United States Program

The United States Department of Energy purchases uranium in the form of acceptable U3O8 concentrates. This incentive program has greatly increased the known uranium reserves. 

Of the 200 million tons of municipal solid waste collected in the United States in 1993 (1), 22% was recycled while 62% was placed in landfills and 16% incinerated (2). Plastics comprised 9.3% of these materials. The number of U.S. residential collection programs increased from 1,000 in 1988 to more than 7,000 involving more than 100 million people in 1993 (2). Approximate 1994 U.S. recycling rates are given in Table 1. 

If 10% of the U.S. gasoline consumption were replaced by methanol for a twenty year period, the required reserves of natural gas to support that methanol consumption would amount to about one trillion m (36 TCF) or twice the 1990 annual consumption. Thus the United States could easily support a substantial methanol program from domestic reserves. However, the value of domestic natural gas is quite high. Almost all of the gas has access through the extensive pipeline distribution system to industrial, commercial, and domestic markets and the value of gas in these markets makes methanol produced from domestic natural gas uncompetitive with gasoline and diesel fuel, unless oil prices are very high. 

The enrichment program followed in the United States is (/) the enrichment of flour, bread, and degerminated and white rice using thiamin [59-43-8] C 2H y N O S, riboflavin [83-88-5] C2yH2QN4Na02P, niacin [59-67-6] CgH N02, and iron [7439-89-6]-, (2) the retention or restoration of thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, and iron in processed food cereals (J) the addition of vitamin D [67-97-0] to milk, fluid skimmed milk, and nonfat dry milk (4) the addition of vitamin A [68-26-8], C2qH2qO, to margarine, fluid skimmed milk, and nonfat dry milk (5) the addition of iodine [7553-56-2] to table salt and (6) the addition of fluoride [16984-48-8] to areas in which the water supply has a low fluoride content (74). 

Feedstock Development. Most of the research in process in the United States in the early 1990s on the selection of suitable biomass species for energy appHcations is limited to laboratory studies and small-scale test plots. Many of the research programs on feedstock development were started in the 1970s or early 1980s. 

United States Department of Energy, Clean CoalFechnology Demonstration Program, DOE/FE-0219P, U.S. Dept, of Energy, Washington, D.C., Feb. 1991. 

Shale Oil. In the United States, shale oil, or oil derivable from oil shale, represents the largest potential source of Hquid hydrocarbons that can be readily processed to fuel Hquids similar to those derived from natural petroleum. Some countries produce Hquid fuels from oil shale. There is no such industry in the United States although more than 50 companies were producing oil from coal and shale in the United States in 1860 (152,153), and after the oil embargo of 1973 several companies reactivated shale-oil process development programs (154,155). Petroleum supply and price stabiHty has since severely curtailed shale oil development. In addition, complex environmental issues (156) further prohibit demonstration of commercial designs. 

Appllca.tlons. The principal appHcations of nickel-base superalloys are in gas turbines, where they are utilized as blades, disks, and sheet metal parts. Abcraft gas turbines utilized in both commercial and military service depend upon superalloys for parts exposed to peak metal temperatures in excess of 1000°C. Typical gas turbine engines produced in the United States in 1990 utilized nickel and cobalt-base superalloys for 46% of total engine weight (41). However, programs for future aerospace propulsion systems emphasize the need for lightweight materials having greater heat resistance. For such apphcations, intermetallics matrix composites and ceramic composites are expected to be needed. 

Nuclear power has achieved an excellent safety record. Exceptions are the accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and at Chernobyl in 1986. In the United States, safety can be attributed in part to the strict regulation provided by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which reviews proposed reactor designs, processes appHcations forUcenses to constmct and operate plants, and provides surveillance of all safety-related activities of a utiUty. The utiUties seek continued improvement in capabiUty, use procedures extensively, and analy2e any plant incidents for their root causes. Similar programs intended to ensure reactor safety are in place in other countries. 

The recycle weapons fuel cycle rehes on the reservoir of SWUs and yellow cake equivalents represented by the fissile materials in decommissioned nuclear weapons. This variation impacts the prereactor portion of the fuel cycle. The post-reactor portion can be either classical or throwaway. Because the avadabihty of weapons-grade fissile material for use as an energy source is a relatively recent phenomenon, it has not been fully implemented. As of early 1995 the United States had purchased highly enriched uranium from Russia, and France had initiated a modification and expansion of the breeder program to use plutonium as the primary fuel (3). AH U.S. reactor manufacturers were working on designs to use weapons-grade plutonium as fuel. 

In the United States, Hquid HLW from the reprocessing of defense program fuels was concentrated, neutralized with NaOH, and stored in underground, mild steel tanks pending soHdification and geologic disposal (see Tanks AND PRESSURE VESSELS). These wastes are a complex and chemically active slurry. Suspended in the supernatant Hquid are dissolver soHds which never went into solution, insoluble reaction products which formed in the tank, and salts which have exceeded their solubiHty limit. The kinetics of many of the reactions taking place are slow (years) so that the results of characterization... 

K. P. Gant2, ed.. Nuclear Flight The United States Air Force Programs for Atomic Jets, Missiles, and Rockets, DueU, Sloan and Pearce, New York. 

Spent fuel can be stored or disposed of intact, in a once-through mode of operation, practiced by the U.S. commercial nuclear power industry. Alternatively, spent fuel can be reprocessed, ie, treated to separate the uranium, plutonium, and fission products, for re-use of the fuels (see Nuclear REACTORS, CHEMICAL reprocessing). In the United States reprocessing is carried out only for fuel from naval reactors. In the nuclear programs of some other countries, especially France and Japan, reprocessing is routine. 

The World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) has been formed, consisting of nuclear plant operators over the entire world who have pledged to assist each other in the achievement of safe operations (25). There are four centers from which this international program is adrninistered one in the United States in Atlanta, Georgia, operated by INPO one in Paris operated by Electricitir de Prance one in Moscow operated by the Ministry of Nuclear Power and one in Tokyo operated by the Central Research Institute for the Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI). Through this mechanism, teams of operators from the U.S., Western Europe, and Asia visit CIS plants to share safety experience and know-how, and similarly, plant personnel from Russian and Eastern European nuclear units visit European, Asian, and U.S. plants. 

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