SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- Alternatives for Characterization and Removal of Deposits at Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plants
- Notice Date
- 5/16/2003
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- Contracting Office
- 3610 Collins Ferry Road (MS-I07) P.O. Box 880 Morgantown, WV 26507-0880
- ZIP Code
- 26507-0880
- Solicitation Number
- DE-RA26-03NT41771
- Point of Contact
- Raymond Johnson, Contracting Officer, Contact Contract Specialist, johnson@netl.doe.gov;Mary Price, Contract Specialist, 412-386-6179, mprice@netl.doe.gov
- E-Mail Address
-
Email your questions to Mary Price, Contract Specialist
(mprice@netl.doe.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- The Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) announces the availability of Program Research and Development Announcement (PRDA) No. DE-RA26-03NT41771 entitled Alternatives for Characterization and Removal of Deposits at Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plants, expected to be published on or about May 30, 2003. The PRDA supports the mission of the Office of Science & Technology (OST), Office of the Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management (EM), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The objective of this procurement is to develop state-of-the-art alternatives for the characterization and removal of enriched uranium (EU) and technetium-99 (TC99) in the deactivation and decommissioning (D&D) processes of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS) at Piketon, Ohio. The alternatives will be developed through an integrated system engineering study and development of next-generation technologies and material products, which are compatible with ultimate disposition paths and disposal sites for the materials. Such processes will focus on a safer, more cost effective approach to characterize and decontaminate equipment at PORTS, which will optimize flexibility in ultimate disposition. The proposed work will be accomplished in three phases: Phase I will include evaluation of available technologies and develop a detailed project plan for the project based on the specific PORTS GDP equipment; Phase II will include testing of a mock-up GDP equipment for a non-intrusive nondestructive assay (NDA) for characterization of EU and Tc99 in GDP equipment and components, and for laboratory scale testing of viable alternative approaches for deposit removal technology, identified in Phase I, which meet the waste acceptance criteria for the designated disposal facility. Based on the successful results in Phase II, Phase III will include the testing and demonstration of the selected alternative technology on actual GDP equipment in the field at the PORTS site. The baseline approach to characterization of GDP equipment and components uses nondestructive assay (NDA) techniques to determine the location of deposits of U235 within the process equipment; the confidence level is about +/- 50% and only indicates the qualitative presence of deposits. Results are adversely affected by GDP equipment geometry/shielding, proximity of other nearby deposits, and inadequacies in models used to convert field data. The resulting risks of over-identifying or under-identifying individual deposits or overall masses of uranium in hold-up deposits will result in reduced confidence, excessive margins for safety, and significantly increased management costs. In-situ characterization of GDP components via high-accuracy NDA techniques is required to identify locations and quantities of a EU and Tc99 material holdup within the process and to demonstrate compliance with nuclear criticality safety (NCS) guidelines. Quantification of EU deposits prior to equipment D&D is necessary to identify process equipment requiring special handling to minimize potential criticality concerns, as well as to ensure that EU levels are below that considered always safe when equipment is placed in close proximity to other EU contaminated equipment within the disposal cell array. Apart from the need to quantify EU levels within process equipment for NCS determinations, accurate determination of EU quantities is desirable for material accountability purposes, improve worker safety and to ensure that EU levels will not exceed disposal facility waste acceptance criteria. The baseline procedures to remove EU and Tc99 deposits require the dismantlement of the process equipment cell and equipment components to provide physical access to the deposits to allow manual deposit removal. Reliance on equipment dismantlement down to a component level is labor intensive, time consuming, and creates a health and safety risk for the worker and the environment. For example, the current dismantlement approach at the GDP at Oak Ridge, TN uses thermal cutting to separate the equipment and manual methods to remove the deposits. Not only is this approach a time consuming and labor intensive, but also has resulted in four fire incidents due to the thermal cutting. Because PORTS produced higher EU, nuclear criticality issues associated with the high enrichment portions of the facility are significant. Deposit removal is necessary to alleviate these criticality concerns in the removal and disposition of the equipment. Additionally, removal of the deposits helps to minimize the risk of contamination to the D&D worker and the environment and facilitates the disposition of the equipment in the safest and most cost-effective manner possible. Once released, the solicitation will be available for downloading from the IIPS Internet page. At this Internet site you will also be able to register with IIPS, enabling you to submit a proposal. If you need technical assistance in registering or for any other IIPS function, call the IIPS Help Desk at (800) 683-0751 or E-mail the Help Desk personnel at IIPS_HelpDesk@e-center.doe.gov. The solicitation will only be made available in IIPS, no hard (paper) copies of the solicitation and related documents will be made available. Prospective offerors who would like to be notified as soon as the solicitation is available should subscribe to the Business Alert Mailing List at http://www.netl.doe.gov/business. Once you subscribe, you will receive an announcement by E-mail that the solicitation has been released to the public. This is a courtesy, therefore, you are encouraged to frequently monitor the NETL website for solicitation postings. Telephone requests, written requests, E-mail requests, or facsimile requests for a copy of the solicitation package will not be accepted and/or honored. Proposals must be prepared and submitted in accordance with the instructions and forms contained in the solicitation. The actual solicitation document will allow for requests for explanation and/or interpretation. Point of Contact: Mary S. Price, Contract Specialist, 412/386-6179, mprice@netl.doe.gov All questions are to be submitted through IIPS using the Submit Question feature.
- Web Link
-
Click here for further details regarding this notice.
(https://e-center.doe.gov/iips/busopor.nsf/UNID/FC5402AE01AD199D85256D2800638054?OpenDocument)
- Record
- SN00325709-W 20030518/030516213418 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
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