While partnerships across industry, academia and the Department of Energy complex are a critical component of Savannah River National Lab’s future, they also served as a foundational element throughout the lab’s history. The 1989 Tri-Party Agreement between the DOE, the Washington State Department of Ecology and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency brought attention to the…
Our nation’s energy needs continue to increase and advances in nuclear power technologies are central to ensuring energy resiliency. Savannah River National Laboratory is leveraging decades of expertise in four key areas that address the emerging needs associated with advanced small modular reactor (SMR) fuel cycles. SRNL’s applied science solutions for Tri-Structural Iso-tropic (TRISO) fuel…
Savannah River National Laboratory researchers are building on the laboratory’s legacy of cutting-edge science to effectively immobilize nuclear waste in innovative ways. As part of the Center for Hierarchical Waste Form Materials, SRNL is leveraging its depth of experience in radiological waste management to explore new frontiers in the industry. About a decade ago the…
The Advanced Long-Term Environmental Monitoring Systems project funded by the Department of Energy – Environmental Management Office of Technology Development is an ongoing effort at Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) with the overarching goal of improving the monitoring of groundwater contaminant plumes. ALTEMIS allows for a more affordable and proactive approach to monitoring groundwater contaminants…
Research conducted by Savannah River National Laboratory has impacts far beyond the perimeter of the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., where the laboratory has been addressing the nation’s most complex environmental and legacy management challenges for more than 70 years. The Advanced Long-Term Environmental Monitoring Systems Program is an example of innovative technical approach…
Five nuclear reactors were constructed at Savannah River Site in the early 1950s to produce plutonium and tritium for nuclear weapons. However, none of the reactors could produce these materials, or even enter the initial start-up process, until the 400/D area at SRS came online. The massive 400/D area, one of the first production areas…
The nation’s nuclear weapons program helped win the Cold War and continues to provide a deterrent vital to national security, but it also left a significant environmental legacy. While environmental cleanup has been completed at most Department of Energy (DOE) sites associated with the nuclear defense program, 15 sites still have decades of waste processing,…
Savannah River National Laboratory is well known for its body of work in tritium, development of technologies for the disposition of nuclear wastes, and advancements in environmental remediation. Not as widely known is SRNL’s work in biological research. For nearly 25 years, SRNL also conducted applied research related to microbiological processes focused on bioenergy and…
A little more than a year ago a charter was signed formally establishing the Regulatory Center of Excellence (RCE) at Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), ushering in a new resource to sites across the DOE complex facing the toughest regulatory compliance challenges. Designed as an “as-needed” resource for sites, the RCE provides innovative strategies that…
For as long as scientists have worked to develop nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, scientists have also labored to develop effective means of disposing of nuclear waste products. This need is the mission of the Department of Energy, Environmental Management (DOEEM), “to complete the safe cleanup of the environmental legacy brought about from decades of…
The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management is responsible for roughly 90 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste at Idaho National Laboratory (INL), the Office of River Protection at Hanford, Wash., and the Savannah River Site (SRS). About 56 million gallons are stored at Hanford, Wash., 900,000 gallons are at INL and roughly…
On the afternoon of March 11, 2011, Japan was devasted by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. The quake caused a 47-foot tsunami wave to crash into the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, resulting in wide scale contamination of the area’s waterways. Meanwhile, halfway across the world, Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) researcher Anna Sophia Knox, Ph.D.,…