Texas A&M, firms bid to run Idaho National Lab

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The Texas A&M University System and a team of corporations are vying for a multibillion dollar contract to run a new national nuclear laboratory in Idaho.

The university has teamed with Bechtel, Entergy Corp. and Honeywell in a bid to manage the Idaho National Laboratory, which is being created by the U.S. Department of Energy.

The department plans to make the lab the country’s top facility for nuclear development, research and education within the next 10 years. It is being formed by combining parts of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory West.

Texas A&M officials and other members of the team are crafting a proposal that will be submitted to the Energy Department in late July. The contract is scheduled to be awarded in November, and the winner will begin managing the laboratory in February.

The 10-year contract would pay $500 million each year for the team to run the lab and carry out research.

“The main attraction to A&M is not only in the mission of the new lab but in the superb opportunities the Bechtel team is giving us to participate in a very meaningful way in the mission of the lab, the functions, the research and the leadership,” Lee Peddicord, A&M’s vice chancellor for research and federal relations, said in Sunday’s edition of the Bryan-College Station Eagle.

Texas A&M has the nation’s largest nuclear engineering department, with more than 200 undergraduate students and 75 graduate students.

Peddicord said laboratory employees could spend time teaching and conducting research in College Station, and researchers and graduate students based on campus could travel to Idaho to work in the lab.

The lab’s primary focus will be to create the next generation of nuclear reactors. They are expected to be capable of producing low-cost electricity and large quantities of cost-effective hydrogen.

Researchers believe the new reactors will be ready for commercial sale by 2030.