Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
3/28/2014
As lawmakers begin considering the Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request, DOE cleanup chief David Huizenga stressed this week the need for technology development funds to aid the Office of Environmental Management in developing new cleanup technologies that can reduce costs. “With the large to-go costs [remaining], we’re trying to find ways to be more efficient and find game-changing ways to reduce our costs,” Huizenga said at the first of this year’s set of House Cleanup Caucus briefings, held March 27. “We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place relative to the compliance agreements that are driving us to do the work as quickly as we can. … But we are going to need to carve out some limited resources to spend on research and development to get better with what we’re doing,” Huizenga said, adding, “The shortest distance between two points is likely to be developing new and improved ways of doing this work.”
As an example of a “game changer” technology, Huizenga cited the Next Generation Solvent that has been developed to aid tank waste processing at the Savannah River Site. The solvent is more effective at removing cesium from the waste, and is currently being used at Savannah River’s interim salt waste treatment capability. The solvent is also expected to help increase the throughput of the Salt Waste Processing Facility under construction at the site. “We’ve invested not very much money to save billions of dollars there and that’s the kind of work we’re going to have to do … to be able to squeeze all of these projects in the budgets we’re likely to get,” Huizenga said.
EM Seeks $16 Million for Tech. Development in FY15
EM officials have long cited the need for technology development funds to help develop new cleanup approaches, though DOE’s requests for such funds have not always been met with support from lawmakers. In its FY 2015 budget request, EM is seeking a total of approximately $16 million in technology development funds for both projects managed by DOE headquarters and those managed by individual sites.
For headquarters-managed projects, DOE is seeking approximately $13 million in technology development funds, a cut of approximately $5 million from current funding levels. Headquarters-managed technology development activities focus on four areas—tank waste; nuclear waste management and disposition; soil and groundwater remediation; and facility D&D. Among the projects DOE is looking to pursue next year, according to the request, is an effort to evaluate and recommend strategies to manage technetium-99 in tank waste, including removal of technetium-99 from off-gas recycle processing streams; development of “near-source tank separations, treatment and removal technologies” for use at Hanford and Savannah River; a pilot demonstration of “a new paradigm for long-term monitoring, Phase I – master geochemical variables”; and new technologies to aid in the removal of plutonium-238 from Savannah River’s Building 235-F. DOE is also seeking $3 million in funding for Oak Ridge next year to help test technologies to stabilize mercury in soil to minimize release as D&D efforts progress.
DOE’s FY 2015 budget request also includes $100 million to help support cleanup technology performed or demonstrated at the Savannah River National Laboratory. In FY 2015, the request says, “the lab will support tank waste technology development including means to separate the high activity radionuclides in order to disposition the high level waste along with various unit operations such as filtering, grinding, and retrieval; conduct sampling and analysis of special nuclear materials; develop tank waste mixing and tank closure technologies; develop flow sheets and models to support the processing of radioactive waste; develop groundwater remediation and facility decontamination and decommissioning technology; and develop next-generation cleanup technologies.”
