The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) is a multi-program national laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Environmental Management. SRNL is located at the Savannah River Site (SRS) near

Jackson, South Carolina Jackson is a town in Aiken County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 1,700 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Augusta, Georgia metropolitan area. History Silver Bluff was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in ...

. It was founded in 1951, as the Savannah River Laboratory. It was certified as a national laboratory on May 7, 2004. SRNL research topics include

environmental remediation Environmental remediation deals with the removal of pollution or contaminants from environmental media such as soil, groundwater, sediment, or surface water. Remedial action is generally subject to an array of regulatory requirements, and may al ...

, technologies for the hydrogen economy, handling of hazardous materials and technologies for prevention of

nuclear proliferation Nuclear proliferation is the spread of nuclear weapons, fissionable material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information to nations not recognized as " Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Wea ...

. It has specific experience in

vitrification Vitrification (from Latin ''vitreum'', "glass" via French ''vitrifier'') is the full or partial transformation of a substance into a glass, that is to say, a non-crystalline amorphous solid. Glasses differ from liquids structurally and glasses po ...

of nuclear waste and

hydrogen storage Hydrogen storage can be accomplished by several existing methods of holding hydrogen for later use. These include mechanical approaches such as using high pressures and low temperatures, or employing chemical compounds that release H2 upon demand ...

initially developed to support production of tritium and

plutonium Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibi ...

at the Savannah River Site during the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

. SRNL is a founding member of the

South Carolina Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Alliance The South Carolina Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Alliance (SCHFCA) is a Public-private collaborative with a mission of advancing the commercialization of hydrogen fuel cell technologies in the state of South Carolina. Government entities, in particular, ...

(SCHFCA). SRNL employs 980 people and has an annual programmatic budget of 249 million U.S. Dollars (2017). SRNL was operated by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions,

LLC A limited liability company (LLC for short) is the US-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability of a ...

for the

U.S. Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United States. ...

from 2008 to 2021. The LLC is a partnership between Fluor Corporation, Newport News Nuclear, Inc. (a subsidiary of

Huntington Ingalls Industries HII (formerly Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc.) is the largest military shipbuilding company in the United States as well as a provider of professional services to partners in government and industry. HII, ranked No. 371 on the Fortune 500, w ...

) and

Honeywell International Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...

. In 2020, the Department of Energy approved a split in the SRS Maintenance and Operations contract. The agency awarded the SRNL M&O contract to Battelle Savannah River Alliance (BSRA), retaining Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC for the maintenance and operations of the Savannah River Site. BSRA is wholly owned by

Battelle Memorial Institute Battelle Memorial Institute (more widely known as simply Battelle) is a private nonprofit applied science and technology development company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Battelle is a charitable trust organized as a nonprofit corporation u ...

and partners with five regional universities. Contract transition was completed in 2021.

References

External links

Official website for Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL)Official website for Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS)Official website for the Savannah River Site (SRS)
Buildings and structures in Aiken County, South Carolina United States Department of Energy national laboratories Federally Funded Research and Development Centers Savannah River Site Research institutes in South Carolina {{US-gov-stub

See also

References

External links