ECA Update: April 10, 2012
Published: Tue, 04/10/12
The House Armed Services Committee will mark up (edit) the Fiscal Year 2013 Defense Authorization Bill later this month, according to Congressional Quarterly. The Startegic Forces Subcommittee, which oversees strategic weapons, ballistic missile defense, space programs, and Department of Energy national security programs, is expected to mark up its portion of the bill on April 26.
The other House Armed Services subcommittees are also expected to mark up their portions of the bill on April 26 and 27. The full committee is expected to consider the full measure on May 9.
ECA will continue to monitor the FY 13 budget process for additional updates.
Fine Print: A disconnect in evaluating the nuclear weapons labs Walter Pincus, The Washington Post April 9, 2012 The distance between Washington and reality is always hard to measure.
But the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for the first time has released performance evaluations of the nation's eight nuclear weapons laboratories and production facilities. Until now, the reviews were held internally. The fiscal 2011 reviews let us measure what went on in the nuclear weapons programs against what's said about them in the nation's capital.
The 2011 review evaluated each facility in the nuclear weapons complex.
Let's examine the one that looked at how Los Alamos National Security LLC (LANS), the company established to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory, carried out NNSA objectives for 2011.
"NNSA specifies 'what' it wants rather than dictating to the contractor 'how' to get it done," according to the report.
The reviews are important for many reasons, but one critical one is money. Built into the contract are incentive fees awarded based on results of these performance reviews.
A Very Long Road for Military Nuclear Waste
Matthew L. Wald, The New York Times Green Blog March 29, 2012 Slowly, slowly, the Energy Department is moving forward with solidifying the liquid nuclear wastes left over from cold-war weapons production. On Thursday, the department said it had closed two more of the 51 underground tanks at the Savannah River Site in western South Carolina. The high-level waste was mixed with molten glass to keep it chemically locked up for millennia, and the lower-level material was mixed with a kind of cement that is supposed to keep it in place until the radioactivity dies down.
The department has 22 tanks at Savannah River that do not meet Environmental Protection Agency standards, mostly because they are single-wall tanks rather than double-wall. It closed two of them in 1997 but has faced numerous technical problems. Now it says it will have four more done by 2014 or 2015, and all of them by 2028. It is starting with the tanks that are closest to the water table because their contents would spread most rapidly if they leaked. (The area has a high water table.)
Yet the "closed" tanks are not actually empty. "More than 99 percent of the waste originally stored in these two tanks has been removed," said Thomas P. D'Agostino, undersecretary of energy. Since the tanks held more than a million gallons each, that could leave tens of thousands of gallons in place.
One problem is that the tanks have cooling coils and other hardware in place that makes cleaning difficult. But the department says it has developed new methods, including robotic tools, to get the tanks cleaner. Another problem is that the process of emptying the waste includes spraying new materials inside to get the liquids flowing.
LANL selects three New Mexico firms for environmental work
Kevin Robinson-Avila, New Mexico Business Weekly April 9, 2012 Three northern New Mexico companies will compete for up to $250 million in service contracts to transport and dispose of hazardous and radioactive waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory Latest from The Business Journals John Chavez highlighted in Hispanic Business magazineGov't cuts could bump 4,600 defense jobsIX Power to develop new water, energy tech with LANL Follow this company.
LANL awarded a "master task order" agreement for the work to ARS Cavanagh Environmental Services LLC, Portage Inc. and Navarro Research and Engineering Inc., said Andy Baumer, program manager for the lab's Environmental Programs Waste Projects and Services.
"These companies have the demonstrated safety records and expertise to meet stringent federal requirements for treating and disposing of waste," Baumer said. "They will be valuable partners in the lab's ability to dispose of the waste safely and efficiently."
READ MORE The TRU Waste Program at LANL is nearly two months ahead of schedule processing and repackaging waste stored in large fiberglass-reinforced boxes, or FRPs.
These large boxes pose particular repackaging challenges because they contain many different types of radioactively contaminated equipment and can be up to 30 feet long. The contents must be characterized, then repackaged to meet the criteria of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) or other permanent disposal facilities, before being shipped to those locations.
Program Manager Michael Romero credits the skill of workers, efficient processing, and good planning for the work being so far ahead of schedule.
"Our production rate has been nearly double what we planned originally," Romero said. "By applying the lessons weâ(TM)ve learned during the past few months of doing this work, our processing has become even more efficient."
Nuclear Watch New Mexico sues nuclear agency over documents Staci Matlock, Santa Fe New Mexican March 29, 2012 Nuclear Watch New Mexico has filed a lawsuit in federal district court against a federal nuclear agency to compel the release of information by the corporation managing Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The watchdog group is asking for the National Nuclear Security Administration's 2009 Performance Evaluation Report, after they claimed the agency denied them the document. Los Alamos National Security, which manages the lab, was awarded $72.1 million under the 2009 evaluation report, according to the group.
Nuclear Watch has filed the lawsuit under the federal Freedom of Information Act. It also requested the 2011 performance reports for all eight nuclear weapons sites in January.
$1.3M grant to benefit Hanford workers who were laid off Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald April 4, 2012 The Department of Labor has awarded a $1.3 million National Emergency Grant to help laid-off Hanford workers find jobs.
The largest portion of the money will be used for retraining former Hanford workers who lost their jobs as federal economic stimulus spending at the nuclear reservation came to an end.
"This grant will serve as a safety net for workers and their families during these challenging economic times," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a statement. Murray and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., sent a letter to Hilda Solis, the secretary of labor, in February, requesting consideration of a state application for the grant.
The money will help an estimated 400 former Hanford workers seeking jobs, giving them intensive employment-related assistance, including training, to help them re-enter the work force in areas of the economy that are growing, according to the Department of Labor.
Almost 200 construction workers have been laid off recently at the Hanford vitrification plant.
That brings the number of construction workers laid off to about 550 in the past five months.
While there has been some hiring of nonconstruction workers, including engineers and nuclear safety workers, the total employment on the project is now at about 2,725 workers.
That's down from about 3,000 in late January and a typical range of earlier of 3,200 to 3,400 workers, including construction and nonmanual workers.
The most recent round of layoffs was conducted with notices sent at the end of the last work week to 198 construction workers in a variety of crafts. They mostly are related to the Pretreatment and High Level Waste facilities.
"The craft work force is being aligned with current (vit plant) project priorities and resulting work plans," Bechtel National said in a statement.
More vit plant layoffs coming during 2012
Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald April 10, 2012 RICHLAND, Wash. Bechtel National will begin sending out a new round of layoff notices late this month as it cuts another 200 to 300 positions at the Hanford vitrification plant by the end of the year.
The layoffs are for nonconstruction workers, after Bechtel sent out layoff notices to 198 construction workers at the end of March, bringing total layoffs of construction workers to about 550 during a five-months period. Bechtel plans no more layoffs of construction workers this year.
Bechtel is doing some belt tightening at the vitrification plant, which includes reducing overtime, reviewing purchases and reviewing subcontracts, which also could lead to some job losses at some subcontractors on the project.
It is aligning its work force with current vitrification plant project priorities and resulting work plans, it said in a statement last week. The $12.2 billion plant is being built to treat up to 56 million gallons of radioactive waste left from past weapons plutonium production.
The nonconstruction positions that will be cut provide technical, construction and other support to the project, said Suzanne Heaston, Bechtel spokeswoman.
From start to finish, the decontamination and demolition of Hanford's 308 Building just north of Richland may have required the most work of any building yet at Hanford in the area along the Columbia River.
But Wednesday, Washington Closure Hanford announced the building had been reduced to rubble.
The building was one of the larger ones along the Columbia River at 71,000 square feet. But it wasn't the demolition with heavy equipment that was difficult, but what had to be addressed inside that made the project a challenge.
The building housed 52 glove boxes where workers would look through windows and reach into ports with attached gloves to do work with radioactive materials. Most glove boxes were 8 to 12 feet long and weighed about 1,200 pounds.
In addition, the glove boxes and exhaust system were heavily contaminated with plutonium.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday gave Scana Corp. permission to build two new nuclear reactors in South Carolina, making it the second power company in two months to get a nuclear license approval. Before the Atlanta-based Southern Co. was granted a license on Feb. 9, the NRC had not issued any new reactor licenses since 1978.
The license approval gives the South Carolina-based Scana the go-ahead to begin construction of two new units at its Virgil C. Summer plant near Jenkinsville, S.C. The commission issued the license in a 4-1 vote, with NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko dissenting.
Leaders of the nuclear industry are ecstatic about new reactor construction following a 34-year hiatus in the wake of the 1978 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania.
(Reuters) - South Africa is mulling the re-establishment of its uranium enrichment and conversion facilities, which were dismantled during the apartheid era, as it seeks to secure fuel for a new fleet of nuclear power stations.
Africa's largest economy, which announced more than 40 years ago that it would enrich uranium as part of a military-linked strategy during the Cold War, wants another 9,600 megawatts of nuclear energy to help shore up a power grid under pressure from rising demand and decades of under investment.
"The studies confirmed that fuel for the power reactor fleet should be manufactured in South Africa for reasons of security of supply when the nuclear component is expected to be around 13 percent of installed capacity," Chantal Janneker, Necsa's group spokeswoman, told Reuters.
Necsa, the country's nuclear energy corporation, is being encouraged to revive its participation in the nuclear value chain - including enrichment, conversion and nuclear fuel manufacturing - to reduce South Africa's current dependence on imported reactor fuels.
The country has some of the world's largest uranium deposits and the new nuclear fleet is likely to use 465 metric tonnes of enriched uranium a year by 2030.
Informational Meeting on Nuclear Fuel Cycle Options Office of Fuel Cycle Technologies, NE, Federal Register Notice March 30, 2012 The Office of Fuel Cycle Technologies will be hosting a one-day informational meeting at the Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois. At this meeting, input is being sought from participants knowledgeable in nuclear fuel cycles, including those from the public, universities, industry and national laboratories. The meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 25, 2012 from 8:30 a.m. to approximately 5:30 p.m.
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