Siting Transmission Lines in a Changed Milieu: Evolving Notions of the "Public Interest" In Balancing State and Regional Considerations

This Article discusses how state public utility law presents a barrier to the siting of new high voltage transmission lines to serve renewable resources, and how states could approach its evolution in order to preserve a role for state regulators in a new energy economy in which renewable energy will play a significant role. The traditional approach to determining the "public interest" in siting transmission lines is well on its way to obsolescence. Two developments over the past fifteen years have begun to challenge this paradigm. First, policies at the federal level and in many states have encouraged increased competition in generation, contributing to de-monopolization of the bulk power side of the industry. Second, the increased emphasis on environmental, energy independence, and other public policy objectives, has resulted in a dramatically increased demand for renewable energy, particularly given heightened attention to climate change. Given that wind power -- the most economically viable renewable resource on a bulk power basis -- is feasible predominantly in locations far removed from, load centers, the demand for new multistate transmission facilities has been brought clearly into focus. After an introduction in Part I, Part II describes the existing arrangements in several resource rich Western states for siting new transmission lines, and the coexistence of those arrangements with a conventional understanding of the public interest in determining need and addressing environmental concerns under traditional state transmission siting laws. Part III discusses transmission issues related to the competitive wholesale market and increased attention to climate change and highlights how federal law has expanded to accommodate some of these concerns. Part IV emphasizes the need for a new definition of the public interest which might better reflect these new market circumstances and opportunities, and highlights the two main barriers to this: 1) legislative and/or regulatory inertia and 2) an outdated cost-allocation model. The public interest under most state siting statutes is sufficiently capacious to give regulators some flexibility to evolve, but in other instances legislative action may be needed. In addition, the state cost-of-service ratemaking model must evolve to a more regional approach to allocating the costs of new transmission

Comparison between resistive and collisionless double tearing modes for nearby resonant surfaces

The linear instability and nonlinear dynamics of collisional (resistive) and collisionless (due to electron inertia) double tearing modes (DTMs) are compared with the use of a reduced cylindrical model of a tokamak plasma. We focus on cases where two q = 2 resonant surfaces are located a small distance apart. It is found that regardless of the magnetic reconnection mechanism, resistivity or electron inertia, the fastest growing linear eigenmodes may have high poloidal mode numbers m ~ 10. The spectrum of unstable modes tends to be broader in the collisionless case. In the nonlinear regime, it is shown that in both cases fast growing high-m DTMs lead to an annular collapse involving small magnetic island structures. In addition, collisionless DTMs exhibit multiple reconnection cycles due to reversibility of collisionless reconnection and strong ExB flows. Collisionless reconnection leads to a saturated stable state, while in the collisional case resistive decay keeps the system weakly dynamic by driving it back towards the unstable equilibrium maintained by a source term.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure

Magnetic Field Line Tracing Calculations for Conceptual PFC Design in the National Compact Stellarator Experiment

The National Compact Stellarator Experiment (NCSX) is a three-field period compact stellarator presently in the construction phase at Princeton, NJ. The design parameters of the device are major radius R=1.4m, average minor radius <a> = 0.32m, 1.2 {le} toroidal field (B{sub t}) {le} 1.7 T, and auxiliary input power up to 12 MW with neutral beams and radio-frequency heating. The NCSX average aspect ratio <R/a> of 4.4 lies well below present stellarator experiments and designs, enabling the investigation of high {beta} physics in a compact stellarator geometry. Also the NCSX design choice for a quasi-axisymmetric configuration aims toward the achievement of tokamak-like transport. In this paper, we report on the magnetic field line tracing calculations used to evaluate conceptual plasma facing component (PFC) designs. In contrast to tokamaks, axisymmetric target plates are not required to intercept the majority of the heat flux in stellarators, owing to the nature of the 3-D magnetic field footprint. The divertor plate design investigated in this study covers approximately one half of the toroidal extent in each period. Typical Poincare plots in Figure 1 illustrate the plasma cross-section at several toroidal angles for a computed NCSX high-beta equilibrium. The plates used for these calculations are centered in each period about the elongated cross-section shown in Figure 1a, extending to +/- {pi}/6 in each direction. Two methods for tracing the edge field line topology were used in this study. The first entails use of the VMEC/MFBE-2001 packages, whereas the second entails use of the PIES code with a post-processor by Michael Drevlak; the same field line integration routine was used to evaluate the equilibria for this comparison. Both inputs were generated based on the {beta}=4%, =iota=0.5 equilibrium computed from the final NCSX coil set. We first compare these two methods for a specific plate geometry, and conclude with a comparison of the strike characteristics for two different target plate poloidal lengths using the latter method. The details of the magnetic topology differ when computed with VMEC/MFBE as compared with an iterated PIES solution. This difference is illustrated in Figure 2. The presence of islands in the PIES solution effectively reduces the radius of the last closed magnetic surface (LCMS) by about 8 cm. As expected, this difference in the edge topology translates to a difference in field line terminations

Pressure-induced Breaking of Equilibrium Flux Surfaces in the W7AS Stellarator

Calculations are presented for two shots in the W7AS stellarator which differ only in the magnitude of the current in the divertor control coil, but have very different values of experimentally attainable β ( ≈ 2.7% versus ≈ 1.8%). Equilibrium calculations find that a region of chaotic magnetic field line trajectories fills approximately the outer 1/3 of the cross-section in each of these configurations. The field lines in the stochastic region are calculated to behave as if the flux surfaces are broken only locally near the outer midplane and are preserved elsewhere. The calculated magnetic field line diffusion coefficients in the stochastic regions for the two shots are consistent with the observed differences in the attainable β, and are also consistent with the differences in the reconstructed pressure profiles

Assessing proliferation, cell-cycle arrest and apoptotic end points in human buccal punch biopsies for use as pharmacodynamic biomarkers in drug development

Easily accessible normal tissues expressing the same molecular site(s) of drug action as malignant tissue offer an enhanced potential for early proof of anticancer drug mechanism and estimation of the biologically effective dose. Studies were undertaken in healthy male volunteers to assess the tolerability of single and multiple (four in 24 h) 3 mm punch biopsies of the buccal mucosa, and to determine the feasibility of detecting and quantifying a range of proliferation, cell-cycle arrest and apoptosis markers by immunohistochemistry (IHC) for use as potential pharmacodynamic (PD) end points. The biopsy procedure was well tolerated with 100% of volunteers stating that they would undergo single (n=10) and multiple (n=12) biopsies again. Total retinoblastoma protein (pRb), phosphorylated pRb (phospho-pRb), total p27, phosphorylated p27 (phospho-p27), phosphorylated-histone H3 (phospho-HH3), p21, p53, Cyclin A, Cyclin E, Ki67 all produced good signal detection, but M30, cleaved caspase 3 and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end labelling did not. Total pRb, phospho-pRb, total p27 and phospho-p27 were quantified further in a multiple biopsy study to allow components of variability to be addressed to inform future sizing decisions on intervention studies. Neither site of biopsy within the oral cavity, nor the nominal time of biopsy had any significant impact on any of the four markers expression levels. Inter- and intrasubject coefficients of variation (CVs) that could be used to size future intervention studies for pRb, phospho-pRb, total p27 and phospho-p27 were 14, 19, 18 and 16%; and 18, 29, 25 and 19%, respectively. In conclusion, quantitation of such markers in 3 mm buccal punch biopsies would be suitable to explore as PD end points within intervention studies of drugs acting on these pathways