Design, validate at prototype level, and then demonstrate a full size, 800 MWht Thermal Energy Storage (TES) system based on Phase Changing Material (PCM) TES modules with round trip efficiency in excess of 93%. The PCM TES module would be the building block of a TES system which can be deployed at costs inline with the DOE benchmark of 2020. The development of a reliable, unsophisticated, modular, and scalable TES system designed to be massmanufactured utilizing advanced automated fabrication and assembly processes and field installed in the most cost-effective configuration could facilitate the attainment of a Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) of $.07/kWh by 2015. It was believed that the DOE targets can be attained by finding the best combinationTES module size, its optimal integration in the power cycle, and readily available PCM. Work under this project ultimately focused on the development and performance evaluation of a 100kWht prototype heat exchanger. The design utilizes a commercially available heat exchanger product to create a unique latent heat PCM storage module. The novel ideal associated with this technology is the inclusion of an agitation mechanism that is activated during the discharge process to improve heat transfer. The prototype unit did not meet …

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This report presents background information and potential oversight issues for Congress on the Navy's Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) and Zumwalt (DDG-1000) class destroyer programs. Decisions that Congress makes concerning these programs could substantially affect Navy capabilities and funding requirements, and the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base.

The ALCF's Early Science Program aims to prepare key applications for the architecture and scale of Mira and to solidify libraries and infrastructure that will pave the way for other future production applications. Two billion core-hours have been allocated to 16 Early Science projects on Mira. The projects, in addition to promising delivery of exciting new science, are all based on state-of-the-art, petascale, parallel applications. The project teams, in collaboration with ALCF staff and IBM, have undertaken intensive efforts to adapt their software to take advantage of Mira's Blue Gene/Q architecture, which, in a number of ways, is a precursor to future high-performance-computing architecture. The Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) enables transformative science that solves some of the most difficult challenges in biology, chemistry, energy, climate, materials, physics, and other scientific realms. Users partnering with ALCF staff have reached research milestones previously unattainable, due to the ALCF's world-class supercomputing resources and expertise in computation science. In 2011, the ALCF's commitment to providing outstanding science and leadership-class resources was honored with several prestigious awards. Research on multiscale brain blood flow simulations was named a Gordon Bell Prize finalist. Intrepid, the ALCF's BG/P system, ranked No. 1 on the Graph 500 list …

The Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) is currently transitioning its emphasis from a design and construction phase toward start-up and commissioning. With this transition, the WTP Project has initiated more detailed assessments of the requirements related to actual processing of the Hanford Site tank waste. One particular area of interest is the waste qualification program to be implemented to support the WTP. Given the successful implementation of similar waste qualification efforts at the Savannah River Site (SRS), based on critical technical support and guidance from the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), WTP requested the utilization of subject matter experts from SRNL to support a technology exchange to perform a review of the WTP waste qualification program, discuss the general qualification approach at SRS, and to identify critical lessons learned through the support of DWPF's sludge batch qualification efforts. As part of Phase 1, SRNL subject matter experts in critical technical and/or process areas reviewed specific WTP waste qualification information. The Phase 1 review was a collaborative, interactive, and iterative process between the two organizations. WTP provided specific analytical procedures, descriptions of equipment, and general documentation as baseline review material. SRNL subject matter experts reviewed the information and, …

Aqueous phase reforming is useful for processing oxygenated hydrocarbons to hydrogen and other more useful products. Current processing is hampered by the fact that oxide based catalysts are not stable under high temperature hydrothermal conditions. Silica in the form of structured MCM-41 is thermally a more stable support for Co and Ni than conventional high surface area amorphous silica but hydrothermal stability is not demonstrated. Carbon nanotube supports, in contrast, are highly stable under hydrothermal reaction conditions. In this project we show that carbon nanotubes are stable high activity/selectivity supports for the conversion of ethylene glycol to hydrogen.

This report examines the financial implications of experimental flows conducted at the Glen Canyon Dam (GCD) in water year 2011. It is the third report in a series examining financial implications of experimental flows conducted since the Record of Decision (ROD) was adopted in February 1997 (Reclamation 1996). A report released in January 2011 examined water years 1997 to 2005 (Veselka et al. 2011), and a report released in August 2011 examined water years 2006 to 2010 (Poch et al. 2011). An experimental release may have either a positive or negative impact on the financial value of energy production. This study estimates the financial costs of experimental releases, identifies the main factors that contribute to these costs, and compares the interdependencies among these factors. An integrated set of tools was used to compute the financial impacts of the experimental releases by simulating the operation of the GCD under two scenarios, namely, (1) a baseline scenario that assumes both that operations comply with the ROD operating criteria and the experimental releases that actually took place during the study period, and (2) a 'without experiments' scenario that is identical to the baseline scenario of operations that comply with the GCD ROD, except …

As the National Ignition Facility continues its campaign to achieve ignition, new methods and tools will be required to measure the quality of the target capsules used to achieve this goal. Techniques have been developed to measure capsule surface features using a phase-shifting diffraction interferometer and Leica Microsystems confocal microscope. These instruments produce multi-gigabyte datasets which consist of tens to hundreds of files. Existing software can handle viewing a small subset of an entire dataset, but none can view a dataset in its entirety. Additionally, without an established mode of transport that keeps the target capsules properly aligned throughout the assembly process, a means of aligning the two dataset coordinate systems is needed. The goal of this project is to develop web based software utilizing WebGL which will provide high level overview visualization of an entire dataset, with the capability to retrieve finer details on demand, in addition to facilitating alignment of multiple datasets with one another based on common features that have been visually identified by users of the system.

This report looks at concerns about the Keystone XL pipeline. These include the need for a Presidential Permit, as the pipeline crosses and international border. Additionally, the report discusses specific environmental issues that the Keystone XL proposal raises.

The U.S. Secret Service has two missions: criminal investigations and protection. This report looks at the history of the organization and purpose as it relates to Congress.

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Embedded arms-control-sensors provide a powerful new paradigm for managing compliance with future nuclear weapons treaties, where deployed warhead numbers will be reduced to 1000 or less. The CONOPS (Concept of Operations) for use with these sensors is a practical tool with which one may help define design parameters, including size, power, resolution, communications, and physical structure. How frequently must data be acquired and must a human be present? Will such data be acquired for only stored weapons or will it be required of deployed weapons as well? Will tactical weapons be subject to such monitoring or will only strategic weapons apply? Which data will be most crucial? Will OSI's be a component of embedded sensor data management or will these sensors stand alone in their data extraction processes? The problem space is massive, but can be constrained by extrapolating to a reasonable future treaty regime and examining the bounded options this scenario poses. Arms control verification sensors, embedded within the warhead case or aeroshell, must provide sufficient but not excessively detailed data, confirming that the item is a nuclear warhead and that it is a particular warhead without revealing sensitive information. Geolocation will be provided by an intermediate transceiver used …

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The purpose if this addendum is to provide clarifying information related to two issues delaying disposal of Tank 2, located west of the Old Salvage Yard at the Y-12 National Security Complex. The two issues are as follows: 1. The discovery and documentation of apparent elevated results on the external rusty surface of Tank 2; 2. The proper interpretation and use of scan data. Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) health physics technicians (HPTs), operating under the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education contract, performed 100% scans over accessible interior and exterior surfaces of the five tanks located near the Old Salvage Yard, per the stakeholder-approved project-specific plan. Three types of measurements were collected, including gamma radiation measurements using a Ludlum model 44-10 gamma scintillation detector connected to a Ludlum model 2221 ratemeter/scaler; alpha radiation measurements using a Ludlum model 43-68 gas proportional detector connected to a 2221 ratemeter/scaler; and alpha-plus-beta radiation measurements also using a Ludlum model 43-68 connected to a 2221 ratermeter/scaler. The alpha-plus-beta characterization data is the primary subject of this addendum.

PNNL’s objective in this report is to provide DOE with a technology and manufacturing readiness assessment to identify hydrogen storage technologies’ maturity levels for early market motive and non-motive applications and to provide a path forward toward commercialization. PNNL’s Technology Readiness Assessment (TRA) is based on a combination of Technology Readiness Level (TRL) and Manufacturing Readiness Level (MRL) designations that enable evaluation of hydrogen storage technologies in varying levels of development. This approach provides a logical methodology and roadmap to enable the identification of hydrogen storage technologies, their advantages/disadvantages, gaps and R&D needs on an unbiased and transparent scale that is easily communicated to interagency partners. The TRA report documents the process used to conduct the TRA, reports the TRL and MRL for each assessed technology and provides recommendations based on the findings.

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This report is about the Baby-Dole Act: Selected issues in Patent Policy and the Commercialization of Technology.

This report analyzes the current unrest in Syria and the U.S. response to the Syrian government's crackdown against demonstrators. It also provides background information on U.S. sanctions against the Asad regime and its supporters.

This report covers the current appeal process for veterans benefit claims. It ends with a description of current proposed legislation to alter the process.

Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy project sheet summarizing general information about the Building Energy Efficiency Through Innovative Thermodevices (BEETIT) program including critical needs, innovation and advantages, impacts, and contact information. This sheet discusses air conditioning that would be more efficient and not use polluting refrigerants as part of the "Non-Equilibrium Asymmetic Thermoelectrics (NEAT) Devices" project.

Synthetic DNA nanostructures are typically held together primarily by Holliday junctions. One of the most basic types of structures possible to assemble with only DNA and Holliday junctions is the triangle. To date, however, only equilateral triangles have been assembled in this manner - primarily because it is difficult to figure out what configurations of Holliday triangles have low strain. Early attempts at identifying such configurations relied upon calculations that followed the strained helical paths of DNA. Those methods, however, were computationally expensive, and failed to find many of the possible solutions. I have developed a new approach to identifying Holliday triangles that is computationally faster, and finds well over 95% of the possible solutions. The new approach is based on splitting the problem into two parts. The first part involves figuring out all the different ways that three featureless rods of the appropriate length and diameter can weave over and under one another to form a triangle. The second part of the computation entails seeing whether double helical DNA backbones can fit into the shape dictated by the rods in such a manner that the strands can cross over from one domain to the other at the appropriate spots. …

This report discusses the current Congressional issues in relation to Venezuela, including background on the political situation and recent developments, the economic conditions, relevant U.S. policies, and the legislative initiatives in the 111th and 112th Congresses. The United States traditionally has had close relations with Venezuela, a major supplier of foreign oil, but there has been friction in relations under the government of populist President Hugo Chávez. U.S. officials have expressed concerns about human rights, Venezuela's military arms purchases, its relations with Cuba and Iran, and its efforts to export its brand of populism to other Latin American countries.

Free electron lasers (FEL) need a very bright electron beam in three dimensions and a high peak charge density. In order to compress an initially longer electron bunch generated from the photoinjector, magnetic bunch compression systems are widely employed. In this paper, first harmonic RF linearization and its associated requirements are reviewed. Meanwhile it is also briefly discussed what is the relation between a proper initial bunch length and main RF frequency, when a harmonic RF linearization is included. Then given a reasonable bunch compression ratio, a proper initial bunch length as a function of the main RF frequency and RF phase is estimated analytically by several approaches, assuming that no harmonic RF section is needed to linearize the energy modulation introduced during main RF acceleration, and at the same time still linearly compress the bunch length. Next the upper limit of the bunch compression ratio in a single stage is evaluated analytically. The analytical relations derived on choosing a proper initial bunch length as a function of main RF frequency are confirmed by numerical simulation. These simple limit provide rough estimations and may be beneficial for choosing bunch compression ratios in different stages of an FEL driver, especially in …

The Phoebus project investigated algorithms, protocols, and middleware infrastructure to improve end-to-end performance in high speed, dynamic networks. The Phoebus system essentially serves as an adaptation point for networks with disparate capabilities or provisioning. This adaptation can take a variety of forms including acting as a provisioning agent across multiple signaling domains, providing transport protocol adaptation points, and mapping between distributed resource reservation paradigms and the optical network control plane. We have successfully developed the system and demonstrated benefits. The Phoebus system was deployed in Internet2 and in ESnet, as well as in GEANT2, RNP in Brazil and over international links to Korea and Japan. Phoebus is a system that implements a new protocol and associated forwarding infrastructure for improving throughput in high-speed dynamic networks. It was developed to serve the needs of large DOE applications on high-performance networks. The idea underlying the Phoebus model is to embed Phoebus Gateways (PGs) in the network as on-ramps to dynamic circuit networks. The gateways act as protocol translators that allow legacy applications to use dedicated paths with high performance.