EM Needs to Better Communicate Tech. Development Needs, Official Says

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management needs to do a better job in making the case for additional funds to develop improved cleanup technologies, a senior EM official said yesterday. “I think we have not done a very good job explaining what is it exactly we need technology development dollars for,” Monica Regalbuto, Associate Principal Deputy Assistant EM Secretary and the White House’s choice to lead EM, said at the first meeting of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board’s Task Force on Technology Development for Environmental Management. The task force has been charged with examining opportunities and barriers for EM in developing improved technologies to aid cleanup efforts. “Unfortunately, some people, when we say we need new technology, it equates to I need a new process to solidify fission products. And that’s not what we need to do. We have a solidification process—it’s called vitrification. It is the baseline, and we continue to make it the baseline. What we do need is an investment in those technologies to make those technologies significantly more efficient,” Regalbuto said. She added, “We need to be really narrow on what is it we’re trying to do, and I think those conversations have been lost unfortunately.”