The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management is distributing $30 million in grant money to minority serving institutions to bolster math, science and technology education among non-white students in South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington state.
The funds should help develop science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) proficiency among students at traditionally black, hispanic and tribal colleges. The targeted colleges are in the same states as three major nuclear cleanup properties, according to a Monday press release.
In this latest funding, the release said $20 million will be sharing among minority serving institutions in South Carolina, where the Savannah River Site is located, another $5 million will be divided among two such colleges in Tennessee, which is home of the Oak Ridge Site and $5 million will go to Northwest Indian College in Washington state, the home to the Hanford Site.
A South Carolina congressman this week outlined his vision for the government’s nuclear energy policy, which included restarting a moribund geologic repository for nuclear waste.
Rep. Jeff Duncan’s (R-S.C.) “Blueprint for Nuclear Innovation and Competitiveness,” published Friday, aims to “help chart the course for the nuclear energy agenda in the next Congress and facilitate policy discussions among both lawmakers and industry leaders,” according to a press release from the congressman. Among the actions prescribed in the document, Duncan suggested that the Department of Energy work to restart the licensing process for Nevada’s Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
“Congress and DOE should seek to identify potential compromises and long-term benefits that include fresh approaches to negotiate a pathway to make Yucca Mountain acceptable to Nevada stakeholders and a reality for the national interest,” Duncan said. The Nye County, Nev., site has been on ice since 2010, when the Barack Obama administration pulled its funding under pressure from the Silver State’s congressional delegation. The Joe Biden administration has said that the project is politically unworkable and has refused to fund it in the last two fiscal years.
Near Moab, Utah, Department of Energy contractor North Wind Portage has now removed 13 million of the 16 million tons of tailings away from the Colorado River, the agency said Tuesday.
During fiscal 2022, one million tons was removed from the old uranium mill tailings pile to an engineered disposal cell in Crescent Junction, Utah, about 30 miles to the North, the DOE Office of Environmental Management said in a news release.
“I would like to sincerely thank our dedicated team, the Moab community, agency partners and the Moab Project’s supportive stakeholders. Each played a role in this progress,” said Acting Federal Cleanup Director Matthew Udovitsch. The tailings removal project began in 2009.
