The principle objective of this project is to demonstrate the economic viability and widespread applicability of an innovative reservoir management and carbon dioxide (CO2) flood project development approach for improving CO2 flood project economics in shallow shelf carbonate (SSC) reservoirs.

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Transmission electron microscopy was applied to study GaN nanowires grown on carbon nanotube surfaces by chemical reaction between Ga{sub 2}O and NH{sub 3} gas in a conventional furnace. These wires grew in two crystallographic directions, <2{und 11}0> and <01{und 1}0> (fast growth directions of GaN), in the form of whiskers covered by small elongated GaN platelets. The morphology of these platelets is similar to that observed during the growth of single crystals from a Ga melt at high temperatures under high nitrogen pressure. It is thought that growth of nanowires in two different crystallographic directions and the arrangement of the platelets to the central whisker may be influenced by the presence of Ga{sub 2}O{sub 3} (based on the observation of the energy dispersive x-ray spectra), the interplanar spacings in the wire, and the presence of defects on the interface between the central part of the nanowire and the platelets surrounding it.

Significant ionization appears to occur in the Rapid Cycling Synchrotron (RCS) during its 14 ms acceleration period leading to plasma formation and neutralization. The beam may in fact be over-neutralized, causing the tune to increase during the acceleration cycle. The overall tune shift in the RCS appears to be close to +0.5. The presence of plasma may help explain why longitudinal phase modulation can so quickly couple to transverse motion. In addition, plasmas tend to be inductive and the RCS appears to exhibit a relatively high inductance. Measurements of the electron cloud and plasma densities adjacent to the beam should be made. In addition to the RFA and Swept Analyzer diagnostics mentioned at the Workshop, other techniques might be attempted. If plasma is present, then a small, biased-probe might be useful (e.g., a Langmuir probe), or with the proper choice of geometry, an optics-based measurement for line density (e.g., an interferometer) might be employed, perhaps using microwaves for increased sensitivity.

The objective of the Advanced High-Temperature Reactor (AHTR) is to provide the very high temperatures necessary to enable low-cost (1) efficient thermochemical production of hydrogen and (2) efficient production of electricity. The proposed AHTR uses coated-particle graphite fuel similar to the fuel used in modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (MHTGRs), such as the General Atomics gas turbine-modular helium reactor (GT-MHR). However, unlike the MHTGRs, the AHTR uses a molten salt coolant with a pool configuration, similar to that of the PRISM liquid metal reactor. A multi-reheat helium Brayton (gas-turbine) cycle, with efficiencies >50%, is used to produce electricity. This approach (1) minimizes requirements for new technology development and (2) results in an advanced reactor concept that operates at essentially ambient pressures and at very high temperatures. The low-pressure molten-salt coolant, with its high heat capacity and natural circulation heat transfer capability, creates the potential for (1) exceptionally robust safety (including passive decay-heat removal) and (2) allows scaling to large reactor sizes [{approx}1000 Mw(e)] with passive safety systems to provide the potential for improved economics.

This project was undertaken to understand fundamental aspects of carbon dioxide (CO2) induced asphaltene precipitation. Oil and asphaltene samples from the Rangely field in Colorado were used for most of the project. The project consisted of pure component and high-pressure, thermodynamic experiments, thermodynamic modeling, kinetic experiments and modeling, targeted corefloods and compositional modeling.

Compact quasi-axisymmetric stellarators offer the possibility of combining the steady-state low-recirculating power, external control, and disruption resilience of previous stellarators with the low-aspect ratio, high beta-limit, and good confinement of advanced tokamaks. Quasi-axisymmetric equilibria have been developed for the proposed National Compact Stellarator Experiment (NCSX) with average aspect ratio approximately 4.4 and average elongation approximately 1.8. Even with bootstrap-current consistent profiles, they are passively stable to the ballooning, kink, vertical, Mercier, and neoclassical-tearing modes for b > 4%, without the need for external feedback or conducting walls. The bootstrap current generates only 1/4 of the magnetic rotational transform at b = 4% (the rest is from the coils). Transport simulations show adequate fast-ion confinement and thermal neoclassical transport similar to equivalent tokamaks. Modular coils have been designed which reproduce the physics properties, provide good flux surfaces, and allow flexible variation of the plasma shape to control the predicted MHD stability and transport properties.

The major mechanisms of radioactive material transport and fate in surface water are sources, dilution, advection and dispersion of radionuclides by flow and surface waves, radionuclide decay, and interaction between sediment and radionuclides. STREAM II, an aqueous transport module of the Savannah River Site emergency response WIND system, accounts for the source term, and the effects of dilution, advection and dispersion. Although the model has the capability to account for nuclear decay, due to the short time interval of interest for emergency response, the effect of nuclear decay is very small and so it is not employed. The interactions between the sediment and radionuclides are controlled by the flow conditions and physical and chemical characteristics of the radionuclides and the sediment constituents. The STREAM II version used in emergency response must provide results relatively quickly; it therefore does not model the effects of sediment deposition/resuspension. This study estimates the effects of sediment deposition/resuspension on aqueous plutonium transport in Fourmile Branch. There are no measured data on plutonium transport through surface water available for direct model calibration. Therefore, a literature search was conducted to find the range of plutonium partition coefficients based on laboratory experiments and field measurements. A sensitivity study …

Although the general environment of the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain is expected to be oxidizing in nature, the local chemistry within fuel canisters may be otherwise. The combination of low dissolved oxygen and corrosion of metallic fuels, such as Hanford's N-Reactor inventory, may produce reducing conditions. This condition may persist for periods sufficient to affect the corrosion and paragenesis of fuels and their reaction products. Starting in September 2001, unirradiated metallic uranium fuel was examined during batch tests under anoxic conditions. A series of tests carried out under inert atmosphere highlighted the rapid corrosion of the metallic uranium in EJ-13 water at 90 C. During the oxidation of the uranium, uranium dioxide fines spilled from the fuel surface generating copious amounts of colloids. The proportion of uranium-associated colloids accounted for nearly 50% to >99% of the uranium in solution after a brief period where no colloids were detected. The colloids were identified as individual (<10nm) and agglomerated uranium dioxide spheres as large as a few hundred nanometers in size. Silicate and alumino-silicate clays of diverse size and shape were also identified. The bulk size distribution as measured by dynamic light scattering was consistent with the microscopy observations in that …

The objective of the project is not just to commercially produce oil from the Pru Fee property, but rather to test which operational strategies best optimize total oil recovery at economically acceptable rates of production volumes and costs.

The performance of static rotationally symmetric electron lenses is limited by unavoidable chromatic and spherical aberrations. In 1936, Scherzer demonstrated that the integrands of the integral expressions for the coefficients of these aberrations can be written as a sum of positive quadratic terms. Hence these coefficients can never change sign. This important result is called the Scherzer theorem, the only theorem existing in electron optics. Employing variational methods, Tretner determined the field of magnetic and electrostatic round lenses, which yields the smallest spherical aberration coefficient for particular constraints [2]. Unfortunately, these coefficients are still too large for realistic boundaries to enable sub-Angstrom resolution at medium voltages of about 200 to 300 kV. Therefore, the only possibility to directly reach this limit is the correction of the troublesome aberrations. It was again Scherzer who showed different procedures for canceling these aberrations [3]. The most promising is the incorporation of a corrector consisting of multipole elements or of a tetrode mirror in the case of low voltages. Although the mirror is rotationally symmetric, a non-rotationally symmetric beam splitter is needed to separate the incident beam from the reflected beam.

Objectives of this project was to understand asphaltene precipitation in General and carbon dioxide induced precipitation in particular. To this effect, thermodynamic and kinetic experiments with the Rangely crude oil were conducted and thermodynamic and reservoir models were developed.

Measurements of oxidation. These spectra are to the best of our knowledge the first reported in situ spectroscopic observation of homogeneous aqueous redox chemistry at temperatures beyond the critical temperature of waste. We also observed a time-dependence for the growth of the Cr(VI) XANES peak and have therefore obtained both kinetic information as well as structural information on the reactants and products at the reaction temperature. We feel that these new techniques, when employed on actual waste components will elucidate the underlying chemistry.

STREAM II, an aqueous transport module of the Savannah River Site emergency response Weather INformation Display (WIND) system, accounts for the effects of dilution, advection and dispersion. Although the model has the capability to account for nuclear decay, due to the short time interval of interest for emergency response, the effect of nuclear decay is very small and so it is not employed. The interactions between the sediment and radionuclides are controlled by the flow conditions and physical and chemical characteristics of the radionuclides and the sediment constituents. The STREAM II-V2 used in emergency response does not model the effects of sediment deposition/resuspension to minimize computing time. The effects of sedimentation on cesium and plutonium transport in the Fourmile Branch were studied recently and the results from these studies indicated that the downstream cesium and plutonium peak concentrations were significantly reduced due to the effects of sedimentations. The STREAM II-V2 was upgraded to account for the effect of sedimentation on aqueous transport of cesium and plutonium released from H-Area.

The overall objective of this project is to demonstrate that a development program based on advanced reservoir management methods can significantly improve oil recovery at the Nash Draw Pool (NDP). The plan includes developing a control area using standard reservoir management techniques and comparing its performance to an area developed using advanced reservoir management methods. Specific goals are (1) to demonstrate that an advanced development drilling and pressure maintenance program can significantly improve oil recovery compared to existing technology applications and (2) to transfer these advanced methodologies to oil and gas producers in the Permian Basin and elsewhere throughout the U.S. oil and gas industry.

The technical information required for the development of a basic steady-state process simulation of the vitrification treatment train of sodium bearing waste (SBW) at Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) is presented. The objective of the modeling effort is to provide the predictive capability required to optimize an entire treatment train and assess system-wide impacts of local changes at individual unit operations, with the aim of reducing the schedule and cost of future process/facility design efforts. All the information required a priori for engineers to construct and link unit operation modules in a commercial software simulator to represent the alternative treatment trains is presented. The information is of a mid- to high-level nature and consists of the following: (1) a description of twenty-four specific unit operations--their operating conditions and constraints, primary species and key outputs, and the initial modeling approaches that will be used in the first year of the simulation's development; (2) three potential configurations of the unit operations (trains) and their interdependencies via stream connections; and (3) representative stream compositional makeups.

This work presents preliminary measurements designed to explore a new approach to neutron diffraction that is somewhat analogous to the pseudo-Laue technique, except that instead of using a broad energy (wavelength) bandwidth it uses a broad angular bandwidth. We have used a polycapillary focusing optic to focus neutrons from a monochromatic beam (using the BT-8 spectrometer on the NIST research reactor) and from a polychromatic beam at a pulsed spallation source (the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source, IPNS at Argonne National Laboratory) into a small, intense spot and have carried out preliminary diffraction measurements. Using the single crystal diffraction (SCD) facility on IPNS, diffraction of a 3{sup o} convergent beam from an alpha quartz crystal showed six diffraction beams in the 1-5{angstrom} wavelength bandwidth transmitted by the optic. The diffraction spots showed an intensity gain of 5.8 {+-} 0.9 compared to a direct beam diffracting from the same sample volume as that illuminated by the convergent beam.