Recently a collaboration of LLNL and LBNL has constructed a second generation Compton coincidence instrument to study the non-proportionality of scintillators. This device, known as SLYNCI (Scintillator Light-Yield Non-proportionality Characterization Instrument), has can completely characterize a sample with less than 24 hours of running time. Thus, SLYNCI enables a number of systematic studies of scintillators since many samples can be processed in a reasonable length of time. These studies include differences in nonproportionality between different types of scintillators, different members of the same family of scintillators, and impact of different doping levels. The results of such recent studies are presented here, including a study of various alkali halides, and the impact of europium doping level in strontium iodide. Directions of future work area also discussed.

This report provides a technical basis for estimating the level of corrosion products in materials stored in DOE-STD-3013 containers based on extrapolating available chemical sample results. The primary focus is to estimate the levels of nickel, iron, and chromium impurities in plutonium-bearing materials identified for disposition in the United States Mixed Oxide fuel process.

This presentation was given December 14, 2010, as part of DOE's Webinar series. The presentation discusses geothermal heat pump retrofits, technology options, and an overview of geothermal energy and geothermal heat pumps.

In a recent report Navratil et al. evaluated the angle-integrated cross section and the angular distribution for 14-MeV n+T elastic scattering by inferring these cross sections from accurately measured p+3He angular distributions. This evaluation used a combination of two theoretical treatments, based on the no-core shell model and resonating-group method (NCSM/RGM) and on the R-matrix formalism, to connect the two charge-symmetric reactions n+T and p+{sup 3}He. In this report we extend this treatment to cover the neutron incident energy range 6-14 MeV. To do this, we evaluate angle-dependent correction factors for the NCSM/RGM calculations so that they agree with the p+{sup 3}He data near 6 MeV, and using the results found earlier near 14 MeV we interpolate these correction factors to obtain correction factors throughout the 6-14 MeV energy range. The agreement between the corrected NCSM/RGM and R-Matrix values for the integral elastic cross sections is excellent ({+-}1%), and these are in very good agreement with total cross section experiments. This result can be attributed to the nearly constant correction factors at forward angles, and to the evidently satisfactory physics content of the two calculations. The difference in angular shape, obtained by comparing values of the scattering probability distribution P({mu}) …

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We present the first next-to-leading order QCD results for W + 4-jet production at hadron colliders. Total cross sections, as well as distributions in the jet transverse momenta and in the total transverse energy HT, are provided for the initial LHC energy of {radical}s = 7 TeV. We use a leading-color approximation, known to be accurate to 3% for W production with fewer jets. The virtual matrix elements and the most complicated real-emission matrix elements are handled by the BlackHat library, based on on-shell methods. The remaining parts of the calculation, including the integration over phase space, are performed by the SHERPA package.

We investigate the existence of the principal-agent (PA) problem in non-government, non-mall commercial buildings in the U.S. in 2003. The analysis concentrates on space heating and cooling energy consumed by centrally installed equipment in order to verify whether a market failure caused by the PA problem might have prevented the installation of energy-efficient devices in non-owner-occupied buildings (efficiency problem) and/or the efficient operation of space-conditioning equipment in these buildings (usage problem). Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) 2003 data for single-owner, single-tenant and multi-tenant occupied buildings were used for conducting this evaluation. These are the building subsets with the appropriate conditions for assessing both the efficiency and the usage problems. Together, these three building types represent 51.9percent of the total floor space of all buildings with space heating and 59.4percent of the total end-use energy consumption of such buildings; similarly, for space cooling, they represent 52.7percent of floor space and 51.6percent of energy consumption. Our statistical analysis shows that there is a usage PA problem. In space heating it applies only to buildings with a small floor area (<_50,000 sq. ft.). We estimate that in 2003 it accounts for additional site energy consumption of 12.3 (+ 10.5 ) TBtu (primary …

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This collaborative proposal addressed key issues in understanding the Earth’s climate system, as highlighted by the U.S. Climate Science Program. The research focused on documenting past climatic changes and on assessing future climatic changes based on suites of global and regional climate models. Geographically, our emphasis was on the mountainous regions of the world, with a particular focus on the Neotropics of Central America and the Hawaiian Islands. Mountain regions are zones where large variations in ecosystems occur due to the strong climate zonation forced by the topography. These areas are particularly susceptible to changes in critical ecological thresholds, and we conducted studies of changes in phonological indicators based on various climatic thresholds.

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COG is a modern, general-purpose, high fidelity, multi-particle transport code developed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory specifically for use in deep penetration (shielding) and criticality safety calculations. This paper describes some features in COG of special interest to criticality safety practitioners.

An engineering evaluation has been initiated to investigate conceptual engineering methods for implementing a viable gas shield strategy in the Fusion Test Facility (FTF) target chamber. The employment of a low pressure noble gas in the target chamber to thermalize energetic helium ions prior to interaction with the wall could dramatically increase the useful life of the first wall in the FTF reactor1. For the purpose of providing flexibility, two target chamber configurations are addressed: a five meter radius sphere and a ten meter radius sphere. Experimental studies at Nike have indicated that a low pressure, ambient gas resident in the target chamber during laser pulsing does not appear to impair the ability of laser light from illuminating targets2. In addition, current investigations into delivering, maintaining, and processing low pressure gas appear to be viable with slight modification to current pumping and plasma exhaust processing technologies3,4. Employment of a gas fill solution for protecting the dry wall target chamber in the FTF may reduce, or possibly eliminate the need for other attenuating technologies designed for keeping He ions from implanting in first wall structures and components. The gas fill concept appears to provide an effective means of extending the life …

Between 2007 and 2009, several different multi-probe corrosion monitoring systems were designed and installed in high-level nuclear waste tanks at the U.S. Department of Energy's Hanford Site in WaShington State. The probe systems are being monitored to ensure waste tanks operate in regions that minimize localized corrosion (i.e., pitting) and stress corrosion cracking. The corrosion monitoring systems have been installed in wastes with different chemistry types. An ongoing effort during the same time period has generated non-radioactive simulants that are tested in the laboratory to establish baseline corrosion monitoring system performance and characterize data to allow interpretation of readings from the multiple corrosion monitoring systems. Data collection from these monitoring systems has reached the point where the results allow comparison with the laboratory testing. This paper presents analytical results from the corrosion monitoring system development program.

We demonstrate the potential to modify the magnetic behavior and structural properties of ferromagnetic thin films using focused ion beam 'direct-write' lithography. Patterns inspired by the split-ring resonators often used as components in meta-materials were defined upon 15 nm Fe films using a 30 keV Ga{sup +} focused ion beam at a dose of 2 x 10{sup 16} ions cm{sup -2}. Structural, chemical and magnetic changes to the Fe were studied using transmission soft X-ray microscopy at the ALS, Berkeley CA. X-ray absorption spectra showed a 23% reduction in the thickness of the film in the Ga irradiated areas, but no chemical change to the Fe was evident. X-ray images of the magnetic reversal process show domain wall pinning around the implanted areas, resulting in an overall increase in the coercivity of the film. Transmission electron microscopy showed significant grain growth in the implanted regions.

Project attempts to develop a synthetic analogue for carbonic anhydrase and incorporate it in a membrane for separation of CO2 from coal power plant flue gas. Conference poster presents result of first 9 months of project progress including concept, basic system architecture and membrane properties target, results of molecular modeling for analogue - CO2 interaction, and next steps of testing analogue resistance to flue gas contaminants.

At the U. S. Department of Energy's Hanford Site in southeastern Washington State, 216 million liters (57 million gallons) of nuclear waste is currently stored in aging underground tanks, threatening the Columbia River. The River Protection Project (RPP), a fully integrated system of waste storage, retrieval, treatment, and disposal facilities, is in varying stages of design, construction, operation, and future planning. These facilities face many overlapping technical, regulatory, and financial hurdles to achieve site cleanup and closure. Program execution is ongoing, but completion is currently expected to take approximately 40 more years. Strategic planning for the treatment of Hanford tank waste is by nature a multi-faceted, complex and iterative process. To help manage the planning, a report referred to as the RPP System Plan is prepared to provide a basis for aligning the program scope with the cost and schedule, from upper-tier contracts to individual facility operating plans. The Hanford Tank Waste Operations Simulator (HTWOS), a dynamic flowsheet simulation and mass balance computer model, is used to simulate the current planned RPP mission, evaluate the impacts of changes to the mission, and assist in planning near-term facility operations. Development of additional modeling tools, including an operations research model and a …

Minimally-doubled chiral fermions have the unusual property of a single local field creating two fermionic species. Spreading the field over hypercubes allows construction of combinations that isolate specific modes. Combining these fields into bilinears produces meson fields of specific quantum numbers. Minimally-doubled fermion actions present the possibility of fast simulations while maintaining one exact chiral symmetry. They do, however, introduce some peculiar aspects. An explicit breaking of hyper-cubic symmetry allows additional counter-terms to appear in the renormalization. While a single field creates two different species, spreading this field over nearby sites allows isolation of specific states and the construction of physical meson operators. Finally, lattice artifacts break isospin and give two of the three pseudoscalar mesons an additional contribution to their mass. Depending on the sign of this mass splitting, one can either have a traditional Goldstone pseudoscalar meson or a parity breaking Aoki-like phase.

A straightforward method to evaluate the tritium content of Zircaloy-2 cladding hulls via oxidation of the hull and capture of the volatilized tritium in liquids has been demonstrated. Hull samples were heated in air inside a thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA). The TGA was rapidly heated to 1000 C to oxidize the hulls and release absorbed tritium. To capture tritium, the TGA off-gas was bubbled through a series of liquid traps. The concentrations of tritium in bubbler solutions indicated that tritiated water vapor was captured nearly quantitatively. The average tritium content measured in the hulls was 19% of the amount of tritium produced by the fuel, according to ORIGEN2 isotope generation and depletion calculations. Published experimental data show that Zircaloy-2 oxidation follows an Arrhenius model, and that an initial, nonlinear oxidation rate is followed by a faster, linear rate after 'breakaway' of the oxide film. This study demonstrates that the linear oxidation rate of Zircaloy samples at 974 C is faster than predicted by the extrapolation of data from lower temperatures.

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This paper draws heavily on the authors’ previously published research to explore the extent to which near term carbon dioxide-driven enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) can be “a stepping stone to a long term sequestration program of a scale to be material in climate change risk mitigation.” The paper examines the historical evolution of CO2-EOR in the United States and concludes that estimates of the cost of CO2-EOR production or the extent of CO2 pipeline networks based upon this energy security-driven promotion of CO2-EOR do not provide a robust platform for spurring the commercial deployment of carbon dioxide capture and storage technologies (CCS) as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The paper notes that the evolving regulatory framework for CCS makes a clear distinction between CO2-EOR and CCS and the authors examine arguments in the technical literature about the ability for CO2-EOR to generate offsetting revenue to accelerate the commercial deployment of CCS systems in the electric power and industrial sectors of the economy. The authors conclude that the past 35 years of CO2-EOR in the U.S. have been important for boosting domestic oil production and delivering proven system components for future CCS systems. However, though there is no reason …

We have studied a low energy building on a campus of the University of California. It has efficient heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, consisting of a dual-fan/dual-duct variable air volume (VAV) system. As a major building on the campus, it was included in two demand response (DR) events in the summers of 2008 and 2009. With chilled water supplied by thermal energy storage in the central plant, cooling fans played a critical role during DR events. In this paper, an EnergyPlus model of the building was developed and calibrated. We compared both whole-building and HVAC fan energy consumption with model predictions to understand why demand savings in 2009 were much lower than in 2008. We also used model simulations of the study building to assess pre-cooling, a strategy that has been shown to improve demand saving and thermal comfort in many types of building. This study indicates a properly calibrated EnergyPlus model can reasonably predict demand savings from DR events and can be useful for designing or optimizing DR strategies.

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are being developed for mass production by the automotive industry. PHEVs have been touted for their potential to reduce the US transportation sector's dependence on petroleum and cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by (1) using off-peak excess electric generation capacity and (2) increasing vehicles energy efficiency. A well-to-wheels (WTW) analysis - which examines energy use and emissions from primary energy source through vehicle operation - can help researchers better understand the impact of the upstream mix of electricity generation technologies for PHEV recharging, as well as the powertrain technology and fuel sources for PHEVs. For the WTW analysis, Argonne National Laboratory researchers used the Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Transportation (GREET) model developed by Argonne to compare the WTW energy use and GHG emissions associated with various transportation technologies to those associated with PHEVs. Argonne researchers estimated the fuel economy and electricity use of PHEVs and alternative fuel/vehicle systems by using the Powertrain System Analysis Toolkit (PSAT) model. They examined two PHEV designs: the power-split configuration and the series configuration. The first is a parallel hybrid configuration in which the engine and the electric motor are connected to a single mechanical transmission …

Following recommendations made in Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7, which established a national policy for the identification and increased protection of critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR) by Federal departments and agencies, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2006 developed the Enhanced Critical Infrastructure Protection (ECIP) program. The ECIP program aimed to provide a closer partnership with state, regional, territorial, local, and tribal authorities in fulfilling the national objective to improve CIKR protection. The program was specifically designed to identify protective measures currently in place in CIKR and to inform facility owners/operators of the benefits of new protective measures. The ECIP program also sought to enhance existing relationships between DHS and owners/operators of CIKR and to build relationships where none existed (DHS 2008; DHS 2009). In 2009, DHS and its protective security advisors (PSAs) began assessing CIKR assets using the ECIP program and ultimately produced individual protective measure and vulnerability values through the protective measure and vulnerability indices (PMI/VI). The PMI/VI assess the protective measures posture of individual facilities at their 'weakest link,' allowing for a detailed analysis of the most vulnerable aspects of the facilities (Schneier 2003), while maintaining the ability to produce an overall protective measures …

Heat pump water heaters (HPWHs) are over twice as energy-efficient as conventional electric resistance water heaters, with the potential to save substantial amounts of electricity. Drawing on analysis conducted for the U.S. Department of Energy's recently-concluded rulemaking on amended standards for water heaters, this paper evaluates key issues that will determine how well, and to what extent, this technology will fit in American homes. The key issues include: 1) equipment cost of HPWHs; 2) cooling of the indoor environment by HPWHs; 3) size and air flow requirements of HPWHs; 4) performance of HPWH under different climate conditions and varying hot water use patterns; and 5) operating cost savings under different electricity prices and hot water use. The paper presents the results of a life-cycle cost analysis of the adoption of HPWHs in a representative sample of American homes, as well as national impact analysis for different market share scenarios. Assuming equipment costs that would result from high production volume, the results show that HPWHs can be cost effective in all regions for most single family homes, especially when the water heater is not installed in a conditioned space. HPWHs are not cost effective for most manufactured home and multi-family installations, …