“Better contracting, better cleanup” is the big goal in the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management’s new decade-long strategic vision, released this week.
The cleanup branch spends about 95% of its $8-billion-plus annual budget on joint ventures and a contractor workforce of 25,000, the agency said in the 52-page document.
“It remains critical that EM [Environmental Management] has a healthy industry base, including a growing pool of qualified small businesses performing meaningful work throughout EM sites across the country,” according to the goals document for 2024 through 2034.
Stephanie Schleif, deputy manager of the Washington Department of Ecology’s nuclear waste program, has been selected to succeed David Bowen as the state agency’s new manager.
Bowen recently stepped down to accept another supervisory position within the state agency. Schleif has been the nuclear waste program’s deputy manager since 2019 but has been with the program since 2013. She has more than 15 years of experience in environmental regulation, starting with an engineering role at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard before coming to Ecology.
Washington Department of Ecology Director Laura Watson made the announcement Thursday.
PHOENIX — The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is about 20% to its goal of adding 600 electric vehicles over the next few years, an executive with the site’s prime contractor said here Tuesday.
The site currently has 116 electric vehicles and will add another 44 this year, Mike Swain, executive vice president of Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions said. He made the observation during a panel discussion on nuclear sites during the Waste Management Symposia.
After 2027, the DOE sites will no longer be allowed to procure new internal combustion vehicles, although existing ones will stick around for some time, Swain said.
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management is seeking to transfer responsibility for 70-acres at an old uranium million tailings site to the Department of Energy’s Office of Legacy Management, the agency said this week.
Transferring the Durita Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Disposal Site, which has four buried uranium mill tailings disposal structures, means DOE would safely monitor the old site, the Bureau of Land Management said in a Tuesday press release. A withdrawal application was filed in the Wednesday Federal Register.
The transfer would occur under the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978.
The Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory is ready to proceed with installation of a small microreactor project capable of providing electric power for about 10 homes while providing the lab with a means of studying small reactor designs, DOE said in a Monday press release.
The design team for the Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation (MARVEL) microreactor is almost ready to start making components for the project after completing 90% of the final design package, DOE said in the press release.
The microreactor, which could be in operation in 2026, according to the release, should generate about 85 kilowatts of heat and 20 kilowatts of electricity. DOE has been pursuing the project for a few years.
The Savannah River Site in South Carolina is the latest Department of Energy nuclear property to issue a request for qualifications for carbon-free electricity projects.
The request for qualifications published Monday March 11 by DOE particularly targets solar power generation.Responses to the RFQ are due before noon Eastern Time on April 19.
