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NPEP Success Story: Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne National Laboratory Reduces Mercury and Lead by Collecting and Recycling Mercury-containing Equipment and Expanding Lead Recycling
Argonne is an existing facility owned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and operated under contract with the UChicago Argonne LLC. Argonne occupies a 1,500-acre site in DuPage County, Illinois, and is about 27 miles southwest of downtown Chicago.
Argonne is located on a former prairie with gently rolling terrain. The partially wooded grounds contain a number of small ponds and streams. There are approximately 99 buildings on site, 30 of which are either administrative or house major research programs. The 2,240-acre Waterfall Glen Nature Preserve surrounding the site is former Argonne property that was deeded to the DuPage County Forest Preserve District in 1973 for use as a public recreational area, nature preserve, and demonstration forest.
Argonne traces its roots to the Metallurgical Laboratory, the scientific group under Enrico Fermi that achieved the world's first controlled nuclear chain reaction in 1942 as part of the World War II Manhattan Project. Argonne was created from this group and became the country's first national laboratory on July 1, 1946, with the mission of finding peaceful uses for atomic energy. Today, Argonne National Laboratory is a multiprogram research and development center.
Argonne carries out broad programs of fundamental and applied research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, and serves as a major center for energy research and development. These activities use a wide spectrum of hazardous materials. Hazardous waste generated from research activities and support services is stored or treated on site before shipment to treatment, storage, and disposal facilities (TSDFs) for further management.
The Laboratory's research programs are organized into five broad categories. A brief description of each research program follows:
- Basic science, which includes experimental and theoretical work in materials science, physics, chemistry, biology, high-energy physics, and mathematics and computer science, including high-performance computing.
- Scientific facilities like Argonne's Advanced Photon Source help advance America's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for the future. The Laboratory designs, builds, and operates sophisticated research facilities that would be too expensive for a single company or university to build and operate. They are used by scientists from Argonne, industry, academia, and other national laboratories, and often by scientists from other nations. The Laboratory is also home to the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source, the Argonne Tandem Linear Accelerator System, and other facilities.
- Energy resources programs help ensure a reliable supply of efficient and clean energy for the future. Argonne scientists and engineers are developing advanced technologies and systems for a number of energy applications, including nuclear reactors, batteries and fuel cells, transportation, and electric power generation and storage.
- Environmental management includes work on managing and solving the nation's environmental problems and promoting environmental stewardship. Research in this area includes alternative energy systems; environmental risk and economic impact assessments; hazardous waste site analysis and remediation planning; electrometallurgical treatment to prepare spent nuclear fuel for disposal; and new technologies for decontaminating and decommissioning aging nuclear reactors.
- National Security has increased in significance in recent years for the nation and for Argonne research. Argonne capabilities developed over the years for other purposes are helping counter the threats of terrorism. These capabilities include expertise in the nuclear fuel cycle, biology, chemistry, and systems analysis and modeling. This research is helping develop highly sensitive instruments and technologies to detect chemical, biological, and radioactive threats, and identify their sources. Other research is helping to detect and deter possible weapons proliferation or actual attacks.
Argonne is essentially a self-contained facility with an operation similar to a small municipality. In addition to the research programs, there are facilities that support operations of the entire site. Argonne is a participant in the Federal Electronics Challenge.
Argonne's NPEP Goal
Argonne chose establish two goals: one to reduce its inventory of lead by 10,000 pounds; and another to reduce its inventory of mercury by ten pounds. Argonne had identified an inventory of approximately 20 tons lead in the form of shot and various flat sheets. Also, Argonne uses a large number of lead acid batteries. Argonne chose mercury because it used thermometers and manometers in its research, which had the potential to be obsolete. Also, mercury was used as a shielding material inside of stainless steel casks.
Source Reduction, Recycling or Recovery Alternatives Explored
A number of divisions conducted surveys of their areas to assess storage and use of lead and mercury in their divisions. The survey included an assessment of the need for the lead and mercury for future use. Also, Argonne’s environmental compliance representatives were advised about the goals that Argonne committed to.
Lastly, Argonne implemented an Energy Savings Performance Program through a DOE partnership with the Energy Savings Company, Johnson Control Inc. (JCI). This $8.9 million project included two lighting improvement components to replace inefficient lighting systems with more modern, energy efficient lighting technologies.
Hurdles Faced
Allocating the resources (staff and money) to conduct the surveys and the Energy Savings Performance Program.
Waste Minimization Results
As a result of the actions taken by Argonne almost 23,000 pounds of lead (primarily from lead scrap, obsolete shielding material, and batteries) and 360 pounds of mercury have been removed from inventory, which exceeds our goals of 10,000 and 10 pounds, respectively.
The mercury-containing fluorescent bulbs that were replaced were sent to a facility that recycled the mercury from the bulbs. In evaluating the expectations of the lighting improvements another key benefit emerged; the project improved Argonne’s environmental stewardship in the local area with the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
The lighting portion of this project involved 26 buildings on the Argonne site. Lighting systems were modified by replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps and by upgrading current fluorescent fixtures. A combined total of 31,144 upgrades were performed in FY 2007 under this project. Of the nearly 30,000 change outs, 10,000 involved the replacement of incandescent bulbs. The new CFLs ranged in wattage from 15 watts to 100 watts. Because CFLs typically last 5-7 years, replacing incandescent eliminated the need for routine lamp replacements by the custodial staff. Laboratory operational costs were lowered.
With the replacement of 10,000 incandescent bulbs in this project alone, the Laboratory has lowered the introduction of greenhouse gases to the local area atmosphere by 4.0 million lbs.
The Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPC) project estimates the energy savings resulting from the upgrades and change outs of lamps will be 4,127,715 Kwh/yr; a cost savings projected to be $209,630.
Lessons Learned
One of the lessons learned is that if you look for ways to meet a goal you will find them. It takes a commitment by management to dedicate the necessary resources and to assure that there is a process established to meet the goals and that there is follow through. Also, the benefits of setting a goal to reduce the inventory of lead and mercury include:
- Reducing the potential for worker exposure to toxic metals;
- Reducing the potential for release of toxic metals to the environment; and
- Creating ancillary benefits such as saving energy and reducing the emission of green house gases.