A longtime manager at the Department of Energy has been selected to lead fuel cycle and supply chain activities at the Office of Nuclear Energy.
“I am pleased to announce that I have selected Andrew Griffith to be the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fuel Cycle and Supply Chain, NE-4. This reassignment is effective immediately,” according to an internal email sent Sept. 20 on behalf of Assistant DOE Secretary for Nuclear Energy Rita Baranwal.
“NE-4” indicates Griffith is the fourth-most-senior official in the office. Baranwal, by contrast, is designated NE-1.
Griffith was most recently DOE’s associate deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy infrastructure programs, a position he had held from July 2017, according to his LinkedIn profile. Prior to that, he served 10 months as deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste storage.
Since joining the Energy Department in April 2007, Griffith has held a number of positions, including director for recycled fuel development, deputy director for laboratory facilities management, and associate deputy assistant secretary for fuel cycle technology.
He served 30 years on active and reserve duty in the U.S. Navy, retiring as a captain in 2009.
Sal Golub had for several months managed the work of the Office of Nuclear Energy deputy assistant secretary for fuel cycle and supply chain, according to the email. Golub is currently the office’s associate deputy assistant secretary for nuclear reactor technologies, his LinkedIn profile says.
As of Friday, the leadership web page for the Office of Nuclear Energy still listed John Herczeg as deputy assistant secretary for nuclear fuel cycle and supply chain. Herczeg has retired, an industry source said.
In support of the office’s mission to promote nuclear power technologies, the deputy assistant secretary oversees $350 million in research and development funding and roughly 30 federal personnel.
Baranwal, a materials engineer, was sworn in as assistant secretary for nuclear energy in July after nearly three years as director of DOE’s Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear program and more than a decade in the nuclear industry. Shortly afterward, Office of Nuclear Energy No. 2 Ed McGinnis left to become executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. It was not immediately known if he has been replaced as principal deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy.
“The top Senior Executives in NE have almost all left,” the industry source noted by email, mentioning McGinnis, Herczeg, and Shane Johnson, who he said retired as deputy assistant secretary for reactor fleet and advanced reactor deployment.
The Office of Nuclear Energy is funded at over $1.3 billion in the current fiscal 2019, with a focus on supporting development of new nuclear reactor and fuel types. The Energy Department wants to cut that to $824 million for the next federal budget year beginning Oct. 1. Congress has pushed back forcefully against the reduction: The Senate Appropriations Committee earlier this month passed DOE-funding legislation that would provide over $1.5 billion for the office, while the House in June approved a multi-agency “minibus” appropriations package that would fund Nuclear Energy at $1.3 billion.
The Senate has yet to vote on the committee legislation, after which the two chambers of Congress would negotiate the final appropriations figures for the Energy Department. In the meantime, both the House and Senate have passed continuing resolutions to fund the federal government at current levels through Nov. 21. The stopgap measure was waiting on President Donald Trump’s signature as of Friday afternoon.
Office of Nuclear Energy fuel cycle research and development is funded at $323.5 million this year, which DOE proposed to reduce to $215.1 million for fiscal 2020. That would include just $5 million for used fuel disposition research and development and nothing for the integrated waste management system, down respectively from $50.7 million and $22.5 million in fiscal 2019.
The cut to the used fuel disposition line item results from “focusing funding on targeted R&D supporting preparation for large-scale transportation of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste including cask and transportation technology and study of the performance of high burnup used nuclear fuel,” DOE said in its budget justification issued in March. Eliminating all money for integrated waste management – a multi-stage approach starting with pilot storage facilities, then full storage sites, and finally permanent repositories – is intended to turn that funding primarily toward resuming licensing of the planned nuclear waste repository under Yucca Mountain in Nevada after nearly a decade.
Congress appears ready to reverse that as well: again blanking the Trump administration’s request for Yucca licensing funding. The House bill would provide $62.5 million for used fuel disposition R&D and $47.5 million for integrated waste management, with $25 million of that spent on preparing for interim storage of spent fuel. The Senate would give $27.5 million for used fuel R&D and $22.5 million for integrated waste management.
Since taking the helm at the Office of Nuclear Energy, Baranwal has repeatedly mentioned the possibility of taking a fresh look at reprocessing of used nuclear fuel as an alternative to burying the material in a geologic repository. Spent fuel retains up to 95% of its original energy, but reprocessing fell out of favor decades ago in the United States.
At an American Nuclear Society meeting in Seattle this week. Baranwal said the department is looking at “recycling of slightly used” nuclear fuel, according to Edwin Lyman, acting director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the nongovernmental Union of Concerned Scientists.
“As Assistant Secretary Baranwal has previously stated, one of her priorities is looking at all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, including the back end,” a DOE official said by email Wednesday. “This includes all potential solutions for used nuclear fuel, such as a permanent repository, interim storage, and recycling.”
