The State of the Laboratory -- 1995

Good morning, and welcome to the 1995 State-of-the-Lab Report.

You read the same newspapers I do, so you know Washington is in political turmoil -- even more so than usual. The changes in Washington resulting from last fall's election are certainly profound -- you might even say monumental. It's not surprising, therefore, that the effects of those changes are potentially far-reaching, sometimes contradictory, and often confusing. It's going to take a while before we can even begin to predict the outcome.

Next year is also a presidential election year, so the political turmoil won't end anytime soon. It seems to have already begun -- I notice where Deputy Energy Secretary Bill White just resigned, and Under Secretary Charles Curtis probably will be nominated to succeed him.

Much is uncertain, but one thing seems certain right now: Congress will cut the federal budget below the Clinton administration's initial request. Even the administration itself has trimmed its budget proposals.

So the question, I believe, is not whether next year's budget will be lower than last year's, but by how much ... and where.

The battle of the budget is being fought on two levels: form and function. Let's talk first about form, or the organization of the government.

At the moment, the congressional budget resolution calls for elimination of the Department of Commerce, but not the Department of Energy. That could change, though. Some House members want to phase out DOE over several years, and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole says he supports that proposal. The chairman of the House Science Committee also wants to pull NASA and the research functions of several agencies into a new "Department of Science." I believe that's a bad idea and I have said so to anyone who will listen to me; you may have seen the piece I had in the Chicago Tribune about it.

The administration, of course, is fighting to preserve the cabinet structure as it is today.

No matter how the fight over form turns out in Washington, we expect the impact of that particular battle on Argonne will be minimal. Certainly there are no serious proposals to eliminate Argonne, and I don't think there will be any. In addition, even if DOE is eliminated, the University of Chicago contract to operate Argonne is a contract with the U.S. government, and it would remain in force no matter which cabinet department administered it.

Moving to the second level of conflict -- function -- I see a much greater potential impact on the national labs, because this is a debate over what work is done. Indeed, it's a debate over the very future of government-funded research.

We see deeper congressional resistance to some programs the administration had been emphasizing -- especially partnerships with industry, DOE education programs, and renewable-energy projects. On the upside, there is heightened congressional support for basic research and nuclear energy.

For the national labs, this means dislocations ... change ... figuring out how to do things differently ... coping with competition. That's most true for the weapons labs. But we have seen this type of radical emphasis shift before. Something quite similar happens every time one party takes over the White House from the other.

My point is that Argonne and its people have survived periods of change in the past, and I believe we will survive this change too.

Among the DOE multi-program labs, in fact, Argonne is as well-positioned as any lab to cope with change and compete successfully ... and better-positioned than most. Let me give you just a few reasons why:

• We have an exceptionally broad base of research programs and capabilities. As the funding for one program goes down, other programs have tended to grow and take up the slack.

• In the Advanced Photon Source (APS), we have one of America's premier research facilities just getting ready to come on-line.

• We are heavily invested in basic research.

• We remain a strong center of competence in nuclear energy and nuclear waste treatment technology that's really unparalleled in the national lab system.

• Our energy and environmental science programs are strong.

• The State of Illinois and the Illinois congressional delegation are totally supportive.

• Our location at the Nation's crossroads could not be better.

• And we have a new contract that gives us unprecedented management flexibility to anticipate and to deal with changes. If the recommendations of the Galvin Report are heeded, we may see a significant reduction in micromanagement--that's certainly our hope.

With the increased flexibility in the contract comes increased responsibility for results. That is a responsibility Argonne's management sought, and one we welcome.

And here's what we are doing with it:

Our fiscal year 1996 planning is based on the expectation that the laboratory will be somewhat smaller next year than it is today.

As you see on this chart, we already have begun a slight decline in employment from last year to this year, due thus far almost entirely to last year's unfortunate termination of the Integral Fast Reactor program. As the government's research emphasis changes and its budgets decline, employment likely will continue on a modest downward slope through next year.

We're also examining our cost structure so that we can be even more competitive. Prudent management demands that. Although this chart does not yet show a fall-off in budget, we suspect that next year's chart will. Therefore, a number of cost-structure studies are under way, and you will hear more about them once they are concluded.

Another management emphasis involves preserving our major programs while we work hard to develop and attract new programs. Argonne has had a great deal of success with new program development in the past, and we are determined to continue that record.

Physical Research

Earlier this year, DOE put together a $100-million Scientific Facilities Initiative and sent it to Capitol Hill.

While other programs have come under often-heavy fire, this one is faring well, much to our delight and a little amazement. The initiative also illustrates my point about Argonne's positioning -- because, of the 23 basic-research facilities covered by the initiative, four are at Argonne. They are the APS, the Electron Microscopy Center for Materials Research, Argonne Tandem Linear Accelerator System (ATLAS), and Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS).

For IPNS, funds from the initiative would permit a long-needed expansion of operating weeks from 18 to 32.

For the Electron Microscopy Center, the initiative also will enhance operations and permit a new microscope.

At ATLAS, demand for research time has been especially high. The facility now is operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, generating beams from two injector accelerators. A third, more powerful injector is under construction.

In materials science, Argonne has the nation's largest basic-research program in superconductivity. Our studies on the dissipation mechanisms of high-temperature superconductors led to development of a magnetic imaging technique that allows the first direct images of electric current as it flows through the technologically important, multi-filamentary, high-temperature superconductors. That new imaging technique was featured in Nature magazine and is the basis of a CRADA involving U.S. industry and a Russian institute.

This year we also built and tested the first phase of the Argonne Wakefield Accelerator, and we expect it will begin full operation by the year 2000.

In chemistry, Argonne researchers have, for the second year in a row, developed an important industrial application for the novel soccer-ball-shaped molecules of carbon called "buckyballs." It is a process for using diamond films grown from buckyballs in the manufacture of flat panel displays. Last year, we developed the first industrial application -- a faster, less costly technique for growing diamond films to coat and protect machining tools.

Our chemists also have developed a way to separate transuranic elements, those heavier than uranium, from nuclear waste. That in turn should reduce the volume of waste that needs specialized storage. That looks like a real applications advance.

In computational research, as you may have seen in USA Today a few weeks ago, Argonne's CAVE virtual reality system is building the foundation for a "virtual laboratory" thanks to a dedicated, innovative research team and the power of the IBM SP massively parallel computer.

Yet another important responsibility of Physical Research is Argonne's wide array of educational programs, which are under a cloud at the moment due to action in the House of Representatives. This academic year, more than 10,000 young Americans and their teachers experienced cutting-edge science thanks to Argonne educational programs both on-site and at schools. We are particularly pleased with teacher involvement in our programs. And we have been working with other labs and customers to persuade Congress of these programs' worth.

Advanced Photon Source

APS remains on-budget and ahead of schedule. In fact, nearly a year ahead of schedule.

Commissioning of the APS storage ring began March 18.

On March 25, the APS team brought a beam of electrons with an energy of 4.5 billion electron volts into sustained orbit inside the storage ring. They maintained the beam for 15 minutes, during which the electrons orbited the storage ring approximately 250 million times -- a total distance of 172 million miles, if anybody's counting. Then, early Sunday morning, March 26, the APS produced its first X-ray beams, the most significant in a series of technological successes for the project. A record of that beam was captured on a piece of X-ray sensitive material, which everyone involved then signed.

Another APS event drew Governor Jim Edgar to Argonne with a state check for $18.9 million to build the APS user residence facility -- a seven-story, 140,000-square-foot building with 240 beds within a variety of room types for the researchers, students, and others who will use the APS.

APS also will be making ice along with X-rays. We have received a DOE grant to build an ice thermal storage plant to help cool the APS experiment hall and accelerator equipment. At night, when electric rates are lowest, the system will make ice. Between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., when electric rates are highest, the melting ice will provide additional cooling. The system should reduce Argonne's electric bill by about $237,000 during its first year of operation.

There are many APS users and much equipment. APS users are organized in CATs -- or Collaborative Access Teams -- which we expect will invest a total of $200 million to construct 40 X-ray beamlines. Thus far, we have signed a dozen CAT agreements representing a total of 156 member organizations and approximately 750 researchers. The first CAT equipment has been installed in the APS experiment hall, with much more to follow.

CAT member organizations include some of America's largest corporations and most prestigious research universities.

Energy and Environmental Science and Technology

In a project of truly global significance, the United States and Russia are teamed in an ambitious program to sequence the human genome. The project links Argonne with the Russian Academy of Sciences' W.A. Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology in Moscow. That institute's distinguished director, Andrei Mirzabekov, and his research team now divide their time between Moscow and Argonne. The joint project aims at developing a new super-efficient biochip to decode the human genome. This chip could lead to significant medical benefits.

Medical benefits could also flow from Argonne's study of hyperthermophilic bacteria -- tiny organisms that thrive without oxygen in temperatures above the boiling point of water. Understanding how these organisms survive may provide keys to improving existing heat-based therapies for certain cancers. There are potential industrial benefits as well.

Serving American industry and helping it create jobs also is an important part of Argonne's mission -- a part called technology transfer. Much of that transfer occurs within cooperative research and development agreements, or CRADAs. Thus far in fiscal 1995, we have signed 33 CRADAs worth more than $24 million. That performance brings our five-year total to 98 CRADAs worth more than $113 million.

Argonne's work with industry has become a catalog of success stories, both small and large. Two of the largest and most recent involve gas.

We are working with Amoco on a new technique for converting natural gas (through an intermediate form called syngas) into ethanol and other liquid fuels. If it comes to pass, the global economic impact of such a technique would be immense.

Southern California Gas Company. the nation's largest natural gas distribution company, expects to save millions in operating costs thanks to a joint research project with Argonne. The three-year, $1.7-million project focuses on "microbiologically influenced corrosion," which costs U.S. companies about $200 million a year in water-treatment chemicals alone.

Another group of utilities -- electric power companies -- are intensely interested and often involved in Argonne's superconductivity research. Superconductivity holds potential conservation as well as industrial benefits.

And many of America's major conservation efforts involve Argonne. We take an exceptionally broad view of what constitutes conservation and environment benefits. Our programs cover an equally broad spectrum.

• On the plains of Kansas and Oklahoma, Argonne scientists are gathering atmospheric data across a 50,000-square-mile site to help answer questions about whether our climate is changing and how.

• On federal facilities across the country, innovative and cost-saving procedures such as the Argonne Expedited Site Characterization process are helping researchers assess potentially hazardous sites.

• On city sidewalks, Argonne works with Bethel New Life, Inc., to bring promising interns from Chicago's West Garfield Park neighborhood to the laboratory for three months to learn general office procedures and word processing skills. Our work is becoming a paradigm for other labs in their relationship with the inner city

• And on America's highways, a partnership between the national labs and the American automotive industry to develop a new generation of vehicles should yield a substantial future payoff in higher overall fuel-efficiency and improved air quality.

Specific automotive projects already underway include the development of fuel cell systems for electrically-powered vehicles, a radical overhaul of gasoline-powered engine designs, the development of lightweight vehicle bodies and other structural components, and the creation of a national network of electronically-based smart roads.

Engineering Research

Last year, the old Congress voted to terminate a program we believed in and we fought for, the Integral Fast Reactor. I can illustrate the change from last year to this year by quoting from the subcommittee report on the House Energy and Water Appropriations Bill. It says:

"The National Academy of Sciences ... concluded that electrometalurgical techniques being developed at the Argonne National Laboratory could represent a sufficiently promising technology for treating a variety of DOE spent fuels and warrant continued research and development.

"In order to preserve the unique capabilities of the assets at Argonne-West, activities related to bringing EBR-II to a safe and stable configuration may proceed, but such activities must leave the Argonne-West facilities, including EBR-II, capable of later utilization."

What I have just read to you is a bill in debate, not a law. It could be changed. It could even be vetoed. But it does illustrate a significant change in attitude.

• DOE's spent nuclear fuel treatment

• Reactor and fuel-cycle safety

• Decontamination and decommissioning technology.

These DOE plans and congressional actions recognize Argonne's world-class standing in nuclear research and engineering -- a capability we intend to maintain. Just last Fall, that Argonne skill developed a fast, compact process called electrorefining that we expect could save taxpayers billions of dollars in disposing of tons of spent fuel stored at DOE sites around the nation.

That is typical of the nuclear research and engineering service Argonne has provided to the nation for many years, and which we intend to continue providing for many more.

Operations

In the past year, Operations took the lead in assisting the University of Chicago team negotiating our new contract with DOE.

They also continued executing Argonne's long-term site-improvement plan. Over the past year, our electrical service improved and the sewer project was completed. Next month, construction starts on Argonne-East's largest construction project outside of the APS -- a four-year, $10-million rehabilitation of the central heating plant. As is true with much of what Operations does, the project's goal is to decrease operating costs and increase system reliability.

That's also the case with our Environmental Safety & Health program, which keeps costs down and Argonne operating smoothly by keeping you healthy and safe on-the-job. Our record continues to be excellent -- much better than general industry and well above average among the DOE labs -- and we have brought in experts from DuPont to help make that record even better. DuPont is a national leader in occupational safety and health.

And Argonne rapidly is becoming a leader in bringing people together electronically. Our Program Capabilities Database allows potential research partners to contact us via the Internet, specify what type of research interests them, and instantly find out what Argonne is doing in that field and who they can call or write for more information.

Argonne also participates in the "I-Way." A few months ago, we served as one link in an Internet chain that allowed students in three states to see and talk with federal officials in Washington and oceanographers on the West Coast -- including one in a research submarine. People meeting and learning, all via computer.

And speaking of people programs: As I hope all of you know, workforce diversity remains among our highest management priorities. Women now comprise 27 percent of the Argonne workforce, but less than that in management and scientific positions. We continue to make progress, however. Today 16 percent of Argonne supervisors are women, as are 15 percent of our professional managers, and 22 percent of our scientists. We are continuing to enhance those programs. One example is Argonne's "Science Careers in Search of Women" program. As part of that effort, we recently invited 374 young women from more than 70 Chicago-area high schools to Argonne to learn why a science career would be worthwhile for them. We hope some of them eventually will return to Argonne.

Perhaps a few will do that during our 50th Anniversary ... which is next year!

We are planning a year-long series of activities to mark both the end of our first half-century as a premiere national lab, and the beginning of what I believe will be a second half-century of unparalleled achievement.

When Argonne's director steps up to talk about the Lab's centennial in 2046 -- rumor has it that laboratory director will not be me -- I suspect he or she will say that Argonne's first 50 years, though dynamic and packed with achievement, were merely the appetizer for what was to follow. By the way, if any of you are around for that speech, please drop me a note and let me know what was said.

Summary

As Congress and the administration move toward a budget and a research blueprint that both can accept, we too are moving aggressively to be ready for whatever comes. For one thing, there are those cost-structure studies I mentioned before -- many of which are being undertaken by an Argonne management team called the Non-Programmatic Cost Group, which I chair. We intend Argonne to be unsurpassed in cost-efficiency while preserving or enhancing our product quality. It's important to remember that the objective is not to run the lab at the lowest cost; the objective is to do first-class work at the lowest possible cost.

The effort can be considered a logical extension of our successful and continuing quality management program.

Together, quality and cost-efficiency comprise an important competitive advantage in a budget-conscious marketplace. That advantage will support our efforts to preserve current programs and attract new ones, as will the Argonne advantages I outlined earlier --

• Facilities

• Broad, diversified research base

• Basic-research competence

• Nuclear energy competence

• Energy and environmental science competence

• Support from the State and our congressional delegation

• Argonne's convenient location

• Our new, flexible, performance-based contract ... and

• The finest team of people assembled anywhere.

In that list I of course saved the most important advantage until last. That Argonne advantage is you.

How you handle the change that is inevitable over the next year will determine how Argonne fares. What's needed is a maximum effort: Consistently high dedication, consistently strong commitment, and consistently hard work from all of us.