This report sketches issues underlying broader use of cost-benefit analysis. It focuses on cost-benefit as one of several related frameworks for assessing regulatory actions or policies. Cost-benefit is the broadest of these frameworks, which also include impact assessment, risk assessment, and cost-effectiveness. Which analytical framework is appropriate depends on the regulatory context.

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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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.

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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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.

Letter opinion 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; Status of part primary election workers under state law (ID# 35922)

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 of the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission to require a municipality to obtain permission to regulate on-site facilities (RQ-588)

We have explored the major technical and conceptual issues relating to the suitability of a diode-pumped solid state laser as a driver for an inertial fusion energy power plant. While solid state lasers have long served as the workhorse of inertial confinement fusion physics studies, the deployment of a driver possessing adequate efficiency, reliability, and repetition rate for inertial fusion energy requires the implementation of several technical innovations discussed in this article.

Calculation of river flow is important for managing reservoirs and flood forecasting. In the western United States, a complex terrain which is characterized by steep slopes and narrow valleys often cause a substantial rise of river levels in a short period during heavy precipitation events. Since flood control is one of the major tasks of reservoir operation, inaccurate predictions of precipitation and river flow may cause flooding or waste of water resources. Accurate calculations of river flow need accurate liquid water input to the river system at scales of individual watersheds. Precipitation and snowmelt are the most important natural source of water for a river. Reservoir operations significantly affect river flow in the western United States. Factors such as instantaneous soil water content, vegetation cover, terrain slope and ground water table structure are also crucial for river flow calculation. There are two types of precipitation: rain and snowfall. River flow quickly responds to rainfall while snowfall does not directly affect river flow until it melts afterwards. Therefore, these two types of precipitation must be separately provided to the river flow model for correct calculation of river flows. A large portion of snowfall is accumulated at high terrain during winter months …

This is the first quarterly technical progress report for the project. Although the contract was awarded on March 30, 1995 and Pre-Award Approval was given on January 26, 1995, the partners of this project initiated work on October 1, 1994. As such, this progress report summarizes the work performed from project inception. The production and injection data, reservoir engineering data, and digitized and normalized log data were all completed sufficiently by the end of the quarter to start work on the basic reservoir engineering and geologic stochastic models. Basic reservoir engineering analysis began June 1 and will continue to March, 1996. Design work for the 5 observation/core holes, oil finger printing of the cored oil sands, and tracers surveys began in January, 1995. The wells will be drilled from July--August, 1995 and tracer injection work is projected to start in October, 1995. A preliminary deterministic 3-D geologic model was completed in June which is sufficient to start work on the stochastic 3-D geologic model. The four proposed horizontal wells (two injectors and two producers) have been designed, equipment has been ordered, and the wells will be drilled from mid-August through September. Four existing steam injection wells were converted to hot …

This paper theoretically compares the performance of simulated annealing and evolutionary algorithms. Our main result is that under mild conditions a wide variety of evolutionary algorithms can be shown to have greater performance than simulated annealing after a sufficiently large number of function evaluations. This class of EAs includes variants of evolutionary strategie and evolutionary programming, the canonical genetic algorithm, as well as a variety of genetic algorithms that have been applied to combinatorial optimization problems. The proof of this result is based on a performance analysis of a very general class of stochastic optimization algorithms, which has implications for the performance of a variety of other optimization algorithm.

A test version of AXAIR has been prepared to compare with PUFF-PLUME. The test version of AXAIR applies the same meteorological conditions as PUFF-PLUME and also the dispersion coefficients have been changed to be the same as those in PUFF-PLUME. The test version of AXAIR and PUFF-PLUME produce virtually the same doses with the differences being less than 3% for the select cases with similar input. Differences and similarities in the models are also addressed.

The Tasks of this project are to: (1) complete implementation of a Risk Based Data Management System (RBDMS) in the States of Alaska, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska; and (2) conduct Area of Review (AOR) Workshops in the states of California, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas. The RBDMS was designed to be a comprehensive database with the ability to expand into multiple areas, including oil and gas production. The database includes comprehensive well information for both producing and injection wells. It includes automated features for performing functions redated to AOR analyses, environmental risk analyses, well evaluation, permit evaluation, compliance monitoring, operator bonding assessments, operational monitoring and tracking, and more. This quarterly report describes the status of the development of the RBDMS project in both stated tasks and proposes further steps in its implementation.

The Savannah River Site has successfully used robots, teleoperators, and remote video to reduce exposure to ionizing radiation, improve worker safety, and improve the quality of operations. Previous reports have described the use of mobile teleoperators in coping with a high level liquid waste spill, the removal of highly contaminated equipment, and the inspection of nuclear reactor vessels. This report will cover recent applications at the Savannah River, as well as systems which SRS has delivered to other DOE site customers.

Radioactive and hazardous wastes are generated at many national laboratories, military sites, fuel fabrication and enrichment plants, reactors, and many other facilities. At all of these sites, wastes must be separated, categorized, possibly treated, and packed into containers for shipment to waste-storage or disposal sites. Prior to treatment, storage or, shipment, the containers must be characterized to determine the ultimate disposition of the contained waste. Comprehensive and accurate nondestructive evaluation (NDE) and nondestructive assay (NDA) methods can be used to characterize most waste containers in a safe and cost-effective manner without opening them. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is investigating and developing the application of x-ray and {gamma}-ray methods to nonintrusively characterize waste containers and/or items. X-ray NDE methods are being investigated to determine whether they can be used to identify hazardous and nonconforming materials. A {gamma}-ray NDA method is used to identify the radioactive sources within a container and to accurately quantify their strength. In this paper we describe five waste characterization projects being conducted at LLNL that apply both the NDE and NDA methods and present results.

The goal of this project is the development of a commercially-viable, cobalt-based Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) catalyst for use in a slurry bubble column reactor. The major objectives of this work are (1) to develop a cobalt-based F-T catalyst with low (< 5%) methane selectivity, (2) to develop a cobalt-based F-T catalyst with water-gas shift activity, and (3) to combine both these improvements into one catalyst. The project consists of five major tasks: catalyst development; catalyst testing; catalyst reproducibility tests; catalyst aging tests; and preliminary design and cost estimate for a demonstrate scale catalyst production facility. Technical accomplishments during this reporting period include the following. It appears that the higher activity obtained for the catalysts prepared using an organic solution and reduced directly without prior calcination was the result of higher dispersions obtained under such pretreatment. A Ru-promoted Co catalyst on alumina with 30% Co loading exhibited a 4-fold increase in dispersion and a 2-fold increase in activity in the fixed-bed reactor from that obtained with the non-promoted catalyst. Several reactor runs have again focused on pushing conversion to higher levels. The maximum conversion obtained has been 49.7% with 26g catalyst. Further investigations of the effect of reaction temperature on the performance …

The objective of this project is to develop a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, and quantitative characterization of a fluvial-deltaic reservoir which will allow realistic inter-well and reservoir-scale modeling to be constructed for improved oil-field development in similar reservoirs world-wide. The geological and petrophysical properties of the Cretaceous Ferron Sandstone in east-central Utah will be quantitatively determined. Both new and existing data will be integrated into a three-dimensional representation of spatial variations in porosity, storativity, and tensorial rock permeability at a scale appropriate for inter-well to regional-scale reservoir simulation. Results could improve reservoir management through proper infill and extension drilling strategies, reduction of economic risks, increased recovery from existing oil fields, and more reliable reserve calculations. Technical progress this quarter is divided into regional stratigraphy, case studies, stochastic modeling and fluid-flow simulation, and technology transfer activities. The regional stratigraphy of the Ferron Sandstone outcrop belt from Last Chance Creek to Ferron Creek is being described and interpreted. Photomosaics and a database of existing surface and subsurface data are being used to determine the extent and depositional environment of each parasequence, and the nature of the contacts with adjacent rocks or flow units. For the second field season, detailed geological and petrophysical characterization of …

In a June 3, 1993, Office of Inspections Letter Report, the Office of Inspector General notified the Department`s Acting Chief Financial Officer that the Department had requested and received $60 million, double the funds needed, for the safeguard and security of special nuclear material at the Department`s Richland Operations Office in Fiscal Year 1993. In response to the Letter Report, in a June 28, 1993, memorandum, the Acting Chief Financial Officer advised the Office of Inspector General that the extra $30 million received by the Office of Environmental Management would either be: (1) applied to unanticipated requirements in Fiscal Year 1993; (2) applied to the anticipated Congressional reduction to the Department`s Fiscal Year 1994 budget request; or (3) used as an offset to the Fiscal Year 1995 budget request. The purpose of this follow-up inspection was to review the circumstances surrounding the Fiscal Year 1993 double funding for the security of special nuclear material at Richland. The principal objectives of this inspection were to: (1) identify contributing factors to the double funding and corrective actions needed to prevent the double funding from reoccurring; and (2) review Departmental Managers` response to the double funding issue.

The EPA has declared vitrification to be the Best Available Demonstrated Technology (BDAT) for High Level Radioactive Waste (40 CFR 268.42). Vitrification has been chosen as the method of choice for treating a number of radioactive residues and wastes in the DOE complex. Vitrification offers advantages of waste volume reduction, the ability to handle changing waste forms, and a stable, nonleachable final waste form. Microwave heating is a superior method for vitrification of radioactive wastes. Advantages of microwave heating include: (1) direct waste heating, eliminates need for electrodes, refractories and other consumables; (2) ``in-can`` processing allows for treatment of the material in its final container, (3) a mechanically simple system where the microwaves are generated away from the treatment area and transmitted to the treatment applicator by a wave guide, thus minimizing worker exposure to radiation; (4) easier equipment maintenance; and (5) a high degree of public acceptance.

The US Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) Program is developing induction accelerator technology toward the goal of electric power production using Heavy-Ion beam-driven inertial Fusion (HIF). The recirculating induction accelerator promises driver cost reduction by repeatedly passing the beam through the same set of accelerating and focusing elements. The authors present plans for and progress, toward a small (4.5-m diameter) prototype recirculator which will accelerate K{sup +} ions through 15 laps, from 80 to 320 keV and from 2 to 8 mA. Beam confinement is effected via permanent-magnet quadrupoles; bending is via electric dipoles. Scaling laws, and extensive particle and fluid simulations of the space-charge dominated beam behavior, have been used to arrive at the design. An injector and matching section are operational. Initial experiments are investigating intense-beam transport in a linear magnetic channel; near-term plans include studies of transport around a bend. Later experiments will study, insertion/extraction and acceleration with centroid control.

The development of a new detector designed to optically image the track of a charged particle in a gas is outlined. In the detector, a pulsed high-voltage (up to {approx} 30--40 kV), high-frequency (f = 27.125 MHz) RF field is temporarily applied (pulse duration {approx} 1--3 {mu}s) across a pair of electrodes, immediately following, or alternatively, just prior to the passage of a charged particle through the chamber. The pulsed RF field excites the subexcitation electrons left along the particle`s path leading to excitation and ionization of the surrounding gas and the emission of light. The track is then imaged by a fast intensified digital camera (shutter speed {approx} 0.1--5 {mu}s). The image is recorded in a two-dimensional pixel array (512 {times} 512 pixels) within the camera, and transferred to a computer for later analysis. The detector has been operated over the total gas pressure range 2.5--100 kPa (20--750 torr) using a gas mixture of 2--10% N2 in Ar. Images of both {alpha} and {beta} tracks obtained with this detector are discussed to demonstrate the usefulness of the present technique in charged-particle track analysis for dosimetry and microdosimetry applications.

An investigation of the rapid rise time of x-ray emission from targets heated by an ultrashort-pulse high-intensity optical laser was conducted for use as a pump for inner-shell photo-ionized x-ray lasing. Results of x-ray rise times from instantaneously heated Au rod targets show little benefit for using optical pulse widths less than 30 fs. Gain calculations for inner-shell photo-ionized lasing show that large gains can be obtained for pulse widths between 30 and 100 fs. Calculated spectra, using the hydrodynamic/atomic kinetics code LASNEX, from a 1 J, 65 fs FWHM pulse optical laser incident on a structured Au target gave a gain of 1 1.5 cm{sup {minus}1} in C at 45 {angstrom}.

Hydrothermal treatment (reaction in a water medium at elevated temperatures) can transform many municipal solid waste (MSW) constituents into a synthetic coal material which is more amenable for use as a fuel or chemical feedstock than the raw MSW. One means of heating the MSW is to use direct high temperature steam injection into a closed reactor and allow the latent heat of the steam to raise the MSW to the desired temperature and at the same time build the pressure necessary to maintain a water phase. This report describes a computer model which can be used to look at details of the steam flow, water evaporation/condensation, thermal evolution, and MSW decomposition in a direct-steam heated MSW hydrothermal reactor. The model treats the system as a packed bed using a Darcy`s law formulation for computing gas flow rates. The model has been applied to a pilot and a commercial scale system. Computations take between 1-6 hours on a HP-9000/730. Initial computations performed with the model indicate that pressure drop and velocities on a pilot scale systems will be small. On the other hand, they indicate that gas velocities inside a commercial scale reactor can reach levels at which entrainment of …

The Macro Planner will provide required resource identities, bill of material list, routing sequences and identities of all supporting information to the Shop Floor Control System to enable the actual manufacturing activities. The Macro Planner must also collect manufacturing performance data from the shop floor to effectively measure the plan`s performance. The critical feedback will be evaluated during closure of the business cycle and provide the metrics on cost and quality to the planning function. This document is intended to describe the requirements for a Macro Planner system which supports the above environment. The Macro planner should progress to a logically, rule driven processor to automate major portions of the planning cycle. It should do the following: support concurrent product/process design; define a globally optimized manufacturing plan for realization of product; compile a complete manufacturing plan script (routing and operational detail documentation); be based on 3-D CAD models imported via STEP standards; and define an Enterprise Resource Base that maps manufacturing capabilities to component features.