The U.S. Department of Energy is seeking the $50 million it believes it needs to design and build a facility intended to reduce the cost and time of cleaning up nuclear waste at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C.
The request in the fiscal 2020 budget rollout comes after a two-year standstill regarding the Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative (AMC), a 60,000-square-foot off-site facility. The department had been largely silent on the venture, including no prior budget requests for funding since the project was first introduced in December 2015. In addition, DOE has stated, in previous requests for comment over the past two years, that there was no new information to report.
Meanwhile, stakeholders around the 310-square-mile Savannah River Site advocated for progress in bringing the facility to fruition.
It remains unclear when construction would start, but the budget request is encouraging, said Will Williams, one of the members of the Aiken Advanced Manufacturing Partnership. Headed by a local economic development group, the partnership is working with the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) and site management and operations contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) on the project.
Williams said the parties met briefly last fall to discuss the best way to fund the project. But that was all he had heard about it until the budget proposal. “When the President’s budget was released we began engaging almost immediately,” Williams said via email. “DOE has made this project a priority and have continued to push to get it funded.”
He said the partnership has held live meetings with other local stakeholders, including the University of South Carolina-Aiken and the SRS Community Reuse Organization (SRSCRO). Those talks have included ways to form more partnerships with the collaborative and how best to spend dollars for work. In addition to providing the $50 million for design and construction, DOE will also fund the work annually through SRNL appropriations.
The AMC is expected to help expedite the SRS liquid waste mission, which includes treatment of liquid waste, closing of waste storage tanks, and decommissioning of facilities. It is unclear how much time or money the collaborative would save, but the current projection for liquid waste work is $33 billion to $57 billion with a targeted completion date of 2039.
The AMC facility would employ at least 110 workers and house chemistry labs, engineering fabrication labs, and high bay and industrial work space. The Energy Department has not released estimates of how much money the facility is expected to save in the cleanup mission. But SRS spokeswoman Julie Petersen said Tuesday the center will expedite remediation in several ways.
For example, the center would use virtual technology to run simulation tests on cleanup strategies before physically doing the work. Stakeholders say that’ll speed up cleanup by allowing employees to see any issues ahead of actually doing the work.
In addition, the site will use robotics to navigate hard-to-reach locations in site facilities, which reduces risks for workers. Workers would develop and deploy these robots to intended areas at the site. Robotics will also be used to collect waste samples for assessment and decommissioning of waste facilities.
“While it is important to note that this is a budget proposal and still has to go through the congressional appropriations process, the AMC would provide accessible, modern, and flexible laboratory space for the Savannah River National Laboratory,” Petersen added.
Construction would be funded through DOE, which serves as a public partner, and the facility would be leased by the SRS management and operations contractor, which also runs the lab. Petersen said.
