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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) designated the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) as a National Scientific User Facility (NSUF) in April 2007. This designation allows the ATR to become a cornerstone of nuclear energy research and development (R&D) within the U.S. by making it easier for universities, the commercial power industry, other national laboratories, and international organizations to conduct nuclear energy R&D. The mission of the ATR NSUF is to provide nuclear energy researchers access to world-class facilities, thereby facilitating the advancement of nuclear science and technology within the U.S. In support of this mission, hot cell laboratories are being upgraded. These upgrades include a set of lead shielded cells that will house Irradiated Assisted Stress Corrosion Cracking (IASCC) test rigs and construction of a shielded laboratory facility. A primary function of this shielded laboratory is to provide a state of the art type laboratory facility that is functional, efficient and flexible that is dedicated to the analysis and characterization of nuclear and non-nuclear materials. The facility shall be relatively easy to reconfigure to provide laboratory scale hot cave space for housing current and future nuclear material scientific research instruments.

Interest in alternative transportation fuels (ATF`s) has increased in recent years due to the drives for cleaner air and less dependence upon foreign oil. This report, Alternatives to Traditional Transportation Fuels 1996, provides information on ATFs, as well as the vehicles that consume them.

This Renewable Energy Data Book for 2010 provides facts and figures on energy in general, renewable electricity in the United States, global renewable energy development, wind power, solar energy, geothermal power, biopower, hydropower, advanced water power, hydrogen, renewable fuels, and clean energy investments.

The backgrund, structure and use of modern forecasting methods for estimating the future development of geothermal energy in the United States are documented. The forecasting instrument may be divided into two sequential submodels. The first predicts the timing and quality of future geothermal resource discoveries from an underlying resource base. This resource base represents an expansion of the widely-publicized USGS Circular 790. The second submodel forecasts the rate and extent of utilization of geothermal resource discoveries. It is based on the joint investment behavior of resource developers and potential users as statistically determined from extensive industry interviews. It is concluded that geothermal resource development, especially for electric power development, will play an increasingly significant role in meeting US energy demands over the next 2 decades. Depending on the extent of R and D achievements in related areas of geosciences and technology, expected geothermal power development will reach between 7700 and 17300 Mwe by the year 2000. This represents between 8 and 18% of the expected electric energy demand (GWh) in western and northwestern states.

An electrodynamic balance was used to measure the drag coefficient and also to record the size and shape of spheres, and coal and oil shale particles (100 ..mu..m to 200 ..mu..m in size). The electrodynamic balance consisted of a central, and two end electrodes. The resulting electric field stably suspended a charged particle. A suspended particle, back illuminated by a light emitting diode, was viewed by a video camera. The image was analyzed for particle position control and was calibrated to give the diameter of spheres, or the area equivalent diameter of nonspherical particles. The drag coefficient was calculated from the air velocity and the dc voltage required to keep the particle at the balance center. The particle Reynolds number varied from 0.2 to 13. Three particles each of coal and oil shale were captured and photographed by a scanning electron microscope and the motion of all the particles was recorded on video tape. Drag coefficient vs Reynolds number data for spheres agreed well with correlations. Data for thirteen particles each of coal and oil shale indicated a power law relationship between drag coefficient and Reynolds number. All these particles exhibited higher drag than spheres and were also observed tomore » rotate. The rotation, however, did not affect the drag coefficient. The choice of characteristic dimension affects the drag characteristics of oil shale more strongly than for coal, owing to the flake-like shape of oil shale. 38 figs., 5 tabs.« less

On October 30, 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility (ACRF) sponsored an all-day workshop to assess the status of the ACRF Archive. Focus areas included usability of current functions, plans for revised functions, proposals for new functions, and an overarching discussion of new ideas. Although 13 scientists familiar with ACRF and the ARM Program were invited to the workshop, only 10 scientists were available to attend the workshop. ACRF consists of the infrastructure that was developed to support the ARM Program and includes the ACRF Archive (previously called the ARM Archive). The scientists who participated in the meeting ranged from those who used the Archive frequently to those who seldom or never had accessed the Archive. The group was spread across disciplines, i.e. modelers, conservationists, and others from universities and government laboratories. A few of the participants were funded by the ARM Program, but most were not funded currently by ARM. During the past year, several improvements were made to the ACRF Archive to link it with the ARM/ACRF web pages, add a shopping cart feature, and expand on search parameters. Additional modifications have been proposed and prototypes of these proposals weremore » made available for the participants. The participants were given several exercises to do before the meeting, and their feedback was requested to help identify potential problems and shortcomings with the existing structure and to recommend improvements.« less

This report describes work to test the feasibility of a new solar cell concept -- the epitaxial optical reflector (EOR) solar cell. This cell concept alters current designs for high efficiency cells by changing the optical absorption efficiency of single cells. The change is introduced by the use an epitaxial multilayer reflector as an integral part of the cell to increase the optical path length of certain wavelengths of light in the cell. These changes are expected to increase the open circuit voltage at which power is extracted from the cell. The program is designed to test the feasibility of the use of a broad band epitaxial multilayer reflector grown as an integral part of the device structure to reflect the near-band-edge light back through the device for a second absorption pass. This second pass allows the design of a solar cell with a thinner base, and the use of the epitaxial reflector as a heterojunction carrier-reflecting barrier at the rear of the device. The thinner cell design and altered carrier profile that results from the light- and carrier-reflecting barrier will decrease the carrier concentration gradient and increase the open circuit voltage. The program is structured to have three tasks:more » (1) Solar Cell and Reflector Modeling, (2) Materials Growth and Optimization, and (3) Solar Cell Fabrication and Characterization.« less

The results of studies of energy consumption and emission inventories in Asia are discussed. These data primarily reflect emissions from fuel combustion (both biofuels and fossil fuels) and were collected to determine emissions of acid-deposition precursors (SO{sub 2} and NO{sub x}) and greenhouse gases (CO{sub 2} CO, CH{sub 4}, and NMHC) appropriate to RAINS-Asia regions. Current work is focusing on black carbon (soot), volatile organic compounds, and ammonia.

The primary focus of the Whole-Building Energy Design Targets project is to develop a flexible methodology for setting target guidelines with which to assess energy efficiency in commercial building design. The proposed methodology has several innovative features. In this report, the authors document their work to define the software development concepts upon which the overall Targets methodology will be based. Three task reports are included here. Development of the user interface--that critical connection through which the human end-user (architect, engineer, planner, owner) will apply the methodology--is described in Section 2. In Section 3, the use of the software engineering process in Targets model development efforts is described. Section 4 provides details on the data and system integration task, in which interactions between and among all the major components, termed modules, of the Targets model were examined to determine how to put them together to create a methodology that is effective and easy to use. 4 refs., 26 figs.