Sandia National Laboratories: Critical Resources Program

Vast amounts of dangerous materials and large areas of contaminated land have accumulated during the last four or five decades. These materials and areas are a legacy left behind by the Cold War and the rapid development of energy resources. To deal with this legacy-to reduce the risks it presents-is one of society's most pressing problems.

To dispose of the materials that cannot be reused, to store and recycle the materials that can be put to use, to clean up contaminated areas-all these tasks must be done safely and efficiently. And they must be done openly, in full public view, to help everyone feel confident that the risks have been dealt with properly.

The Critical Resources Program brings the capabilities of a national laboratory to these tasks. Sandia National Laboratories has a long history of successful work in waste disposal and environmental cleanup. Sandia has developed efficient techniques and instruments for doing these tasks. We have worked in cooperation with regulatory agencies, citizen groups, scientific-oversight groups, and other stakeholders. Along the way, Sandia has learned many lessons and created many new abilities. The Critical Resources Program takes advantage of these lessons and abilities as it solves waste-legacy problems in the United States and abroad.

The Critical Resources Program is led primarily by two groups at Sandia National Laboratories. The Nuclear Energy and Global Security Technologies Center and the Geoscience Research and Applications Group. This web site provides information on these two groups as well as the main projects and capabilities in the Critical Resources program.

The Critical Resources Program is made of two general types of activities:

Global Nuclear Materials and Waste Management
Domestic and international repositories (spent nuclear fuel, high-level waste, transuranic waste), transportation, nonproliferation/transparency, storage, orphan waste and special-case waste, low-level and mixed low-level waste.

Environmental Quality
Long-term stewardship and monitoring, environmental restoration, environmental research and technology, and waste retrieval.

The types of work performed in these areas include:

Decision analysis
Environmental remediation and waste management technology development
Geoscience research and development
Information/data management
Micro-sensors
Performance Assessment
Quality Assurance
Regulatory interaction and analysis
Site characterization and large-scale subsurface field-testing
Subsurface monitoring
System integration and optimization
Transportation packaging design and testing
Waste characterization

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Critical Resources Program

CRITICAL RESOURCES PROGRAM