The chemicals used in pulping of wood by the kraft process are recycled in the mill in the recovery furnace, which oxidizes organics while simultaneously reducing sulfate to sulfide. The recovery furnace is central to the economical operation of kraft pulp mills, but it also causes problems. The total pulp production of many mills is limited by the recovery furnace capacity, which cannot easily be increased. The furnace is one of the largest sources of air pollution (as reduced sulfur compounds) in the kraft pulp mill.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 established the obligations of and the relationship between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the management and disposal of high-level radioactive wastes. In 1985, the EPA promulgated regulations that included a definition of performance assessment that did not consider potential dose to a member of the general public. This definition would influence the scope of activities conducted by DOE in support of the total system performance assessment program until 1995. The release of a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report on the technical basis for a Yucca Mountain-specific standard provided the impetus for the DOE to initiate activities that would consider the attributes of the biosphere, i.e. that portion of the earth where living things, including man, exist and interact with the environment around them. The evolution of NRC and EPA Yucca Mountain-specific regulations, originally proposed in 1999, was critical to the development and integration of biosphere modeling and analyses into the total system performance assessment program. These proposed regulations initially differed in the conceptual representation of the receptor of interest to be considered in assessing performance. The publication …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Compact of Free Association between the United States and the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands provides direct U.S. economic assistance and extends U.S. domestic programs and federal services to these two Pacific Island nations. The Compact also allows for migration from Micronesia and the Marshall Islands to the United States and establishes U.S. defense rights and obligations in the region. The Compact's economic assistance provisions were scheduled to expire in late 2001. However, the provisions will remain in effect for two more months while the United States and the two Pacific Island nations renegotiate them. Congress must renegotiate and reauthorize the expiring provisions by late 2003 for economic assistance to continue uninterrupted. The $1.6 billion provided under the Compact through 1998 has had little impact on economic development in Micronesia and the Marshall Islands and was subject to limited accountability. U.S. oversight was limited by interagency disagreements between the Departments of Interior and State, a lack of resources devoted to Compact oversight, and Interior's belief that Compact provisions restricted its ability to require accountability and withhold funds. Because of the lack …

Increased use of higher-efficiency compression ignition direct injection (CIDI) diesel engines instead of today's gasoline engines will result in reduced fuel consumption and greenhouse gases emissions. However, NO{sub x} and particulate exhaust emissions from diesel engines must be significantly reduced due to their possible adverse health effects. Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) is an effective way to reduce NO{sub x} emissions from diesel engines, but the particulates and acidic exhaust products in the recirculated gas will contaminate engine lubricant oil by increasing the soot content and total acid number (TAN). These factors will increase the wear rate in many critical engine components and seriously compromise engine durability. We have investigated the use of commercially available thin and hard coatings (TiN, TiCN, TiAlN, and CrN) to mitigate the negative effects of EGR on wear. In tests with the four-ball machine according to ASTM D4172, we found that all the four coatings deposited on M-50 steel significantly reduced wear in EGR-contaminated oils when compared with uncoated M50 steel balls.

A detailed account of the activity and accomplishments made by fleets covered by the EPAct State and Alternative Fuel Provider Program.

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A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report analyzes the Department of Defense's (DOD) 1999 survey of active duty personnel. GAO found that among first-term and mid-career personnel, satisfaction with military life and retention intent, which tend to increase with an individual's seniority, were important reasons for joining the armed forces. Among first-term enlisted personnel, education benefits and training for civilian employment were among the top reasons for joining. Mid-career personnel cited a desire to serve their country as one of the main reasons for joining, and these individuals said that they were likely to serve 20 years. Mid-career enlisted personnel and officers who joined for education benefits or for training for a specific occupation--skills that can be transferred to civilian jobs--said that they were more likely to leave the military. Base pay, the amount of personal/family leave time, and leadership quality were the main reasons cited by servicemembers for leaving the military. Servicemembers did, however, view some aspects of military life more favorable compared with civilian life, including vacation time, sense of accomplishment and pride, and education and training opportunities."

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The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) plans to use the Common Criteria, as the tool for developing graded and measurable evaluation criteria for information technology (IT) in safeguards systems in facilities subject to IAEA inspection. In their draft paper [ITSECSES] the IAEA defines a three-tiered Vulnerability Assessment Level (VAL) scheme. Each increased VAL level (1-3) defines additional and more stringent security and security-related requirements for the system developer, the system evaluator (assessor or authenticator), and for the IAEA. When all parties meet all requirements for a particular VAL level, IAEA has a measurable degree of confidence in the secure and proper operation of an IT system.

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A conceptual design for a neutrino-producing facility is presented, including the mercury-jet target system, beam absorber, and facility for the target/capture region. The mercury system is a closed loop that includes a containment structure in the high-magnetic field region, a mercury pool beam absorber, conventional equipment such as magnetic-coupled pumps, valves, a heat exchanger, and a special nozzle insert. The superconducting solenoids in the target region are protected from nuclear heating and radiation damage with water-cooled tungsten-carbide shielding; the decay channel solenoids are protected with water-cooled steel shielding. The target region and decay channel have high-neutron fluxes resulting in components that are highly activated. Therefore, the facility configuration is based on remotely maintaining the target system and the magnets, as well as providing sufficient shielding for personnel. Summaries of cost estimates for the target system, magnet shielding, maintenance equipment, and the facility are also presented.

Spontaneous radiation emitted from relativistic electrons undergoing betatron motion in a plasma focusing channel is analyzed and application to plasma wakefield accelerator experiments and to the ion channel laser (ICL) are discussed. Important similarities and differences between a free electron laser (FEL) and an ICL are delineated. It is shown that the frequency of spontaneous radiation is a strong function of the betatron strength parameter alpha-beta, which plays a similar role to that of the wiggler strength parameter in a conventional FEL. For alpha-beta > 1, radiation is emitted in numerous harmonics. Furthermore, alpha-beta is proportional to the amplitude of the betatron orbit, which varies for every electron in the beam. The radiation spectrum emitted from an electron beam is calculated by averaging the single electron spectrum over the electron distribution. This leads to a frequency broadening of the radiation spectrum, which places serious limits on the possibility of realizing an ICL.

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Concerns about climate change have encouraged significant interest in concepts for ultra-low or ''zero''-emissions power generation systems. In some proposed concepts, nitrogen is removed from the combustion air and replaced with another diluent such as carbon dioxide or steam. In this way, formation of nitrogen oxides is prevented, and the exhaust stream can be separated into concentrated CO{sub 2} and steam or water streams. The concentrated CO{sub 2} stream could then serve as input to a CO{sub 2} sequestration process or utilized in some other way. Some of these concepts are illustrated in Figure 1. This project is an investigation of one approach to ''zero'' emission power generation. Oxy-fuel combustion is used with steam as diluent in a power cycle proposed by Clean Energy Systems, Inc. (CES) [1,2]. In oxy-fuel combustion, air separation is used to produce nearly pure oxygen for combustion. In this particular concept, the combustion temperatures are moderated by steam as a diluent. An advantage of this technique is that water in the product stream can be condensed with relative ease, leaving a pure CO{sub 2} stream suitable for sequestration. Because most of the atmospheric nitrogen has been separated from the oxidant, the potential to form any …

A mathematical model is formulated to describe the dynamics of a rigid barrier filter system. Complete with filtration, regeneration and particle re-deposition, this model provides sizing information for new filter systems and diagnostic information for operating filter systems. To turn this model into a practical and smart filter system predictive model, monitoring devices for variables such as real-time particle concentration and size distribution are currently under laboratory development. The program goal is to introduce a smart filter system to supervise its operation and to assure its system reliability. Primarily, a smart filter system will update operating information, sound up malfunction alarms, and provide self-activated measures such as adjusting the cleaning frequency, intensity and back-pulse duration.

This report examines the major, foreign conventional weapon systems that China has acquired or has committed to acquire since 1990, with particular attention to implications for U.S. security concerns. It is not the assumption of this report that China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), will engage in conflict with other forces in Asia. Nonetheless, since the mid-1990s, there has been increasing concern about China’s assertiveness in Asia and greater threats against Taiwan.

Circulating fluid bed technology offers the advantages of a plug flow, yet well-mixed, and high throughput reactor for power plant applications. The ability to effectively scale these systems in size, geometry, and operating conditions is limited because of the extensive deviation from ideal dilute gas-solids flow behavior (Monazam et al., 2001; Li, 1994). Two fluid computations show promise of accurately simulating the hydrodynamics in the riser circulating fluid bed; however, validation tests for large vessels with materials of interest to the power industry are lacking (Guenther et al., 2002). There is little available data in reactors large enough so that geometry (i.e. entrance, exit, and wall) effects do not dominate the hydrodynamics, yet with sufficiently large particle sizes to allow sufficiently large grid sizes to allow accurate and timely hydrodynamic simulations. To meet this need experimental tests were undertaken with relatively large particles of narrow size distribution in a large enough unit to reduce the contributions of wall effects and light enough to avoid geometry effects. While computational fluid dynamic calculations are capable of generating detailed velocity and density profiles, it is believed that the validation and model development begins with the ability to simulate the global flow regime transitions. …

In the current fiscal year FY01, several CFD simulations were conducted to investigate the effects of moisture in biomass/coal, particle injection locations, and flow parameters on carbon burnout and NO{sub x} inside a 150 MW GEEZER industrial boiler. Various simulations were designed to predict the suitability of biomass cofiring in coal combustors, and to explore the possibility of using biomass as a reburning fuel to reduce NO{sub x}. Some additional CFD simulations were also conducted on CERF combustor to examine the combustion characteristics of pulverized coal in enriched O{sub 2}/CO{sub 2} environments. Most of the CFD models available in the literature treat particles to be point masses with uniform temperature inside the particles. This isothermal condition may not be suitable for larger biomass particles. To this end, a stand alone program was developed from the first principles to account for heat conduction from the surface of the particle to its center. It is envisaged that the recently developed non-isothermal stand alone module will be integrated with the Fluent solver during next fiscal year to accurately predict the carbon burnout from larger biomass particles. Anisotropy in heat transfer in radial and axial will be explored using different conductivities in radial and …