more common in the future. It is inevitable that production systems will operate under multiphase flow conditions (simultaneous flow of gas, oil and water possibly along with sand, hydrates, and waxes). Multiphase flow prediction tools are essential for every phase of hydrocarbon recovery from design to operation. Recovery from deep-waters poses special challenges and requires accurate multiphase flow predictive tools for several applications, including the design and diagnostics of the production systems, separation of phases in horizontal wells, and multiphase separation (topside, seabed or bottom-hole). It is crucial for any multiphase separation technique, either at topside, seabed or bottom-hole, to know inlet conditions such as flow rates, flow patterns, and volume fractions of gas, oil and water coming into the separation devices. Therefore, the development of a new generation of multiphase flow predictive tools is needed. The overall objective of the proposed study is to develop a unified model for gas-oil-water three-phase flow in wells, flow lines, and pipelines to predict flow characteristics such as flow patterns, phase distributions, and pressure gradient encountered during petroleum production at different flow conditions (pipe diameter and inclination, …

Samples of three polymers, Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMW-PE), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE, also known as Teflon{reg_sign}), and Vespel{reg_sign} polyimide were exposed to 1 atmosphere of tritium gas at ambient temperature for varying times up to 2.3 years in closed containers. Sample mass and size measurements (to calculate density), spectra-colorimetry, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) were employed to characterize the effects of tritium exposure on these samples. Changes of the tritium exposure gas itself were characterized at the end of exposure by measuring total pressure and by mass spectroscopic analysis of the gas composition. None of the polymers exhibited significant changes of density. The color of initially white UHMW-PE and PTFE dramatically darkened to the eye and the color also significantly changed as measured by colorimetry. The bulk of UHMW-PE darkened just like the external surfaces, however the fracture surface of PTFE appeared white compared to the PTFE external surfaces. The white interior could have been formed while the sample was breaking or could reflect the extra tritium dose at the surface directly from the gas. The dynamic mechanical response of UHMW-PE was typical of radiation effects on polymers- an initial stiffening (increased storage modulus) and reduction of …

We report on electron emission and defect formation in theinteraction between slow (v~;0.3 vBohr) highly charged ions (SHCI) withinsulating (type IIa) and semiconducting (type IIb) diamonds. Electronemission induced by 31Pq+ (q=5 to 13), and 136Xeq+ (q=34 to 44) withkinetic energies of 9 kVxq increase linearly with the ion charge states,reaching over 100 electrons per ion for high xenon charge states withoutsurface passivation of the diamond with hydrogen. Yields from bothdiamond types are up to a factor of two higher then from reference metalsurfaces. Crater like defects with diameters of 25 to 40 nm are formed bythe impact of single Xe44+ ions. High secondary electron yields andsingle ion induced defects enable the formation of single dopant arrayson diamond surfaces.

LiFePO{sub 4} has several potential advantages in comparison to the transition metal oxide cathode materials used in commercial lithium-ion batteries. However, its low intrinsic electronic conductivity ({approx} 10{sup -9} S/cm) is problematic. We report here a study by soft x-ray absorption/emission spectroscopy of the electronic properties of undoped LiFePO{sub 4} and Li-doped LiFePO{sub 4} in which Li{sup +} ions are substituted for Fe{sup 2+} ions in an attempt to increase the intrinsic electronic conductivity. The conductivities of the Li{sub 1+x}Fe{sub 1-x}PO{sub 4} samples were, however, essentially unchanged from that of the undoped LiFePO{sub 4}. Nonetheless, evidence for changing the electronic properties of LiFePO{sub 4} by doping with excess Li+ was observed by the XAS/XES spectroscopy. New pre-edge features the O-1s XAS spectrum of Li{sub 1.05}Fe{sub 0.95}PO4 is a direct indication that the charge compensation for substitution of Fe{sup 2+} by Li{sup +} resides in the unoccupied O-2p orbitals. A charge transfer (CT) excitation was also observed in the doped material implying that the unoccupied O-2p orbitals created by doping are strongly hybridized with unoccupied Fe-3d orbitals of neighboring sites. However, the strong covalent bonding within the (PO{sub 4}){sup 3-} anions and the large separation of the Fe cations means that …

Research supported by this grant has significantly advanced fundamental understanding of the thermal conductance of solid-liquid interfaces, and the thermal conductivity of nanofluids and nanoscale composite materials. • The thermal conductance of interfaces between carbon nanotubes and a surrounding matrix of organic molecules is exceptionally small and this small value of the interface conductance limits the enhancement in thermal conductivity that can be achieved by loading a fluid or a polymer with nanotubes. • The thermal conductance of interfaces between metal nanoparticles coated with hydrophilic surfactants and water is relatively high and surprisingly independent of the details of the chemical structure of the surfactant. • We extended our experimental methods to enable studies of planar interfaces between surfactant-coated metals and water where the chemical functionalization can be varied between strongly hydrophobic and strongly hydrophilic. The thermal conductance of hydrophobic interfaces establishes an upper-limit of 0.25 nm on the thickness of the vapor-layer that is often proposed to exist at hydrophobic interfaces. • Our high-precision measurements of fluid suspensions show that the thermal conductivity of fluids is not significantly enhanced by loading with a small volume fraction of spherical nanoparticles. These experimental results directly contradict some of the anomalous results in …

This report discusses the idea of replacing our current income tax system with a flat-rate tax, including background and analysis and various Congressional proposals.

Automatika, Inc. was contracted by the Department of Energy (DOE) and with co-funding from the Northeast Gas Association (NGA), to develop an in-pipe natural gas prototype measurement and wireless communications system for assessing and monitoring distribution networks. This projected was completed in April 2006, and culminated in the installation of more than 2 dozen GasNet nodes in both low- and high-pressure cast-iron and steel mains owned by multiple utilities in the northeastern US. Utilities are currently logging data (off-line) and monitoring data in real time from single and multiple networked sensors over cellular networks and collecting data using wireless bluetooth PDA systems. The system was designed to be modular, using in-pipe sensor-wands capable of measuring, flow, pressure, temperature, water-content and vibration. Internal antennae allowed for the use of the pipe-internals as a waveguide for setting up a sensor network to collect data from multiple nodes simultaneously. Sensor nodes were designed to be installed with low- and no-blow techniques and tools. Using a multi-drop bus technique with a custom protocol, all electronics were designed to be buriable and allow for on-board data-collection (SD-card), wireless relaying and cellular network forwarding. Installation options afforded by the design included direct-burial and external polemounted variants. …

A significant fraction of the 44 TW of heat dissipation from the Earth's interior is believed to originate from the decays of terrestrial uranium and thorium. The only estimates of this radiogenic heat, which is the driving force for mantle convection, come from Earth models based on meteorites, and have large systematic errors. The detection of electron antineutrinos produced by these uranium and thorium decays would allow a more direct measure of the total uranium and thorium content, and hence radiogenic heat production in the Earth. They discuss the prospect of building an electron antineutrino detector approximately 700 m{sup 3} in size in the Homestake mine at the 4850 feet level. This would allow us to make a measurement of the total uranium and thorium content with a statistical error less than the systematic error from the current knowledge of neutrino oscillation parameters. It would also allow us to test the hypothesis of a naturally occurring nuclear reactor at the center of the Earth.