Statement Submitted to Environmental Protection Agency for the Public Meeting, February 22, 1978, San Francisco Regarding Modification of Secondary Treatment Requirements

The principal technical reason for having a waiver provision for secondary treatment for municipal discharges is that for some outfall systems the dilution is so high that very good ambient water quality can be achieved with less than secondary treatment. Therefore, the criteria for a waiver of the secondary treatment requirement must give full consideration to the dilution obtained by the outfall system. In a high performance outfall diffuser, such as those used by major dischargers in California and Hawaii, initial dilutions are typically 100:1, and may range up to 1000:1 in very favorable circumstances

Statement to Water Resources Subcommittee of House Committee on Public Works and Transportation for a Hearing, May 24 and 25, 1978, Washington, D.C. regarding Secondary Treatment Waivers and Ocean Outfalls

The principal technical reason for having a waiver provision for secondary treatment for municipal discharges is that for some outfall systems the dilution is so high that very good ambient water quality can be achieved with less than secondary treatment. Therefore, the criteria for a waiver of the secondary treatment requirement must give full consideration to the dilution obtained by the outfall system. In a high performance outfall diffuser, such as those used by major dischargers in California and Hawaii, initial dilutions are typically 100:1, and may range up to 1000:1 in very favorable circumstances

Alkali metal carbon dioxide electrochemical system for energy storage and/or conversion of carbon dioxide to oxygen

An alkali metal, such as lithium, is the anodic reactant; carbon dioxide or a mixture of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide is the cathodic reactant; and carbonate of the alkali metal is the electrolyte in an electrochemical cell for the storage and delivery of electrical energy. Additionally, alkali metal-carbon dioxide battery systems include a plurality of such electrochemical cells. Gold is a preferred catalyst for reducing the carbon dioxide at the cathode. The fuel cell of the invention produces electrochemical energy through the use of an anodic reactant which is extremely energetic and light, and a cathodic reactant which can be extracted from its environment and therefore exacts no transportation penalty. The invention is, therefore, especially useful in extraterrestrial environments

Environmental Quality Laboratory Research Report, 1985-1987

The Environmental Quality Laboratory at Caltech is a center for research on large-scale systems problems of natural resources and environmental quality. The principal areas of investigation at EQL are: 1. Air quality management. 2. Water resources and water quality management. 3. Control of hazardous substances in the environment. 4. Energy policy, including regulation, conservation and energy-environment tradeoffs. 5. Resources policy (other than energy); residuals management. EQL research includes technical assessments, computer modeling, studies of environmental control options, policy analyses, and research on important components of the large-scale systems. Field work is also undertaken at EQL, some in collaboration with other organizations, to provide critical data needed for evaluation of systems concepts and models. EQL's objectives are as follows: 1. To do systematic studies of environmental and resources problems. The results of these studies, including the clarification of policy alternatives, are communicated to decision-makers in government and industry, to the research community, and to the public. As an organization, EQL refrains from advocating particular policies, but seeks to point out the implications of the various policy alternatives. 2. To contribute to the education and training of people in these areas through involvement of predoctoral students, postdoctoral fellows, and visiting faculty members in EQL activities. This educational effort is just as important as the results of the studies themselves, and should make lasting contributions to the nation's ability to solve its environmental and resources problems. The work at EQL goes beyond the usual academic research in that it tries to organize and develop the knowledge necessary to clarify society's alternatives by integrating relevant disciplines. EQL works on solving problems of specific localities when there is a strong element of public interest or educational value, or the concepts and results are applicable to other places. The research of EQL during this period was done under the supervision of faculty members in Environmental Engineering Science, Chemical Engineering, and Social Science. This research report covers the period from October 1985 through September 1987. The publications listed under the individual project descriptions are the new ones for the reporting period

Assessment of waste heat management issues

The Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (P.L. 92-500) defined the discharge of cooling water, e.g. from once-through power plant cooling systems, into natural water bodies as a form of pollution. Furthermore, P.L. 92-500 directed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop a policy for controlling this "pollution" with "best available technology economically achievable" by 1983 for old sources and with "best available demonstrated control technology" taking "into consideration the cost of achieving such effluent reduction, and any non-water quality environmental impact and energy requirement" for new sources. In addition, the law provided for special exemptions, Section 316(a), from these regulations for waste heat sources which could show that they have had or will have no appreciable effect on the ecology of the water body. The purposes of this project element are (a) to assess present EPA policy and administrative actions regarding waste heat management and (b) to determine if this policy is really protecting the aquatic environment with the least possible increase in other social costs, including energy use, pollution in other media, and administrative effort

Phase Transitions Driven by QuasiParticle Interactions

Quasiparticles and collective effects may have seemed exotic when first proposed in the 1930s, but their status has blossomed with their confirmation by todays sophisticated experiment techniques. Evidence has accumulated about the interactions of, say, magnons and rotons and with each other and also other quasiparticles. We briefly review the conjectures of their existence necessary to provide quantitative agreement with experiment which in the early period was their only reason for being. Phase transitions in the Anderson model, the Kondo effect, roton roton interactions, and highly correlated systems such as helium4, the Quantum Hall Effect, and BEC condensates are discussed. Some insulator and superconductor theories seem to suggest collective interactions of several quasiparticles may be necessary to explain the behavior. We conclude with brief discussions of the possibility of using the parameter to detect quantum critical points and some background on bound states emerging from the continuum. Finally, we present a summary and conclusions and also discuss possible future directions.Comment: 1 Tabl

Formal verification and testing: An integrated approach to validating Ada programs

An integrated set of tools called a validation environment is proposed to support the validation of Ada programs by a combination of methods. A Modular Ada Validation Environment (MAVEN) is described which proposes a context in which formal verification can fit into the industrial development of Ada software