U. S. Department of Energy managers and representatives from industry, special interest groups, tribal and local governments met March 8-9 to participate in a mid-year program review for the Office of Technology Development's Research, Development, Demonstration, Testing, and Evaluation activities.
Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Technology Development (OTD), Clyde Frank welcomed OTD's customers and stakeholders [see community leaders article]. Frank pointed out that Secretary of Energy, Hazel O'Leary indicated in a news conference on the fiscal year 1995 budget request, that the requested amount for technology development within the Environmental Management program had grown by $28 million from last year ($426 million for 1995). DOE is requesting $8.2 billion for research and development (R&D) in fiscal year 1995 out of a total budget request of $18.5 billion.
A feature in Environment Today captured the significance of OTD's environmental technology development. Of the "Ten promising R&D efforts that could change the face of pollution control," four were projects funded by DOE. They are air pollution control (Battelle/PNL), radioactive waste treatment (Sandia National Laboratory), pollution detection (Iowa State-Ames Laboratory), and contaminant analysis ( Los Alamos National Laboratory). The Federal Advisory Committee to Develop On-Site Innovative Technologies also has made significant progress (see DOIT Update).
Additional accomplishments include successfully demonstrating more than 20 technologies through partnerships with private industry within the Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in Arid Soils program; completing the VOCs in Arid Soils demonstration and transferring successfully demonstrated technologies to Savannah River Environmental Restoration and private industry; completing the successful demonstration of the cleanup of a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory site contaminated with gasoline; and successfully demonstrating the feasibility of the minimum additive waste stabilization approach to vitrification at bench scale.
Not all technology is transferred from OTD to the private sector. A great deal of it goes to OTD associates in the Offices of Waste Management, Environmental Restoration, and Facility Transition. To help coordinate the complications of R&D in multiple areas and to remove redundancies throughout Environmental Management, DOE, and the federal government; OTD has come up with a three-tiered approach to research and development. The purposes of this concept are to make more effective use of department-wide environmental research and technology development; ensure program goals for Environmental Management are achieved at a reasonable cost; and provide for more effective use of the national laboratories. The three tiers are DOE Environmental Research and Technology Development (DOE-wide), DOE Research and Development Integrated Systems Model (DOE-wide), and Interagency Environmental Technology Office (federal government-wide).
Assistant Secretary Tom Grumbly assigned OTD the following specific objectives for the coming fiscal year.
