The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) commitment to assuring the health and safety of its workers includes the conduct of epidemiologic surveillance activities that provide an early warning system for health problems among workers. The Illness and Injury Surveillance Program monitors illnesses and health conditions that result in an absence of workdays, occupational injuries and illnesses, and disabilities and deaths among current workers.

This Renewable Energy Data Book for 2008 provides facts and figures on energy in general, renewable electricity in the United States, global renewable energy development, wind power, solar energy, geothermal power, biopower, hydropower, advanced water power, hydrogen, renewable fuels, and clean energy investments.

Tetrapyrroles are strongly pigmented heterocyclic molecules that play key roles in the harvesting of light and in its efficient conversion into chemical energy by photosynthetic organisms, including agronomically important plant species. This grant provided financial support for the International Conference on Tetrapyrrole Photoreceptors of Photosynthetic Organisms (ICTPPO 2009), the ninth in the series of ad hoc biennial conferences focused on the structure, function and biotechnological applications of tetrapyrrole photoreceptors, held at Asilomar Conference Center, Monterey CA from July 26 to July 31, 2009. The goal of this meeting was to bring together leading experts in the field of tetrapyrrole photoreceptors and from associated fields with new investigators, to provide critical analyses of the current state of their fields, the challenges and opportunities therein and their most recent unpublished discoveries to stimulate new approaches to address key issues of agricultural and energy significance. Among the 80 participants included 40 PIs (including one Nobelist in chemistry, two members of the US National Academy of Science, and a recent inductee to the Royal Society), 8 senior scientists, 1 DOE program manager, 12 postdoctoral fellows and 20 graduate students representing 13 countries. One third of the formal lecture program was reserved for discussion, and …

Comprehensive design and testing of realistic customer-driven microgrids requires a high performance simulation platform capable of incorporating power system and control models with external hardware systems. Traditional non real-time simulation is unable to fully capture the level of detail necessary to expose real-world implementation issues. With a real-time digital simulator as its foundation, a high-fidelity simulation environment that includes a robust electrical power system model, advanced control architecture, and a highly adaptable communication network is introduced. Hardware-in-the-loop implementation approaches for the hardware-based control and communication systems are included. An overview of the existing power system model and its suitability for investigation of autonomous island formation within the microgrid is additionally presented. Further test plans are also documented.

With spiraling energy demand and flat energy supply, there is a need to extend the life of older nuclear reactors. This sometimes requires that existing systems be evaluated to present day seismic codes. Older reactors built in the 1960s and early 1970s often used fabricated piping components that were code compliant during their initial construction time period, but are outside the standard parameters of present-day piping codes. There are several approaches available to the analyst in evaluating these non-standard components to modern codes. The simplest approach is to use the flexibility factors and stress indices for similar standard components with the assumption that the non-standard component’s flexibility factors and stress indices will be very similar. This approach can require significant engineering judgment. A more rational approach available in Section III of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code, which is the subject of this paper, involves calculation of flexibility factors using finite element analysis of the non-standard component. Such analysis allows modeling of geometric and material nonlinearities. Flexibility factors based on these analyses are sensitive to the load magnitudes used in their calculation, load magnitudes that need to be consistent with those produced by the linear system analyses where the …

The arrangement of RFQ vacuum system is briefly described. The projections of the vacuum level using standard out-gassing rates for the RFQ major components are compared with measurements. The permeation of water through the Viton O-rings of the LCW manifold inside the RFQ vacuum vessel is analyzed and compared with RGA data. A model where the out-gassing water from the vanes inner surfaces affects seriously RFQ operation is devised and compared with RFQ performance. The rate of a hydrogen gas spill from the LEBT into the RFQ vacuum space is also projected. Suggestions to correct and improve RFQ operation are presented.

Reliability of CPV systems' materials is not well known; methods for accelerated UV testing have not been developed. UV and IR spectra transmitted through representative optical systems are evaluated.

Nonlinearities, whether geometric or material, need to be addressed in seismic analysis. One good analysis method that can address these nonlinearities is direct time integration with Rayleigh damping. Modal damping is the damping typically specified in seismic analysis Codes and Standards. Modal damping is constant for all frequencies where Rayleigh damping varies with frequency. An approach is proposed here for selection of Rayleigh damping coefficients to be used in seismic analyses that are consistent with given Modal damping. The approach uses the difference between the modal damping response and the Rayleigh damping response along with effective mass properties of the model being evaluated to match overall system response levels. This paper provides a simple example problem to demonstrate the approach. It also provides results for a finite element model representing an existing piping system. Displacement, acceleration, and stress results are compared from model runs using modal damping and model runs using Rayleigh damping with coefficients selected using the proposed method.

A thermal manikin developed at NREL helped to assess thermal blankets used to treat U.S. Army personnel suffering from hypothermia. The chemical blanket showed the best thermal performance.

Our testing at Office of Science and National Nuclear Security Administration facilities revealed that the Department either did not use or failed to properly maintain setback systems and equipment in a number of instances. At just the four sites we visited, the Department had not ensured that setback conservation methods were used for 35 of the 55 (approximately 64 percent) owned or leased buildings included in our review. The buildings that did not use setbacks capabilities to control energy consumption comprised over one million square feet of space. Specifically: Although in place or capable of being deployed, officials did not utilize setbacks in 20 separate buildings; and, Equipment in 15 other buildings had either never been enabled or had deteriorated and was no longer functional, thus making setbacks impossible. Typical of the problems we noted, the Y-12 National Security Complex recently leased two buildings that were constructed with setback capability. The property manager for these buildings told us that the setback equipment was not used because the owner of the properties had not purchased the software necessary to enable the capability. In another case, we learned that Los Alamos National Laboratory was not using the setback capability in two buildings …

Presents analysis, discussions, and resulting requirements for plug-in hybrid electric vehicle batteries adopted by the US Advanced Battery Consortium.

Electromagnetic interactions between colliding heavy ions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will give rise to localized beam losses that may quench superconducting magnets, apart from contributing significantly to the luminosity decay. To quantify their impact on the operation of the collider, we have used a three-step simulation approach, which consists of optical tracking, a Monte-Carlo shower simulation and a thermal network model of the heat flow inside a magnet. We present simulation results for the case of {sup 208}Pb{sup 82+} ion operation in the LHC, with focus on the ALICE interaction region, and show that the expected heat load during nominal {sup 208}Pb{sup 82+} operation is 40% above the quench level. This limits the maximum achievable luminosity. Furthermore, we discuss methods of monitoring the losses and possible ways to alleviate their effect.

Dynamical 2+1 flavor lattice QCD is used to calculate the masses of bottom hadrons, including B mesons, singly and doubly bottom baryons, and for the first time also the triply-bottom baryon Omega{sub bbb}. The domain wall action is used for the up-, down-, and strange quarks (both valence and sea), while the bottom quark is implemented with non-relativistic QCD. A calculation of the bottomonium spectrum is also presented.

Accurately calculating integration costs is important so that wind generation can be fairly compared with alternative generation technologies.

Paper examines the capacity requirements that arise as wind generation is integrated into the power system and how those requirements change depending on where the wind energy is delivered.

The U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) is currently supporting the development of a next generation nuclear plant (NGNP). The NGNP is based on the very high temperature reactor (VHTR), which is a Gen. IV gas-cooled reactor concept that will use helium as the coolant. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculations are to be employed to estimate the details of the flow and heat transfer in the lower plenum where the heated coolant empties before exiting the reactor vessel. While it is expected that CFD will be able to provide detailed information about the flow, it must be validated using experimental data. Detailed experimental data have been taken in the INL’s matched index of refraction (MIR) facility of a scaled model of a section of the prismatic VHTR lower plenum. The present article examines the data that were taken to determine the suitability of such data to be a validation data set for CFD calculations. CFD calculations were made to compare with the experimental data to explore potential issues and make recommendations regarding the MIR data.

The Kootenai River ecosystem (spelled Kootenay in Canada) has experienced numerous ecological changes since the early 1900s. Some of the largest impacts to habitat, biological communities, and ecological function resulted from levee construction along the 120 km of river upstream from Kootenay Lake, completed by the 1950s, and the construction and operation of Libby Dam on the river near Libby Montana, completed in 1972. Levee construction isolated tens of thousands of hectares of historic functioning floodplain habitat from the river channel downstream in Idaho and British Columbia (B.C.) severely reducing natural biological productivity and habitat diversity crucial to large river-floodplain ecosystem function. Libby Dam greatly reduces sediment and nutrient transport to downstream river reaches, and dam operations cause large changes in the timing, duration, and magnitude of river flows. These and other changes have contributed to the ecological collapse of the post-development Kootenai River ecosystem and its native biological communities. In response to large scale loss of nutrients, experimental nutrient addition was initiated in the North Arm of Kootenay Lake in 1992, in the South Arm of Kootenay Lake in 2004, and in the Kootenai River at the Idaho-Montana border during 2005. This report characterizes baseline chlorophyll concentration and accrual …

Lattice QCD plays an essential role in testing and determining the parameters of the CKM theory of flavor mixing and CP violation. Very high precisions are required for lattice calculations analyzing CKM data; I discuss the prospects for achieving them. Lattice calculations will also play a role in investigating flavor mixing and CP violation beyond the Standard Model.

The United States Department of Energy is promoting the resurgence of nuclear power in the U. S. for both electrical power generation and production of process heat required for industrial processes such as the manufacture of hydrogen for use as a fuel in automobiles. The DOE project is called the next generation nuclear plant (NGNP) and is based on a Generation IV reactor concept called the very high temperature reactor (VHTR), which will use helium as the coolant at temperatures ranging from 450 ºC to perhaps 1000 ºC. While computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has not been used for past safety analysis for nuclear reactors in the U. S., it is being considered for safety analysis for existing and future reactors. It is fully recognized that CFD simulation codes will have to be validated for flow physics reasonably close to actual fluid dynamic conditions expected in normal and accident operational situations. To this end, experimental data have been obtained in a scaled model of a narrow slice of the lower plenum of a prismatic VHTR. The present report presents results of CFD examinations of these data to explore potential issues with the geometry, the initial conditions, the flow dynamics and the …

A preliminary computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was performed to understand density-gradient-induced stratified flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) air-ingress accident. Various parameters were taken into consideration, including turbulence model, core temperature, initial air mole-fraction, and flow resistance in the core. The gas turbine modular helium reactor (GT-MHR) 600 MWt was selected as the reference reactor and it was simplified to be 2-D geometry in modeling. The core and the lower plenum were assumed to be porous bodies. Following the preliminary CFD results, the analysis of the air-ingress accident has been performed by two different codes: GAMMA code (system analysis code, Oh et al. 2006) and FLUENT CFD code (Fluent 2007). Eventually, the analysis results showed that the actual onset time of natural convection (~160 sec) would be significantly earlier than the previous predictions (~150 hours) calculated based on the molecular diffusion air-ingress mechanism. This leads to the conclusion that the consequences of this accident will be much more serious than previously expected.

The genome of Desulfovibrio vulgaris strain DePue, a sulfate-reducing Deltaproteobacterium isolated from heavy metal-impacted lake sediment, was completely sequenced and compared with the type strain D. vulgaris Hildenborough. The two genomes share a high degree of relatedness and synteny, but harbour distinct prophage and signatures of past phage contribution, the genome of strain DePue contains a cluster of open-reading frames not found in strain Hildenborough coding for the production and export of a capsule exopolysaccharide, possibly of relevance to heavy metal resistance. Comparative whole-genome microarray analysis on four additional D. vulgaris strains established greater interstrain variation within regions associated with phade insertion and exopolysaccharide biosynthesis.

Resource guide containing information and links for the evaluation and installation of cool roofs within the Federal Government

The MINOS experiment is now making precise measurements of the {nu}{sub {mu}} disappearance oscillations seen in atmospheric neutrinos, tests possible disappearance to sterile {nu} by measuring the neutral current flux, and has extended our reach towards the so far unseen {theta}{sub 13} by looking for {nu}{sub e} appearance in the {nu}{sub {mu}} beam. It does so by using the intense, well-understood NuMI neutrino beam created at Fermilab and observing it 735km away at the Soudan Mine in Northeast Minnesota. High-statistics studies of the neutrino interactions themselves and the cosmic rays seen by the MINOS detectors have also been made. Results from MINOS first three years of operations will be presented.

The Department of Energy (DOE) Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has become a center of excellence for critical infrastructure protection, particularly in the field of cyber security. It is one of only a few national laboratories that have enhanced the nation’s cyber security posture by performing industrial control system (ICS) vendor assessments as well as user on-site assessments. Not only are vulnerabilities discovered, but described actions for enhancing security are suggested – both on a system-specific basis and from a general perspective of identifying common weaknesses and their corresponding corrective actions. These cyber security programs have performed over 40 assessments to date which have led to more robust, secure, and resilient monitoring and control systems for the US electrical grid, oil and gas, chemical, transportation, and many other sectors. In addition to cyber assessments themselves, the INL has been engaged in outreach to the ICS community through vendor forums, technical conferences, vendor user groups, and other special engagements as requested. Training programs have been created to help educate all levels of management and worker alike with an emphasis towards real everyday cyber hacking methods and techniques including typical exploits that are used. The asset owner or end user has many products …