National Security
National Security
SRNL expertise in national security spans across many areas like technologies to separate, stabilize, package, transport, store, account for, and disposition spent fuel, plutonium, and other nuclear materials. Within SRNL there is an emphasis on the recovery, storage, and safe disposition of nuclear materials to ensure they do not represent a proliferation or environmental risk and to support global threat reduction.
SRNL continues its support of a robust nuclear weapons stockpile through deployment of improved technologies and testing of components to ensure stockpile safety and reliability. SRNL also supports national defense through the production of plutonium as a feedstock in the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
SRNL also develops technologies to enhance the safety and cost-effectiveness of the Savannah River Site’s work with tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen gas that is a vital component of the nation’s nuclear defense.
SRNL supports homeland security initiatives in fields that include emergency response, urban search and rescue, border protection and law enforcement support, utilizing several of the areas of expertise for which SRNL is known. SRNL also develops technologies and techniques for detecting and identifying chemical, biological and radiological materials to address homeland security goals.
SRNL national security experts also support the U.S. Intelligence and Counterintelligence communities by focusing efforts on grid security, electronic warfare, and wireless test and evaluation processes.
SRNL’s expertise in robotics, surveillance systems, and specialty equipment is being applied to a broad range of needs, from vision systems for use in search-and-rescue missions, to low-cost robots for the disabling of improvised explosive devices, to medical devices for first responder physicians.
SRNL’s national defense capabilities are expansive. These capabilities are executed by the Global Security Directorate (GSD) and the Weapons Production Technology Directorate (WPTD). These directorates intersect and enhance the security of the nation.
