Statement:
Environmental Management & Nuclear Waste Disposal: To support the long-term goal of safely managing cleanup and storage of nuclear materials consistent with the President’s March2015 determination to dispose of nuclear waste separate from civilian used nuclear fuel while achieving efficiencies
Management
- Resume waste emplacement at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant by the end ofcalendar year 2016
- Meet production milestones at the Defense Waste Processing Facility at Savannah River of 120 canisters of vitrified high-level waste in FY 2016 and 110 canisters in FY 2017
- Complete demolition to achieve slab on grade of the Plutonium Finishing Plant at Richland by the end of calendar year 2016
- Begin treatment of radioactive liquid waste at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at Idaho by the end offiscal year 2016
Storage, Transportation, and Disposal
- Complete the Deep Borehole Field Test (DBFT) Characterization Borehole by February 2017
- Develop and publish the phased and adaptive consent-based siting strategy for the first Phase of the siting process by the end of FY 2017
- Initiate engagement with communities and stakeholders interested in developing a consent-based siting process for integrated waste management system facilities; complete and publish a report that reflects the inputs received, documenting the priorities, comments and concerns expressed throughout the development process by Dec 2016.
- Complete a review of the existing transportation cask Certificates of Compliance (COC) by FY 2017 in order to identify items for confirmation and/or resolution prior to transportation of spent nuclear fuel.
Description:
Overview of the Management part of the goal:
Fifty years of nuclear weapons production and energy research generated millions of gallons of liquid radioactive waste, millions of cubic meters of solid radioactive waste, thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and special nuclear material as well as the deactivation and decommissioning of thousands of excess facilities. The Environmental Management (EM) program was established in 1989 to manage the successful cleanup of this Cold War legacy.
Management and removal of radioactive transuranic waste across the complex directly supports risk reduction and the goal of reducing the EM site footprint. The EM Program coordinates with all Department sites to retrieve, repackage, characterize, ship, and dispose of transuranic waste. The only facility where transuranic waste can be disposed is the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Currently, the repository is recovering from accident events and is not accepting any waste for emplacement. Department sites generating and processing transuranic waste are storing these inventories requiring disposal until waste emplacement operations are resumed which is currently anticipated by the end of calendar year 2016.
The EM Program has an estimated 88 million gallons of highly radioactive waste from the legacy of the Cold War stored in 239 tanks at the Hanford, Savannah River and Idaho sites. The treatment and disposal of liquid tank waste demonstrates a tangible reduction in some of the greatest risks in the EM Complex. Lastly, through the elimination of high-risk material, corresponding life-cycle cost reductions are achieved for an activity that is a major cost driver to the EM program. The Agency Priority Goal involves initiating treatment of tank waste at the Idaho Site at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit as well as retrieving and processing tank waste at the Savannah River Site through the Defense Waste Processing Facility. The Defense Waste Processing Facility is targeted to produce 120 and 110 canisters of vitrified high-level waste in FY 2016 and FY 2017, respectively.
The decontamination and decommissioning of excess legacy facilities are an excellent indicator of EM’s progress towards the reduction of environmental, safety and health risks in a safe, secure, compliant, and cost-effective manner as well as reducing monitoring and maintenance life-cycle costs and liabilities. For example, at the Plutonium Finishing Plant complex, at the Hanford Site: several buildings previously used for defense production of plutonium nitrates, oxides and metal from 1950 through early 1989, are being cleaned out; special nuclear materials and fuels have been packaged and shipped to storage facilities; and the facilities are scheduled to be demolished to slab-on-grade by the end of calendar year 2016.
Overview of the Storage, Transportation, and Disposalpart of the goal:
In March 2015, President Obama authorized the United States Energy Department to move forward with planning for a separate repository for high-level radioactive waste resulting from atomic energy defense activities. Additionally, in remarks before the Bipartisan Policy Center, Secretary Moniz discussed this path forward for defense waste as well as a parallel path for storage and disposal of commercial spent fuel, consistent with the Administration’s January 2013 Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste, which built upon the work of the bipartisan Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future completed in January 2012. Secretary Moniz announced three specific actions that the Department will undertake (1) Planning for a defense-only repository, (2) Moving forward with planning for interim storage of commercial spent fuel, and (3) Moving forward with a consent-based siting process for both types of facilities.
In support of these actions, the Office of Environmental Management and the Office of Nuclear Energy are working together to complete the safe cleanup of the environmental legacy brought about from five decades of nuclear weapons development and government-sponsored nuclear energy research and to lay the groundwork for implementing interim storage and disposal, including associated transportation.
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Statement:
Nuclear Security: To modernize the nation’s existing nuclear weapons stockpile, make progress toward the completion of life extension programs consistent with the Nuclear Posture Review and manage nonproliferation actions to prevent, counter, and respond to global nuclear and radiological threats
Life Extension Programs
- Complete at least 70% of W76-1 cumulative production unit builds by the end of 2016, and 80% by the end of 2017
- Achieve B61-12 Phase 6.4 authorization to initiate production-engineering activities by the end of FY 2016, and achieve B61-12 First System Qualification Flight Test by the end of FY 2017
Prevent, Counter, and Respond to Nuclear and Radiological Threats
- Complete delivery and installation of a cumulative total of 755 fixed, mobile, and man-portable radiation detection systems by theend of FY 2017
Description:
Overview of the Life Extension Programs part of the goal:
Following the Department of Energy Strategic Plan for 2014-2018, the DOE/NNSA Enterprise Strategic Vision (August 2015) provides the framework for integrating our missions and a future direction in pursuit of DOE’s strategic goals. The highest priority for the Nuclear Weapons Stockpile mission pillar is the sustainment and life extension of reduced weapons currently in the stockpile, which demands a careful and balanced execution of maintaining a safe, secure, reliable, credible and responsive nuclear weapons stockpile, without underground nuclear explosive testing. DOE/NNSA has successfully sustained the deterrent since the unilateral moratorium on nuclear explosive testing in 1992, and will continue to do so through the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program. This has been accomplished through the capabilities, vision, and determination of DOE/NNSA’s world-class scientists, technicians, and engineers, as well as significant investments in scientific tools, facilities, and people. Sustaining the nuclear weapons stockpile includes a range of priority activities that are interdependent. As weapons systems age, life extension, alteration, and modification programs are addressing aging and performance issues, enhancing safety features, and improving security. DOE/NNSA will meet strategic deterrence requirements with a reduced stockpile size while retaining reliability. To meet national policy for a safe, secure, and effective stockpile as long as nuclear weapons exist, sustainment is necessary to maintain the operational capability. The “3+2” Strategy is the program of record that guides DOE/NNSA’s sustainment efforts, which will eventually downsize the stockpile through the sustainment process. Consistent with the Nuclear Posture Review (DoD 2010) objectives, ongoing sustainment efforts include the production of the W76-1 LEP which will enable reduction of W76 warheads by a factor of two, and the B61-12 LEP which will consolidate four families of the B61 into one and improve both the safety and security of the oldest weapon system in the U.S. arsenal.
Key Barriers and Challenges:
- The NNSA is committed to the national security requirement to meet the immediate needs of the stockpile while maintaining the basic research and development, technology, and production infrastructure to respond to technical, and geopolitical surprise. The NNSA underpins both confidence in the stockpile, and reinforcement of the DoD, and other national security interests.
- To fulfill NNSA's commitment to DoD and to the nation, the NNSA works together with its DoD partner to identify priorities and make the appropriate adjustments to scope, and schedule that will achieve the goals of the President and the NPR.
- NNSA must conduct surveillance, and annual assessments as the nuclear weapons stockpile ages. If technical surprises were to occur, the nation must have safe, and secure facilities, and the science and engineering base to respond. Infrastructure modernization delays continue to challenge NNSA's ability to maintain nuclear surveillance and assessment capability.
- NNSA must continue to meet facility safety and security requirements and work to achieve efficiencies where possible.
- The nation must maintain an unequaled capability to understand the design and physics of any nuclear device. This understanding extends beyond the stewardship of our own stockpile, and includes an ability to analyze and effectively respond to any nuclear threat.
Overview of the Radiological Threats part of the goal:
The NNSA's strategy incorporates a threat-based, defense in depth approach to illicit trafficking that recognizes:
- Smuggling of nuclear and other radioactive materials is an ongoing global enterprise
- Even a single, viable trafficking network constitutes a serious U.S. national security risk and global threat
- There are existing gaps in the global nuclear and radiation detection architecture
- International coordination is imperative to meeting global nuclear security needs
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Statement:
Energy Policy: To enable cost-competitive, clean energy technologies and resilient energy infrastructure consistent with the Climate Action Plan, Quadrennial Energy Review (QER), and Quadrennial Technology Review (QTR)
Efficiency Standards
- Issue final energy standards that meet the Climate Action Plan goal of 3 GT total cumulative CO2 reduction by 2030
Loans Guarantees
- Issue new conditional loan guarantee commitments, as appropriate, of up to $8.5 billion for advanced fossil energy and $4.5 billion for renewable energy and efficient electricity technologies that include distributed energy and storage systems by the end of FY2017
- Solicit additional applications, and as appropriate, issue new conditional loan commitments to increase fuel efficient vehicle and advance vehicle component manufacturing
Quadrennial Energy Review (QER)
- Issue semi-annual implementation reports on Transforming U.S. Energy Infrastructures in a Time of Rapid Change
- Develop and issue the second installment of the QER on the electricity system as a whole by the end of CY 2016
QTR
- Develop a clean energy technology R&D portfolio reflecting the analysis and assessments of the QTR for the President’s FY 2017 Budget
Description:
Overview of the Efficiency Standardspart of the goal:
Residential and commercial buildings consume approximately 40 percent of the primary energy consumed in the United States. This amounts to over 39 Quads of primary energy used by the buildings sector per year, an amount that is greater than the yearly energy consumption of either the industrial or the transportation sector. By developing minimum energy efficiency standards, as mandated by legislation, the Energy Department’s Equipment Standards and Analysis program helps reduce energy costs for consumers and businesses by billions of dollars, as well as associated energy use and emissions. Savings from these standards free up money to be spent elsewhere, spurring economic growth.
By covering a broad range of equipment—appliances, refrigeration, space heating and cooling, water heating and other electrical equipment—the DOE's work with standards development and implementation increases energy efficiency in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. National standards that eliminate the least energy-efficient products from the market, ensure that energy saving technologies are accessible to all consumers, provide manufacturers with a single set of requirements rather than an array of potentially conflicting state and local regulations, and drive technology and cost improvements.
The Department of Energy uses three strategies to drive building energy efficiency, focused first on research and development of the most promising emerging technologies, followed by industry support activities such as Better Buildings and ENERGY STAR, and then implementation of equipment energy efficiency standards.
As mandated by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1978 (as amended), the Department’s Equipment Standards and Analysis program is developing and enforcing efficiency standards and test procedures to cover at least 75 percent of the energy used in the building sector. Under current law, covered products are responsible for 82 percent of residential building energy consumption, 67 percent of commercial, and approximately half of industrial. DOE promulgates energy conservation standards that are technically feasible and economically justified, subject to the Energy Policy and Conservation Act’s (EPCA) seven factors. In determining whether a standard is economically justified, DOE determines whether the benefits of the standard exceed its burdens by, to the greatest extent practicable, considering these seven factors:
(1) the economic impact of the standard on the manufacturers and on the consumers of the products subject to such standard;
(2) the savings in operating costs throughout the estimated average life of the covered product in the type (or class) compared to any increase in the price of, or in the initial charges for, or maintenance expenses of, the covered products which are likely to result from the imposition of the standard;
(3) the total projected amount of energy, or as applicable, water, savings likely to result directly from the imposition of the standard;
(4) any lessening of the utility or the performance of the covered products likely to result from the imposition of the standard;
(5) the impact of any lessening of competition, as determined in writing by the Attorney General, that is likely to result from the imposition of the standard;
(6) the need for national energy and water conservation; and
(7) other factors the Secretary considers relevant.
To maximize energy savings subject to EPCA, the Standards subprogram first meets all statutory and other legal deadlines for completing standards and test procedures. The Department is also committed to streamlining the process for developing and issuing rulemakings in partnership with industry and other stakeholders. In order to expand coverage to new products, EPCA requires that these products consume at least 100 kilowatt-hours of electricity per household per year. To determine which products should be added through coverage determinations, DOE conducts analyses that examine the energy savings potential of various unregulated residential appliances, electronics, and commercial equipment while considering the impact of non-regulatory energy-efficiency programs currently available in the market. In addition to these actions, DOE also develops test procedures for ENERGY STAR, which is an effective non-regulatory program that saves consumers energy. By taking these actions, the Department’s Equipment Standards subprogram will contribute to the Department’s broader efforts to help buildings and industrial facilities reduce energy use and save costs.
The Department is working to address a variety of different challenges associated with this work, including:
Standards require a robust test procedure to be effective.
Changes to the statute or its legal interpretation and the need for additional information uncovered during the review process are factors that can affect the schedule for final issuance of the standards.
Energy price, product cost and consumer use projections vary and must be factored into the rulemaking process.
Stakeholder Engagement: Energy conservation standards are established by a four-phase rulemaking process: a framework phase, preliminary analysis phase, notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR), and final rule. The Department actively encourages stakeholder participation and interaction at all stages of the process. Early and frequent interactions among stakeholders have been useful for providing a balanced discussion of critical information required to conduct the analysis to support any standards. Stakeholders include equipment manufacturers, building owners, State energy agencies, Utilities, Trade Associations and other interested parties.
The Department also coordinates with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on key certification and compliance issues with the Energy Guide Label and ENERGY STAR, respectively. The Department of Energy has also engaged with non-governmental organizations, such as the Collaborative Labeling and Appliance Standards Program, on international harmonization with respect to certification and compliance requirements.
Overview of the Loans Guaranteespart of the goal:
As part of the President’s Climate Action Plan, the Loan Programs Office (LPO) issued the Advanced Fossil Energy Projects Solicitation, which makes up to $8.5 billion in loan guarantees available to support innovative, advanced fossil energy projects in the U.S. that reduce, avoid, or sequester greenhouse gases.
Fossil fuels currently account for more than 80 percent of U.S. energy production and are projected to remain a significant energy source in the future. As a result, President Obama’s Climate Action Plan announced that LPO would issue this solicitation to accelerate the deployment of cleaner fossil energy technology. This is an important part of the Administration’s long-term plan to achieve a cleaner and more secure energy future as part of its “all-of-the-above” energy strategy
Overview of the Quadrennial Energy Review (QER)part of the goal:
In January 2014, President Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum that initiated a review process to provide a multi-year roadmap for U.S. energy policy known as the Quadrennial Energy Review (QER).
The QER is envisioned as a focused, actionable document designed to provide policymakers, industry, investors, and other stakeholders with unbiased data and analysis on energy challenges, needs, requirements, and barriers that will inform a range of policy options, including legislation. Each installment of the QER will analyze and make recommendations for a key component of the energy value chain.
As directed by the President, the Department of Energy (DOE) provides analytical support for the QER and helps manage the interagency process through a Secretariat. These activities are consistent with DOE’s statutory responsibilities and reinforce the objectives of DOE’s Strategic Plan by supporting the first two components of Goal 1:
- Advance the goals and objectives in the President’s Climate Action Plan by supporting prudent development, deployment, and efficient use of “all of the above” energy resources that also create new jobs and industries; and
- Support a more economically competitive, environmentally responsible, secure, and resilient U.S. energy infrastructure.
Overview of the Quadrennial Technology Review (QTR)part of the goal:
The 2015 Quadrennial Technology Review (QTR) describes the Nation's energy technology landscape and the changes that have taken place since the first report in 2011. The 2015 QTR approaches the analysis from a systems perspective to explore the integration of science and technology.
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Statement:
High Performance Computing: Contributes to implementation of the President’s Executive Order establishing the National Strategic Computing Initiative including accelerating delivery of a capable exascale computing system that integrates hardware and software capability to deliver approximately 100 times the performance of current 10 petaflop systems across a range of applications representing government needs, and establishes a viable path forward for future High Performance Computing systems even after the limits of current semiconductor technologies are reached.
- By Q2 FY 2016, establish a multiyear exascale research program plan in support of DOE’s contribution to the President’s high performance computing initiative
- By the end of FY 2017, identify software technology investments needed to accelerate delivery of a capable exascale system
- By Q1 FY2017 establish a plan for DOE’s contribution to research of new progressive technologies that perform beyond Moore’s Law
Description:
Contribute to implementation of the President’s Executive Order establishing the National Strategic Computing Initiative including accelerating delivery of a capable exascale computing system that integrates hardware and software capability to deliver approximately 100 times the performance of current 10 petaflop systems across a range of applications representing government needs, and establishes a viable path forward for future High Performance Computing systems even after the limits of current semiconductor technologies are reached.
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Statement:
Capital Projects: To manage DOE Capital Asset Projects effectively in support of DOE national security, clean energy, and cleanup goals and complete DOE capital asset projects within scope, schedule, and cost
- Complete 90% of DOE post-Critical Decision (CD)-3, Approve Start of Construction or Execution, capital asset projects within 110% of the cost baseline in effect as of the start of FY 2016
Description:
The Department of Energy (DOE) is the largest civilian contracting agency in the Federal Government and spends approximately 95% of its annual budget on contracts to operate its scientific laboratories, engineering and production facilities, and environmental restoration sites and acquire capital assets. The Department has been challenged, both externally and internally, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its contract and project management processes. The Department remains committed to making continuous improvements in contract and project management performance.
Since 1990, the Department has been on the GAO High-Risk List for inadequate contract and project oversight and management. In its February 2013 High-Risk List update, GAO acknowledged the Department’s continuing improvement in contract and project management by shifting the focus of DOE’s high-risk designation to major contracts and projects executed by NNSA and EM with values of $750 million or greater. This focus continued in GAO’s update provided in February 2015.
In November 2014, a working group of DOE’s most senior project managers produced an in-depth analysis of project management in a report entitled “Improving Project Management” which resulted in a Secretarial policy memorandum, “Improving the Department’s Management of Projects” released by the Secretary in December 2014. Based on the report and policy memorandum, and drawing from industry and government best practices, the Department took several steps to supplement ongoing efforts to improve project management, including: strengthening the Energy Systems Acquisition Advisory Board (ESAAB), establishing a Project Management Risk Committee (PMRC), and improving the lines of responsibility and the peer review process.
Progress toward achieving this goal, project management success, is tracked in the Department’s Project Assessment and Reporting System (PARS II) and reported to Program Offices, GAO and OMB on a quarterly basis.
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Statement:
National Laboratories: To deliver the highest quality R&D and production capabilities, strengthen partnerships with DOE headquarters, and improve management of the physical infrastructure of the national laboratories to enable efficient leadership in science, technology, and national security
- By the end of FY 2017, the percentage of assessed DOE laboratory facilities categorized as “adequate” will increase by 2 percentage points from the FY 2015 baseline
- Sponsor an annual “National Laboratory Big Ideas Summit” in FY 2016 and FY 2017
- Develop and implement a consistent, annual process to track and assess laboratory planning and evaluation
Description:
Deliver the highest quality R&D and production capabilities, strengthen partnerships with DOE headquarters, and improve management of the physical infrastructure of the national laboratories to enable efficient leadership in science, technology, and national security.
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