December 2007
Getting to know ORNL's secret work
ORNL boss Thom Mason said he spent much of his first six months on the job familiarizing himself with parts of the lab he didn't see when he was director of the Spallation Neutron Source. Like what?
"We've got a large national security program, which I didn't know much about," he said.
ITER needs some SNS 'luck'
Honoring the U.S. commitment as a partner in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project would seem to be in serious jeopardy after the bludgeoning that took place in the 2008 budget bill.
Instead of the proposed $160 million spending level, which would cover some long-lead procurements for U.S. components in the multi-national, multi-billion-dollar fusion energy project, Congress only approved $10.7 million for ITER-related research.
ORNL is leading the U.S. involvement, and lab chief Thom Mason was clearly disappointed.
East vs. West
Some informed observers have suggested it was good fortune that the excess water in converters at the old K-25 uranium-enrichment plant was found in the big building's east wing -- not the west wing where higher enrichments (the percentage of U-235) were processed decades ago.
In other words, the water --- always a concern when in the presence of fissile materials -- might have been a bigger issue from a criticality standpoint in the west wing, where there are still deposits of enriched uranium.
'Guerilla warfare' at ORNL
Congressman Zach Wamp, in recent comments on the computer hacking event at ORNL, referred to the situation as an "asymmetrical attack." During an interview last week with ORNL Director Thom Mason, I asked him to explain that further.
"Usually what that means is people with relatively limited resources can go against an institution with much larger resources, and they do it by these surreptitious roots," Mason said. "The analogy would be guerrilla warfare. If you've got an adversary you can't take on in direct conflict, you try some other method, and that's what they mean in this case by asymmetric. It's just a dedicated (group) of smart people."
Jaguar upgrade
ORNL's Jaguar, a Cray supercomputer, is due for an upgrade, and the word was that the new quad-core processors were to be installed before the end of the year -- bringing the machine's top-end capability up to about 250 trillion calculations per second.
Apparently, those processors haven't been installed quite yet. During a visit to ORNL Dec. 20, Lab Director Thom Mason told me, "The last I heard, the CPUs were clearing customs . . . They come from AMD in Germany or Malaysia. I think it's probably coming from Malaysia . . . I think they're probably physically here (now), but the last e-mail I saw they were in customs."
Oak Ridge hearings on Y-12 et al
The NNSA will hold public hearings on "transformation" of the nuclear weapons complex on Feb. 26 in Oak Ridge. The meetings will held 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 6-10 p.m. at the New Hope Center on Scarboro Road. That's the new building near the entrance to the Y-12 National Security Complex.
Under the government plan's preferred alternative, Y-12 will retain its distinction as the nation's Uranium Center of Excellence and keep traditional missions of storing bomb-grade uranium and building warhead components with uranium and other materials.
Neutrons for everybody
photo by Michael Patrick/News Sentinel
The High Flux Isotope Reactor at ORNL was restarted Tuesday after refueling, and everything is reportedly going well at normal operating power -- 85 MW.
Protests dismissed
A September contract award to ES&H Inc., will finally come to fruition in early 2008.
The contract award for maintenance and roadwork services on the Dept. of Energy's Oak Ridge reservation was protested by two other bidders (GEM Technologies of Knoxville and Engineering Construction Services of Oliver Springs).
Hotties at Y-12
Actually, some folks are too hot. Others are too cold. There are a bunch of complaints at the new office buildings (New Hope and Jack Case) at the Y-12 National Security Complex.
Why is that? Well, here's an explanation from a plant spokesman. It sounds like office situations everywhere (including the News Sentinel).
Red-faced?
I asked Jeff Smith, ORNL's deputy lab director for operations, if the laboratory management was embarrassed by the recent hacking of computer systems that reportedly exposed the personal information of thousands of lab visitors.
His response:
ORNL & the role of Flagship U
It's been pretty widely circulated already, but here's a copy of what Distinguished Scientists and others with joint UT/ORNL appointments had to say about the Mission Statement issued earlier this year by UT President John Petersen.
The contents of the letter are still valid, according to Ward Plummer, a Distinguished Prof at UT and Distinguished Scientist at ORNL and one of the letter signatories. "Nothing has changed that's been publicly announced," he said.
Because if you do . . .
Ace photog Clay Owen captured this interesting pic during our recent visit to a Superfund cleanup site in South Knoxville. The signs are on a container of waste bound for Utah.
Maybe it's a warning to dogs. Maybe not.
One more reason to be careful.
Federalizing the guards
The National Nuclear Security Administration is studying the possibility of federalizing guards at the nuclear weapons facilities, including Y-12 in Oak Ridge. The option has been discussed for many years but never carried out.
In a Nov. 14 memo to guards unions and other stakeholders, William J. Desmond, chief of defense nuclear security for NNSA, acknowledged the study and invited comment on the issues.
The plan is to complete the study by Feb. 1, Desmond said.
UPF to be moved from Y-12?
Nuclear Weapons & Materials Monitor, a Washington-based subscription newsletter, reported in its Dec. 10 issue that internal budget documents within the Bush adminstration suggest that preparations for the Uranium Processing Facility -- a proposed mutli-billion-dollar warhead production facility -- could be stretched out and that the site location wouldn't necessarily be at Y-12 in Oak Ridge.
UPF has been proposed as a twin facility to the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facilty, a storage complex that's about 70 percent constructed at Y-12. The UPF would replace the 9212 complex as the Oak Ridge plant's main production center.
Beauty & The Beast
A five-month exhibit at the Knoxville Museum of Art will feature rephotographed or rescanned images of Cold War nuclear explosions. "Michael Light: 100 SUNS" will be on display at KMA from Jan. 18 through June 1, 2008.
"The photographs are both terrifying and beautiful at the same time," KMA said in a press statement.
Light is a San Francisco photographer. His images depict the nuclear tests at or shortly after the moment of explosion, underscoring the destructive force of atomic weapons.
ORNL helps safeguard Czech uranium
Specialists from ORNL contributed to a super-secret project that packaged and relocated about 80 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from the Czech Republic to a safe site in Russia, according to Larry Satkowiak, the lab's director of global security and nonproliferation programs
The National Nuclear Security Administration announced yesterday that the uranium, which was contained in spent nuclear fuel, was removed from the Nuclear Research Institute at Rez and transported by train to Russia under secure conditions
Old man uranium
Earlier this year, I did column on the stockpile of highly enriched uranium at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant and studies under way there to understand the aging characteristics of uranium and the long-term deployment of uranium components.
Here is more detailed information, based on questions submitted to the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Wamp weighs in
U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, the Chattanooga Republican whose congressional district includes Oak Ridge, said he and his staff had been briefed on the sophisticated cyber assault at ORNL that gained access to an unclassified data base (containing personal data on thousands of lab visitors).
His comment: "Asymmetrical strikes such as this can also inflict serious damage on our economy and institutions. They are, therefore, very real and very much part of our vulnerability as we go forward.
Not good news for retirees
According to Congressman Zach Wamp, the near-term outlook for a pension increase for Oak Ridge retirees isn't good.
Here is Wamp's e-mail response this afternoon when asked for a status report:
Los Alamos also hacked
Kevin Roark of LANL confirmed this afternoon that Los Alamos also "experienced a hacking event." He said he could not discuss a lot except to say it involved unclassified systems and was "significant and sophisticated."
He would not comment on whether personal info was exposed.
""We're not at liberty to speak of the exact nature of the hacking attack," Roark said. "At the risk of jeopardizing the ongoing inquiry, we're not prepared to talk about the exact nature of the attack."
Hackers hit ORNL
A sophisticated cyber attack was launched at ORNL, but it's lab visitors -- not staffers -- who may be the victims.
Today's story outlines the information. Visitors to the lab between 1990 and 2004 may have had their personal info exposed in the attack.
A web site has been set up for those concerned.
Happy 5th
Today is the fith anniversary of Science.gov, the science information gateway that is managed by the Dept. of Energy's Oak Ridge-based Office of Scientific and Technical Information.
Congrats!
'Clown Prince' at Y-12
Meadowlark Lemon, a hero for generations of sports fans and one of the world's beloved entertainers as part of the Harlem Globetrotters, reportedly will visit Y-12 on Thursday. He is known as the "Clown Prince of Basketball."
Lemon's visit to the nuclear warhead plant will follow a morning speaking engagement at the 10th annual Labor-Management Prayer Breakfast that's being held in Knoxville.
Rad Italia
EnergySolutions' plan to import nuclear waste from Italy and process it in Oak Ridge is generating a stir of opposition. The story apparently has prompted already concerned residents across the Clinch River from the waste-processing site to mobilize and discuss ways to protest the action.
Tye Rogers, EnergySolutions' senior vice president of regulatory affairs, told me that the Oak Ridge facility (formerly owned by Duratek) has received foreign waste on a periodic basis for the past 10 years. I'm seeking more info on that.
The name game
When BWXT Y-12's parent company changed names as part of a corporate realignment, the Oak Ridge contractor changed its name to reflect its primary reporting group at Babcock & Wilcox HQ at Lynchburg, Va.
The new name for the Y-12 contractor is B&W Technical Services Y-12 LLC, and pretty soon that name will be splashed on signs and business cards and all sorts of other things at the government plant.
How much will it cost and who foots the tab?
ORAU and sick workers
Oak Ridge Associated Universities and its partners (MJW Corp. and Dade Moeller & Associates) got a second extension on their dose-reconstruction contract while NIOSH considers the bids for the next contract.
The latest extension is through Dec. 28, according to ORAU spokeswoman Pam Bonee.
Frank Munger will be covering the Dept. of Energy's Oak Ridge facilities and other things nuclear. The blog will include random thoughts and opinions, behind-the-scenes tidbits, and expanded coverage and analysis of Oak Ridge news. 