Two mobile, noninvasive characterization technologies working in tandem will be verified for their capabilities to accurately quantify the nuclear content of waste drums at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. The Rapid Commercialization Initiative is helping the technologies--Waste Inspection Tomography, and Active and Passive Neutron Examination and Assay--get maximum impact from the INEL demonstration. WIT was developed by Bio-Imaging Research. Lockheed Martin Specialty Components is the developer of APNEA. Verification testing of the technologies at INEL began January 20 and is expected to run through February 1997. RCI is a joint federal, regional, state, and private-sector program to expedite the commercial use of new environmental technologies (see Initiatives, February and June 1996). RCI doesn't directly fund demonstrations, but the backing it provides is as crucial as money in commercializing technologies. For 10 innovative environmental technologies that were competitively selected, RCI makes it possible for state and federal regulators and other people interested in a technology--technology developers and holders, federal site managers, and stakeholders--to meet to discuss the best ways to audit the performance of a technology and collaborate on ways to streamline regulatory requirements. One RCI goal is to use one demonstration of a technology as the basis for gathering performance and economic data acceptable to many states, thereby avoiding costly and time consuming demonstrations in multiple states. Federal partners in the RCI venture include the U.S. departments of Commerce, Defense, and Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Regional participants are the Southern States Energy Board and the Western Governors' Association. By building working relationships among agencies, regulators, and stakeholders, RCI is cracking barriers to environmental technology commercialization. Meeting sets the stage for WIT/APNEA demo In December 1996, the RCI Working Group hosted a WIT/APNEA information exchange meeting and tour to introduce the technologies to four state regulators, federal site personnel, financiers, cleanup contractors, and a Community Leaders Network participant. Following a day of learning about the technologies, the RCI participants met in a special working session to discuss the proposed test plans for demonstrating the technologies at INEL. The goal is to reach agreement on the method of testing the technologies so one demonstraton will yield performance data acceptable to regulators in several states. RCI is a work in progress As the RCI partners work together to streamline the certification of environmental technologies, they will confront roadblocks and address issues arising from their diverse institutions, cultures, and perspectives. Therefore, RCI can be seen as an evolving process that will improve as the interested parties share lessons learned from each of the 10 RCI projects. Claire Sink is a senior technology policy advisor to Clyde Frank, deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science and Technology. At the WIP/APNEA information exchange meeting, Sink said, "RCI is beginning to help the elephant change." But change is often incremental and slow. Sink added, "So far, the only rapid thing about RCI is that seven partners signed the RCI agreement in 10 days." Since that signing in December 1994, progress has been steady, if not rapid, as RCI partners work together to develop criteria for evaluating technologies. By working through the relevant issues together, the RCI community forges test plans that reflect each participating state's relevant criteria. Eventually, regulators will be ready, as Sink puts it, "to take the performance data home" to multiply the number of states where a technology is approved for use. RCI aims to replace the command-and-control compliance mode with a process that depends on regulators and others working in a spirit of collaboration. Circuit riders spread the good word Each RCI project team also includes individuals who have been designated as circuit riders in the RCI process. Circuit riders serve as ombudsmen and technology advocates; they address regulators' concerns as they facilitate the collaborative process among regulators. At the WIT/APNEA information meeting, Rick Tomlinson of the Western Governors' Association said circuit riders help state regulators write protocols for validating technologies. Circuit riders have also been instrumental in getting more states involved in the RCI process. After RCI chose the private-sector technology participants in March 1996, RCI asked the technology holders to identify states where certification was desired. Circuit riders have been working to sell the RCI idea to the 20 states named by the technology holders. RCI circuit riders have been drawn from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Southern States Energy Board, and the Western Governors' Association. WIT/APNEA has potential to meet site needs At the Idaho Falls meeting, John Suermann, waste characterization manager at DOE's Carlsbad Area Office, said he was confident the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, DOE's planned repository for TRU waste in the desert near Carlsbad, New Mexico, will open as planned in November 1997. However, to ensure a steady stream of fully characterized and certified TRU waste drums moving to WIPP, 25 identified TRU waste generators and storage sites must have the resources to comply with WIPP's waste acceptance criteria. Mobile systems have been endorsed by the National TRU Waste Management Plan as a cost-effective means of helping sites characterize, repackage, vent, and load TRU waste for shipment to WIPP. Joel Case, hazardous waste program manager at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, stressed the urgency of INEL's having the technologies to help meet its legal obligations to the state of Idaho. A recent agreement signed by the governor of Idaho and DOE commits DOE to remove 3,100 cubic meters of TRU waste (15,000 drums equivalent) from INEL by December 31, 2002. WIT and APNEA team up for demonstration Richard Bernardi of Bio-Imaging Research and Donald Steinman of Lockheed Martin Specialty Components explained how their respective mobile, noninvasive characterization systems--Waste Inspection Tomography, and Active and Passive Neutron Examination and Assay--will join forces to image the contents of waste-storing drums at INEL. This project integrates WIT's capability to capture x-ray and gamma ray characterization data with APNEA's capability to locate and quantify neutron emissions. The WIT and APNEA systems working together will provide data-fused images from x-ray, gamma emission, and neutron-based data in near real-time to image drum contents. These images can be archived to validate contents and support eventual acceptance of the drums by WIPP. Neither WIT nor APNEA working alone can quickly quantify the total gram equivalent of plutonium-239 for a waste drum. When measuring the low gamma emissions of dense transuranic waste drums, WIT works more slowly than APNEA, a neutron-based system. But WIT can identify the waste matrix and provide density, geometry, and isotopic information that allows APNEA to assay low gamma emission drums. The integration of capabilities afforded by the WIT/APNEA systems provides for complete noninvasive characterization. Moving TRU waste drums to WIPP U.S. Department of Energy facilities store about 350,000 transuranic waste drums. Quantifying the contents of these TRU drums will help decide their fate. Because WIPP storage will be expensive to monitor and maintain, it will be reserved for TRU drums containing greater than 100 nanocuries per gram of waste. During the demonstration of the WIT/APNEA system at INEL, evaluators will determine how efficiently and effectively WIT and APNEA work together to meet measurement specifications defined in Waste Acceptance Criteria for WIPP. The WIT and APNEA systems are mounted on separate 48-foot semi trailers. The two systems' computer connections allow them to exchange data on commonly inspected waste drums. Jointly, the WIT and APNEA systems display integrated inspection results and report these results on CD-ROM. The performance of the WIT/APNEA systems will be compared with results obtained from drums that have been opened, sampled, and assayed by Argonne West. Benefits Complete TRU characterization is expected to cost less than $2,000 per 55-gallon drum, as compared with over $1,500 per drum for real-time radiography only, $1,000 for a simple chemical analysis, or over $25,000 for remote disassembly and characterization for one element. The systems will be safe to operate. The noninvasive nature of these characterization systems means workers will avoid the risk of opening and taking samples of contents. The mobility of the systems also contributes to safety. Nearly 90 percent of DOE's transuranic drums are at 10 major DOE sites, while nearly 10 percent are scattered throughout the complex at 40 other sites. By bringing the characterization technology to the waste, the risk of transporting TRU waste drums to characterization facilities is avoided. Drums will be transported only one time to WIPP for permanent storage. Verifiable results will be obtained quickly. Preliminary measurement results will be available in near real-time, and final results will be available within seven days. Raw data and results will be recorded on CD-ROM, helping to build an audit trail and verify TRU content for WIPP acceptance. The target capability of the combined system is 25 drums a day. Bio-Imaging Research is a small company that has applied and extended medical imaging techniques to the characterization of waste drums. BIR developed the WIT system through the Office of Science and Technology's Industry Programs. As the lead for the Industry Programs, the Morgantown office of the Federal Energy Technology Center directs and coordinates the WIT/APNEA Rapid Commercialization Initiative project. Steve Cooke is the RCI project coordinator. For more information about the Rapid Commercialization Initiative, visit its homepage at http://rci.gnet.org.