The Department of Energy has a nickname: “the Department of Everything,” the acting DOE nuclear cleanup boss told weapons complex citizen advisory board chairs this week.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management senior adviser William (Ike) White retold the joke during a Washington, D.C., meeting Tuesday. The description applies to an agency involved in issues ranging from solar power to nuclear weapons modernization.
It also describes issues touched upon during a meeting of the DOE Environmental Management Advisory Board chairs. The “Department of Everything” came up after White was asked about reindustrialization of nuclear sites.
On reindustrialization, the Joe Biden administration is seeking $40 million, more than double the 2023 fiscal level for the Community Capacity Program. The program builds on existing efforts to help poor areas near nuclear sites not yet seeing much economic gain from cleanup spending, said Kristen Ellis, director of intergovernmental and stakeholder engagement.
Here are a few topics touched upon Tuesday:
The cleanup budget for Cold War and Manhattan Project sites has risen to $8.3 billion in fiscal 2023 (the same amount requested by DOE for fiscal 2024) from $7.1 billion in 2018, said Steve Trischman, director of budget and planning. The $3 billion being sought for the Hanford Site in Washington state includes $600 million toward construction of a High-Level Waste Facility at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, a $207 million increase for that account.
DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy coordinates “consent-based siting” for a permanent spent fuel repository to replace the politically stymied Yucca Mountain project in Nevada, White said. Given this, White plans to invite a Nuclear Energy manager to a future advisory group meeting.
“Immediate risk” sways decision-making when cleanup bosses weigh competing funding requests, White said in answer to a question. “We don’t have unlimited resources,” White said.
The Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board is worried about “visibility” once management of the complex in South Carolina transfers to the National Nuclear Security Administration from Environmental Management, said Gregg Murray of the site’s advisory board.
Miss America is a nuclear engineer, giving the industry a high-profile industry representative, Ellis said. Miss America 2023 Grace Stanke, a University of Wisconsin-Madison senior, has also served as campus president of the American Nuclear Society, according to a December press release.