The purpose of the Electric System Reliability Task Force is to provide advice and recommendations to the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board regarding the critical institutional, technical, and policy issues that need to be addressed in order to maintain the reliability of the nation's bulk electric system.

The usual method of producing ozone is by corona discharge in air. It requires auxiliary equipment to precondition the air (cooling to - 60 degrees C), it produces NOx and particulates, and it is limited to delivery of ozone at 2% concentration and atmospheric pressure.

Mediator Recirculation Integrating Technology (MERIT) combines oxidation and reduction steps to minimize energy loss and the release of polluting emissions during fuel combustion. Fuel is not burned directly, but exposed to a circulating metallic mediator.

Is there life after deregulation? Well, of course there is. But what is the nature of that life? To this point, deregulation of U.S. electric utilities has been almost an academic exercise. The unanswerable question, so far, is how it would really work.

Major programs are underway in the Federal sector to begin D&D -- decommissioning and decontamination (and dismantlement!) -- of nuclear facilities. DOE's efforts are focused on the many contaminated weapons facilities and lab sites around the country.

In the April issue of Electrical World T&D, there were a couple of items about hand-held computers. A number of you have either already implemented them, at least in some applications, or are thinking about it.

The purpose of this workshop is to assess current DoD-sponsored battery 6.2 development programs in order to identify technology challenges and coordinate future efforts.

Dr. Randell Mills is making some remarkable claims, and has attracted some prominent backers with his "Unified Theory" and devices which generate large amounts of excess "anomalous" heat.

Speakers from Japan, Canada, Europe and the US, will present more than 20 technical papers on Issues, Emerging Technologies, and System Support Tools.

Entech Design, of Denton TX, sells a Material Acoustic Profile System (MAPS), which uses sophisticated oceanographic sonar mapping equipment to provide two and three dimensional images of bottom ash levels in water filled hoopers.

Entech Design, a Texas company with several successful products for bottom ash handling and mapping, has a put together a proposal to develop a new robotic pipe-crawler system to inspect and repair waterwall tubing in fossil power plants.

The President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection is requesting information regarding technologies and capabilities for protecting critical infrastructures vital to our nation’s economic and national security. Of particular concern are physical and cyber threats.

In the context of open transmission access, network loadings will often get close to unstable states undetectable by conventional power-flow, optimal power-flow and contingency analysis programs. Such states will have to be predicted before they occur.

The report provides an overview of the legal and regulatory framework governing U.S. utilities, both Federal and State, and discusses how Distributed Resources may be affected, in the context of open access and restructuring.