A Strategic Vision for Department of Energy Environmental Quality Research and Development (2001) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-11
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· Manage, stabilize, process, and dispose of a legacy of widely varying and often poorly characterized DOE wastes (including spent nuclear fuels and nuclear materials treated as waste) that are potential threats to health, safety, and the environment.
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SCOPE OF DOE's EQ MISSION It is important to discuss the scope of DOE's EQ mission because any consideration of the adequacy of an R&D portfolio requires a clear understanding of the programmatic objectives that these R&D activities are intended to support. Such clarity is a challenge, however, because DOE's use of the term "environmental quality' is a misnomer that creates a great deal of confusion, both within and outside DOE, and because DOE documents reviewed by the committee are not entirely consistent in describing the EQ mission.
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The committee recommends that DOE develop strategic goals and objectives for its EQ business line that explicitly incorporate a more comprehensive, long-term view of its EQ responsibilities. For example, these goals and objectives should emphasize long-term stewardship and the importance of limiting contamination and materials management problems, including the generation of wastes and contaminated media, in ongoing and future DOE operations.
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ADDRESSING LONG-TERM, CURRENTLY INTRACTABLE6 EQ PROBLEMS Many of the problems confronting the EQ business line are longterm, both because they involve materials that remain hazardous, in some cases, for thousands to hundreds of thousands of years and because they are so complex and unique that R&D may have to continue for decades to generate their solutions.7 DOE is responsible for managing, removing (or isolating) , and disposing of uniquely hazardous, chemically complex substances, such as spent nuclear fuel, liquid high-level radioactive wastes, nuclear materials, mixtures of hazardous and radioactive compounds, and a wide range of contaminated media (e.g., groundwater, soil, and nuclear production facilities)
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For residual contamination at closed legacy sites, for example, the system of long-term stewardship should not preclude future actions to address remaining risks to human health and the environment. The system should allow future decision makers to re-initiate active cleanup activities if and when future technologies improve to a point where it makes sense to address remaining risks, or when the understanding of the effects of DOE wastes and contaminated media on human health and the environment improve.
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The committee recommends that DOE use, at a minimum, the following 10 criteria for this purpose: 1. There should be no significant gaps in critical areas of science and technology that are required to address EQ goals and objectives.
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Accordingly, the elements generally were not defined along existing DOE program lines and are quite broad. The committee recommends that DOE's EQ R&D portfolio include, at a minimum, the following 5 principal elements: 1.
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The existing R&D planning processes are unlikely to generate the full scope of strategic R&D needed to address DOE's most challenging, long-term EQ problems. The committee recommends that DOE establish a new mechanism within its portfolio management process whose purpose is to develop a more strategic EQ R&D portfolio.
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In contrast, the annual investment in EQ R&Dis the smallest of DOE's programmatic business lines, accounting for only 4 percent of DOE's total R&D spending. These budget data are an indication that decision makers in DOE, the Office of Management and Budget, and Congress may not fully understand the magnitude and duration of many of the challenges faced by the EQ business line, and the potential value of long-term R&D to ad9 The committee refers to the organizations carrying out the integrated and coordinated R&D efforts as "R&D centers" to indicate that the whole of each is greater than the sum of its parts.
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Broad-based support for R&D requires a compelling commitment to the goals and objectives of DOE's EQ mission. The committee recommends that DOE develop new strategic goals and objectives for its EQ business line that explicitly incorporate a more comprehensive, long-term view of its EQ responsibilities.
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An EQ R&D portfolio that is well conceived, effectively managed, adequately and consistently funded, and championed by DOE leadership is essential to success in achieving the DOE EQ mission.
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