Design work on a $50-million research center for nuclear cleanup at the University of South Carolina at Aiken should start later this year, the Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Advisory Board heard this week.
The Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative, to be built about 20 miles north of the Savannah River Site, “is now fully funded” after receiving its second $25-million installment in the site’s fiscal 2021 budget, Steve Trischman, director of budget and planning for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management told the advisory board Thursday during an online meeting.
“That project will be starting design this year and then hopefully construction should not take too long,” Trischman said. “It is a brand-new building on a college campus, it should be pretty straightforward.” The facility is meant to help DOE collaborate with industry and academia.
The DOE issued a request for information last September, saying the agency’s Savannah River National Laboratory needs “safer, more cost-effective nuclear chemical manufacturing technology, facilities and expertise” to help accelerate cleanup. The Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center had yet, at deadline Friday, to issue a request for proposals.
The notice said DOE hopes to have the new facility operating by the end of 2023. The building will be between 40,000 and 70,000 square feet and be located on a five-acre site within the Aiken campus. As envisioned, it could house upwards of 120 staff members.
The update on the Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative was part of a larger budget briefing by Trischman to the board designed to provide outside advice and recommendations to the acting assistant secretary of environmental management.
Trischman said since its creation in 1989, DOE’s nuclear cleanup office has seen its regular appropriation grow from $1.7 billion to nearly $7.6 billion in the current fiscal year. In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment resulted in a one-time additional infusion of $6 billion, he added.
