The Department of Energy’s tardiness in providing its entire detailed justification for its fiscal 2023, as well as cleanup challenges at the Hanford Site in Washington state, were among the issues House lawmakers raised with Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm Thursday in a two-plus-hour budget hearing.
DOE had by Thursday published most of its detailed budget books for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, but, as in previous years, the agency had not released the full request for its Office of Environmental Management (EM): the nuclear-weapons cleanup branch whose budget alone accounts for some 15% of DOE’s total request.
As of deadline Friday for Weapons Complex Monitor, the EM request was still at large.
On Wednesday, William (Ike) White, the acting head of the office of Environmental Management, fielded some budget questions in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing. White faced fewer questions than his colleagues from DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration this week, although he did defend the case for disposing of an inventory of uranium-233 stored at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee.
Granholm, meanwhile, was chided Thursday by both the top Democrat and Republican on a House Appropriations subcommittee for not providing full budget details by the time of the season’s first official DOE budget hearing in the House.
House appropriators need the critical details “so that we can do our job,” and avoid continuing resolutions, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), the ranking GOP member on the Energy and Water Development subcommittee of House Appropriations, told Granholm. “You are not the first secretary I’ve told this to,” Simpson said.
Subcommittee Chair Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) also complained about the lack of full budget details at hearing time.
“Yes. I completely understand,” Granholm told the subcommittee leaders.
The Joe Biden administration’s budget request would trim support for the Hanford Site. During the hearing, Granholm asked for understanding from Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), whose district includes the areas adjacent to Hanford. Granholm said she also understands the contamination problems facing Hanford, but the former plutonium processing complex already accounts for about a third of EM’s $7.6-billion budget.
“The funding issue is just a tough one,” Granholm told Newhouse that funding must be balanced “across budgets and across sites.”
While Hanford probably needs more support, the federal revenue pie is limited, Granholm said. (White delved into more details of Hanford’s plans to start converting low-activity waste into glass starting next year in his Wednesday appearance before the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on Strategic Forces).
Newhouse pointed to a recent lifecycle cost study that said full cleanup at the site could cost up to $641 billion and might not be finished until 2078. Such a timeline would indicate Hanford could use around $11 billion per year, Newhouse said.
Both Granholm and Newhouse lamented the fact Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted the energy secretary to cancel a planned visit to Hanford a couple of months ago. “As long as no more wars break out, we will get you there,” Newhouse said, drawing laughter.
Before the conclusion of the House hearing, Simpson said he would submit questions for the record about DOE’s plans to dispose of transuranic waste from down-blended plutonium in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
Meanwhile, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) thanked Granholm for DOE collaborating with the state of Tennessee and the Environmental Protection Agency to work toward final approval of a new onsite waste disposal cell at Oak Ridge. The current landfill for construction debris is expected to be full in 2027 or 2028, he said.
“If we don’t get the cell built, we can’t do legacy cleanup,” Fleischmann said. The DOE and the lawmaker have noted the new disposal cell will be needed for construction debris from demolition of old buildings at the Y-12 National Security Complex and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
These sections of the Oak Ridge Site have a high concentration of contaminated excess facilities that must come down, as White testified Wednesday before the Senate Armed Services panel.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) questioned EM boss White on why the Department of Energy is disposing of its remaining stockpile of uranium-233 at the Oak Ridge lab.
Uranium-233 poses “one of the more significant safety and security risks at Oak Ridge National Laboratory,” White said. It is costly to safeguard and is currently housed in some of the older facilities at the laboratory, White said.
The Environmental Management boss also said DOE contractor Isotek is removing thorium-229 from the uranium-233. Isotek also works with TerraPower, a nuclear company chaired by Microsoft’s Bill Gates. TerraPower extracts actinium-225 from the thorium for use in cancer research.
White with early EM budget details in the Senate
A day before his boss faced House appropriators, White told Senate authorizers that the Biden administration’s $7.6-billion budget request for DOE’s nuclear cleanup office should help the agency begin conversion of low-activity radioactive tank waste into glass at Hanford, and other key remediation chores, White told the Senate Armed Services subcommittee Wednesday.
The Office of Environmental Management “is treating radioactive and chemical waste from large underground tanks for the first time ever on a large scale,” White, senior adviser for the office, told the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on Strategic Forces.
The budget request paves the way for treatment of one million gallons of tank waste through the Tank Side Cesium Removal system at Hanford by the end of fiscal 2023, White said in his written testimony. About 200,000 gallons have already been treated since the Tank Side Cesium Removal module started operating in January, the manager of the Hanford Site told a National Academies of Sciences panel Tuesday in Richland, Wash.
White said the request supports vitrification of low-activity tank waste at Hanford by the end of the 2023 calendar year. Importantly, the request also includes $316 million toward development of vitrification facilities for high-level waste at the Waste Treatment Plant, he added. The DOE plans to start turning high-level tank waste into glass in the 2030s.
At the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Salt Waste Processing Facility should double its throughput to six million gallons in fiscal 2023, up from three million gallons during its first 12-month period of radioactive operations, White said.
“As a result, the Savannah River Site could complete the bulk of its tank waste treatment mission in a decade,” White said.
At the Idaho National Laboratory, the request supports the first year of radiological operations of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit. Despite glitches in a final demonstration run with simulant, White said the facility will ultimately convert about 900,000 gallons of liquid waste into a granular solid.
“EM also will meet another key commitment to the state of Idaho by completing the transfer of EM-owned spent nuclear fuel to on-site dry storage,” White said.
