AIKEN, S.C. - Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette toured the Savannah River Site (SRS) for the first time in late March, visiting SRS facilities and engaging the workforce and community leaders.
“It was a great visit at Savannah River Site, where I learned more about your impressive work in stockpile stewardship, environmental cleanup, and putting science to work," Brouillette told the workers and community members. “You have a strong legacy of important work to the Department and our nation, and I look forward to working with you to accomplish even more."
Brouillette met with community leaders at an event hosted by the SRS Community Reuse Organization at the SRS Museum in downtown Aiken. He also attended an informal roundtable luncheon with SRS early career professionals. Brouillette talked about his upbringing and career experience and listened to federal and contractor employees share their educational background, experience, and aspirations as the next-generation nuclear workforce.
During a tour of K Area, Brouillette viewed a demonstration on downblending, in which plutonium is mixed with inert material for safe disposition offsite. K Area provides for the handling and interim safe storage for much of DOE’s excess plutonium and other special nuclear materials.
At Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), EM’s national laboratory, Brouillette was briefed on topics such as nuclear material processing and the world’s first radiological evidence laboratory at the FBI’s Radiological Evidence Examination Facility housed within SRNL. Laboratory staff discussed how SRNL is saving billions of dollars in the EM program through advances in glass science and vitrification, the process used to turn highly radioactive liquid waste into a stable glass form for long-term disposal.
At H Canyon, representatives briefed Brouillette on the site’s nuclear materials stabilization and disposition mission. He toured the chemical separations facility ─ the only operating, production-scale, radiologically-shielded facility in the U.S. SRS has used H Canyon to downblend highly-enriched uranium (HEU), which can be used in nuclear weapons, into low enriched uranium (LEU) to make fuel for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) commercial power reactors. Since March 2003, over 330 trailers of LEU have been shipped to TVA, which is enough to provide power for all the homes in South Carolina for over 8.5 years.
During a tour focused on the SRS liquid waste mission, Brouillette visited the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF), the nation’s only operating radioactive waste glassification plant. DWPF converts radioactive liquid waste stored at SRS into a solid glass form suitable for long-term storage and disposal. DWPF has produced 4,162 canisters since operations began there in 1996 - more than half of the canisters needed before the facility completes its waste vitrification mission.
Another tour stop was the Salt Waste Processing Facility, which is designed to process the site’s inventory of salt waste, approximately 34 of 36 million gallons of waste stored in 43 underground storage tanks. Construction and startup of the facility is critical to DOE’s commitment to reducing risk at SRS and is among the Department’s highest environmental cleanup priorities. The SWPF is currently undergoing system testing, and is scheduled to begin operating in fiscal year 2019. Once operational, it will significantly increase processing rates for the site’s radioactive liquid waste system and the ultimate emptying and closure of the site’s remaining waste tanks.
Brouillette’s trip ended with a stop at the Saltstone Disposal Units (SDUs). Decontaminated salt waste solution is mixed with grout and stored in SDUs for safe, permanent storage. The units are cylindrical concrete tanks based on a design used commercially for storage of water and other liquids.
Completed in April 2017, SDU 6 is 10 times larger than previously constructed vaults and will hold approximately 32.8 million gallons of grouted decontaminated low-level salt waste. DOE recently presented the 2018 Project Management Excellence Award to the SDU 6 project team, which completed construction on the mega-cell at a cost of about $118 million, more than $25 million below cost, and 18 months ahead of schedule. During his first visit to SRS earlier this year, Energy Secretary Rick Perry broke ground for SDU 7, the second of the seven massive units planned to store the remaining tank waste at significant cost savings.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Environmental Management
