Engineering & Technology
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Engineering and Technology currently focuses on the following three areas:
at the largest EM sites: Savannah River, Idaho,
Hanford, Oak Ridge, and Portsmouth/Paducah.
Environmental Management (EM) Engineering and Technology activities identify and
advances technologies, processes, and technical practices that improve the
performance of environmental management projects over their entire lifecycle, from
planning to disposal. These efforts provide the highest level of interdisciplinary
engineering consultation, guidance, expertise, and continuity in the organization.
It provides DOE with development and implementation of engineering concepts, practices,
programs and advance technologies for improvement of design, construction, and
system/facilities management activities.
Engineering and Technology develops policy and guidance, and provides advice and
technology assistance to all of EM. These policies are in keeping with laws,
regulations, and higher-level DOE policy requiring responsible engineering practices
that ensure that system/facilities designs meet appropriate standards. This is
expected to reduce total cleanup costs by promoting cross-site integration,
standardizing best technical practice, solutions, materials and processes. Engineering
and Technology maintains a cadre of subject matter experts that work to reduce
planning, design, construction costs and maintenance and operation costs, provide
innovative transition to state of the art, beneficial technology and research and
development, and leverage lessons learned and feedback.
Engineering and Technology investments will provide the engineering foundation,
technical assistance, new approaches, and new technologies that contribute to
significant reductions in risk (both technology and safety and health), cost, and
schedule for completion of the DOE mission in cleaning up the legacy waste and
environmental contamination brought about from five decades of nuclear weapons
development and government-sponsored nuclear energy research.
Technology Development and Deployment Program
The Technology Development and Deployment (TDD) Program provides technology
solutions to help clean up DOE’s legacy waste and environmental contamination.
The TDD Program focuses on three major challenges: 1) identifying technology gaps
in individual site baselines; 2) offering significant cost/schedule reductions to
a site’s current baseline; and 3) improving worker and public safety. The focus is
on providing technical innovative solutions in response to the highest priority
needs of the sites.
The TDD Program also provides technical assistance to sites to reduce the technical
uncertainty and risk of site cleanup. This activity provides technical expertise,
scientific problem-solving, and technical solutions to support more precise
quantification and confirmation of the technical bases for decision making at
sites. This activity also provides engineering and scientific expertise for
external technical reviews to address difficult technical problems or for
resolution of project management issues.
The overall goals of the TDD Program are to eliminate technical barriers to
cleanup by reducing the life cycle resources required; reducing technical
uncertainty; improving safety performance by applying improved or new technologies;
increasing confidence in achieving long-term cleanup goals; addressing emerging
issues; and leveraging investments in scientific research conducted by other parts
of the Department. The program is composed of critical, high-risk and high-payback
activities where significant step improvements can be gained.
The Advanced Remediation Technologies program (ART) is a competitive process
initially mandated by Congress in FY 2005; they directed DOE “… to conduct a
competitive evaluation of the various advanced remediation technologies available
in the private sector.” The project was structured into two phases. In Phase I,
the selected projects were intended to develop a technical approach for
demonstration; provide appropriate test results for their technology; develop
scale-up plans and an implementation schedule; start detailed system design;
estimate the cost for implementation of the technologies at selected DOE site or
sites. Phase II will require a pilot/full-scale demonstration of the technology,
preferably at a DOE site. The demonstration of a characterization and monitoring
technical approach is expected to conform to the site’s management and operating
contractor’s Environmental Safety and Health (ES&H) requirements.
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