Local high schoolers shadow SRS engineers

February 20, 2024, 9:27AMRadwaste Solutions
Aiken County Public School District students test out a mock glovebox during a tour of the Savannah River Site’s Waste Solidification Building. (Photo: SRNS)

Fifteen area high school students recently completed job shadow experiences with leaders, engineers, and education outreach personnel at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS).

Education outreach promoted by SRS and WIPP

January 29, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News
WIPP’s Joy James-Foster (left) visited SRNS’s Kim Mitchell to learn about how to establish a Regional Science Bowl in Carlsbad, N.M. (Photo: SRNS)

A program manager from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant recently visited the Savannah River Site to benchmark an education outreach program’s successful science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) outreach initiatives, which have been in place with local schools since 2008.

Savannah River Site offers select interns a career fast track

January 3, 2024, 3:00PMNuclear News
While interning at SRS, Texas Tech senior Jinju Philip spent time in the quality assurance program inside the Defense Waste Processing Facility. He now works part time in the Technical Student Program as a system engineer for the site’s tank closure effort. (Photo: SRMC)

The Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management’s liquid waste contractor at the Savannah River Site is giving nine college students the opportunity to jump-start their careers this year through a hybrid work program that allows them to finish their engineering or computer science studies while also interning at SRS.

DOE's cleanup year in review

December 21, 2023, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions

The Department of Energy, in its 2023 Year in Review released on December 20, noted that its cleanup program in 2023 had successes in treating liquid tank waste, carrying out deactivation and decommissioning, remediating groundwater and soil contamination, and reducing risk at its various sites across the nation.

William “Ike” White, senior advisor in the DOE's Office of Environmental Management, said that the office “realized numerous accomplishments in 2023 that not only reduce risks but help position cleanup sites for the next phase of progress. In addition, our workforce’s efforts over the past year led to a cleaner environment while also boosting DOE’s national security missions, supporting scientific innovation, and enabling a better future.”

Savannah River Site M&O contractor hosts supply chain summit

November 30, 2023, 9:30AMNuclear News
Savannah River Nuclear Solution’s supply chain management team discusses upcoming process changes during its first staff augmentation summit. (Photo: SRNS)

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions’ Supply Chain Management (SCM) team recently hosted its first staff augmentation summit to strengthen relationships with 25 staffing firms and provide upcoming process changes for fiscal year 2024.

DOE prepares for transition of Savannah River Site management

November 29, 2023, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions
DOE and NNSA personnel at a meeting discussing the plans for the upcoming SRS landlord transition. (Photo: DOE)

Personnel from the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management and the National Nuclear Security Administration recently gathered to discuss plans for the upcoming transfer of landlord responsibility for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

Tank waste disposal

November 17, 2023, 3:01PMNuclear NewsChris O’Neil
The 2F Evaporator at SRS. (Photo: Savannah River Site Photography)

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management is responsible for roughly 90 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste at Idaho National Laboratory, the Hanford Site in Washington state, and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. About 900,000 gallons of waste are stored at INL, 56 million gallons at Hanford, and roughly 36 million at SRS. A further 400,000 gallons of waste from various operations are being stored at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee.

Technical college introduces nuclear apprenticeship program

November 6, 2023, 9:30AMNuclear News
SRMC’s Dave Olson makes opening remarks to the new class of nuclear operator apprentices and faculty members at Denmark Technical College. (Photo: SRMC)

Eight new hires from Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC) are taking part in the new Liquid Waste Nuclear Operator apprenticeship class at Denmark Technical College in Denmark, S.C. The goal of the class is to prepare SRMC’s new employees for positions at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, in South Carolina.

Paradigm Shift: Monitoring Savannah River’s groundwater using artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques

November 1, 2023, 3:00PMRadwaste SolutionsChris O’Neil
A close-up of the ALTEMIS monitoring device. (Photo: Brad Bohr/SRNL)

Researchers at Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), in concert with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Florida International University, are leading the Advanced Long-Term Environmental Monitoring Systems (ALTEMIS) project to move groundwater cleanup from a reactive process to a proactive process, while also reducing the cost of long-term monitoring and accelerating site closure.

DOE issues additional Cleanup to Clean Energy RFIs

October 20, 2023, 9:32AMRadwaste Solutions

The Department of Energy has released two additional requests for information related to its Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative, which aims to repurpose certain DOE-owned lands—portions of which were previously used during the nation’s nuclear weapons program—into sites for clean energy generation, including include solar, geothermal, wind, and nuclear electricity.

SRS employees use novel training exercise to align waste mission

October 5, 2023, 3:02PMRadwaste Solutions
Ray Tran, an engineer for Savannah River tank farms, helps complete a timeline of SRS historical events as part of SRMC’s vision casting training initiative. (Photo: DOE)

More than 3,000 employees with Department of Energy contractor Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC) participated in a vision casting initiative, learning more about the past, present, and future of the Savannah River Site’s liquid waste mission.

Savannah River interns featured at CNTA breakfast event

August 7, 2023, 12:00PMNuclear News
From left, interns Justin Vu Le (SRMC), Zaire Shaw (SRNL), and Neal Thakkar (SRNS) were the featured speakers at an Up & Atom breakfast. (Photo: CNTA)

Three college interns from the Savannah River Site were the keynote speakers at a recent Up & Atom Breakfast hosted by Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness (CNTA). The breakfast was held at Newberry Hall in Aiken, S.C.

Savannah River hosts workshop, job shadowing event

July 19, 2023, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions
Savannah River National Laboratory employee Vernon Bush, center, and SRNL summer intern Jadrion Huell, standing at right, of Claflin University, conduct a job shadowing activity with students Tredarius Lassiter, seated at left, and Tommy Applewhite. (Photo: DOE)

A three-day Minority Serving Institutions Partnership Program (MSIPP) event, led by Savannah River National Laboratory researcher Simona Hunyadi Murph, was held recently at the South Carolina site, according to a release by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM). The event included a collaborative workshop, job shadowing, and a tour of the laboratory and Savannah River Site field activities.

SRS alliance brings STEM offerings to K-12 students

June 8, 2023, 7:00AMNuclear News
Gary Senn and Kim Mitchell assist second graders from Chukker Creek Elementary School in Aiken, S.C., with a STEM project.

For almost four decades, the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Ruth Patrick Science Education Center at the University of South Carolina–Aiken (USC Aiken) have partnered to bring science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education to the area's kindergarten through 12th grade students.

SRS’s H Canyon replaces essential crane motor

May 9, 2023, 9:33AMRadwaste Solutions
Crews recently replaced a motor in a crane at the SRS H Canyon for the first time in the facility’s 70-year history. (Photo: DOE)

Work crews at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina recently replaced a motor on a crane in the 70-year-old H Canyon Chemical Separations Facility. H Canyon is the only production-scale, radiologically shielded chemical separations plant in operation in the United States.