b"C H A P T E R 25M I SS I O N : F U T U R EThus, it was a moment of pride at the Evidence that the INEEL had capabili- by the emissions of fossil fuel powerINEL when DOE named it as its Lead ties valued by private industry accumu- plants) or other events might reawakenLaboratory for Environmental lated in the form of a growing list of the nations interest in nuclear power,Management in 1994. Lead labs also Cooperative Research and some of these scientists continued towere expected to be test beds for the Development Agreements (CRADAs). advance the case for socially responsi-improved methods and techniques that These were partnerships in which pri- ble nuclear power plants. The IFR maywould tackle an environmental clean-up vate companies invested in an IRC have been ahead of the political andproblem. The many enterprises of the research program aimed at perfecting a social market, but the notions that aresourceful teams of people at the IRC product for commercial application. By reactor shouldand couldbe inher-at its desert test bed had helped to 1999 INEEL had 105 CRADAs to its ently safe, resist plutonium diversion,shape the future of the INEL. 12 credit. IRC scientists regularly wonR&D-100 awards presented by R&DThe nuclear legacy of the Site offe edMagazine, which recognized each yearrpaths to new missions v i ate c hno ogonly a hundred research and develop-lytr, a DOE program Pitrolo inau- ment innovations in the country.a n s fergurated in the early 1990s. The philos-ophy behind this program was to Nuclear research at the INEEL contin-exploit the expertise acquired at ued to be a presence amidst the ever-nuclear laboratories as a benefit to evolving continuum of ideas movingu ssociety through private industry. Thfrom some stage of theory to engi-the core competencies acquired over neered hardware. Several dozen nuclearthe years were another bridge to new scientists worked in various laborato-missions. For example, by building ries around the Site. Considering thereactors with control rods able to scram possibility that global warming (causeda reactor in a microsecond, the engi-neers at the Site knew how to make aheavy object move very fast. The chal-lenge of technology transfer in thiscase, is to adapt this know-how toother industries that needed to moveheavy objects very fast. 1 3Above. To learn how water flows through zones offractured rock, INEEL did a field study of a fracture atHell's Half Acre, a lava field west of Idaho Falls.Sensors record water dripping from an artificial pondthrough a fracture in an overhang. Right. INEELcleaned up waste left by activities at the NavalProving Ground. Soil contaminated with TNT wascollected, mixed with acetone to dissolve the TNT,and the mixture composted. The process avoidedaccidental detonation and fugitive dust problems.Here, material goes into composter.INEEL 99-0293-1-2425 1"