Congressional Research Service: Chinese Missile and Nuclear Proliferation: Issues for Congress

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether the legislature constitutionally may establish a guaranty association for the workers’ compensation liabilities of political subdivisions in which the membership would be mandatory and as to which the funding come come through assessments imposed on the membership (RQ-742)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether persons may play and bet on card games using computers with modems or other transmission devices on related questions (RQ-763)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Authority under state law of a state university to regulate parking by the disabled on campus (RQ-730)

DOE commissioned a Conceptual Design Report (CDR) for the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in January 1993 as part of a Key Decision Zero (KDO), justification of Mission Need. Motivated by the progress to date by the Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) program in meeting the Nova Technical Contract goals established by the National Academy of Sciences in 1989, the Secretary requested a design using a solid-state laser driver operating at the third harmonic (0.35 {mu}m) of neodymium (Nd) glass. The participating ICF laboratories signed a Memorandum of Agreement in August 1993, and established a Project organization, including a technical team from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), and the Laboratory for Laser Energetics at the University of Rochester. Since then, we completed the NIF conceptual design, based on standard construction at a generic DOE Defense Program`s site, and issued a 7,000-page, 27-volume CDR in May 1994.2 Over the course of the conceptual design study, several other key documents were generated, including a Facilities Requirements Document, a Conceptual Design Scope and Plan, a Target Physics Design Document, a Laser Design Cost Basis Document, a Functional Requirements Document, an Experimental Plan for Indirect Drive …

Progress for the period July 1995 -- October 1995 for the slurry carbonization plant is described. Topics addressed include analytical results of carbonization of RDF, regression analysis of reactor temperature versus heating value of RDF fuel, and progress on reducing chlorine content of the fuels.

The fourth quarter progress has been directed at testing experimental apparatus for the laboratory scale heat exchanger models.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) prepares quarterly, short-term energy supply, demand, and price projections for publication in February, May, August, and November in the Short-Term Energy Outlook (Outlook). An annual supplement analyzes the performance of previous forecasts, compares recent projections with those of other forecasting services, and discusses current topics related to the short-term energy markets. The forecast period for this issue of the Outlook extends from the third quarter of 1995 through the fourth quarter of 1996. Values for the second quarter of 1995, however, are preliminary EIA estimates.

Los Alamos County was created in 1964 as a response to a Congressional mandate, promulgated in the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. Because the county came into existence via the Atomic Energy Act, the Department provided fire and emergency medical services. In the intervening years, however, the Department and the county have worked toward making the county self-sufficient. The contract for fire and emergency medical services represented a step in the direction of self-sufficiency by requiring the county to begin paying for its share of the related costs. The purpose of the audit was to determine if the costs for fire and emergency medical services were shared appropriately commensurate with the use of the services.

A technique was developed for fabricating Spherical shell targets for implosion physics experiments with diameters up to several millimeters and with unique structural features such as thin metal layers or texture on the inside surface. We start with a spherical bead or thin shell of poly(alpha-methylstyrene) (PAMS) of the desired size, which can be textured by laser photoablation or overcoated with a thin layer of diagnostic material. The mandrel is next overcoated with plasma polymer (CH) 2 to 50 {mu}m thick. Upon heating, the PAMS depolymerizes to gaseous monomer which diffuses through the thermally stable plasma polymer coating leaving a hollow shell. Shells produced by this technique are uniform in wall thickness, and highly spherical. If the PAMS mandrel is textured, the mandrel topology is transferred to the inner wall of the plasma polymer shell. Likewise thermally stable coatings on the mandrel are transferred to the inner shell wall.

A geotechnical study has been completed in H-Area for the In-Tank Precipitation Facility (ITP) and the balance of the H-Area Tank Farm (HTF) at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. The study consisted of subsurface field exploration, field and laboratory testing, and engineering analyses. The purpose of these investigations is to evaluate the overall stability of the H-Area tanks under static and dynamic conditions. The objectives of the study are to define the site-specific geological conditions at ITP and HTF, obtain engineering properties for the assessment of the stability of the native soils and embankment under static and dynamic loads (i.e., slope stability, liquefaction potential, and potential settlements), and derive properties for soil-structure interaction studies. This document contains the records of cone penetrometer and dilatometer soundings for the In-Tank Precipitation Facility (ITP) and H-Tank Farm (HTF) Geotechnical Report, Volume 3.

The PEP-II B-Factory is presently engaged design and fabrication of several unique magnets referred to as septum quadrupoles. This family of magnets is required to contain a low energy beam of positrons (3.1 GeV) and a high energy electron beam (9.0 GeV) in adjacent beam pipes housed within a common magnet. One beam will be focused while the other passes through an almost field free region. To do this, an asymmetric magnet must be designed having a pure, high quality quadrupole field in the magnet aperture and an adjacent low field bypass channel. A current sheet or ``septum`` coil must be placed between these two regions to produce the desired magnetic results. Design of this high current density septum coil presents many challenges since space between the two vacuum beam pipes where the coil must reside is very limited. This paper will describe the overall design of the septum quadrupoles and the solutions employed to achieve the required magnetic performance.

The Low Energy Ring (LER) of the PEP-II B-Factory will use wiggler magnet systems for emittance control and additional damping. The wiggler baseline is a set of 11 individual iron core, water cooled, dipole magnets designed operate at 1.6 T and generate 400 kW of synchrotron radiation. Space has been provided to add a second wiggler with additional 400 kW of synchrotron radiation if more damping is needed in the future. A copper vacuum chamber is used with continuous antechambers connected to both sides of the beam chamber via slots. Synchrotron radiation dump surfaces both antechambers. We describe the design and analysis of the wiggler magnets and the salient features of the vacuum chamber and dumps.

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is participating in a US Department of Energy sponsored multi-laboratory cooperative effort with the Russian Federation nuclear institutes to reduce risks of nuclear weapons proliferation by strengthening systems of nuclear materials protection, control, and accounting in both countries. This program is called the Laboratory-to-Laboratory Nuclear Materials Protection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) Program and it is designed to complement other US-Russian MPC&A programs such as the government-to-govermment (NunnLugar) programs. LLNL`s role in this program has been to collaborate with various Russian institutes in several areas. One of these is integrated safeguards and security planning and analysis, including the performing of vulnerability assessments. In the area of radiation measurements LLNL is cooperating with various institutes on gamma-ray measurement and analysis techniques for plutonium and uranium accounting. LLNL is also participating in physical security upgrades including entry control and portals.

This publication identifies energy related publications of the Energy Information Administration of the US Department of Energy. The topics and articles in this issue include data on residential energy use available on diskettes and Internet, natural gas price predictions, coal deliveries to electric utilities, growth in the US uranium industry, microfiche products, features and press releases, EIA`s electronic publishing system, new reports, machine-readable files, how to order EIA publications and energy data information contacts.

The Fischer-Tropsch synthesis has been studied over the best low-alpha catalyst developed at the CAER. A wide range of synthesis gas conversions were obtained by varying the space velocity. The experimental results show that: (1) the rate of the water gas shift reaction is lower than the rate of the Fischer-Tropsch reaction at low conversions (< 60%) whereas it closely approaches the rate of the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis at high conversions, (2) the fraction of CO converted to hydrocarbons is higher at low and intermediate conversions whereas it is smaller at high conversions, (3) the H{sub 2}/CO ratio of the product gas is equal to the H{sub 2}/CO ratio of the inlet synthesis gas at an intermediate conversion level of 67%. These findings suggest that it would be beneficial to carry out the reaction at intermediate conversions. This would result in an optimum use of CO to produce hydrocarbons rather than CO{sub 2}. High overall conversions can be obtained by either using a second reactor or recycling the product gas using a single reactor. If the intermediate conversion in a single pass is maintained at 67% there would be no need to adjust the H{sub 2}/CO ratio of the recycle stream …

Technologies for treatment of low level mixed wastes (LLMW) are currently being investigated by the Mixed Waste Focus Area (MWFA) of the Department of Energy (DOE). The Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC) has been chartered by the MWFA to study vitrification treatment of the wastes through an Office of Technology Development (OTD) Technical Task Plan (TTP). SRTC`s efforts have included crucible-scale studies and pilot-scale testing on simulated LLMW sludges, resins, soils, and other solid wastes. Results from the crucible-scale studies have been used as the basis for the pilot-scale demonstrations. One of the streams to be investigated in fiscal year (FY) 1995 by SRTC was a mercury waste. In FY 1995, SRTC performed crucible-scale studies with mercury contaminated soil. This waste stream was selected because of the large number of DOE sites that have an inventory of contaminated or hazardous soil. More importantly, it was readily available for treatment. Pilot-scale studies were to be completed in FY 1995, but could not be completed due to a reduction in funding. Since the main driver for focusing on a mercury waste stream was to determine how the mercury could be treated, a compilation of pilot-scale tests with mercury sludges performed under the …

The Mixed Waste Focus Area (MWFA) of the Department of Energy (DOE) is currently investigating vitrification technology for treatment of low level mixed wastes (LLMW). They have chartered the Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC) to study vitrification of the wastes through an Office of Technology Development (OTD) Technical Task Plan (TTP). SRTC`s efforts have included crucible-scale studies and pilot scale testing on simulated LLMW sludges, resins, soils, and other solid wastes. Results from the crucible-scale studies have been used as the basis for the pilot-scale demonstrations. As part of the fiscal year (FY) 1995 activities, SRTC performed crucible-scale studies with organic resins. This waste stream was selected because of the large number of DOE sites, as well as commercial industries, that use resins for treatment of liquid wastes. Pilot-scale studies were to be completed in FY 1995, but could not be due to a reduction in funding. Instead, a compilation of pilot-scale tests with organic resins performed under the guidance of SRTC was provided in this report. The studies which will be discussed used a resorcinol- formaldehyde resin loaded with non-radioactive cesium, which was fed with simulated wastewater treatment sludge feed. The first study was performed at the SRTC in …

A beam propagating in a continuous, linear focusing channel tends to relax to a thermal equilibrium state. We employ nonlinear conservation constraints to theoretically analyze changes in quantities that characterize both an initial semi-Gaussian beam with a matched rms beam envelope and a K-V beam under a relaxation to thermal equilibrium. Results from particle-in-cell simulations are compared to the theoretical predictions.

Stabilization of plutonium bearing scrap material occurs in furnaces, FUR-21C-1 and FUR-21C-2, located in glovebox HC-21C. During previous testing and processing operations, water has been observed forming in the off-gas rotameters, FI-21C-1 and FI-21C-2. The off-gas is filtered through a 2 micron ceramic filter, F-21C-1 or F-21C-2, before discharge into the 26 inch vacuum system. The goal of this test plan is to determine the cause and location of water formation in the sludge stabilization off-gas system. The results should help determine what design improvements or processing steps will be implemented to prevent this phenomena from occurring in the future.

SiC samples coated with CMZP and Mg-Al{sub 2}TiO{sub 5}, respectively, were tested in a 100-hour slagging combustion test at the Energy and Environmental Research Center at the University of North Dakota. Results of measurements and analysis indicate that CMZP and Mg-Al{sub 2}TiO{sub 5} coatings improved the high temperature alkali corrosion resistance under coal combustion atmospheres. It is clearly shown that it is important to obtain a homogeneous and crack-free coating and good adhesion of the coating to the surface of the substrate for the best corrosion resistance. Some measures to improve the coating procedure are presented.

The sludge stabilization process thermally stabilizes reactive plutonium bearing materials in a muffle furnace. This process is used to prepare the material for long term storage in the vaults. The process is conducted in Room 230A and 230B. The furnaces are located in glovebox HC-21C. Glovebox HC-21A is used for preparation of the charge and packaging of the high fired oxide. The feed for the process is located throughout the PRF and RMC-line gloveboxes, with over half of the feedstock currently being located in HA-23S. For readiness assessment, the sludge stabilization process at PFP was reviewed by the ALARA team to see how the process could be improved. One suggestion was made that the conveyor system be used to transfer items from HA-23S to the process glovebox (HA-21A) instead of sealing items in and out of the gloveboxes. The following discussion describes and compares past and current methods. In addition, actions are addressed that would need to be completed before the conveyor method could be used. The transportation of the feedstock to the process and all the different influencing factors will be examined to determine the best method. This assessment is being performed considering only the current campaign for HC-21C. …