Pantex Receives Environmental Award

  • Posted: Wednesday, May 2, 2012, 12:00 am

NNSA Honors Pantex with Pollution Prevention Award

Pantex was honored this week with an award from the National Nuclear Security Administration for its environmental stewardship efforts.

On Monday, the NNSA awarded Pantex with a Best in Class win in the category of Comprehensive Energy and/or Fleet Management in recognition of an ongoing effort to “green” Information Technology (IT) by reducing waste and energy consumption.

“Preserving the environment is a major part of our mission at Pantex,” said Pantex Site Office Manager Steve Erhart. “It’s an honor to be recognized for those efforts, but in the end, we care for the environment because we believe it is the right thing to do.”

The Information Technology Goes Green initiative, which was the basis for the NNSA award, is a yearlong multi-pronged effort designed to provide more efficient and effective IT services while reducing energy consumption, waste and material footprint.

A big part of the initiative involved reducing the number of servers through conversion to a virtual server system. Over 185 physical servers were retired, reducing the footprint and dropping daily kilowatt usage by about 1,200 kilowatts per day.

Another part of the effort involved using multifunction machines to replace many of the 2,500 printers that were formerly attached to the Pantex network. The new multifunction machines provide copy, scanning and printing functions more cheaply while reducing impact on the environment.

The Energy Star-rated multifunction machines use a more earth-friendly solid ink while reducing the amount of energy and other resources needed to perform daily operations at Pantex. During Fiscal Year 2011, Pantex reduced the purchase of paper by 212 cartons compared with the year before. The multifunction machine initiative will result in an estimated annual cost savings and avoidance of $481,618 while saving around $25,000 of energy per year.

“I’m very proud of the results we’ve achieved through our IT greening initiative,” said B&W Pantex General Manager John Woolery. “Environmental and financial stewardship are priorities for us here at Pantex and we are constantly searching for opportunities to improve our operations in that regard.”

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B&W Pantex manages and operates the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. B&W Pantex is also the proud recipient of the DOE’s Voluntary Protection Program STAR status for safety excellence. The company was also named one of America’s safest companies by Occupational Hazards magazine and has received numerous awards from the National Safety Council.

CONTACT
Greg Cunningham
Public Affairs
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gcunning@pantex.com