New Mexico agencies are receiving more than $12 million in grant money from the Department of Energy to help ensure safe transport of defense-related transuranic waste to the federal underground disposal site near Carlsbad and more broadly to help fund state oversight of nuclear waste.
The federal agency announced the award in a Thursday press release. The New Mexico Energy, Minerals & Natural Resources Department is getting $6.2 million over five years for planning and preparations “for the safe and uneventful transportation of radioactive waste in and through the state of New Mexico” to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
Likewise, the New Mexico Environment Department will receive $6 million over five years to continue providing oversight of DOE’s waste management activities within the state. Both actions renew existing awards and run from July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2027.
The Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina and one of its university partners announced this week that Margaret Kosal will be the first senior fellow in the lab’s new Nonproliferation Applied Science Center.
The move was announced in a Monday press release by the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) and the Georgia Institute of Technology or Georgia Tech. In the position, Kosal will concentrate on reducing the threat of weapons of mass destruction and understanding the role of emerging technologies for security.
Kosal is currently an associate professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech, according to the press release. The laboratory is operated by Battelle Savannah River Alliance under a five-year, $3.8-billion contract slated to run through mid-February 2026.
Triad National Security is working to cut the number of erroneous fire alarms at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, according to a recent safety panel update.
Over a recently-concluded three-year period, “the laboratory experienced approximately 100 false alarms per year that required a fire department response,” according to a report dated June 10 from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). About a quarter of these alarms were caused by maintenance or construction work near detection devices, DNFSB said.
