DOE Hosts First Cleanup to Clean Energy Industry Day

ECA Staff | 8/1/23

As part of a special Industry Day, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced the launch of the Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative to increase clean energy production by leasing DOE-owned land at several of its sites for new carbon emissions-free energy projects. 

Granholm stated, “We are going to transform the lands we have used over decades for nuclear security and environmental remediation by working closely with tribes and local communities together with partners in the private sector to build some of the largest clean energy projects in the world.”

The Secretary was joined at the meeting by DOE senior leaders from the Office of Environmental Management, Office of Nuclear Energy, and National Nuclear Security Administration who presented DOE’s vision for the initiative, in accordance with Executive Order (E.O.) 14057, Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability. The E.O. directs agencies to authorize use of their real property assets, including land for the development of new clean electricity generation and storage.

DOE identified 70,000 acres of land at five of their sites for potential large-scale clean energy projects, or storage projects. The five sites include: 

• Hanford Site, Richland, Washington 
• Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, Idaho 
• Nevada National Security Site, Nye County, Nevada 
• Savannah River Site, Aiken, South Carolina 
• Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Carlsbad, New Mexico 

Per the E.O., qualifying clean electricity opportunities include electrical energy produced from resources that generate no carbon emissions including marine energy, solar, wind, hydrokinetic (including tidal, wave, current and thermal), geothermal, hydroelectric, nuclear, renewably sourced hydrogen, and electrical generation from fossil resources with active carbon capture and storage of carbon dioxide emissions. 

This Industry Day was the first of DOE’s effort to identify partners experienced in implementing successful cleanup projects generating 200 MW or larger. Additional Industry Days will be held at each specific site, with only the first currently scheduled at Hanford on September 22, 2024.

ECA is excited to engage with DOE and its contractors already working in our communities on this initiative and will provide additional information as it becomes available. 

A link to the full DOE Press Release can be found here, and a copy of the agenda from July 28, can be found here.
 

 Murray secures proposed record-high funding to clean up radioactive waste in Eastern WA

Tri-City Herald | 7/31/23

The Hanford nuclear reservation site would receive a record of just over $3 billion in fiscal 2024, up $195 million from current funding, under the U.S. Senate Energy and Water Appropriations bill. 

It was one of 12 bills that passed out of the Senate Appropriations Committee this summer with overwhelming bipartisan votes under the leadership of Chairperson Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. 

It is a first time since 1918 that all 12 Senate appropriations bills have passed out of committee. 

The U.S. House is proposing a Hanford budget of $2.8 billion, which is below the Biden administration’s request of almost $2.9 billion. 

Those numbers do not include some additional money, including the costs of site-wide security and management of the defunct Fast Flux Test Facility.

“As long as I am the Senate appropriations chair, Congress is not going to shortchange the Hanford cleanup, the workers who power that mission or the communities living nearby,” Murray said in a statement. 

The Senate’s proposed budget would increase spending for the Hanford work under the Richland Operations Office by nearly $36 million to just over $1 billion. 

The Richland Operations Office proposed budget would include $10.7 million in “payment in lieu of taxes,” or PILT, to make up for the property taxes not paid for local government services because the 580 square miles of Hanford is federally owned. 

PILT money is used for roads, rural libraries, ports, public hospital and other health services, and help for indigent veterans. But the largest chunk goes to schools, primarily the Richland School District. 

As recently as 2021, the Biden administration had proposed no PILT money. 

The spending for the Hanford environmental cleanup work under the Office of River Protection would increase $160 million to $1.89 billion. 

Additional money would be provided for security and the Fast Flux Test Facility. 

The Office of River Protection is responsible for the 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical waste in underground tanks, many of them prone to leaking. It also is responsible for treating the waste at the not-yet-operating vitrification plant or through other methods the Department of Energy may choose. 

The Richland Operations Office is responsible for running the site and any other environmental cleanup, including contaminated and unused buildings and reactors; contaminated groundwater and soil; and waste disposal sites that don’t meet modern standards. 

The Hanford site in Eastern Washington adjacent to Richland was used from World War II through the Cold War to produce nearly two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program. 

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REGISTRATION IS OPEN!
September 11-13, 2023
Arlington, VA

Join us for the 9th annual National Cleanup Workshop at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, VA. Register today to hear from senior DOE leaders, local government officials, and industry leaders about the future of DOE’s Environmental Management program.  *Rates increase on July 1, 2023.

If you have questions or are interested in sponsorship, please contact Autumn Bogus at abogus@la-inc.com.  For more information, please visit cleanupworkshop.com.

UPCOMING MEETINGS

The American Nuclear Society invites you to a special update on the Department of Defense's Project Pele program Wednesday, August 2, from 2:00 - 3:00 pm ET. 

The deployment of advanced reactor technology can sometimes seem far away; however, the Department of Defense's Project Pele aims to change that discussion with a first deployment by 2025. Deploying micro nuclear technology for battlefield and other military applications could have huge impacts on logistics and reliability for the military of the future. Join us and hear unique perspectives on this exciting project from two of the program's key leaders.

This one-hour conversation will feature BWXT Advanced Technologies LLC, President, Joseph Miller, along with Jeff Waksman, Program Manager, from the Strategic Capabilities Office.  

Zeno Power Systems, Director of Space and Planetary Regulation, Alex Gilbert will serve as moderator. 

U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board August Public Meeting to Focus on U.S. DOE Consent-Based Siting Efforts and Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste Management Research and Development, Tuesday August 29

The U.S.NWTRB  will hold a workshop on Tuesday, August 29, 2023, to update its understanding of the lessons learned from the siting of radioactive waste management facilities, domestically and in other countries.

The hybrid (in-person/virtual) workshop is from 8:00am-5:00pm MDT. The workshop will be held at Snake River Event Center, 780 Lindsay Blvd, Idaho Falls, ID 83402. Details for joining and viewing the workshop will be available on the Board’s website approximately one week before the workshop.

For information on the workshop, contact Bret Leslie at leslie@nwtrb.gov or by phone 703-235-9132; or Yoonjo Lee at lee@nwtrb.gov or by phone 703-235-4482. For information on meeting logistics, contact Davonya Barnes at barnes@nwtrb.gov or by phone 703-235-9141.

NEW MEDIA

Gone Fission Nuclear Report: Electrifying the EM Vehicle Fleet

The Department of Energy's Environmental Management office spends a lot of time remediating the problems of the past. But that doesn't mean they don't have an eye on the future. Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in EM's current push to electrify it's gasoline-powered vehicle fleet. 

In this week’s episode of the Gone Fission Nuclear Report, Rob Seifert, DOE EM Headquarters, and Stuart MacVean, President and CEO of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, discuss the status of progress in meeting federal mandates to electrify the fleet.

Check out ECA's latest report! 

DISPOSAL DRIVES CLEANUP: RE-ENERGIZING MOMENTUM FOR DISPOSAL SOLUTIONS FOR RADIOACTIVE WASTE

This report calls on the Department of Energy to launch the initiative to develop the actual waste disposition approaches. The Department could potentially save hundreds of billions of dollars in cleanup costs by using its available tools and implementing the report’s recommendations.