Surplus Facilities Research Articles

Use Surplus Federal Real Property to Expand Medical and Quarantine Capacity for COVID-19

Last week, the Trump administration announced plans to partner with states to increase hospital capacity to address a potential surge in patients needing emergency care owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. Vice President Mike Pence stated that the government was committed to answering requests from governors for additional capacity by “creating field hospitals” or “retrofitting existing buildings,” with support from the Army Corps of Engineers. In addition to constructing field hospitals and expanding existing hospital capacity, the US government should identify potential surplus federal real property for immediate conversion to increase hospital bed capacity and to fulfill other needs, such as extensive quarantines or isolation needs related to COVID-19. The federal government has thousands of surplus facilities, including hospital buildings and dormitories, that are eligible to be repurposed for public health needs under current federal law.

Optimal CBM of tie lines between control areas in a deregulated environment

AbstractIn order to keep power supply reliability at a certain level, electric power utilities have a certain amount of reserve capacity. When no generator outage or no unexpected large power demand occurs, however, the reserve capacity is regarded as surplus facility. To reduce the reserve capacity, some margin is reserved in tie lines between utilities. This margin is called the capacity benefit margin (CBM). In this study, a method of calculating optimal CBM in tie line under deregulated environment is described and two kinds of optimal CBM are proposed. As a result, it is shown how the deregulation affects the optimal CBM by using numerical simulation for the IEE Japan West 30 test system. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 167(1): 35– 48, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.20654

Optimal CBM of Tie Lines between Control Areas under Deregulated Environment

In order to keep power supply reliability at a certain level, electric power utilities have a certain amount of reserved capacity. When no generator outage or no unexpected large power demand occurs, however, the reserved capacity is regarded as surplus facility. To reduce the reserved capacity, some margin is reserved in tie lines between utilities. This margin is called Capacity Benefit Margin (CBM). In this study, a method of calculating optimal CBM in tie line under deregulated environment is described and two kind of optimal CBM are proposed. As a result, it is shown how the deregulation affects the optimal CBM by using numerical simulation for IEE Japan West 30 test system.

Multiagent Analysis for Effect of Cogeneration Spread in an Electricity Market

In this paper, in order to investigate the effect of cogeneration spread senario in electricity market we constructed a multiagent model of an electricity trade market with distributor and power generator agents. In this model, we analyzed the effect of reducing generators' surplus facilities to market price formation and stability through some computer experiments. As a result of the experimental simulations, the market price was decreased by the increase of sell bids according to the demand reduction by congeneration spread, and by the increase of commercial use of cogeneration facilities, the market price was more economical and stable because such agents supplied more electricity generated by surplus cogenerations. However, if power generators diminished power generating facilities in the situation that distributors' cogeneration facilities were not major; the fluctuation of market price took large. We confirmed that cogeneration spread played the important role for stabilizing market price formation.

Determining the probability of radioactive materials on properties in Monticello, Utah.

The former uranium mill site at Monticello, UT, is a surplus facility subject to cleanup under the Surplus Facilities Management Program. Surrounding properties contaminated with mill site material are also subject to cleanup and are referred to as Monticello Vicinity Properties. The objective of this study was to determine the probability that a vicinity property not addressed under the Monticello Vicinity Properties project could contain Monticello mill-related residual radioactive material in excess of Department of Energy guidelines. The study was conducted in a short time frame to protect public health. Statistical methods were used to select 48 random properties for radiological screening surveys. Results of this study may be used to predict the potential number of unassessed properties (results suggest approximately 20%) that contain radioactive contamination that exceeds Department of Energy guidelines and will require remedial action.

Advanced Remote Decontamination Techniques Reduce Costs and Radiation Doses

A highly contaminated cell in the Pacific Northwest Laboratory’s (PNL) 324 Building Radiochemical Engineering Facilities was recently decontaminated using a series of remote and contact techniques. The approach used in decontaminating the cell was very successful: It resulted in an 87% lower radiation dose to workers and a cost saving of 39% compared with a hands-on procedure used in another cell 2 yr earlier.Eight cycles of remote decontamination, combining use of an alkaline cleaner foam spray and pressurized water rinse, preceded manned entry. Initial radiation readings in cell C, averaging 50 rad/h, were first reduced to <200 mrad/h using remote techniques. Contact decontamination was then permissible using ultrahigh-pressure water at 270 MPa, further reducing the average radiation level in the cell to <86 mrem/h. The radiation dose and the costs to achieve a 244-fold reduction in radiation contamination were 17.8 mrem/m2 and $1033/m2 of cell surface area.This work is part of a larger effort sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Surplus Facilities Management Program to clean out six radioactive cells and to dismantle PNL’s pilot-scale radioactive liquidfed ceramic melter. In this program, numerous other advanced techniques are being developed and are proving valuable, particularly in lowering radiation doses.

The Domestic Excess and Surplus Market

The domestic excess and surplus market is a relatively new extension of the American insurance industry. Prior to the end of World War II, very little excess and surplus lines business was placed in the American market. After the end of the War, the American companies began investigating the possibility of providing excess and surplus products, which, until that time, had been the private province of the London market. These companies recognized the need for excess and surplus facilities in their overall marketing program. These products gave them a competitive advantage over the other major domestic writers and acted as an excellent tool in the promotion of new production connections. The companies also recognized an opportunity for profit in these classes of business because of the potential inherent advantages of the domestic carrier compared to the existing market. When the domestic carriers entered into excess and surplus lines they realized that these excess and surplus lines are, in reality, two different classes of risks. The exposures under the two separate classes are substantially different but they have the common bond of not being generally written by domestic insurers. Because of this fact, the foreign definition of excess and surplus business has been readily accepted by the domestic insurance industry. Departments were then established by the

Some Comments upon the Effectiveness of State and Local Area Development Programs

It is obvious that the results attained from programs in recent years have been much less than proportional to the very large expenditure of funds and effort. This relative waste of public appropriations and private contributions and of the time of government officials and public spirited citizens deserves critical attention. It is the purpose of this article to identify some of the factors which may have been responsible. The term area development has currency as a descriptive phrase for all organized activities intended to promote economic progress in a spatial sense. In most such programs, however, economic progress appears to be measured principally by the degree of industrialization attained or, more specifically, by the net addition secured to local manufacturing capacity. Chambers of commerce have long directed a major part of their attention toward increasing the size and influence of local business but the special interest in smokestacks received a tremendous stimulus from the national defense and war production programs. The awarding of war material contracts and the enlargement of national industrial capacity through the construction of new plant facilities were direct incentives to the organization or strengthening of means for the presentation of favorable arguments for local war plant location. The close of the war, rather than halting these activities, brought their intensification. Communities that had succeeded in getting new plants sought buyers or new tenants for the war surplus facilities; towns that had been passed by diverted or renewed their efforts toward attracting migrant or foot-loose industries; and both, anticipating a postwar depression, sought every means by which they might enlarge or diversify their industrial or economic base and, thereby, reduce the impact of business decline. In most states, some form of state agency was established to aid these efforts either through general fact-finding and coordinating functions or by the direct solicitation of moving industries. The federal government recognized the special statistical and advisory needs of the organizations by setting up service units in at least two cabinet departments.' In addition, public agencies such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Bonneville Power Administration and regional organizations, exemplified by the New England