D&D Focus Area (DDFA) within EM’s Office of Science and Technology (OST). Three subsequent meetings, which included tours of facilities that are illustrative of major D&D challenges, were arranged as follows:

• Hanford, May 24-25, 2000, focused on production reactor, separations, and fuel fabrication facilities;

• Oak Ridge, June 26-27, 2000, focused on research reactor, gaseous diffusion, and laboratory facilities; and

• Rocky Flats, August 23-24, 2000, focused on plutonium handling facilities and lessons learned.

The committee has largely completed its fact finding activities and has had significant discussion of findings and recommendations. While further discussions will refine and expand on this interim report, the committee offers the following comments that it believes will be helpful in preparing the FY 01 solicitation and in developing plans for a long-term program.

The committee finds that there are strong safety and economic incentives for innovative D&D technologies that may be achieved through scientific research.

The safety incentive is immediate for workers conducting D&D operations, and it will grow as DOE takes on the more challenging D&D tasks. These workers deal with special hazards that are different from those in other parts of DOE’s Paths to Closure program (USDOE, 1998a), including the following:

• working in confined spaces in areas of high radioactivity,

• disassembling and removing massive steel and concrete structures,

• direct, hands-on manual labor with powerful saws, torches, and lifting devices, and

• incomplete knowledge of the highly complex systems they are dismantling. ⁷

DOE expects to spend some $30 billion for D&D of weapons complex facilities after 2006, compared to about $4 billion until then (Hart, 2000). This is because the biggest D&D challenges, for example at the Savannah River and Hanford sites, will be undertaken after 2006. The DDFA believes that about half of the $30 billion can be saved through use of innovative technologies that it expects could be developed by that time (Hart, 2000).

To meet EMSP’s needs for its upcoming solicitation, the committee has identified, preliminarily, three areas where it feels present technology is inadequate and where it believes EMSP-funded research could make significant contributions. These areas are characterization, decontamination, and remote systems. Within these three areas the committee has five specific recommendations that EMSP may wish to consider in preparing its forthcoming solicitation. Two recommendations deal with characterization, two deal with decontamination, and one deals with the crosscutting area of remote systems (including robotics).

Interim Report for the Committee on Long-Term Research Needs for Deactivation and Decommissioning at Department of Energy Sites (1-9)

Attachment A: Committee Roster (10-10)

Attachment B: Statement of Task (11-11)

Attachment C: List of Reviewers (12-12)

Attachment D: References (13-15)