Green-tech taxpayer Thanksgiving (photos)

Who should be the most grateful this year to U.S. taxpayers? Thousands of companies have benefited from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which was distributed through more than 20 U.S. government agencies. Here are some of the largest awards of the Department of Energy's ARRA funds, according to the DOE's most recent list of Recovery Act awardees.
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions
The largest recipient to date of Department of Energy funds via ARRA is not so much green tech as it is cleaning up after old tech. Savannah River Nuclear Solutions manages the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., for the DOE. The 310-square-mile former nuclear weapons manufacturing plant is now a nuclear research and waste disposal facility. The private company was awarded more than $720 million for its transuranic waste and solid waste recovery project, $415 million for decontamination and decommissioning of the site's P and R Area facilities, $235 for soil and groundwater recovery, and $199 million for liquid waste tank infrastructure. It's a total of about $1.5 billion.
Photo by U.S. Department of Energy
Caption by Candace Lombardi