The excitement of engineering is making concepts become a reality. This project is an example of just that. —Barbara Peterson Advanced Information Systems

Advanced Information Systems—Streams of red tape are needed to bind all the paper involved in managing and transporting nuclear waste—the combination of government regulations, transportation requirements and environmental concerns makes shipping drums of waste a monumental paper producer, as much as 1,000 pages per drum. But now, a novel method for nuclear waste management eliminates paperwork while ensuring electronic integrity of the waste data.

An INEEL team developed the digital signature for TRIPS (Transuranic Reporting, Inventory and Processing System), an electronic database tool used to manage and ship radioactive waste to DOE's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, the repository for defense-generated nuclear waste. The digital signature technology earned its development team a White House award for demonstrating a commitment to energy efficiency and pollution prevention.

“This award and the success of TRIPS demonstrates INEEL’s ability to use R&D; expertise to implement state-of-the-art solutions for DOE’s environmental problems,” said INEEL president Bernie Meyers. “Meeting our commitment to the state of Idaho and its citizens to ship waste to WIPP is vital. TRIPS is one tool to get us there.”

INEEL's digital signature could mean more secure commercial electronic signatures.

SIGNING ON THE DOTGOV LINE

Electronic signatures are not new. Users on the Internet have been "signing" simple documents for the past several years. What makes the INEEL process unique is the patent-pending technology that allows TRIPS’s users to "sign" data that resides not on one form but in hundreds of locations on the computer in databases.

The process gathers the data, shows it to the users as an electronic form, verifies the signature authority and then remembers and saves exactly what the user signed. Regardless of subsequent changes in information, the integrity of the users’ signature and the form he or she signed remains unbroken. For a single 42-drum shipment of waste to WIPP, TRIPS will automatically verify between 350 to 1,000 separate signatures and the underlying data in complex analytical groupings.

SMART CARD WITH A SHADE OF GREEN

Meeting our commitment to the state of Idaho and its citizens to ship waste to WIPP is vital. TRIPS is one tool to get us there. —Bernie Meyers INEEL President

TRIPS stores about 40,000 signatures annually, each representing a piece of paper that was not printed, or copied or destroyed. This technology, now in full production, will save upwards of 900,000 pieces of paper per year.

“Given its large scale, the TRIPS database application is an amazing integration achievement, even without the new digital signature system,” said Wayne Austad, TRIPS team member and one of the digital signature creators. “The fact that our team developed a brand new technology to preserve information integrity in databases is a big win for the INEEL.”

COMMERCIAL APPEAL

The INEEL researchers are redesigning the TRIPS electronic approval architecture for commercial applications such as Web interfaces for online training systems. Not only will the system save natural resources, it will increase the integrity of databases against overt threats or unauthorized changes.

The White House is presenting its 2001 Closing the Circle award June 12, 2001 to recognize the best in government environmental programs. DOE nominated the digital signature technology after it won first place in the “Sowing the Seeds of Change” category in the annual DOE Pollution Prevention awards program.

INEEL's digital signature verifies the identity of the user with a public key certification step.

INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY

“The TRIPS team is proud that the original vision to reduce the paper-intensive processes needed to ship transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, New Mexico, has been successful,” said Barbara Peterson, project manager for TRIPS. “It took the combined talents of many outstanding individuals in database development, process automation and digital signature technology to understand the problem and come up with the solution. The excitement of engineering is making concepts become a reality. This project is an example of just that.”

"Using electronic signatures in the process has increased our productivity by at least 50 percent,” said Thomas Monk, INEEL project manager. “The benefit is not only noticed in the reduction of paper produced but in the total cost to the project.”

The INEEL is a science-based, applied engineering national laboratory dedicated to supporting the U.S. Department of Energy’s missions in environment, energy, science and national security. The INEEL is operated for the DOE by Bechtel BWXT Idaho, LLC, in partnership with the Inland Northwest Research Alliance.