By George Lobsenz
Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman yesterday pledged action on a “circle of life” management reform effort–including a “blue-sky” review of fiscal 2012 budget priorities– to ensure the department makes effective use of tens of billions of dollars in new clean energy and nuclear weapons funding provided under the Obama administration.
Poneman, speaking at a nuclear deterrence conference hosted by Exchange Monitor Publications in Alexandria, Va., promised “an improved planning, programming, budget and evaluation process”; renewed efforts to fix big capital projects with “troubled histories”; and a new safety and security culture that focuses on “performance and outcomes rather than a narrow compliance mentality.”
The deputy secretary also joined other top administration officials in defending the significant increase proposed for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the department’s semi-autonomous weapons agency, as vital to national security–and not inconsistent with President Obama’s push for a new treaty with Russia to further reduce the two countries’ nuclear arsenals.
In particular, they said the need for greater investment in DoE’s nuclear weapons complex and warhead life extension was identified early on in the development of the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which is to be delivered to Congress next month.
Poneman, in a wide-ranging speech, said DoE also was heavily focused on Obama’s ambitious nonproliferation agenda, including pursuing international aspects of the Bush administration’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP).
The deputy secretary emphasized that the Obama administration had dropped GNEP plans to develop spent nuclear fuel reprocessing technologies to recover and recycle plutonium that could be disposed of through fast reactors–a plan that was strongly opposed by antinuclear groups due to proliferation concerns about reusing weapons-usable plutonium.
However, Poneman said the Obama administration was very much interested in advancing GNEP plans to develop a multilateral international program to provide reactor fuel and proliferation-sensitive nuclear services–including uranium enrichment and spent fuel management and disposal–to help countries build commercial nuclear plants without raising concerns about potential development of weapons-usable nuclear materials, as in North Korea and Iran.
And while saying the Obama administration would not pursue “early recycling of reprocessed plutonium,” Poneman said DoE did plan research on unspecified technologies that sounded somewhat similar.
“For example, we’re currently researching advanced reactors that would use advanced fuels, while improving safety and reliability,” he said. “These reactors could also burn down long-lived actinides.
“We’re also evaluating new used-fuel processing methods to reduce proliferation risks. Some ideas for reprocessing technologies show promise for enhanced energy recovery, cost reduction, waste reduction, and proliferation resistance.”
Poneman did not further describe what “advanced reactors” and “advanced fuels” DoE was interested in, but GNEP did include research on plutonium-fueled fast reactors that could burn radioactive waste products such as actinides.
Poneman’s vague terminology may reflect internal DoE documents obtained by sister publication The Energy Daily that show the White House Office of Management and Budget initially sought to bar DoE research on fast reactors–for reasons that were unclear–only to apparently retreat somewhat after Energy Secretary Steven Chu protested that fast reactor technology might be integral to developing certain spent fuel reprocessing technologies.
On management reform, Poneman provided few specifics, but said it was vital to ensure effective use of $36 billion in clean energy funding provided to DoE under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the $5 billion increase that the Obama administration has proposed giving NNSA over the next five years.
The deputy secretary said the management reform effort would be based on various principles–such as applying only “validated standards and rigorous peer review” in its research and programs–to achieve three strategic goals: To lead the world in science, technology, and engineering; to build a competitive, low-carbon economy and secure America’s energy future; and to reduce nuclear dangers and environmental risks.
“We support these goals through an improved planning, programming, budget and evaluation process that starts from a blank sheet of paper containing only our strategic objectives,” he said. “We are now beginning the fiscal 2012 [budget planning] exercise with a blue-sky discussion based on that premise, not on a marginal discussion of how to tweak existing budget numbers.”
Overall, Poneman said: “Taken together, our management reforms comprise a ‘Circle of Life’:
“We begin with our principles and objectives; translate them into plans, programs and budgets; support them through robust IT, a motivated and talented workforce, using performance-based approaches to safety and security; executed through best-practice contract and project management; monitored through transparent data; which feed back into evaluating our goals, where the circle starts again.”
Also speaking at the conference was NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino, who announced new “operating principles” for his agency that he said would ensure NNSA went beyond “business as usual” to squeeze the most benefit out of its additional funding.
“We cannot expect Congress to simply trust us with these new resources,” he said. “NNSA, the department and our contractors have a responsibility to work together to reduce unnecessarily burdensome requirements, reduce administrative and indirect costs, redirect savings to direct mission work, and make sure that we are doing the best job possible.”
D’Agostino also said the extra funding for NNSA signaled “an emerging bipartisan consensus that now is the time to make the investments in the nuclear security enterprise that will provide the foundation for a future that will allow the United States to ensure its security.”
Some antinuclear and nonproliferation groups have criticized the Obama administration for seeking to increase weapons funding for NNSA as antithetical to the president’s arms control goals.
However, Poneman and Ellen Tauscher, under secretary of the State Department for arms control and international security, told attendees at the conference that if the nation was to reduce its nuclear arsenals, it had to modernize the U.S. weapons complex and take steps to update its aging warheads to assure they will continue to be reliable, safe and secure.
“There is nothing contradictory about decreasing the size and role of our nuclear weapons and increasing our confidence in our deterrent,” Tauscher said. “Our growing knowledge of the reliability of our stockpile, through our stewardship efforts, enables us to safely continue reducing the number of weapons that are the legacy of the Cold War.”
Poneman added: “The early analysis from the Nuclear Posture Review concluded that providing that assurance, especially at lower numbers of nuclear weapons, will require increased investments to strengthen an aging physical infrastructure and to sustain scientific and technical talent at our nation’s national security laboratories.”