The State of the Laboratory -- 1996

Text of the annual State-of-the-Laboratory address, delivered by Alan Schriesheim, Argonne director and chief executive officer, June 11, 1996, in Argonne-East's Building 213 cafeteria.

Good afternoon, and welcome to the 1996 State of the Lab Report.

As you know, this will be my 12th -- and last -- State of the Lab Report report as Argonne's director.

Someone once said that in times like these it's important to remember there have always been times like these.

When I took this job, Washington was in turmoil as liberals and conservatives battled between the White House and Congress. Today, the "actors" have changed but the "script" remains pretty much the same.

The challenge, now as then, is to plan and direct what essentially is a long-range endeavor - scientific and technological research - under the budgetary influence of the essentially short-range, "what have you done for me lately" world of politics. The turmoil that is inherent in such a situation becomes magnified during Presidential election years ... of which this is one, as you well know.

On the up-side, we seem to have weathered last year's call to eliminate the Department of Energy. Argonne would have survived had that happened, but transferring to a new agency and developing revised plans in new formats under new regulations certainly would have been disruptive.

On the down side, federal budgetary pressure on DOE specifically and the scientific research community remains intense. Some major DOE programs and several federal labs face considerable uncertainty ... in some cases, to the point where their very existence is threatened.

Argonne is not among those, I am pleased to report.

Our operating budget declined 1.8 percent this year and our total workforce declined 6.4 percent. Although we always prefer growth, I believe these reductions have been modest in light of the fierce budget-cutting going on in Washington.

Our construction budget fell sharply, due to completion of the APS, and our capital equipment budget increased slightly.

Because of our strong, well-established position across the broad spectrum of scientific research, our world-class facilities, our convenient location, and our unsurpassed reputation for excellence, Argonne's stature as a high-performance research center is secure.

Undoubtedly we will see more adjustments in several of our programs during FY97 and beyond. We always do. But historically, because of our broad base, downward adjustments in some areas have tended to be balanced -- sometimes more than balanced -- by adjustments upward elsewhere, and by the initiatives and new programs for which Argonne is well-known.

Although there is no guarantee this "balancing act" will continue in the future, we are working on several initiatives and new programs. And I'll tell you more about those in a few moments.

One consequence of this is that we actually can celebrate Argonne's 50th birthday. I most strongly encourage you to take part in the many 50th anniversary events yet to come this year. Especially the Open House in September. And invite your friends, neighbors, elected officials, and professional associates to join you. The more the public sees of Argonne and Argonne people, the brighter our future becomes.

Now let's discuss the state of the laboratory by associate laboratory director area ... starting with the Advanced Photon Source.

Advanced Photon Source

This has been a milestone year for the APS. Along with the excellent dedication ceremony last month, which I know many of you attended, the APS produced its first undulator radiation last August, held a highly successful X-ray centennial conference featuring Nobel Prize winners to inaugurate the APS Conference Center in October, and saw the first experimentation conducted in April.

Continuing a tradition begun before the first shovel of earth was turned, Dave Moncton and his team again kept the project under-budget and ahead-of-schedule.

The APS Accelerator Systems Division achieved a storage ring beam that meets milestones for current and stability, with reliability rapidly improving. Those gains coincided with the Experimental Facilities Division's success at producing radiation and delivering it to the experiment hall via installed undulators and front-end components.

Thanks to these accomplishments, it is possible to state that the APS is now functioning as a synchrotron light source for research.

In January, the Dow-Northwestern-DuPont Collaborative Access Team ... or CAT ... became the first non-Argonne CAT to receive synchrotron radiation from the APS storage ring. The same day, bending magnet radiation was delivered to the first optics enclosure operated by the Basic Energy Science Synchrotron Radiation Center CAT. That's Argonne's CAT.

Investigations conducted thus far at the APS include beam-brilliance measurements, very-high-resolution (one part in one billion) optics experiments, operational evaluation of standard beamline components, and other technical programs.

The undulator beam was focused down to sub-micron size using zone plates developed at the APS. The performance of X-ray optics exposed to high heat loads from an undulator beam was successfully evaluated. And optics cooling schemes employing both liquid gallium and liquid nitrogen were shown to work well.

We were especially pleased in January when the international standing of the APS expanded as the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization signed-on as an institutional member of the SRI CAT. The Australian government is providing several million dollars for beamline equipment and participation in selected research programs.

At the APS dedication in May -- where we were joined by Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary -- the APS users described the history and promise of the APS, and the Users Organization presented an inscribed plaque. We will mount that plaque on the APS sign to be erected in front of the Central Laboratory/Office Building.

The text on this plaque read: "Presented to the people who designed and built the Advanced Photon Source. By virtue of their diligence, innovation, and commitment, they have given science a brilliant new light. With deepest gratitude from the users. Dedicated on May 1, 1996."

Those are good words to summarize the APS team -- diligence, innovation, and commitment.

In the years ahead, we expect a steady stream of breakthrough achievements in research conducted at the APS. And of course, the attractive APS User Residence should be completed this year and be ready for occupancy by early January.

Physical Research

"Progress" also is a key word in Physical Research.

At the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source, thanks to a long-justified budget increase as part of DOE's Scientific Facilities Initiative, we are working to double IPNS operating time -- from 16 to 32 weeks annually.

We also will be able to provide sufficient scientific support for all IPNS neutron-scattering instruments to run in the full user-mode.

And the IPNS and APS staffs also are working on new design concepts for megawatt-scale pulsed neutron sources.

At the Supercomputing '95 conference in California, the scientific community was introduced to a pioneering computer network assembled by Argonne computer scientists and networking engineers from MCS and ECT. It's called the I-Way, a high-speed network linking 30 supercomputers across the nation into a powerful new computing and virtual-reality resource for collaborative research.

Although the IBM Super Parallel Computer and the CAVE have become workhorses of our programs, plans are taking shape for the next generation of computer capability.

In environmental chemistry, an Argonne initiative is seeking funds from DOE to study chemical reactions occurring in radioactive waste. It is a three-part initiative that would probe the stability of solid, radioactive waste forms, investigate primary radiation chemistry processes in concentrated solutions..., and describe NOx chemistry in similar solutions. The goal is more meaningful models to predict chemical reactions in radioactive waste.

In other Physical Research developments, the Basic Energy Science Synchrotron Radiation Center Collaborative Access Team began operating at the APS..., we marked the 20th anniversary of International Atomic Energy Agency interregional training courses at Argonne.., and work continued on a new imaging technique, developed in part by Argonne researchers, that could help develop high-temperature superconductors that carry more electrical current than previously possible.

Among many Physical Research highlights forecast for the coming year is a project at our Soudan underground observatory in Minnesota that could expand what science knows about neutrinos. The project combines new Soudan capabilities with a major upgrade of the accelerator at FermiLab.

FermiLab's "Main Injector" will generate a beam of nearly pure "muon" neutrinos aimed into the ground at a three-degree angle toward the north-northwest. The neutrinos will arrive at Soudan an instant later, after passing unhindered through 453 miles of solid rock. Neutrino interactions would be recorded by the Soudan 2 detector and by MINOS, the new 10,000-ton detector at Soudan.

At ATLAS, our researchers and our partners are looking forward to the arrival next year of the Gammasphere -- the world's most sensitive instrument for detecting gamma rays. It will be used for fundamental nuclear studies, and with the ATLAS Fragment Mass Analyzer to study gamma rays emitted by massive, "super-deformed" nuclei. Argonne's earlier work with the less-powerful AYE-Ball detector helped lead to our selection as the new site for the far more sensitive Gammasphere.

A major challenge in the research on unstable, super-deformed nuclei is the time-scale difference between phases of the operation -- a gamma flash lasts about a trillionth of a second ... the flight of the new nucleus through the analyzer takes about a millionth of a second ... and the unstable particle may decay several seconds later.

As the nuclear physics field begins to focus on unstable radioactive nuclei, research and development is underway on a $100-million radioactive beam injector for ATLAS.

Engineering Research

Moving over to Engineering Research: Chuck Till, Yoon Chang, and their team here and in Idaho continue to exert a masterful effort to cope with the Administration's unfortunate decision year-before-last to terminate the Integral Fast Reactor.

Our inability to dissuade Washington from doing that is for me perhaps the most significant regret of my tenure here. I continue to hope I will see that ill-advised decision reversed - not just for Argonne's sake, but for the nation's.

Let us not forget that the legislation directing the shutdown of the IFR also required DOE to maintain the facility so that it is capable of later use.

Why the IFR is important to America was well-detailed by Bill Kurtis in his "New Explorers" series on PBS a few months ago. For those of you who haven't seen the program, I urge you to borrow a tape -- the Office of Public Affairs has plenty of copies -- and watch it.

Along with being a good summary of the nuclear-energy story, it also happens to be the program that firmly established Chuck Till as a TV star. After seeing the show, no less an authority than Richard Rhodes, the nuclear historian, told Chuck his acting career was assured -- "something along the lines of a more benign Anthony Hopkins."

On the subject of processing spent fuel from DOE reactors, work continues on the electrorefiner -- a device and process we demonstrated in 1995 to deal with about 3,000 tons of spent DOE fuel from more than 40 years of nuclear-reactor research.

This inventory includes fuel that is seriously degraded, highly enriched with fissionable or chemically reactive materials, and lacking the structural integrity for stability during long-term storage. Our electrorefining process can treat more than 90 percent of this inventory. It is compact, fast, and much less costly than other disposal options.

The nuclear power industry in becoming interested too. Three companies are talking about partnering with Argonne to commercialize the technology. These talks could lead to a long-term association in which Argonne would serve as a technical support source for industry.

Electrometallurgical treatment of spent fuel from Argonne's EBR-II reactor has just begun a full-scale demonstration with irradiated fuel elements in the Fuel Conditioning Facility at Argonne-West.

After a DOE environmental assessment found that the project will have no significant environmental impact, the department authorized start-up of the facility, we received final authorization from DOE at 7 a.m. last Friday and we began "hot operations" at 7:05 a.m.

This is a triumph for the Laboratory, and a signal victory for John Sackett and the others who persevered through the long regulatory process and the legal battles that followed.

In reacting to the DOE go-ahead, Idaho Senator Dirk Kempthorne said:

"The Argonne project represents a promising technology to treat fuel from EBR-II and other forms of DOE spent nuclear fuel and is a step forward to take waste in Idaho and prepare it for a permanent repository. The National Academy of Sciences and the DOE agree this is an important technology that ought to be pursued."

Of course, we at Argonne concur wholeheartedly with that sentiment.

This year we also opened the new International Nuclear Safety Center. Its mission is to work with similar centers in other countries to help maintain technical excellence in design of nuclear reactors..., to promote development of nuclear safety-related technologies..., and to promote open exchange of safety information.

The center's first three collaborative projects involve work between Argonne and the Nuclear Safety Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and we expect additional projects with Russia, Kazakstan, and Lithuania.

The new Center also is working on technology for managing potential reactor accidents, developing computer techniques for system diagnostics and monitoring, and advanced simulation techniques for reactor systems.

Energy and Environmental Science and Technology

Energy and Environmental Science and Technology continued to be an energetic hub of research activity during the past year.

In transportation, intense international competition is constraining the ability of auto companies to conduct research in-house. That situation creates an opportunity for Argonne, and we are moving to seize that opportunity.

Building on our growing reputation in transportation programs such as the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles and the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium, Argonne now is proposing to establish a multi-purpose Transportation Technology Center.

This Center would conduct research in modeling and simulation, components development, testing, and evaluation, and vehicle systems engineering. We would do this in projects related to light- and heavy-duty highway vehicles, railroad and maglev technology..., and intelligent transportation systems.

Expanding Argonne's presence in the transportation sector means expanding our availability as a research resource for an economic sector that accounts for nearly one-fifth of America's gross domestic product; a sector in which vehicle manufacturing alone supports more than 700,000 jobs. And that certainly qualifies as a very substantial opportunity for us.

Transportation is not the only important research opportunity we are pursuing. Another is medicine. And the new Structural Biology Center -- which we formally dedicate tomorrow in ceremonies at the APS -- promises to make important contributions to the health and well-being of our nation and the world. In fact, the new facility already has achieved several notable successes.

Crystallographers use the center to study viruses, proteins, enzymes and other large biological molecules. Knowledge from those studies is now leading to cures for many diseases. When cures are found for cancer, AIDS, and other major diseases, we expect those cures could well have evolved from studies such as those now being conducted at the SBC.

In addition to applied research in medicine, the center is used to study industrial enzymes and other biotechnology products, and for basic research in structural and molecular biology.

An area with global impact is the climate research under way at sites such as the Argonne-managed Southern Great Plains Cloud and Radiation Testbed. We now are developing a complementary facility within that site -- a facility focused on studies of the planetary boundary layer.

The new facility will involve a dense array of instruments deployed in a 50-kilometer-square area in southern Kansas. We believe we can produce ... for the first time ...coordinated, real-time, three-dimensional images of the lowest portions of the atmosphere.

Doing that will lead to significant advances in aviation and agricultural weather forecasting. And science will know much more about interaction among the hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere.

In technology transfer, over the past five years we have executed 116 cooperative research and development agreements and 42 High-Temperature Superconductivity Center agreements. Roughly half of these cost-shared partnerships have been with small businesses.

Argonne's R&D programs really benefit from these ventures. Again over the past five years, these partnerships' total value was $184 million, split about 30/70 between government funds and industry money.

Of industry's $131 million, $25 million came to us as cash to support laboratory research. Industry's financial contributions to R&D partnerships show the value companies place on cost-shared work with Argonne.

Some 65 license agreements, options, and assignments of Argonne inventions and copyrights have been executed by Argonne and ARCH Development Corporation. Such agreements often are an integral part of research partnerships, and our ability to form license agreements has helped us obtain more than $22 million in R&D funds.

Licenses have resulted in 15 commercial applications of Argonne intellectual property, and gross royalties from such licensing exceed a million dollars. Argonne inventors have received a total of $756,000, with some individuals receiving more than $100,000.

Among our continuing industrial and regional development projects are Argonne's work with Bethel New Life Inc. to revitalize the West Garfield Park neighborhood ... and our efforts with the Chicago Manufacturing Center, the Northern Business and Industrial Council, the Valley Industrial Association, and the East-West Corporate Corridor Association.

Argonne also is involved in new State of Illinois initiatives that aim to capitalize on technological advances within the state. A major focus is the Manufacturing Engineering Research and Training Coalition, which provides small- and medium-size Illinois manufacturers access to a database of business and technological resources.

Our industrial efforts continue to earn praise from our partners, and DOE's highest rating -- outstanding.

We also are expecting outstanding results from our compact and lightweight fuel reformer for methanol, developed by the Electrochemical Technology Program for use on-board fuel-cell-powered vehicles. General Motors is interested and with our cooperation is building a scaled-up version.

We also are helping develop new catalysts for reforming petroleum-based fuels -- this means existing gas stations could be used, thus speeding the introduction and the acceptance of fuel-cell vehicles.

In materials fabrication, our Energy Technology Division is working on a new technology called Rapid Prototyping, or solid freeform fabrication. Its focus is fabrication of ceramics, and reverse engineering using our non-destructive testing skill.

At present, we have three cooperative R&D agreements involving six companies in Texas, Indiana, Illinois, Arizona, Minnesota, and Ohio. Work thus far involves ceramic molds and engine components for the auto industry, and ceramic prostheses for the medical industry.

Operations

Our Operations area essentially involves people and facilities. In both areas we saw considerable achievements this past year.

Perhaps the most notable of those achievements is the degree to which our workplaces continue becoming safer. Our occupational injury and illness "index" -- a measure developed by DOE and industry to assess safety performance -- is running about 75 percent better than the index for all DOE labs.

Part of that story is our outstanding construction safety record, which results in less project slippage -- today, our construction project slippage is only one percent of what it was four years ago.

That kind of performance also helps cut costs, another area where Argonne's performance has been outstanding. In fact, the Lab's effort to reduce overhead costs will have cut those expenses by about 10 percent by the time this fiscal year ends.

One change that illustrates our goal of reducing cost without compromising quality or program performance is our achievement in delivering same-or-better quality performance for less cost in Custodial, Procurement, and Maintenance operations. Another illustration was our switch from two long-standing medical insurance programs to one "preferred provider" option for employees.

In other "people programs": Workforce diversity continues to improve at Argonne. Women now comprise 29 percent of the Argonne workforce, and minorities account for 14 percent ... 13 percent of Argonne supervisors are women and 7 percent are minorities. In the professional category, the representation is 20 percent women and 13 percent minorities. And this effort is still very much a work-in-progress.

Examples of what we are doing include Argonne's "Science Careers in Search of Women" program targeted on high-schoolers, the Technical Women's Symposium held this April and attended by almost 200 persons, the National Physical Science Consortium, Pre-College Research Participation Program, and the diversity training we conduct for employees.

Turning to buildings, roads, and utilities: Operations last year continued executing Argonne's long-term site-improvement plan. Most noticeable to most employees was the dramatic remodeling of our cafeteria.

However, we also upgraded our electrical-supply and fire-protection systems ... moved into the second year of our four-year, $10-million rehabilitation of the central heating plant ... continued demolishing old, substandard buildings ... and broke ground for new Sanitary and Laboratory Waste Treatment Plants, new hazardous and radioactive waste storage facilities, and our waste management operations facility upgrade.

For next year, we have proposed a new Central Supply Facility ... which will let us then demolish remaining substandard facilities in the East and 800 areas, and upgrade those areas to conditions more in keeping with Argonne's natural beauty.

In other Operations achievements this year, we completed our administrative computing transition off the IBM mainframe, improved the ES&H training programs, and successfully negotiated several labor agreements.

Also, I know you all are looking forward to Lake Michigan water flowing from our taps. This past year we came closer to that goal. Agreements are signed, construction is underway, and we expect Lake water will be available this fall.

And finally we must congratulate Operations for letting us all co-exist for several months with a Hollywood movie company without disrupting our work ... or theirs. As most of you know, the film is called "Chain Reaction" and its stars are Keanu Reeves and Morgan Freeman. It should be released this summer.

Not only is this film good publicity for Argonne and the University of Chicago, we also managed to make a little money.

Like many of you, I was supposed to have what Hollywood calls a "cameo" role in the film. But my scene was cut from the script. They tell me it was nothing personal.

But I'll be in the theater this summer seeing how many of you I can spot in the finished film.

Conclusion

In summary then, Argonne enters its second half-century stronger, better-equipped, and better-positioned than ever before. No federal laboratory is as poised to cope with change as Argonne - no matter what that change might be.

Among federal labs, we truly are "first among equals."

That was not always so. Certainly not in 1983 when I came here.

Of my many memories of change and progress at Argonne over the last 13 years, several things stand out. Because an increasing number of people ask me about that as the end of my tenure as chief executive approaches, I thought I'd tell you what those stand-out memories are. In no particular order, I remember:

• Reversing the decline in Argonne's budget, manpower, and reputation as a center of research excellence;
• Broadening our research base, to make us a more valuable potential research partner and lessen our vulnerability to changes in the political wind;
• Reorganizing the laboratory into "thematic" areas to bring projects together in more logical, interlocking groupings;
• Strengthening our relationship with federal agencies, Congress, and industry;
• Improving the place where we all work, including better, more attractive buildings and offices..., better roads and grounds..., and new or improved people- focused facilities such as the Child Development Center, the Visitor Reception Center, and the remodeled cafeteria;
• Our long, successful campaign for the Advanced Photon Source;
• Our fight for the Integral Fast Reactor, a fight that I don't believe is over;
• Our aggressive Tech Transfer program -- today we could fill one of these walls with the logos of corporations and universities that are Argonne partners in research;
• The initiative that resulted in "The Science Explorers" program, reaching out to kids in partnership with our good friend Bill Kurtis;
• And Argonne's noteworthy progress in broadening the involvement of women and minorities in science ... and in our work force.