Nuclear Power for United Arab Emirates

Wall Street Journal on December 28, 2009 reports $20+ billion estimate for four units to be built by a Korean team. Elsewhere I have read that retirees from USNRC have been on the scene at UAE. It will be fun to watch these developments. So far, we can expect further applications of Regulation by Myth. Following is copied from the WSJ.

Nukiyama was first and best

During the early 1930's Professor Shiro Nukiyama discovered a lot with a platinum wire that simultaneously served as a heat transfer element and a resistance thermometer when he explored heat transfer to water at one atmosphere. He recalled his 50 years of experience in an article in the 1984 issue of the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer. Click on the page below that has portions of Nukiyama's recollections in 1984 and note the reference to his work that was published in 1934. Click on the following to enlarge.

So, about 74 years after Nukiyama's pioneering work, the Berkeley crowd and others cited Nukiyama's work, however they did not cite Nukiyama. Instead, the Nukiyama work was attributed to a document published during 1992 by one of their own. One of the authors, Majumdar, is now with the Obama gang as he runs the new ARPA-E (EARPA). Again, click to enlarge.

Blowdown Heat Transfer -- Unbelievable

Following is one page from a December 14 entry on this matter that I am still working on and it has not been posted. I have several references with an abstract that I'm writing. The following really does not stand on it own and that is too bad, but I want it out here now. Click to enlarge and use your back arrow to return.

IT TAKES TIME, AND MORE TIME. HOPELESS?

I'm after those RBHT documents. See my blog entries of November 13 and December 3, 2009. So, I've heard from my Congressman, and he is a great Congressman. The NRC knows how to not respond. Click on the letters to enlarge.

Another approach: Rod Bundle Heat Transfer at Penn State

I've already reported other approaches to get these reports. Right now I'm also trying via a Petition for Rulemaking to the NRC. Here it is, three pages. Click to enlarge and use the back arrow to return for the next page:

Starvation

The following poster is from the Fall 2009 issue of the HOOVER DIGEST. The Digest reports the folowing:

A Soviet poster from 1931 presents a busy harvest scene, watched by spiteful counterrevolutionaries and foreign invaders. "Bread is our strength," it reads. "A grave for invaders. Gather the harvest." Sheaves become weapons that wound a rich peasant, a priest,a capitalist, and a czarist. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, like this poster, was intimately acquainted with using food as a weapon: at the time this exhortation was printed, collectivization was causing widespread famine and would kill millions of people.

Wiley Post, 55,000 feet, December 7, 1934, Yankee Ingenuity at Work. Great!

More Rod Bundle Heat Transfer at Penn State

You may scroll down to my prior entry. So, today I mailed the appeal to the NRC's Executive Director of Operations. I was not permitted to e-mail the following, however, I sent it to my Senator Mike Crapo and Congressman Mike Simpson as well as Chairman NRC by e-mail. Here it is, and I'm not holding my breath for the EDO to respond:

Robert H. Leyse
P. O. Box 2850
Sun Valley, ID 83353

November 13, 3009

Executive Director of Operations
U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, D. C. 20555

Fee Waiver Appeal FOIA-2010-0008

The NRC’s denial of my request is a matter of record at the NRC. It is likely tragic that the NRC has withheld timely publication of the results from Rod Bundle Test Facility and Heat Transfer Program at Penn State.

As a condition for releasing the documents to me and the public, the NRC demands that I devote substantial resources to addressing issues related to public awareness. I have nothing to add beyond what I have already disclosed to the NRC.

Please expedite the release of the following:

L. E. Hochreiter, F. B. Cheung, T. F. Lin, C. Frepoli, A. Sridharan, D. R. Todd, E. R. Rosal, "Rod Bundle Heat Transfer Facility Test Plan and Design," NUREG/CR Report, Submitted to U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, October 2008 (218 pages)


L. E. Hochreiter, F. B. Cheung, T. F. Lin, S. Ergun, A. Sridharan, A. Ireland, E. R. Rosal, "RBHT Reflood Heat Transfer Experiments Data and Analysis Report," NUREG/CR Report, Submitted to U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, October 2008 (338 pages)

L. E. Hochreiter, F. B. Cheung, , T. F. Lin, D. J. Miller, B. R. Lowery, "RBHT Two Phase Mixture Level Swell and Uncovery Experiments Data Report" NUREG/CR Report, Submitted to U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, December 2008 (198 pages)


L. E. Hochreiter, F. B. Cheung, , T. F. Lin, D. M. McLaughlin, J. P. Spring, P. M. Kutzler, and S. Ergun, "Rod Bundle Heat Transfer Facility ? Steady State Steam Cooling Experiments," NUREG/CR Report, Submitted to U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, December 2008 (206 page)

L. E. Hochreiter, F. B. Cheung, , T. F. Lin, D. J. Miller, B. R. Lowery, "Rod Bundle Heat Transfer Facility Steam Cooling with Droplet Injection Experiments Data Report," NUREG/CR Report, Submitted to U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, December 2008 (427 pages)


L. E. Hochreiter, F. B. Cheung, and T. F. Lin, "Rod Bundle Heat Transfer Phase II Monthly Reports," PSU/MNE Report, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, January 2006, 2006.



Robert H. Leyse

Rod Bundle Heat Transfer at Penn State

Our great NRC Commissioners flit all over the globe while they conveniently overlook where all of our dough goes.

Here is a set of documents that were generated by Penn State at our expense and the clerks of NRC staff prefer that the public remains unaware of this. I've gone after the Chairman NRC who sent my request to the PDR. The PDR went after NRR who responded that the docs were under review and they had no idea when the review would be completed.

So, I went after the docs via FOIA and have been told that for about $800 in fees payable right now, the NRC would work on getting the docs. Well, I appealed that and was turned down, but I now have 30 days to appeal that denial. So the delays continue.

Of course, I am infuriated. I told the Chairman (way back on October 8, 2009) "You must have your staff immediately release the documents that I have requested. Place these in NRC's public document system with accessibility via ADAMS and do it now." Well, I'm still waiting for him to do it now. He was at INPO a few days ago, November 5, 2009, and told that fine body as part of 1800 words, "So if there are two things I ask of you on the topic of new reactors, it is to give us high quality and complete applications, and have faith in the process we have established to review them."

Maybe I should suggest to the Chairman that he send INPO the following set of docs so they can assist their funding members in producing high quality output. However, NRR will likely never get around to using these reports and that will be OK with the lobbyists.

REBEKA was complex, Leyse's J-LOOP taught more.

Below is a great design. The power is too low (no fun). During 1973 Blogger Leyse was at W having a great time (below). Now the real fun was with blowdown from full power, likely about 18 kW/foot, but do not ask me to prove it. Anyway DNB came fast, as you can see! This was at Forest Hills. The "experts" up the street wanted several seconds. Too bad!


OK, today is November 8, 2009,and here is more J-Loop stuff. I left W during 1974, however, W feasted via EPRI on the J-Loop system that I left behind. I have the following EPRI report, EPRI NP-1793, April 1981, Full Scale Controlled Transient Heat Transfer Tests - Facility Description, Here is the cover:

And below is the axial power distribution of the heater rods. I scanned this figure from NP-1793, however, I had to redo scales and captions because the original was too light. This likely is the power distribution that I used in the 1973 plot that appears above. Click on it to enlarge.
Now, I would really like to have the test data from that EPRI funded work, but I do not have the reports that are referenced in NP-1793, these are EPRI Final Report NP-1810, Volumes 1 and 2 and EPRI Final Report NP-1792. I'm trying to get copies.

Cheap Juice?

So, who needs more electricity? Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2009. However, we must mandate wind in order to save the business, also in Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2009. More later. Click to enlarge.

Supercritical Heat Transfer, the piston effect

I'll insert the figure later.

Figure 3. Thermalisation in microgravity of a supercritical fluid (SF 6 ) after a heat pulse. T1, T2 and T3 are measuring thermistors. The thermalisation by the piston effect is fast and complete, whereas the peak temperature due to heat conduction is reached much later. (Courtesy of D. Beysens, CEA, Saclay, France)

NRC rigs its "ground testing" MORE LATER

Shifting Sands For Boeing's Dreamliner

Boeing has scrubbed its schedule for the production of its all-composite 787 Dreamliner as it works to reinforce the aircraft's wing section while customers have scrubbed orders for about 72 of the jets this year, including 15 dropped by Qantas last week. Still the order book for the untested, unfinished aircraft stands at roughly 850 for a list price total of more than $151 billion. The aircraft's first flight has seen four delays that have so far put the jet two years behind schedule, and the cascade of reactions to that reality include Boeing's bartering with carriers who still hold orders for the aircraft. Among those, All Nippon Airways has actually added five more of the jetliners to its orders, which may give a glimpse into the complicated contracts that manufacturers create with their clients. Media reports say some customers are seeking compensation for the delays as Boeing's delays disrupt their strategic operating plans amid volatile oil costs and a depressed economy. On the upside, Boeing has the opportunity to avoid penalties with remaining customers as they gain some flexibility in delivery schedules among fewer buyers. On the downside, the jet hasn't flown yet and after extensive computer modeling, ground tests have detected structural flaws that require structural changes.

NRC stays fat via obfuscation of ECCS.

So, I've just copied this from NRC's ADAMS. More featherbedding and obfuscation by our well-fed feds.

n a May 13, 2008, memorandum from R. W. Borchardt entitled, “Updated Schedule for Rulemaking—Emergency Core Cooling System Acceptance Criteria” (Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Accession No. ML081260311), the staff informed the Commission of the status of the 10 CFR 50.46(b) rulemaking activities and outlined a rulemaking approach that included a decision point about the adequacy of the technical basis (WITS No. 200800238). Based on comments received from public stakeholders and internal discussions, the staff identified further research to enhance the existing technical basis. The staff outlined these additional research activities as well as a revised rulemaking plan and schedule in a December 19, 2008, memorandum entitled, “Status of Rulemaking on Emergency Core Cooling System Acceptance Criteria” (ADAMS Accession No. ML083440156 [?] ).

The technical basis supporting a revision to the 10 CFR 50.46(b) ECCS acceptance criteria is complete, and the rulemaking is progressing in accordance with the schedule outlined in the memorandum dated December 19, 2008. The staff completed the additional research activities outlined in that memorandum on schedule (ADAMS Accession Nos. ML090690711 and ML090700193). These items supplement the technical basis, which can be found in the following two documents: (1) NRC Research Information Letter 0801, “Technical Basis for Revision of Embrittlement Criteria in 10 CFR 50.46,” dated May 30, 2008 (ADAMS Accession No. ML081350225); and (2) M. Billone, Y. Yan, T. Burtseva, and R. Daum, “Cladding Embrittlement during Postulated Loss-of-Coolant Accidents,” NUREG/CR-6967 (ANL-07/04), July 2008 (ADAMS Accession No. ML082130389). Staff members from the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation and the Office of New Reactors are working with the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research (RES) to develop an acceptable regulatory framework for the comprehensive laboratory testing requirements developed by RES. Once completed, the staff will issue these testing procedures for public comment as part of an advance notice of proposed rulemaking scheduled for publication in August 2009. This memorandum satisfies the requirements of WITS No. 200800238.
cc: SECY

CRUD 1982 and 2006

Of course, crud has been around prior to 1982 and it will be around a long time after 2006. This snapshot is revealing. Click to enlarge. I may elaborate later.

The Westinghouse presentation to the ACRS refers to, "boron induced power shift." When this phenomenon was first experienced it was referred to as "Axial Offset Anomaly" (AOA).

NRC should learn, June 25, 2009

Boeing's Latest Dreamliner Setback

Boeing said on Tuesday that first flight of the 787 Dreamliner will be postponed again, due to a need to reinforce an area within the side-of-body section of the aircraft, and it will be several weeks before a new first flight or delivery date will be announced. Boeing officials had said as recently as last week at the Paris Air Show that the Dreamliner's first flight would take place by the end of this month, and deliveries would start by next March. The need to modify the aircraft raised questions about whether the computer models that are used to design aircraft and predict performance are adequate, especially when using advanced composite materials, but officials at Boeing said the process is working as it should: Computer models predict how the design will behave, but extensive real-world testing is always required to validate those predictions and, if necessary, modify the models.

NRC claims that its code, TRACE, is ready for licensing. That is false.

Obama crook Wall Street Journal

This recent letter to the Wall Street Journal briefly covers a lot of ground.

Kangaroo Court and the National Science Foundation

Here is a definition I copied: More later.

Kangaroo courts are sham legal proceedings which are set-up in order to give the impression of a fair legal process. In fact, they offer no impartial justice as the verdict, invariably to the detriment of the accused, is decided in advance.

Blastout during scram with leaking oxide fuel at high power density

So it does not happen often, but it has happened. At a recent meeting of the NRC's ACRS, one member wondered if a rapid shutdown could induce a PCI failure and the expert replied that, "We've never seen that."

Of course, the expert is likely correct that a PCI cladding opening has never been induced by a reactor scram. However, a reactor scram has induced severe additional failure of defected fuel that was operating at high power density. The readers who have the patience may scroll down to my entry of June 13, 2008, in which I detail events at GETR on July 12, 1959, along with hot cell photographs of blasted fuel.

Here are a few sentences from the recent meeting of the ACRS subcommittee:

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON MATERIALS, METALLURGY AND
REACTOR FUELS
+ + + + +
TUESDAY
MARCH 3, 2009
+ + + + +
ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND

MEMBER RAY: Is there -- everything you talked about, Sam, had to do with raising power, ramp rate, increasing power. I just kept thinking to myself is there symmetrical problem on the downside with a unit trip or something like that in terms of stress levels?

CHAIR ARMIJO: No. Actually, I have never known a fuel rod to fail when you reduce power. You reduce power as a result of failure, that's typical. Actually it unloads. Everything unloads. As you drop power the pellets contract thermally so the stresses, whatever stresses are there and there is just no -- this is stress corrosion cracking mechanism. Unless there is a mechanism to put stress on the cladding, it just won't happen.

MEMBER RAY: Well, that's what I was thinking about. Is there a mechanism on a down-power, rapid down-power that has the same affect?

CHAIR ARMIJO: We've never seen that.

Well, during summer 1959, GETR had a wild time with blastout of a leaking oxide fuel element that had center melting. On July 20, 1962, a recurrence was avoided by by complying with the following Leyse procedure. I addressed this note to Kornblith with a copy to Thorburn. Thorburn sent it to O’Rourke who sent it to Akin who returned it to O’Rourke with this note. The copy came back to me and I filed it.

This procedure made life a lot easier at GETR on July 20, 1962, when test fuel operating at very high power density developed a leak. When the fuel was removed from the PWL, a large blasted zone was not present, although the some fission products were released during removal of the fuel.

As usual, the regulators (then the AEC) did not appreciate initiative from the GETR staff as they followed this guidance. An inspector asked, “Are the operators afraid to scram this reactor?” Click on each slide to enlarge and use the return arrow to get back here.

My email to Chairman NRC - The TRACE Mess

TO: Chairman NRC:

I am amazed that the NRC refuses to provide its public with the documents that I requested under FOIA/PA 2009-0067. I was sent very heavily sanitized reports by each of the four consultants and that is unsatisfactory. The TRACE game has been going on for over 30 years and the NRC now claims that, “Disclosure of predecisional information would tend to inhibit the open and frank exchange of ideas essential to the deliberative process.” This is highly absurd. What the NRC is inhibiting is the open and frank exchange of ideas with its public; an open and frank exchange that is essential to public understanding, participation and acceptance of nuclear power and other NRC regulated activities.

The American public has the right to expect accurate claims when the NRC labels the readiness of TRACE. NRC labeled TRACE as follows at ACRS on September 4, 2008:

TRACE IS NOW READY TO BE

FULLY INCORPORATED INTO THE NRC'S

REGULATORY FRAMEWORK

I doubt that TRACE is now ready to be fully incorporated into the NRC’s regulatory framework. In addressing my doubts, I would value the complete set of the reviewers’ reports that I requested under FOIA/PA 2009-0067.

For some time I’ve been thinking about River Bend’s performance during cycles 8 and 11. The following should not be outside of NRC’s regulatory framework and it would be a great challenge for TRACE.

The design basis for the emergency core cooling system ("ECCS") at River Bend-for clean cladding, without heavy crud and oxide layers-is described in Chapter 6.3 of the RBS USAR. It states that at the onset of a LOCA, the cladding surface temperature would be in the range of 578"F, and that the PCT would be 1580°F. However, with heavy crud and oxide layers on the cladding (the conditions of cycles 8 and 11) the ECCS design basis for River Bend is substantially non-conservative. With the heavy fouling of the fuel elements at River Bend Cycles 8 and 11, the following would have characterized a LOCA in contrast to the design basis for the emergency core cooling system.

1. Reduced coolant flow at the heavily fouled fuel prior to and during the LOCA.
2. Reduced coolant inventory in the vicinity of the heavily fouled fuel at the start of LOCA.
3. Massive oxidation of the heavily fouled fuel at the start of LOCA.
4. Extensive absorption of hydrogen and oxygen in the heavily fouled fuel at the start of LOCA.
5. Higher starting temperature of the heavily fouled fuel at the start of LOCA. {The cladding surface temperature at some locations at River Bend Cycle 8 has been reported to have reached temperatures approaching 1200°F1}.
6. Substantially greater stored energy of that fuel at the start of LOCA.

The above factors mean that:

The duration of the LOCA is substantially increased. The peak temperature is substantially increased. The time to reach peak temperature is substantially increased. The time to quench is substantially increased; indeed the NRC’s assumed quench process will not apply at the agglomeration consisting of the degraded fuel and the thick fouling. The fuel element damage is substantially increased, normal cooling paths are blocked, subsequent cooling of the fuel element is relatively ineffective and further damage of the fuel proceeds during the so-called long term cooling.

1NRC, "River Bend Station - NRC Problem Identification and Resolution Inspection Report 050045812005008," 02/28/06, Report Details, p. 10, located at: www.nrc.gov, Electronic Reading Room, ADAMS Documents, Accession Number: ML060600503.

FOIA Games at NRC

FOlA Resource
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:
uid no body [nobody@www.nrc.gov]
Wednesday, March 1 1, 2009 8: 11 PM
FOlA Resource
WWW Form Submission


Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted
on Wednesday, March 1 1, 2009 at 20: 1 1 :22


FirstName: Robert
LastName: leyse

Desc: Slide 11 of 16, page 424 of 429 in the transcript, was presented to ACRS on September 4, 2008.
Now I am focusing on the third line from the bottom of slide 11 which is:
Model for nucleate boiling is overly complex and ad hoc


So, I want:
1. The model for nucleate boiling
2. The identification of the consultant who observed that the model is overly complex, etc.
3. The related remarks of that consultant.


Via FOIAIPA 2009-006# I have received the report of each of the four consultants. However, under Exemption 5, one of your Directors (Sheron)deleted just about everything.




The NRC response to my request is that there are records that are already publicly available. This is bunk. The NRC did not send any of the three items that I requested

Re: FOIA/PA-2009-0110
APPENDIX A
RECORDS ALREADY PUBLICLY AVAILABLE
NO. DATE
1. 6/18/2008
ACCESSION NUMBER
ML071000097
DESCRIPTION/(PAGE COUNT)
Draft-Trace V5.0 Theory Manual - Volume
1: Field Equations, Solution Methods, and
Physical Models.


Wall Heat Transfer Models

This chapter describes the TRACE wall heat transfer package. We have grouped the models that are presented into five separate sections:

•Pre-CHF Heat Transfer: models for wall-liquid convection, nucleate boiling, and
subcooled boiling.

•Critical Heat Flux: models for the peak heat flux in the nucleate boiling heat transferregime and the wall temperature at which it occurs.

•Minimum Film Boiling Temperature: the temperature above which wall-liquid contact
does not occur.

•Post-CHF Heat Transfer: models for transition and film boiling heat transfer.

•Condensation Heat Transfer: models for film condensation and the non-condensable gas
effect.

The Cartel of University Administrators -- An Undue Concentration of Research and Education(in preparation)

March 23, 2009, 6:09 pm — Updated: 9:38 pm -->
Obama and Energy Chief Push Innovation



The great thing about Bell Labs, he said, was its reliance on nurturing young talent. “Bell Labs did not hire established scientists,” Dr. Chu said. “They grew their own.”
Now, he said, the country’s challenge is to grow a generation of energy innovators, a challenge made harder because innovation has never been much of a priority within the energy industry.



How Professors Think
Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment


Michèle Lamont
Contents
2. Opening the Black Box of Peer Review
3. How Panels Work
4. On Disciplinary Cultures
5. Pragmatic Fairness: Customary Rules of Deliberation
6. Recognizing Various Kinds of Excellence
7. Considering Interdisciplinarity and Diversity
8. Implications in the United States and Abroad
Appendix: Methods and Data Analysis
Notes
References
Acknowledgments
Index



Excellence. Originality. Intelligence. Everyone in academia stresses quality. But what exactly is it, and how do professors identify it?



In the academic evaluation system known as “peer review,” highly respected professors pass judgment, usually confidentially, on the work of others. But only those present in the deliberative chambers know exactly what is said. Michèle Lamont observed deliberations for fellowships and research grants, and interviewed panel members at length. In How Professors Think, she reveals what she discovered about this secretive, powerful, peculiar world.



Leyse Remarks to Congressman Mike Simpson



Robert H. Leyse
222 Elkhorn Road
Sun Valley, ID 83353

February 14, 2009

Congressman Mike Simpson
U. S. House of Representatives
1339 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Mike:

Congratulations on your vote against Obama’s bail out bill.

Today I’ve read my February 13, 2009, Wall Street Journal and I note that, “The National Science Foundation will receive $3 billion for research funding.” That $3 billion is a big boost to the $7 billion that NSF already receives. Of course, it is only a speck inside of the nearly trillion dollar package. Nevertheless, it is tragic that the NSF cartel of university administrators gets this additional handout.

Section 3(e) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Act of 1950, as amended, states that: "...it shall be an objective of the Foundation to strengthen research and education in the sciences and engineering, including independent research by individuals, throughout the United States, and to avoid undue concentration of such research and education."

In reality, NSF avoids funding “independent research by individuals.” In fact, NSF resents such applications for funding. It is a fact that the cartel of university officials has a preferred and somewhat closed access to NSF funding.

We need legislation to partially reform NSF. Right now, when an investigator submits a proposal to NSF, the investigator’s background is revealed to the evaluators of the proposal. The identification of the evaluators is never revealed to the investigator. This must be changed. The investigator’s background should never be revealed to the evaluators of the proposal. The identification of the evaluators should be disclosed to the investigator when an award, or the refusal of an award, is announced. Right now, the evaluators discriminate against investigators from outside of the academic world. Evaluators should be forced to evaluate a proposal based on its merits and not on the academic connections of the investigator. American innovators need a fair deal.

Thank you for your attention to this. I’ll write more next week.



Robert H. Leyse





Leyse Remarks to Bement, head of NSF



Robert H. Leyse
P. O. Box 2850
Sun Valley, ID 83353

January 26, 2009

Dr. Arden L. Bement, Director
National Science Foundation
4201 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, Virginia 22230

Dear Dr. Bement:

Substantial Reform of NSF Proposal Review Process

The NSF proposal review process must be substantially reformed. Currently, NSF assigns four reviewers to each proposal. Four reviews are written and consolidated into one consensus review. The identification and qualifications of the applicant are disclosed to the reviewers. However, the identifications and qualifications of the reviewers are never disclosed to the applicant. Essentially this is a caste system.

A better system would be as follows: The identification of the applicant and the applicant’s organization would not be disclosed to the reviewers. This would force the reviewers to focus on the technical merits of the proposal without being influenced by relatively unrelated factors. The identification of the reviewers would be disclosed to the applicant when the reviews are presented to the applicant. Also, reviewers would have no access to the financial aspects of the proposal.

Of course, the Program Director would have complete access to all data related to the proposal. He would use the technical review as the keystone factor, but not the only factor, in selecting a proposal for NSF funding.

Dr. Bement, reform of the present caste setup is long overdue. In a nutshell, the identification and qualifications of the applicant should not be disclosed to the reviewers. Only the Program Director should have access to the entire proposal. The identifications and qualifications of the reviewers should not be perpetually hidden from the applicant. Please let me know whom I may contact within NSF so that I may track the status of these necessary reforms.






Robert H. Leyse


Copy to:

Congressman Mike Simpson
District Office
Boise, Idaho

Bement's Response to Leyse (Received April 2, composed March 19)



Ensure that the discovery-innovation institutes lead to transformative change.

Exploration is defunct at NSF and NRC

Recently a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society got it right when he quoted a complaint from a fellow member: "Observation in the real world and small-scale experiments on the Earth now take second place to expensive and ever-expanding theoretical models of questionalbe reliability."

In the case of our NRC the TRACE game is a concrete example of an expensive and ever-expanding theoretical model that is demonstrably unreliable.

And NSF will dump a proposal for exploratory work unless the package includes a preponderance of theoretical nonsense.

Chu at Energy Featherbeds in Subservience to his Emperor

This is recent. Chu encouraged revelry as he revealed this at Brookhaven, one of several of his favorite spending spots. This dough goes largely for construction projects in support of existing games. It is a way to blow our money fast, as the great Emperor Obama dictates.


$1.2B Allocated to Science

UPTON, N.Y., March 24, 2009 – $1.2 billion in new science funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was announced Monday by Department of Energy (DoE) Secretary Steven Chu. The amount includes support for research in particle and plasma physics, solar energy, solid-state lighting and superconductivity.

Chu said the money will be used for major construction, laboratory infrastructure and research efforts sponsored by the DoE Office of Science. He made the announcement during a visit to Brookhaven National Laboratory, one of 10 national laboratories overseen by the Office of Science.

Many of the projects funded under the Recovery Act are located at national labs (21 national laboratories and technology centers operate under the DoE). “Leadership in science remains vital to America’s economic prosperity, energy security and global competitiveness,” said Chu. “These projects not only provide critically needed short-term economic relief but also represent a strategic investment in our nation’s future. They will create thousands of jobs and breathe new life into many local economies, while helping to accelerate new technology development, renew our scientific and engineering workforce, and modernize our nation’s scientific infrastructure.”

The package also provides substantial support for both university- and national laboratory-based researchers, working on problems in fields ranging from particle and plasma physics to biofuels, solar energy, superconductivity, solid-state lighting, and electricity storage and materials science, among others, Chu said. Included among the approved projects:
$150 million to accelerate ongoing construction on the National Synchrotron Light Source-II at Brookhaven. This new, state-of-the-art high-intensity light source is expected to facilitate major breakthroughs in next-generation energy technologies, materials science and biotechnology that could lead to advances in battery technology and photovoltaics.

$123 million for major construction, modernization and needed decommissioning of laboratory facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), in Oak Ridge, Tenn.; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), in Berkeley, Calif.; and Brookhaven.

$65 million to accelerate construction of the 12-Billion-Electron-Volt Upgrade of the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF) in Newport News, Va. The CEBAF upgrade will provide an international community of physicists with a cutting-edge facility for studying the basic building blocks of the visible universe. The advanced particle accelerator technology being developed for this project also has had important medical applications.

$277 million for Energy Frontier Research Centers, to be awarded on a competitive basis to universities and national laboratories across the country. These centers will accelerate the basic science needed to develop plentiful and cost-effective alternative energy sources and will pursue advanced fundamental research in fields ranging from solar energy to nuclear energy systems, biofuels, geological sequestration of carbon dioxide, clean and efficient combustion, solid-state lighting, superconductivity, hydrogen research, electrical energy storage, catalysis for energy and materials under extreme conditions.

$90 million to create and save jobs for other core research, providing support for graduate students, postdocs and PhD scientists.

$69 million to create a national-scale prototype 100-Gb/s data network linking research centers nationwide.

$330 million for operations and equipment at Office of Science major scientific user facilities, used annually by more than 20,000 researchers.

Facilities supported by Recovery Act funding include, among others, the Spallation Neutron Source at ORNL, the world’s most intense pulsed accelerator-based neutron source, used in advanced materials science, chemistry and biology research; the Nanoscale Science Research Centers located at five national labs nationwide, which provide nanotechnology instrumentation; the ARM Climate Research Facility, a collection of climate measurement facilities located around the globe that gather atmospheric data needed to reduce uncertainty about climate change; the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), which provides unique instrumentation and computational capabilities for environmental science; and the Linac Coherent Light Source, currently under construction at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) in Menlo Park, Calif., which will enable scientists for the first time to observe chemical reactions at the molecular level in real time.

In addition, the Recovery Act funding provides $125 million for needed infrastructure improvements across nine DoE national laboratories: Ames Laboratory in Ames, Iowa; Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill.; Brookhaven National Laboratory; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill.; LBNL; ORNL; PNNL in Richland, Wash.; SLAC; and TJNAF.

The $1.2 billion is the first installment of a total of $1.6 billion allocated by Congress to the DoE Office of Science under the Recovery Act legislation. Officials are still working to facilitate approval and release of the remaining $371 million. For more information, visit: http://www.energy.gov/

And here is more:
Obama and Energy Chief Push Innovation
By Andrew C. Revkin
Andrew C. Revkin/ The New York Times Energy Secretary Steven Chu described the need for an energy revolution, driven by basic research, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island.
[UPDATE, 9:15 p.m. See below.] Three months ago Dot Earth asked, “Are Chemists, Engineers on Green Jobs List?” The answer appears to be yes.

In a two-pronged push, President Obama and Steven Chu, the secretary of energy and Nobel laureate in physics, spent the middle of the day Monday laying out the administration’s plans to link economic renewal with an energy revolution.Mr. Obama met with energy-technology entrepreneurs and researchers near the White House at an event called “Investing in Our Clean Energy Future.” One highlight is $400 million set aside under the economic-recovery bill for an advanced research agency for energy, Arpa-E, modeled along the lines of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

On eastern Long Island, Dr. Chu had a somewhat wistful air as he toured projects at Brookhaven National Laboratory. (It was his first stop at a national laboratory since taking his cabinet job.) He peppered staff scientists and engineers with questions about physics projects related to the origins of the universe and possible causes of Alzheimer’s disease before being nudged forward by hurried aides. He was there to announce how $1.2 billion in the stimulus bill would be spent on science projects at Brookhaven and elsewhere around the country’s network of 10 national laboratories.

[UPDATE] After visiting various research buildings, he gave a pep talk on the energy revolution he said was vital if the United States and the world are to avoid conflicts over limited supplies of oil and eventual disruptive impacts from human-caused global warming.

Over and over, in examples from the first transcontinental telephone call to the transistor to methods for synthesizing ammonia (and thus nitrogen fertilizer), Dr. Chu pointed out how great technological advances benefiting society grew out of fundamental breakthroughs in basic science.

And he pointed out how many such breakthroughs grew from teamwork pushing boundaries of understanding in ways where chances of failure were far higher than chances of success.
Then he noted how rare it was — even at intellectually adventurous places like Bell Labs, where he worked for nine years — to take real chances. The great thing about Bell Labs, he said, was its reliance on nurturing young talent. “Bell Labs did not hire established scientists,” Dr. Chu said. “They grew their own.”

Now, he said, the country’s challenge is to grow a generation of energy innovators, a challenge made harder because innovation has never been much of a priority within the energy industry.
But he ended on an enthusiastic note, describing rising numbers of students who appear to be turning toward careers in science and technology — not just because Wall Street suddenly doesn’t look so cozy.

So, today I mailed the following:

March 27, 2008
Secretary
DOE
1000 Independence Avenue, S. W.
Washington, D. C. 20585

While you paraded around Brookhaven recently you said something like this according to the New York Times or whatever:

Now, he said, the country’s challenge is to grow a generation of energy innovators, a challenge made harder because innovation has never been much of a priority within the energy industry.

Of course, the energy industry was not built by a bunch of PhDs from the cartel that is run by university administrators.

Innovation within the energy industry has been a big deal since its basic start with the Edison General Electric Company and a whole set of Edison companies from coast to coast. It continures.

If you ever want to see innovation in action, get out in the field and observe American artisans at work as they untangle the aftermaths of a whole range of natural phenomena.

Edison started a game of innovation that has never ended in the energy industry. His right hand man, Samuel Insull, migrated to the United States from England as a young man in 1881, linking up with Thomas Edison and eventually co-founding the company that would become General Electric. In 1892 Insull moved to Chicago where he began to assemble his empire of utility and transportation companies.

Our nuke plants are in trouble because of interference from feds. Innovation has not been lacking. Carter killed reprocessing, Obama is killing more. And as Obama’s minion it is unlikely that you will get anything useful completed other than running up the cost of juice.

Robert H. Leyse, 222 Elkhorn Road, Sun Valley, ID 83353

Update From: National Science Foundation: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

Note: Obama has poured $3 billion into NSF with instructions to spend it fast. Our great cartel of university admiinistrators has a firm hand on these dollars as I will point out. For starters, NSF issued a "Dear Colleague" letter to the cartel on 12 March 2009. And very soon it removed that letter from its web site, so I have never seen it. I've requested it under FOIA, but that will take some time. So right below is NSF's announcement, followed by the web site statement that the "... document has been temporarily removed from our web site."

From: National Science Foundation Update Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:00:59 -0500 (CDT)Subject: Dear Colleague Letter for Grants for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) to Study the Impact of the Economic Stimulus Package and to Advance the Scientific Understanding of Science Policy
Dear Colleague Letter for Grants for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) to Study the Impact of the Economic Stimulus Package and to Advance the Scientific Understanding of Science Policy

NSF 09-034 This document has been temporarily removed from our web site. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Next, on 18 March 2009, NSF released the following Important Notice 131, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

From: National Science Foundation Update
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:59:11 -0500 (CDT)Subject: Important Notice 131, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
Important Notice 131, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

Indeed, this imprtant notice is on NSF's web site and I have copied it below (in red). Clearly, it is addressed to the cartel of university administrators.

March 18, 2009
Notice No. 131
IMPORTANT NOTICE TO
PRESIDENTS OF UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES
AND HEADS OF OTHER NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
AWARDEE ORGANIZATIONS

Subject: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) into law. One of the principal purposes of the law is to "provide investments needed to increase economic efficiency by spurring technological advances in science and health" During the signing ceremony President Obama stated,

"Even beyond energy, from the National Institutes of Health to the National Science Foundation, this recovery act represents the biggest increase in basic research funding in the long history of America’s noble endeavor to better understand our world. Just as President Kennedy sparked an explosion of innovation when he set America’s sights on the moon, I hope this investment will ignite our imagination once more, spurring new discoveries and breakthroughs that will make our economy stronger, our nation more secure, and our planet safer for our children."

In response to this landmark legislation, NSF has developed policies, procedures, and Frequently Asked Questions for use by the awardee community. These documents provide up-to-date information regarding NSF’s implementation of the Recovery Act, and are available at
www.nsf.gov/recovery. The key elements of NSF’s implementation of the Recovery Act are highlighted below.

NSF Programs Receiving Recovery Act Funding

The Recovery Act supplements NSF fiscal year 2009 funding by $3.0 billion. NSF currently has many highly rated proposals that it has not been able to fund. For this reason, NSF is planning to use the majority of the $2 billion available in Research and Related Activities for proposals that are already in house and will be reviewed and/or awarded prior to September 30, 2009.

1 P.L. 111-5, Section 3 (a) (3). The full text of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is available electronically at: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h1enr.pdf

2 The full text of President Obama’s remarks at the signing ceremony is available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-and-Vice-President-at-Signing-of-the-American-Recovery-and-Reinvestment-Act/

The Foundation also expects to expeditiously award funds as specified in the Recovery Act for: the Math and Science Partnership program (funded at $25 million); the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (funded at $60 million); the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction Account (funded at $400 million); the Academic Research Infrastructure (ARI) program (funded at $200 million); and the Science Masters program, (funded at $15 million). Solicitations for these latter two programs will be posted this spring.

NSF will post a solicitation this spring for the Major Research Instrumentation Program (MRI) in order to make a sufficient number of awards to utilize the $300 million provided in the legislation. The Foundation currently anticipates that no other solicitations will be posted that are solely in response to the Recovery Act.

Funding Prioritization

NSF will ensure that Recovery Act funds are awarded in a timely manner while maintaining its commitment to its established merit review processes.

In keeping with this, NSF’s overall framework for Recovery Act investments emphasizes the following:

• All grants issued with Recovery Act funds will be standard grants with durations of up to 5 years. This approach will allow NSF to structure a sustainable portfolio.

• Funding of new Principal Investigators and high-risk, high-return research will be top priorities.

With the exception of the MRI, ARI and Science Masters programs, the majority of proposals eligible for Recovery Act funding include those that are already in house and will be reviewed and/or awarded prior to September 30, 2009.

NSF also will consider proposals declined on or after October 1, 2008. The reversal of the decision to decline must be based on both the high quality of the reviews received on the initial submission and the lack of available funding at the time the original decision was made. The cognizant program officer will contact the institution when a reversal is being considered by NSF. Specific procedural information regarding this new process is available on the NSF Recovery website.

Special Award Conditions

The Recovery Act mandates a significant level of transparency and accountability. The law and implementing guidance identify specific award conditions for awards made with Recovery Act funding. Therefore, award notices will include special award conditions identifying the funding as coming from the Recovery Act, and indicate the specific awardee reporting responsibilities mandated by Section 1512 of the Recovery Act.

Given the goals of the Recovery Act, awardees will be informed that they are expected to expend funds in a timely manner on allowable award costs and that NSF will be monitoring awards for expenditures. If, after 12 months, no allowable expenditures have taken place, NSF may consider reducing or terminating the award and reallocating the funds.

Working in Partnership

NSF is honored by the recognition of the Foundation's role in stimulating the American economy with its inclusion in the Recovery Act. The law and implementing guidance issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) set clear expectations for accountability and transparency from both Federal agencies and from recipients of Recovery Act funding.

The high expectations embodied in the Recovery Act acknowledge the contributions that NSF and its partners in the research and education community have made to the economy and welfare of the nation over the past six decades. This partnership is one of the nation’s greatest strengths, and we look forward to working with you as we continue to pursue the promise of science and engineering and meet the goals of the Recovery Act for securing the nation’s future.

Arden L. Bement, Jr.
Director

I'll have a lot to say regarding the above letter. For today, March 22, 2009, I'll confine my analysis to the NSF response to Frequently Asked Questions. It is: The Frequently Asked Questions regarding NSF’s implementation of the Recovery Act will be posted soon. That is what NSF says 4 days after NSF claims that it "... has developed policies, procedures, and Frequently Asked Questions for use by the awardee community."

Here is more on March 25, 2009. I have sent the following to A. Bement:

A Bement:

It's too bad, with trillions floating all over the fed rackets, NSF gets no attention to its waste of a mere 9 billion.

Robert H. Leyse
222 Elkhorn Road
Sun Valley, ID 83353

March 19, 2009

Congressman Mike Simpson
U. S. House of Representatives
1339 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Mike:

Games at the National Science Foundation
On March 12, 009, NSF called upon the cartel of university administrators to apply for Grants for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) to Study the Impact of the Economic Stimulus Package and to Advance the Scientific Understanding of Science Policy.

However, NSF quickly changed its mind and announced that, “This document has been temporarily removed from our web site.”
NSF has changed its approach and on March 18, 2009, the cartel of university administrators is told about Important Notice 131, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In this important notice the cartel is told:

" NSF is planning to use the majority of the $2 billion ... for programs that are already in house ..."

Clearly, the NSF is keeping all of the money within the grasp of the cartel of university administrators and others are excluded. It is time for wrest control of NSF from the insiders who have exclusive access to its funds.

Get after Obama's intelligentsia, the cartel of university administrators at NSF, as they set up a lot of great programs to corner the next election.
Thank you for your attention to this.

Robert H. Leyse

More about the Myth of TRACE and my FOIA

To begin with, here is what NRC staff told ACRS on September 4, 2008:
In order to do this, we organized a group of experts to review the code. These are individuals who have international reputations in thermohydraulics, models and methods and the applications. One of the peer review members was Dominique Bestion. He is the research director of CEA Grenoble and one of the primary developers of the CATHARE computer code. Another member was Peter Griffith. He is a retired professor at MIT, has a lot of experience in the nuclear area. Marv Thurgood was brought in because of his expertise in numerical applications and he is one of the principal developers of the COBRA code and George Yadiagaroglu, he was a professor emeritus of nuclear engineering in the Swiss Institute of Technology in Zurich.

So, I went after those consultant reports via FOIA as follows:
State: ID
Zip: 83353
Country: United_States
Email: bobleyse#aol.com
Phone: 208 622 7740
Desc: For your reference, the Accession Number is ML083220028 for the document that contains the information you are looking for. This document is dated December 8, 2008. Here are four ML's ML081640540 ML081640551 ML081640564 ML081640560 Of course, I need these docs, but when I go to ADAMS all I get is the ACRS letter, ML082540133, that lists the above ML's as references.
FeeCategory: Personal_Noncommercial
Waiver_Purpose: Private use
Waiver_ExtentToExtractAnalyze: Substantial. NRC has been in the TRACE game forever and wastes tons of $$$$$
Waiver_SpecificActivityQuals: I know heat transfer and fouling and I have a lot of PRM's in the system.
Waiver_NatureOfPublic: I'll put all this on my blog, nuclearpowerblog.blogspot.com
Waiver_MeansOfDissemination: see item 5
Waiver_FreeToPublicOrFee: Free
Waiver_PrivateCommericalInterest: None

So on March 4, 2009, I received documents in response to my FOIA and the responses are grossly incomplete with omissions under Exemption 5, "Deliberative process: Disclosure would tend to inhibit the open and free exchange of ideas ..."

Bestion on 2/5/2008 produced 53 pages of which I am allowed to see 5.
Yadigaroglu on 5/10/2008 produced 19 pages of which I have been allowed to see 4.
Griffith on 4/30/2008 produced 18 pages of which I have been allowed to see most of page 1.
Thurgood on 6/18/2008 produced 10 pages of which I have been allowed to see 2.

Today, March 6, 2009, I sent the following to Chairman, NRC:


Chairman:

Following are portions of slides that NRC staff presented to ACRS on September 4, 2008. The following has slides 16, 1, 2 and 11 in that order.

Now I am focusing on the third line from the bottom of slide 11 which is:

Model for nucleate boiling is overly complex and ad hoc

So, I want:
1. The model for nucleate boiling
2. The identification of the consultant who observed that the model is overly complex, etc.
3. The related remarks of that consultant.

Via FOIA/PA 2009-0068 I have received the report of each of the four consultants. However, under Exemption 5, one of your Directors (Sheron)deleted just about everything.

Robert H. Leyse bobleyse@aol.com

I'll report what I find out.