DOE FORMING NEW EXPERT TEAM TO REVIEW WTP ‘BLACK CELLS’

The Department of Energy has formed a new team of high-level experts to help resolve technical issues related to the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant’s so-called “black cells”—areas of the plant that will be off-limits for humans to enter to perform maintenance once the facility goes into operation—WC Monitor has learned. The team, which is set to be officially announced soon, will examine the WTP’s ability to detect equipment issues in the black cells and the plant’s ability to repair equipment in the black cells if necessary, and will recommend potential design changes or operational improvements if needed. The team’s members are set to include: 

• Former Sandia National Laboratories Director Tom Hunter;
• Former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Richard Meserve;
• Former Bechtel Vice President Milton Levenson, who was at Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project and who led the technical team that responded to the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident, among other positions;
• Arun Majumdar, who previously served as Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and as associate laboratory director for energy and environment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory;
• Per Peterson , Chair of the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley;
• Monica Regalbuto, of the Process Chemistry and Engineering Department at Argonne National Laboratory. Regalbuto previously served as a senior program manager in the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s Office of Waste Processing;
• David Kosson, Professor of Engineering, Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Professor of Chemical Engineering, and Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Vanderbilt University; and
• Langdon Holton of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.