DOE - EM
Updated Organizational Chart 10-16-12 Link
Updated Headquarters Mission & Functions Statement Link
Hanford
Management Alert: The 2010
Vision One System Proposal for Commissioning and Startup of the Waste Treatment
and Immobilization Plant
The Department of Energy is considering a
proposal known at the 2020 Vision One System (2020 Vision) that would
implement a phased approach to commissioning the $12.2 billion Waste Treatment
and Immobilization Plant (WTP). As part of the phased approach, the Low-
Activity Waste (LAW) facility would be made operational approximately 15 months
before commissioning the remainder of the project. Although the implementation
of the phased approach offers potential benefits, early operation of the LAW
facility presents significant cost, technological and permitting risks that
could adversely affect the overall success of the River Protection Project's
(RPP) mission of retrieving and treating the Hanford Site's tank waste in the
WTP and closing the tank farms to protect the Columbia River. See full report
Official says vit analysis not developed
Published: October 10, 2012 By Annette Cary,
Tri-City Herald
The Department of Energy has failed to develop
a detailed analysis of the costs and risks of a proposed plan to start operating
part of the Hanford vitrification plant early, according to the DOE Office of
Inspector General. It issued a management alert Tuesday. DOE has been
considering starting operation of the Low Activity Waste Facility at the plant
15 months before the rest of the plant. However, it told the DOE Office of
Inspector General that its phased operations startup proposal, called the
"2020 Vision One System," is on hold while technical issues are
addressed and a new cost and schedule for the vitrification plant is
established. Link
Official says vit analysis not developed
By Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald
The Department of Energy has failed to develop
a detailed analysis of the costs and risks of a proposed plan to start
operating part of the Hanford vitrification plant early, according to the DOE
Office of Inspector General. It issued a management alert Tuesday. DOE has been
considering starting operation of the Low Activity Waste Facility at the plant
15 months before the rest of the plant. However, it told the DOE Office of
Inspector General that its phased operations startup proposal, called the
"2020 Vision One System," is on hold while technical issues are
addressed and a new cost and schedule for the vitrification plant is
established. Resolution of technical issues could change DOE's approach to
waste pretreatment. But early startup of low activity waste treatment remains a
prominent alternative and could move forward after the plant's technical issues
are addressed, the report said.
The $12.2 billion vitrification plant is being
built to turn up to 56 million gallons of radioactive waste into a stable glass
form for disposal starting in 2019, if the current deadline is met. The waste
is left from the past production of plutonium for the nation's weapons program.
The plant will separate the waste into high level and low activity radioactive
waste streams at its Pretreatment Facility and then send the waste to the Low
Activity Waste Facility or the High Level Waste Facility for glassification.
DOE has proposed in a plan called the "2020 Vision One System" that
it start the Low Activity Waste Facility before the Pretreatment Facility is
done. That would require a temporary pretreatment system to be set up in the
Hanford tank farms and a temporary waste transport system built to deliver the
waste from the tank farms directly to the Low Activity Waste Facility. The
proposal does offer some benefits, according to the DOE Office of Inspector
General. It would give Hanford workers early experience operating the plant and
allow management to work out "the inevitable unforeseen challenges in a
safer and more controlled manner," the management alert report said.
Starting part of the plant early would demonstrate DOE's commitment to cleaning
up Hanford waste, the report said. The project has been plagued with delays and
schedule revisions. However, the proposal also carries significant risk that
requires additional analysis, the report said. Despite recommendations by two
independent review teams, DOE has not developed a detailed analysis of the 2020
Vision costs, benefits and risks, the report said. Recommendations were made by
the Tank Waste Subcommittee of the Environmental Management Advisory Board in
June 2011 and the DOE Office of Environmental Management's Construction Project
Review team two months later. Without analyses of costs, benefits and risks,
DOE might choose a course of action that would inadvertently delay completion
of the vitrification plant project, the report said. Because costs associated
with early operation of the Low Activity Waste Facility are likely to be
significant, DOE needs the best possible estimate of the costs before deciding
whether to proceed with an early startup, the report said. The technologies
needed to pretreat waste before it leaves the tank farms have not been
developed enough to realistically assess operational efficiencies and to show
that they could be used safely. That leaves a significant risk that the
technology may not perform as intended, the report said. "This could
result in operational delays and the need to perform additional development
work or the development of acceptable alternative technologies," the
report said.
The Office of Inspector General also is
concerned that the process would need to be accelerated to issue permits for
early operation of the Low Activity Waste Facility. Neither Bechtel National,
which is building and starting up the plant, nor the Washington State
Department of Ecology, which would issue the permits, have enough staff to
accelerate the process, the report said. DOE Hanford officials said they are
not evaluating the 2020 Vision proposal now. However, they will complete a detailed
business case analysis prior to a decision to feed waste directly to the Low
Activity Waste Facility, they told the Office of Inspector General. Link
Material between
Hanford tank walls apparently radioactive waste
Published: October 12, 2012 By Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald
A sample taken from between the inner and
outer walls of a Hanford double-shell tank confirms the material is consistent
with the radioactive waste held in the tank, according to preliminary test
results. It's more evidence that at least one of Hanford's double-shell tanks,
which are needed to hold waste for decades to come, may be deteriorating.
Finding waste outside the inner shell of Tank AY-102 is a first for a Hanford
double-shell tank. The Department of Energy expects to know enough by the end
of next week to declare whether or not Tank AY-102 is leaking from its inner
shell. Hanford has 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical
waste held in underground tanks until they can be treated for disposal. The
waste is left from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear
weapons program. The waste is being pumped from leak-prone single-shell tanks,
some of them built as early as World War II, into 28 newer double-shell tanks.
The double-shell tanks might have to hold waste for as long as another 40 years
until all the waste can be treated. It is important to remember that the
material within the walls of Tank AY-102 is stable, said Tom Fletcher, DOE
assistant manager of the tank farms, in a message to DOE employees Thursday. No
radioactive material has been found outside the outer wall of the tank, and
there is no indication of radioactive contamination in the leak-detection pit
outside the tank, he said. The issue was discovered in August during video
monitoring of the area between the inner and outer walls that was designed as
an overflow space if the inner steel liner were to leak. The outer shell is
made of steel and covered with steel-reinforced concrete. A video camera,
inserted down a tank riser that had not previously been used for visual
examinations, Riser 90, showed two side-by-side areas of contamination. One was
a dry mound about 24 by 36 by 8 inches. A small sample collected in connection
with the video inspections showed the material was radioactive but provided
little other information. Workers next sent video equipment down the remaining
nine risers that provide access into the area between the tank's shells,
finding nothing unusual near eight of the risers. But more unusual material was
found near one riser, Riser 83, which was on the opposite side of the tank from
where contamination had initially been spotted near Riser 90. It was
particularly concerning because a a photo of the same area between the two
shells of the tank near Riser 83 in 2006 showed it was clean then. The sample
collected in that area after the video inspection "is largely consistent
with the type of material found in that tank," according to Fletcher. But
before reaching a conclusion on whether the inner shell of the tank has leaked,
more samples will be collected from the material spotted in August near Riser
90. Results will be analyzed by a technical panel of Washington River
Protection Solutions, the DOE contractor for the Hanford tank farms. Tank
AY-102 is among the oldest of Hanford's double-shell tanks, going into service
in 1971, and is just past its design life of 40 years. It has a capacity of
about 1 million gallons and holds about 850,000 gallons of waste. Hanford
workers have increased monitoring to make sure there is no change in conditions
since finding the waste between the shells of Tank AY-102. Longer term, work
will be done to determine if other double-shell tanks might have similar
issues. -- Annette Cary Tri-City Herald
Link
HANFORD DETERMINES DOUBLE-SHELL TANK LEAKED
WASTE FROM INNER TANK: Testing found no
indication of leaks outside the outer tank
DOE Release October
22, 2012
RICHLAND -- The Department of Energy’s Office
of River Protection (ORP), working with its Hanford tank operations contractor
Washington River Protection Solutions, has determined that there is a slow leak
of chemical and radioactive waste into the annulus space in Tank AY-102, the
approximately 30-inch area between the inner primary tank and the outer tank
that serves as the secondary containment for these types of tanks. This is the
first time a double-shell tank (DST) leak from the primary tank into the
annulus has been identified. There is no indication of waste in the leak
detection pit outside the DST, which means that no waste has leaked out of the
annulus and into the environment. Link
DOE officials confirm
tank leaking radioactive waste
Published: October 23, 2012 By Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald
The Department of Energy has confirmed that
its oldest double-shell tank is actively leaking radioactive and hazardous
chemical waste from its inner shell. DOE made the announcement Monday after a
video inspection of the area between the shells Sunday showed more waste in one
place than a video taken Thursday showed. "It's a very, very small
volume," said Tom Fletcher, DOE assistant manager for the tank farms.
Although there's no good way to measure the amount, it could be a couple of
tablespoons of additional waste between the video inspections. Tank AY-102 is
the first of Hanford's double-shell tanks known to have leaked waste from its
inner shell. The Hanford nuclear reservation has 28 double-shell tanks that are
being used to hold waste from older single-shell tanks, many of which have
leaked in the past. Together, the two types of underground tanks hold 56
million gallons of radioactive waste left from the past production of plutonium
for the nation's nuclear weapons program. Read more here:
One of
the Largest Pieces of Processing Equipment removed from Plutonium Finishing
Plant
The successful
removal of one of the largest, most complex pieces of equipment from the
Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) Hanford Press Release October 25, 2012 Link
Huge glovebox pulled from Hanford's
Plutonium Finishing Plant
SRS
October 1, 2012, AIKEN, S.C. – A team of scientists is working at the Savannah River Site (SRS) to evaluate the impact of an innovative, inexpensive treatment system that removes mercury from water. In this treatment, the mercury is pulled from the water through a reaction with stannous chloride, a form of tin, and air stripping, a technology in which volatile contaminants are removed from water and partitioned into air. This system has been in full-scale operation in M Area at SRS since November 2007. Dennis Jackson, a Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) engineer who supported the laboratory research, noted that “the M Area treatment system has operated continuously, successfully and safely since startup, meeting our regulatory commitments.” Link
Report: SRS Paid Out
$7.7 Million It Didn't Need To
11:12 AM, Oct 26, 2012
Aiken
County, SC (WLTX) - The Savannah River site gave out millions of dollars to
workers that the federal department of energy says wasn't supposed to be paid
out. The Energy Department says the Savannah River site paid out $7.7 million
in severance packages to contract workers.
Our
partners with the Washington Guardian say this is what happened. They report
526 contract workers at SRS who were hired to temporary jobs under the stimulus
package were not given the 60 day layoff notice required under federal law.
When those contracts ended - the workers were given about $14,600 each in
severance moneythat the energy department did not plan to spend. From what the
Washington Guardian has uncovered, the Energy Department knew for months that
these stimulus jobs were coming to an end, and they had plenty of time to send
the legally required layoff warnings. But because the Savannah River Site
leadership did not provide that notice to these workers, they had to pay the
nearly $8 million. We're told the projects at SRS included clean up of nuclear
material and infrastructure improvements. Watchdog groups worry the same
mistake could be made at other government agencies that had this kind of
temporary work under the stimulus program.
Oak Ridge
NNSA delivered the news to B&W Y-12, says
corrective actions at Y-12 not enough
The
National Nuclear Security Administration's decision to terminate the contract
of WSI-Oak Ridge was delivered in letter to B&W Y-12, the managing
contractor at Y-12, and the letter made it clear that the federal agency wasn't
too happy with B&W either. While we recognize that both B&W Y-12 and
WSI-OR have undertaken corrective actions, neither these actions nor the
response to the Show Cause Notice are enough, at this point, to fully resolve
the issues presented in the Show Cause Notice," Jill Albaugh, the
contracting officer in NNSA Production Office, said in a letter to Chuck
Spencer, the president and general manager of B&W Y-12. Link Posted by Frank Munger on September 28, 2012 at 6:13 PM
The U-233 concerns
One of the biggest issues raised this week by Bob Alvarez's report on the Dept. of Energy's management of the U-233
stockpile was the intent to directly dispose of a bunch of the fissionable and
high-rad materials in landfills at the Nevada National Security Site. Another concern raised
was the inventory differences that suggested as much as 100 kilograms or more
could be missing or otherwise unaccounted for.
"It only takes between 20 and 35 pounds to make a multi-kiloton
explosion that could destroy all of downtown Washinton, D.C., or another
city," the Alvarez paper said. Link
Posted by Frank Munger on September 28, 2012 at 10:48 PM
UPF to be redesigned because equipment won't fit;
$500M already spent on Y-12 project
KNS
photos/Michael Patrick
John
Eschenberg, federal project director for the Uranium Processing Facility,
answers questions at today's hearing of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety
Board. That's Dr. Don Cook, deputy administrator for defense programs at the
National Nuclear Security Administration, in the foreground, and Teresa
Robbins, deputy federal project director, to Eschenberg's right. In photograph
below, DNFSB Board Member John Mansfield asks a question while Peter Winokur,
the board chairman, left, listens. The Uranium Processing Facility, already
tabbed as the biggest construction project in Tennessee history, is apparently
going to get even bigger. At a federal safety board hearing today in Knoxville,
officials at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant acknowledged that the UPF will have
to be redesigned because all the equipment needed to process bomb-grade uranium
and conduct other related activities won't fit into the 340,000-square-foot
building as previously envisioned. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
convened today's field hearing at the Knoxville Convention Center to hear
testimony from project officials about the board's ongoing safety concerns and
to gather public comment. Board members grilled the project team about delays
in incorporating safety into the UPF's design and lingering issues about the
government's strategy for building and operating the new uranium facility in
Oak Ridge. The biggest news, however, was that UPF planners hadn't figured out
a way to fit all of the project's nuclear operations into the design package,
despite years of work and about half a billion dollars already spent.
Steven
Stokes, a staff member of the safety board, said the issue further complicates
the safety picture for the Uranium Processing Facility, which is supposed to
replace a series of old and outmoded nuclear facilities -- some of which date
back to World War II. "This redesign of UPF as it neared final design is a
serious undertaking with the potential for significant impacts on public and
worker safety," Stokes said at today's hearing.
Among
other things, the new plans will remove a glovebox that was originally included
as a way to help workers involved in the uranium processing activities, Stokes
said. Because the space issue was discovered so late in the design process it
will have a greater impact on the project, and that could affect cost, schedule
and safety, he said. Dr. Peter Winokur, chairman of the Defense Nuclear
Facilities Safety Board, said the board is concerned UPF will continue to
experience problems because safety got short shrift early on. The cost range
for the Uranium Processing Facility had been officially estimated at $4.2
billion to $6.5 billion, and it was not immediately clear how the redesign will
change the project's cost. John Eschenberg, the federal project director for
UPF, told the board that in order to create more space for the facility's
production activities that the roof of the building will have to be raised
about 13 feet. After the meeting, he acknowledged that would add to the cost of
the project. In addition, the concrete foundation slab will have to be about a
foot thicker, and the walls will have to be thickened from 18 inches to 30
inches, he said.
Those
are the major structural impacts of the space/fit problem, Eschenberg said. The
federal project director said the Department of Energy had not yet determine
the root causes for why the building design didn't meet the UPF needs.
"The project prematurely established a hard footprint," he said,
perhaps an outgrowth of having the early design team doing work at three
different locations .
The
scope of the Uranium Processing Facility had not changed since its inception,
Eschenberg said, so that's not to blame for the space shortage. Eschenberg said
more information about the impacts of the redesign and other details would be
available in about three weeks, after an engineering evaluation is completed.
In response to questions during an interview a few months ago, the federal
project director acknowledged that designers were dealing with space issues but
he suggested it wasn't that unusual and would be resolved during the final
design stages.
Posted by Frank Munger on October 2, 2012 at
8:47 PM
John Eschenberg, federal project director for the Uranium Processing
Facility, one of the biggest government projects on the board, had the
unenviable task this week of facing questions from the Defense Nuclear
Facilities Safety Board and others on the fact that years of work on the UPF
design -- and half a billion dollars spent -- had not yet delivered a design accommodating all the processes as envisioned. Indeed, the UPF is going to have
to be redesigned with the roof raised about 13 feet and other associated
changes. In an interview following the board hearing, Eschenberg said the UPF
team is still hopeful of achieving Critical Decision 2 by September 2013, at
which time there would be a definitive price tag and schedule for the project.
But he added, "Now, I will tell you that my confidence in our ability to
meet that date has been degraded, it's been eroded." Safety concerns about
UPF were supposed to the focal point at the DNFSB hearing, but the revelation
that hundreds of people hadn't come up with a workable design for UPF after
years of effort took over the news of the day. This was a particularly stunning
event because, as Eschenberg acknowledged, there had been no major change in
scope or add-ons to make the space/fit issue more forgivable or understandable.
While the National Nuclear Security Administration had not yet established the
"root causes" for why the building design didn't meet the space
needs, Eschenberg said, "The project prematurely established a hard
footprint." That could be result of the early design team working out of
three different geographic locations, he said. He repeatedly emphasized that
more information should be available in about three weeks, after an engineering
evaluation is completed. The cost range for the Uranium Processing Facility has
been officially estimated at $4.2 billion to $6.5 billion, and officials
weren't able to say how the redesign would change that. A major topic at the
hearing was UPF team's decision several years ago to cancel development of the
Preliminary Safety Design Report for the project, a prerequisite for
establishing Critical Decision 2 and -- according to the safety board -- a must
for demonstrating that safety is integrated into the preliminary design. The
report was later picked up again and the UPF completed a PSDR in 2011 and
submitted for NNSA review, which identified many issues. Eschenberg admitted
that temporarily abandoning the work on the PSDR was a mistake. "We should
not have deviated from our practice," he told the board. Despite the
design changes and uncertainties, Eschenberg said that some plans for the UPF
are likely to proceed later this year, including some work on site readiness.
Asked if everything was getting pushed back, he said, "Today, our plans as
we've talked before, remain constant. That is we want to start the site prep
work, which is simply to relocate the main thoroughfare through the valley --
Bear Creek Road -- and extend the haul road. There are some minor other work
scopes that we can do. For example, there are some underground infrastructures
that we need to move. So all of those thigns we can begin executing through the
Army Corps of Engineers soonest. These things are not directly coupled (to the
redesign effort)." The planned demolition of Building 9107, a task that
was to be done by B&W Y-12, has apparently been put on the back burner.
"That is not something we needed right away," Eschenberg said.
"Because there are some other things we're going to buy. We're going to
buy the concrete batch plant. That sets us up very nice so that as we proceed
we've got all the infrastructure we need as we set about digging the large
excavation, beginning the backfill and then ultimately getting into the nuclear
part of the building." | Link
Eschenberg: Redesigning UPF now is a whole lot better -- and cheaper --
than tearing it apart after construction begins
John Eschenberg, federal project director for the Uranium
Processing Facility, said it's possible the project team could have squeezed
all of the necessary equipment into existing designs for the new 350,000-square-foot
production center at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. However, urgent efforts in
recent months were unable to resolve the space/fit problems as the UPF design
approached 90 percent completion, and Eschenberg said it was far better to bite
the bullet now -- and face an anticipated barrage of criticism -- than to try
and make major changes after concrete was poured and construction of the
building had started. That's why Eschenberg and the National Nuclear Security
Administration, already with a reputation for less-than-laudable project
management, acknowledged last week that the UPF would have to be redesigned to
make sure the multibillion-dollar facility is able to function as it should. Link
Y-12's West End Mercury Project: the good, the bad and the remaining
uncertainties
The West End Mercury Project was one of the
higher profile Recovery Act projects in Oak Ridge, with high hopes and a
compelling need. The idea was to clean
and repair the aged storm sewer system at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant, remove as much mercury as possible
and try to prevent continuing in-leakage as a nasty freeway to East Fork Poplar
Creek. The project is either at an end or near it's end, and Steven Wyatt, a
spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, noted there had
been some accomplishments associated with WEMA, although the mercury project --
unlike many of the other Recovery Act projects in Oak Ridge -- did not finish
within its original schedule or budget. According to Wyatt, the West End
Mercury Area project cleaned 7,773 linear feet of storm sewer, lined 1,239
linear feet, processed 600,000 gallons of contaminated water, disposed of 1,320
cubic feet of processed low-level waste filter cake and recovered 50 pounds of
elemental mercury through the treatment process. Did the project result in any
mercury reductions in East Fork, which is posted as a hazard because of Y-12's
Cold War-and-ever-since discharges? That's not clear. "Sampling results of
the creek have been inconclusive regarding reduction of mercury flux," Wyatt
said in response to questions. The final cost of WEMA, he said, is $17.3
million. That's a few million dollars above the original cost estimate. More on
the Y-12 mercury situation later. There're a lot of issues on the table. Link
Posted by Frank Munger on October 21, 2012 at
9:24 PM |
Misc
Posted by Frank Munger on September 27, 2012 at 5:43
PM |
The
National Governors Association today released a 13-page paper, titled,
"Twenty Years of the Federal Facility Compliance Act: Lessons Learned
about the Cleanup of Nuclear Weapons Waste." Excerpt:
"The cleanup of the nuclear weapons complex, which began in 1989, is
considered the largest environmental management program in the world, with a
total price tag that could surpass $300 billion. The effort is managed by DOE,
but states play an important role in the oversight of cleanup."
Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance envisions Southeastern New Mexico home for spent nuclear fuelBy Taryn Walker Posted: 10/04/2012 10:09:23 AM MDT
NRC
NRC
chief says agency prioritized lessons from Japan disaster
·
By Charles S. Clark October 25,
2012 Government Executive
In one of her first wide-ranging interviews since
assuming office in July, the chairwoman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on
Thursday outlined priority lessons from the March 2011 nuclear meltdown in
Japan and provided an overview of work-life at an agency known both for
leadership tensions and high employee satisfaction. Link
Regulatory chief:
Edge on nuclear power shifting to US
- 10/25/12
03:05 PM ET E2 Wire The HILL’s Energy & Environment Blog
U.S. nuclear innovation is
on the rise as nuclear heavyweights Germany and Japan head toward a possible
decline in technical expertise, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chairwoman
Allison Macfarlane said Thursday. After the March 2011 nuclear reactor meltdown
at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant, Germany decided to phase out nuclear
power by 2022. Japan’s government also said it plans to eliminate nuclear
power, though it is unclear whether that will materialize. Curtailing nuclear
power in those two leading nuclear nations will “probably” result in a shortage
in technical proficiency there, Macfarlane said at a discussion hosted by the
Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. “You’re probably not
going to see a lot of young people becoming nuclear engineers. And so this is a
concern not only to the nuclear industry, but to the regulators because you
want to make sure that you have adequate staff to ensure that these facilities
operate safely,” she said. Macfarlane emphasized the U.S. “is not in that
situation.” She likened Germany’s position to that of the United States in the
1990s. “There was definitely a concern that we didn’t have adequate folks being
trained, especially in nuclear engineering departments,” Macfarlane said. She
added, “That changed a lot in the 2000s with the sort of nuclear renaissance.” Macfarlane
said that resurgence has helped the U.S. forge ahead with new types of
reactors. She said those reactors are smaller, and therefore could cost less
than the “extra large” legacy models. The first design certification
applications for those reactors could come next year, Macfarlane said. She
said the NRC has been in contact with several companies working on the
reactors, some of which have had discussions with electric utilities. Macfarlane
said an Energy Department (DOE) program that splits a $452-million grant — with
an industry match — with up to two firms developing such reactors would help
“push them forward.” That grant is dispersed over five years, DOE said, adding
it is still reviewing applications for the program.
The reactors range between
100 megawatts and 300 megawatts of electric generating capacity. Macfarlane
noted that most of those reactors would operate underground, potentially
minimizing damage from a spill. “This is certainly a very interesting area of
potential growth — and we’ll see,” Macfarlane said. Link
