NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. — Leveraging resources from U.S. Department of Energy contractors and research universities will be a key part of the inaugural stand-alone management and operations contract for the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), DOE Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar said Thursday.
The Energy Department is planning for a contract that would separate the lab from its traditional operation within the contract for the broader Savannah River Site. The potential, but probable, shift would also expand the scope of the laboratory’s mission, which today largely focuses on DOE Environmental Management (EM) nuclear cleanup missions at the 310-square-mile site near Aiken, Dabbar said.
He spoke briefly with media during Thursday’s industry day for the SRNL contract. More than 150 representatives from various DOE vendors and colleges attended to learn about the potential procurement. One of the main takeaways was that the Energy Department wants to position SRNL to serve a viable purpose long after environmental remediation is complete at Savannah River, which is projected for 2065.
The Energy Department on Dec. 18 issued a notice of intent that the EM office “intends to solicit proposals to operate SRNL under a discrete M&O contract for the Laboratory,” a DOE spokesperson said Friday via email. While it is too early in the process to project award dollars, the spokesperson noted the lab in 2019 executed more than $289 million in direct customer support. That customer base includes EM, DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and DOE’s Secretarial Offices, among others.
Among the entities that sent representatives to the industry day were AECOM, BWX Technologies, Betchel National, Honeywell, Westinghouse, Clemson University, the University of South Carolina, the University of Georgia, and North Carolina State, among others.
Presentations during the three-and-a-half hour event covered various facets of the proposed contract, including how the department’s Office of Science is “underrepresented” at SRNL, according to Ming Zhu, the senior adviser for laboratory policy at Environmental Management. Zhu said the science office can expand its role at the national lab in several ways, such as assisting in the site’s tritium production mission by studying how to extract the nuclear-weapon material at a higher rate. Research universities would be a big part of that, he added, by developing more efficient ways to carry out these missions.
Dabbar agreed, though neither her nor Zhu specifically said they want to see research universities as part of the bidding teams for the lab contract. Rather, Dabbar said the skill sets offered by the universities would play a viable role for SRNL by providing applied research expertise.
The Savannah River National Laboratory employs about 1,000 people on an annual budget of roughly $200 million. It is the only national laboratory for the Office of Environmental Management, with missions including grouting and vitrification technology for treatment and disposal of nuclear waste. For the NNSA, the lab develops new technology for detecting nuclear and radioactive material.
The company or group that wins the contract would be expected to provide technical advice and guidance to DOE in support of policy development, program planning, and other activities under both EM and NNSA.
Dabbar said the lab’s role under the current site manager, Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), is limited compared to what it could do on its own. “We’ve been talking with academia about the site potential for quite a bit,” he said. “For flexibility reasons and the focus area, you can see here the number of people interested is very large.”
The lab’s management provider would be expected to provide skill sets that embody DOE management and academic research, Dabbar said. For example, the contractor should be able to conduct missions specific to the Energy Department, similar to what it is doing now. At the same time, research and technology innovation would be more of a focal point and would largely be provided by a university partner.
Both the lab and site contractors would be needed to implement new missions at Savannah River, including two that are quickly gaining steam: the Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative (AMC) and plutonium pit production.
Under a separate contract, the lab would work hand-in-hand with the Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative, a 60,000-square-foot off-site facility that will include chemistry labs, engineering fabrication labs, and high bay and industrial work space. The fiscal 2020 budget included half of the $50 million needed to build the facility that, among other things, is expected to expedite the site’s legacy waste cleanup mission by running simulations and testing using robotics and virtual reality.
Robotics, for example, will be used to navigate hard-to-reach locations in site facilities, which reduces risks for workers. They will also be used to collect waste samples for assessment and decommissioning. Virtual reality will be used to help workers simulate cleanup work and study the correct processes before actually conducting the work.
Separately, by 2030, the NNSA wants to annually produce 80 plutonium pits, the fissile cores for nuclear weapons. Fifty of those would come from Savannah River, the remaining 30 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
Preparing the sites to reach that level of production could cost $9 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. One industry day presentation noted that pit design and construction at Savannah River would require about 2,000 staffers. The lab would be tasked with developing innovative ways to maximize production at the facility.
Following industry day, interested parties are expected to respond to the DOE request for information for the procurement by Jan. 29. The acquisition plan for the contract and the draft request for proposals are expected to be released in the second quarter of 2020. A presolicitation conference will follow, sometime in the third quarter of the year.
From there, it is unclear how long it will take for DOE to select a contractor.
The full Savannah River Site contract has been extended repeatedly since Savannah River Nuclear Solutions’ original 10-year, $9.5 billion deal ended on July 31, 2018. A $1 billion extension of the deal ended in July 2019 and now SRNS is in the middle of a 14-month, $1.5 billion contract that expires on Sept. 30, 2020, with possible back-to-back one-year extensions keeping the company on the job through September 2022.