What is it?

The Department of Energy (DOE) is hardly what the name implies. Its primary budget and operative activities is to design, construct and manage this country's nuclear weapons and the massive infrastructure needed to carry out that mission. Its other job is to monitor this country's use of energy as well as use its massive scientific resources to design and build more advanced ways to generate electricity from fusion research to wind and solar designs.

The DOE is a huge agency that employs over 200,000 workers, 15,000 of which are government employees while the rest are private contractors. There are dozens of laboratories, commissions, agencies and operations that carry out too many activities to imagine.

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History

The DOE was created in 1975 when the former Atomic Energy Commission was split into two entities, the other being the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It sole original purpose was to manage this country's nuclear race against the Soviet Union. It took over the operational oversight of this country's nuclear weapons program that was originally known as the secret Manhattan Project. Almost all of its operations were kept from public using national security claims.

From the construction of the world's largest industrial complex that was originally dedicated solely to make nuclear weapons but modified after the 1954 Atomic Energy Act to produce nuclear fuel for commercial reactors, the DOE's past includes the Atmospheric and underground testing of nuclear weapons. During the early years of these tests Pacific Islands were completely wiped off the face of the earth, Pacific people's were heavily contaminated, military personnel as well as civilians were exposed to radiation from these tests.

Not until the forced release of a 13 year study documenting the health impacts from atmospheric tests in 1998 were Americans finally learn the details. Yet, far more scandals like the secret experimentation on Americans was exposed by Senator John Glenn and former NASA astronaut, where minorities, poor , imprisoned and the sick were given radiation without their knowledge or consent. And what is worse, is that the DOE has the legal authority to continue such practices right now and hide the fact using claims of national security.

The biggest problem lies however in the massive contamination of humans and the environment that will remain a legacy of the cold war for millennia to come. The lives of millions of Americans have been effected. The contamination from these nuclear weapons operations will never likely be fully contained. The DOE estimates that it will cost between $270-300 billion to clean up.

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Nuclear Labs

The DOE's nuclear labs are where this country builds, designs and maintains this country's nuclear weapons arsenal. There are over a dozen major laboratories located around the country. Each lab carries out a variety of specific tasks. The largest in terms of area covered is the massive Hanford operations in Washington state that covers over 500 square miles. It is the most contaminated place in the U.S. today where the cold wars most deadly wastes are stored.

The command and control of the project emanates from Livermore Labs located near San Francisco California, where the original Manhattan project was originally conceived and managed. The University of California is given billions of dollars to run Livermore and its sister lab in New Mexico, Los Alamos, where the first nuclear bomb was constructed and tested. Other major labs include the Oak Ridge National Labs in Tennessee, Savannah River and Idaho where various parts of the nuclear fuel cycle for bombs and power exist. The Rocky Flats facility where plutonium triggers were made has since been shut down and decommissioned.

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Nuclear Weapons

The construction and design of nuclear weapons is the primary activity of the DOE. The infrastructure to carry out this mission represents the largest industrial project the world has ever seen. The front end of this infrastructure is called the nuclear fuel cycle because it is used both to create fuel for commercial nuclear energy as well as making nuclear bombs. The first step is the mining and milling of uranium ore. The pure uranium is then shipped to DOE facilities that further concentrate and enrich the uranium ore to either reactor or weapons grade levels.

The weapons grade uranium is then assembled into dozens of types of weapons that can be delivered via Trident Submarines, B52 or B1 bombers, or a variety of long or short range missiles. These weapons are currently located on US military bases located around the world, many of them in Europe which has been demanding that they be removed.

The DOE and pro-nuclear hawks have been demanding a dramatic increase in funding to redesign a whole new generation of advanced nuclear weapons, even the restart of nuclear testing. The current US administration is going ahead with this agenda after making claims that it wanted to stop nuclear weapons development. Obama's behavior since taking power is a disgrace. His Nobel Peace Prize should be revoked for his alignment with the nuclear security state's (DOE-DOD) agenda.

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Scandals

Ever hear how DOE used Nazi scientists to experiment on Americans without their knowledge? The radioactive contamination of veterans, atomic workers, native Americans, pacific islanders and the general public represent some of the most shameful examples of outright criminal behavior in this country's history. The fact that these horrific events that have affected millions of people were all covered up using national security claims is more than some kind of receding historic embarrassment.

There are still untold numbers of Americans who have died or lost their health or genetic heritage due to these events. Yet even more distressing is the fact that most of the public is almost completely ignorant of the scale of these scandals at a time when those who benefit economically from promoting a new generation of nuclear weapons and energy are failing to tell the public of the economic and environmental costs to us all. It was this agency that once made the claim that nuclear energy "would be too cheap to meter" or continues to hide the devastating health and environmental impacts in the fuel cycle that it has long been in charge of.

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N-Waste

One of DOE's largest yet least publicized role is the management and cleanup of the country's radioactive waste legacy that is spread across the country at facilities like Hanford Washington and many others. DOE's Office of Environmental Management estimates that it will cost between $270-330 billion to clean up this country's disastrous nuclear experiment.

The DOE has been put in charge of dealing with all nuclear weapons waste as well as the most deadly commercial waste, spent nuclear fuel. In 1982 the Federal government moved to unilaterally force the state of Nevada to be the final repository for this waste at the $100 billion Yucca Mountain repository not far from Las Vegas. After nearly a 20 year battle the state has forced the DOE and the US government to discontinue Yucca Mountain. Nevada which has no nuclear reactors, but was also the home to the country's above ground and underground nuclear weapons testing used its resources to stop the plan. The facility wasn't scientifically sound, contrary to the national media claims.

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Politics

Obama's choice to head this massive operation was an insider named Stephen Chu. This was a huge mistake. The agency which has its own internal political culture that is led mostly by aging coldwar hard-liners who see the world in purely Machiavellian terms. Next to the Department of Defense, the agency represents one of the largest political cash cows of the federal government. Huge contracts are politically driven from a handful of the DOE's massive laboratories located in California, Tennessee, South Carolina, Washington, Idaho and New Mexico. Politicians that run their agenda can expect to become the most powerful in Washington, a good example is just retired New Mexican Pete Dominici.

Starting at the end of the Clinton administration, the DOE has gone a massive privatization process where over 90% of all work is now contracted out to gigantic companies like Bechtel, General Electric and other less known entities like the UC California, or Battelle International. This privatization process has placed immense political and economic resources in private hands as an overt agenda to lock in a new era of nuclear development. The above private entities have become some of the most politically influential interests in the Washington today.

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Resources

A very small part of what the Department of Energy has anything to do with energy.

This is where you can find links to all of DOE operations.

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