A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the practice of single-use device (SUD) reprocessing in the United States, focusing on the: (1) extent of SUD reprocessing; (2) health risks associated SUD with reprocessing; (3) cost savings from reprocessing; and (4) Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) oversight of SUD reprocessing."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the World Trade Organization's (WTO) dispute settlement system, focusing on: (1) how WTO members have used the new dispute settlement system; and (2) the impact of these cases on foreign trade practices and U.S. laws and regulations, and their overall commercial effects."

This report provides a new evaluation of the Hanford tank bump accident analysis and consequences for incorporation into the Authorization Basis. The analysis scope is for the safe storage of waste in its current configuration in single-shell and double-shell tanks.

This Engineering Task Plan (ETP) describes the activities associated with the installation of cabinets containing corrosion monitoring equipment on tanks 241-AN-102 and 241-AN-107. The new cabinets (one per tank) will be installed adjacent to existing corrosion probes already installed in riser WST-RISER-016 on both tanks. The corrosion monitoring equipment to be installed utilizes the technique of electrochemical noise (EN) for monitoring waste tank corrosion. Typically, EN consists of low frequency (4 Hz) and small amplitude signals that are spontaneously generated by electrochemical reactions occurring at corroding or other surfaces. EN analysis is well suited for monitoring and identifying the onset of localized corrosion, and for measuring uniform corrosion rates. A typical EN based corrosion-monitoring system measures instantaneous fluctuations in corrosion current and potential between three nominally identical electrodes of the material of interest immersed in the environment of interest. Time-dependent fluctuations in corrosion current are described by electrochemical current noise, and time-dependent fluctuations of corrosion potential are described by electrochemical noise. The corrosion monitoring systems are designed to detect the onset of localized corrosion phenomena if tank conditions should change to allow these phenomena to occur. In addition to the EN technique, the systems also facilitate the use of the …

Instrumentation and cabinets for the 241-AN-107 and 241-AN-102 corrosion monitoring systems will be upgraded in FY 2000. The bulk of the field work involved in this task will involve placement of the corrosion monitoring data collection hardware closer to the risers that house the existing corrosion probes. This will be accomplished by placing a new climate controlled cabinet by the risers containing corrosion probes on these two tanks (one cabinet per tank). Once installed the systems will feed data back to a centralized corrosion monitoring station in the 241-AN-271 instrument building. The upgraded systems will be operated under the bounds of this Process Test Plan (PTP) for six principle reasons. These reasons were established prior to installing the original systems in 1997 (241-AN-107) and 1998 (241-AN-102). They are as follows: (1) Acquire corrosion data on the waste in 241-AN-107 and 241-AN-102. (2) Provide supporting data to the site's Integrity Assessment program. (3) Demonstrate that corrosion monitoring by evaluation of electrochemical noise data is possible in waste tank systems, particularly with regard to the detection of general corrosion and (if present) pitting and stress corrosion cracking. (4) Demonstrate the durability of the design of the corrosion monitoring equipment. (5) Extend tank …

This report documents the verification and validation (V&V) activities undertaken to support the use of the RADNUC2-A and ORIGEN2 S.2 computer codes for the specific application of calculating isotopic inventories and decay heat loadings for Spent Nuclear Fuel Project (SNFP) activities as described herein. Two recent applications include the reports HNF-SD-SNF-TI-009, 105-K Basin Material Design Basis Feed Description for Spent Nuclear Fuel Project Facilities, Volume 1, Fuel (Praga, 1998), and HNF-3035, Rev. 0B, MCO Gas Composition for Low Reactive Surface Areas (Packer, 1998). Representative calculations documented in these two reports were repeated using RADNUC2-A, and the results were identical to the documented results. This serves as verification that version 2A of Radnuc was used for the applications noted above; the same version was tested herein, and perfect agreement was shown. Comprehensive V&V is demonstrated for RADNUC2-A in Appendix A.

Early in the Cold War, the United States adopted a policy of ''extended nuclear deterrence'' to protect its allies by threatening a nuclear strike against any state that attacks these allies. This threat can (in principle) be used to try to deter an enemy attack using conventional weapons or one using nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. The credibility of a nuclear threat has long been subject to debate and is dependent on many complex geopolitical factors, not the least of which is the military capabilities of the opposing sides. The ending of the Cold War has led to a significant decrease in the number of strategic nuclear weapons deployed by the United States and Russia. START II, which was recently ratified by the Russian Duma, will (if implemented) reduce the number deployed strategic nuclear weapons on each side to 3500, compared to a level of over 11,000 at the end of the Cold War in 1991. The tentative limit established by Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin for START III would reduce the strategic force level to 2000-2500. However, the Russians (along with a number of arms control advocates) now argue that the level should be reduced even further--to 1500 warheads or …

This report provides a background on the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program as involved in enforcing visitation rights.

The Site Generated Radiological Waste Handling System handles radioactive waste products that are generated at the geologic repository operations area. The waste is collected, treated if required, packaged for shipment, and shipped to a disposal site. Waste streams include low-level waste (LLW) in solid and liquid forms, as-well-as mixed waste that contains hazardous and radioactive constituents. Liquid LLW is segregated into two streams, non-recyclable and recyclable. The non-recyclable stream may contain detergents or other non-hazardous cleaning agents and is packaged for shipment. The recyclable stream is treated to recycle a large portion of the water while the remaining concentrated waste is packaged for shipment; this greatly reduces the volume of waste requiring disposal. There will be no liquid LLW discharge. Solid LLW consists of wet solids such as ion exchange resins and filter cartridges, as-well-as dry active waste such as tools, protective clothing, and poly bags. Solids will be sorted, volume reduced, and packaged for shipment. The generation of mixed waste at the Monitored Geologic Repository (MGR) is not planned; however, if it does come into existence, it will be collected and packaged for disposal at its point of occurrence, temporarily staged, then shipped to government-approved off-site facilities for disposal. …

This document is the Engineering Task Plan for the engineering, design services, planning, project integration and management support for the design, modification, installation and testing of an over ground transfer (OGT) system to support the interim stabilization of nine tanks in the 241-S/SX Tank Farms.

This Acceptance Test Procedure (ATP) provides for the inspection and testing of the new Pumping Instrumentation and Control (PIC) skid designated as ''T''. The ATP will be performed after the construction of the PIC skid in the fabrication shop.

For geophysical measurements, creating a functional requirement based on finding a specific-sized target at a specific depth is difficult because of the wide variation of subsurface and surface geologic conditions that can be encountered. An alternative approach used in this paper is to specify functional requirements based on what is needed to search for the effects of a given target within a reasonable background of environmental or geological variation (noise). There is a gap between what the state-of-the-art expert with a large amount of experience can be expected to accomplish and what a non-expert inspector with limited experience can do. There are also limitations because of the Treaty environment (equipment certification, transparency, managed access, etc.); thus, for OSI, we must opt for pragmatic approach. Equipment must be easy to use, rugged, and functional over a wide range of environmental conditions. Equipment should consist of commercially available technology. Well-established operational procedures should be used for taking measurements, reducing data, and presenting data, with software mostly provided by the manufacturer along with the equipment. Equipment should be used in conjunction with WGB-approved position-finding equipment capable of relative position determinations pertinent to the type of equipment and measurement.

Because of its ability to produce silicon crystals of exceptionally high purity and crystallographic perfection, the float-zone method lends itself to use as a tool for the controlled study of deliberately introduced defects and impurities in Si crystals and their effects on materials properties such as minority charge-carrier lifetime or photovoltaic conversion efficiency. Some examples of such studies are presented here. Defects the authors have studied include grain size, dislocations, swirl defects, and fast-cooling defects. Impurity studies have focused on H, N, Fe, and interactions between Fe and Ga. They used the bulk DC photoconductive decay lifetime characterization method and small diagnostic solar cell characterization techniques to assess material quality. The low defect and impurity concentrations obtainable by float zoning allow baseline lifetimes over 20 milliseconds and photovoltaic device efficiencies over 22%; therefore, small effects of impurities and defects can be detected easily.

The National Cancer Institute has negotiated with the governments of Belarus and Ukraine (Ministers/Ministries of Health, institutions and scientists) to develop scientific research protocols to study the effects of radioactive iodine released by the Chernobyl accident upon thyroid anatomy and function in defined cohorts of persons under the age of 19 years at the time of the accident. These studies include prospective long term medical follow-up of the cohort and the reconstruction of the radiation dose to each cohort subject's thyroid. The protocol for the study in Belarus was signed by the US and Belorussian governments in May 1994 and the protocol for the study in Ukraine was signed by the US and Ukraine in May 1995. A second scientific research protocol also was negotiated with Ukraine to study the feasibility of a long term study to follow the development of leukemia and lymphoma among Ukrainian cleanup workers; this protocol was signed by the US and Ukraine in October 1996.

This report documents the results of the analyses of liquid samples pulled from Waste Tanks 26F, 33F, 46F, and 43H during the spring and summer of 1999.

This paper focuses on a process designed to facilitate two key decisions early in the building design process that are critical to a building's sustainability. As vital decisions are made during the building's design, the process and accompanying tools assist the design team in prioritizing their goals, setting performance targets, and evaluating design options to ensure that the most important issues affecting building sustainability are considered.

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Crude oil is easily separated into its principal products by simple distillation. However, neither the amounts nor the quality of these natural products matches demand. Today, octane requirements must be achieved by changing the chemical composition of the straight-run gasoline fraction.

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This is a final report on a screening study to compare six methods of removing noncondensable gases from direct-use geothermal steam power plants. This report defines the study methodologies and compares the performance and economics of selected gas-removal systems. Recommendations are presented for follow-up investigations and implementation of some of the technologies discussed. The specific gas-removal methods include five vacuum system configurations using the conventional approach of evacuating gas/vapor mixtures from the power plant condenser system and a system for physical separation of steam and gases upstream of the power turbine. The study focused on flashed-steam applications, but the results apply equally well to flashed-steam and dry-steam geothermal power plant configurations. Two gas-removal options appear to offer profitable economic potential. The hybrid vacuum system configurations and the reboiler process yield positive net present value results over wide-ranging gas concentrations. The hybrid options look favorable for both low-temperature and high-temperature resource applications. The reboiler looks profitable for low-temperature resource applications for gas levels above about 20,000 parts per million by volume. A vacuum system configuration using a three-stage turbocompressor battery may be profitable for low-temperature resources, but results show that the hybrid system is more profitable. The biphase eductor alternative cannot …