Mark Duff: Absolutely, Aaron. It’s a good way to state it. Across the board, including DOE, DOE has had a tough time accepting as well. The NAS meeting you went to helped a lot. I think the congressional delegations have been very supportive. They’ve started to question DOE as to how they’re planning to use grouting as a supplement to vitrification and requesting DOE to be accountable for it in recent congressional draft, congressional language in both the House and Senate. There’s been a language that addressed that as well. So, I think overall, everyone is kind of planning on it more. There’s been press releases recently that grouting has been part of the budget discussions to be included in there as an assumption for DOE as well in the near term.
So I think that overall, everyone has grabbed a hold of it. But I think it also helps frankly that the vitrification plant is progressing forward and it looks like it’s going to be able to be operational in the near term. So the whole road map that DOE refers to as is coming together and grouting is an important part of that.
Aaron Warwick: Yes. And I know and we are — whatever they refer to it as for the thing that came out here recently as it relates to grouting, there were 3 companies that were mentioned that could treat it. But it seemed at that meeting besides the Tribal Nations and Oregon DOE, I think it was, they seem to be heavily opposed to shipping any untreated waste out of Hanford and going through their territory. Is there any way even for them to get the waste out of Hanford and not go through any of those territories to the others that were listed in that final document?
Mark Duff: Yes, it’s exactly right. These documents have all defined 3 different options and Energy Solutions and WCS could both treat this waste at their facilities in Utah and Texas, respectively. And so there’s always been an option. But at this point in time, to answer your question, they would have to truck it out, there’s no rail access on site. So you have to truck it with a lot of shipments and a lot of shipments on the highways versus the approach that we’re providing or the alternative we’re providing which is to grout it locally and then rail the solidified, stabilized waste for disposal in a lot less transportation, a lot less risk. And we’re and EA both have defined that approach, a local approach to this as being the least risk approach.
Now, whether the DOE will consider those in their final strategy or not remains to be seen but these are options that they could consider. I’d have to believe that with the reduced risk of doing it locally as defined in the EA as well as the transportation risk and the less number of shipments and all the other things that are associated with doing it locally, I would have to believe that treating it at our facility would be the best value overall to the government.
Aaron Warwick: Okay, final one for me then. It’s just as it relates to Italy, the JRC and just trying to track some of that get a better idea of what’s going on. Are you able to talk about any of the reactors that would be part of that contract?
Mark Duff: The JRC job is just a very specific quantity of drums of waste that are currently buried at the JRC facility in Ispra, Italy. So it’s just 6,100 drums of a very specific waste form. And that job is only for the waste located at the JRC site. So it could be more than just the 6,100 drums. It’s open ended. But that’s the base scope which we value now in the $45 million range. So, there’s no other reactors or anything that’s going to flow through there necessarily where that’s currently defined flow through there. They could open it up for other facilities or other opportunities to ship waste out of Italy. But right now, that’s the base scope. So that’s pretty much it.
Operator: The next question is coming from Alan Denzer [ph]. Alan is a private investor.
Unidentified Analyst: Congratulations.
Mark Duff: Thank you, Alan.
Unidentified Analyst: You done, did it. And hopefully, there’s a profitable progression ahead. Let me just ask you about the next foreseeable future regarding the possibility of a government shutdown which seems to be more of a probability that a possibility at this point. How would that affect company? And what are you doing to prepare for its possibility?
Mark Duff: Government shutdowns typically haven’t had a significant impact on us. It could slow down some waste shipments and — but most of the work that we do is referred to as essential that comes through the DOE budget. So CR would be a little bit of a threat because, as you know with the CRs, there are some restrictions on new projects. The government has to chisel about 20% of their budget for any given — during the CR to allocate it for maintaining safety and that kind of thing. So CR has more of an impact on procurement and those kinds of things. Government shutdowns haven’t had a big impact on us in the past. Typically, our waste streams are coming, they’re funded and there’s a safety component to it that need to — you need to keep moving with it as opposed to store it.
And the only real threat to me to answer your question or in my view is that some procurements may get may get delayed and new projects might get delayed but existing ones should be sustainable for the most part.
Unidentified Analyst: All right. Keep on doing what you’re doing.
Operator: And the next question is coming from Stephen Fein from Sofein LLC.
