Transfer of oil shale research data into the Morgantown Energy Technology Center data base

Abstract

The US Department of Energy (DOE), Morgantown Energy Technology Center constructed a fossil energy research data base to make data readily available to the public, to avoid duplication of research, to guide future research, and to reduce costs of future research. Western Research Institute (WRI) was awarded a contract to put data from work done prior to 1983 into the data base. Most of the data that WRI transferred to DOE on magnetic tape was oil shale data because the underground coal gasification (UCG) data base was not ready to receive data until late in the contract period. The high cost of processing data in the manner specified prevented all of the highly ranked data from being transferred with available funding. One hundred and ten sets of data were transferred to DOE on magnetic tape: ninety-three sets of oil shale data and two sets of UCG data to the test data data base, and fifteen sets of oil shale data including assay, mineralogy, and lithology data from 12,907 samples using 7,972,404 computer words to the resource extraction data base. Two thousand and seventy sets of data were microfiched and transferred to DOE; these included 1111 sets of oil shale data,more » 211 sets of tar sands data, 195 sets of UCG data, and 216 sets of environmental data. Three recommendations are made for reducing the cost of transferring data into the data base: (1) eliminate the use of data input forms, (2) eliminate the waiting time between responses from the computer, and (3) keep the data base updated. 3 refs., 1 fig., 2 tabs.« less