State of the Laboratory -- 1991

Good morning, and thank you all for coming today. I suspect that part of the reason we draw attendance to these state-of-the-laboratory addresses is that I spend considerable time praising the work you perform. It is sincere praise, and the work is important.

But this report is not just a recitation of triumphs. It is an attempt in a very short time to summarize a very complex organization -- Argonne -- at one particular point in time. To be accurate, that summary has to include both the bright spots and the dark.

Briefly, this is the state of the laboratory today:

• Argonne is stronger right now than it has been in more than a decade.

• At the same time, Argonne is facing some serious challenges.

• Most important, this is a time when each and every employee can significantly affect the fate of the laboratory either positively or negatively. This is particularly true in our present challenge to become first among equals in the national laboratory system for environment, safety and health programs. I will discuss that in greater detail later.

Financial strength

In 1991 for the first time in its history, Argonne will have a total budget of about one-half billion dollars. That is not a one-year fluke, but the culmination of a trend that has nearly doubled our budget in the seven years since I delivered my first state-of-the-laboratory report to you.

Our current estimate is that operations alone will receive about $370 million this year. Construction and equipment -- primarily for the Advanced Photon Source -- make up the rest. The budget shows a good balance between the various ALD areas, which is vital to the health of a multi-programmatic lab.

The same steady, healthy growth is evident in our employment figures. We have ups and downs from division to division. But by the end of this year, the Argonne payroll will include 4,160 full time equivalents. Both Argonne-East and Argonne-West are sharing in this growth.

Driving these trends is progress we are making on our major initiatives -- the APS and IFR.

Advanced Photon Source

Wetlands on the site were relocated, so resident plants and animals will keep their homes. Fencing, demolition and site characterization drilling were completed.

APS also got approval on what is, to the layman, an unbelievable volume of studies, analyses, plans, audits and assessments.

Thirty letters were received from proposed users out of industry, the universities and government. A wide variety of experimental facilities were designed, constructed and tested. Several test facilities were constructed -- this one is for vacuum chamber. We also built a test facility for high-powered radio-frequency facilities and magnet measuring systems.

The $456 Million construction project is scheduled for completion in 1996. After that time Argonne can start generating the world's most brilliant X-rays for materials research.

Integral Fast Reactor

Actually, the point in loading the IFR fuel into EBR-II is to assure a supply of irradiated fuel for reprocessing when we start demonstrating the fuel cycle facility.

Construction continues at that site. Several key pieces of remote control equipment fabricated at Argonne-East -- like this fuel element chopper -- have been shipped to Idaho for installation there.

Next month, we expect to cast the first americium as fuel slugs. This demonstration that we can handle a volatile transuranic will confirm that we can turn waste products from EBR-II or light-water reactors back into fuel.

A complete probability risk assessment was completed on EBR-II this year. It quantitatively verifies the advantages of the IFR safety features.

Finally, the beginning of an IFR consortium from the major nuclear utilities is being formed. Teams of their leaders are scheduling visits right now to EBR-II to become familiar with our technology.

Other initiatives

As I've indicated to you in past reports, it is not enough for Argonne to develop a few strong initiatives and then sit on them while they mature. We have to continuously generate new initiatives to assure our future. And we have a rich supply.

Our Advance Computing Research Facility, which is the national center of expertise on parallel computing, became owner -- along with six partners -- of the world's fastest super-computer. It is this deceptively simple-looking Intel Touchstone, which can perform 32 billion operations per second.

We have continued to advance our reputation with the maglev initiative, aimed at leapfrogging foreign technologies in providing a train that can run at up to 300 miles per hour while magnetically suspended above the guideway. This rotating wheel has been installed on site for experiments to optimize the configuration of the guideway. We also have started design of a reduced-scale test track.

We received money this year to start building phase one of an experimental Wakefield Accelerator. The concept promises to accelerate electrons to higher energies in shorter distances than previously possible. It uses electromagnetic fields generated in the wake of a pulse of charged particles to accelerate a trailing pulse of particles -- similar to a surfer riding on the wake of a speedboat.

One of the most significant new initiatives in biological sciences could make Argonne an important player in the current national initiative to investigate the human genome. Next week, we will welcome to Argonne a team of Yugoslavian scientists, who have developed a new method to identify the building blocks of each chromosome -- with its component genes -- that carry all physical inheritance of the human body.

Programmatic promise and success

The primary areas of growth potential in the future for many of these Argonne disciplines lies at the Advanced Photon Source.

We are currently working to develop expertise and financial support for a basic energy science radiation center. It would use four beam lines for materials science, physics and chemistry studies at the APS.

The second organizational effort is going forward to organize support for a structural biology beam line and a medical research beam line at the APS.

As far as I'm concerned, one of the outstanding success stories for this laboratory is the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source. It celebrates its tenth anniversary this year with the lowest operating and research budget among DOE's neutron sources, the highest operating efficiency, and the most users.

Despite our recent trauma with the Tiger Team, the outlook for our other major accelerator, ATLAS, is encouraging. The '92 budget proposal by the president is up 15.7 percent over '91, which in turn was 8.9 percent over 1990.

Argonne has established a niche and is working to broaden it as a supplier of detectors for the major accelerators being built around the world. This Quark Catcher is for the Zeus Detector at the Hera Colliding Beam Facility in Hamburg. We also are an important part of the team designing the only approved detector for the superconducting supercollider in Texas.

Remediation and waste, both conventional and hazardous, continues to grow as fields of Argonne specialization.

We have literally as much work as we can accept in environmental studies of Defense Department installations. We are going to conduct exploratory research toward development of thermal and biological treatment of hazardous waste sites. And in the latest expansion of Harvey Drucker's empire, now that he has shut down his Nepal branch, we currently have people representing three Argonne divisions in Antarctica. They will determine how best to handle waste generated by experimental stations at the bottom of the earth.

Finally, we had expected our defense research to fall off precipitously. Instead, this funding has held up surprisingly well. Included are

• the continuous wave deuterium detector and the neutral particle beam for the Strategic Defense Initiative;

• the world's first gamma ray lens for the treaty verification effort,

• and sophisticated applications of advanced computing for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Non-programmatic successes

Our Division of Educational Programs, with the cooperation of staff scientists, has cast Argonne unmistakably as the leader in Admiral Watkins' program to improve support to education. Publications as diverse as Newsweek, the daily papers and education magazines have recognized our leadership. The Science Explorers Program, which Argonne pioneered in the Chicago area, now has gone national with Bill Kurtis' programs on PBS.

Argonne also has led in expanding educational support to women, minorities, and students and faculty from junior high school through graduate school. DEP's budget has doubled since 1987.

The other non-research area that continues to grow is technology transfer. Recently, we signed DOE's first cooperative research agreement with industry by a non-profit national lab contractor. The contract with Baxter Healthcare is to study a way to rid donated blood of virus like aids. It is the latest indication of why our technology transfer budget has grown from $250,000 in 1986 to more than $1.6 million in 1992.

Challenges ahead

In my opinion, the outlook for the next five years is for severely restricted DOE budgets. Big facility projects will take most of the money. It's going to be very hard to make any new starts. It will be tough to get operating funds for old ones.

Part of this results from congressional tightening on deficit controls. Part of it is the change in the congressional budget process, which makes it difficult to shift money from one area to another. This aggravates the old problem, which is that when pork gets put into the budget, science tends to get squeezed out.

We can track this process for the Advanced Photon Source, now in the third year of its seven-year construction schedule. In each of the last two years -- and we can say with some certainty in fiscal 1992 -- the actual appropriation falls short of the plan originally approved for both APS construction and supporting research and development.

The result is an accumulated $13.5 million shortfall. It will have to be made up in future years when those dollars won't buy as much as they would have as originally scheduled.

If we don't catch up in those future year budgets, we face two unwelcome alternatives. One is to stretch out the construction period, again increasing the cost. The other is to cut corners in R&D, which could increase the risk factor for effective operation.

The construction schedule for the Integral Fast Reactor's fuel cycle facility is also under pressure. All the resources of Argonne-West are being turned to prepare for their Tiger Team visit in July. I know they will do a great job, but it will be difficult simultaneously to maintain progress on the facility upgrade.

ES&H performance and perception

We have made real progress. The restart of construction was approved this week. The ban on hoisting and rigging has been effectively raised. We believe now that our corrective action plan will probably be approved in March or April.

These improvements came about after a lot of hard work and wide-spread training for Argonne people. More hard work, training and documentation still lies ahead of us.

This is the budget plan for environment alone, which was developed before the Tiger Team arrived. The addition of projects since then has raised the total to more than $100 million.

But a key question, which the Department of Energy wants answered, is "Has there been a change in the Argonne culture?" I believe we have made a start.

Certainly, the level of consciousness that environment, safety and health are supremely important has been raised for everyone on this site. The addition of specialists, both on the support side of the house and within each division, has changed everyone's way of thinking about their job.

This is not a fad or a one-year affair. It is a new way of life. And each person at this lab either helps or hurts us, depending on how seriously ES&H is taken as part of everyone's job.

I believe we will achieve this goal. We will do it the same way we have accomplished other high priority assignments in the past: with highly talented, highly dedicated people.

In closing this program, let me repeat that we have immense strengths at Argonne, and we have some serious challenges. But we're still doing better than most of the national laboratories. At least I can tell you I would much rather be at Argonne than any other place I know. And one of the most important reasons is the pleasure of working with people like you.

Thank you