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Monday, March 4, 2013

LANL neutron center ranked at the bottom

LANL neutron center ranked at the bottom of all national facilities by DoE Office of Science BESAC


Few Low Grades at DOE Science Facilities as U.S. Prepares to Set Priorities
by David Malakoff
ScienceInsider
1 March 2013, 5:53 PM

Today's ratings of more than a dozen existing and planned DOE facilities—including nanoscience centers, x-ray and ultraviolet light sources, and neutron scattering devices—carried a similar skew. The evaluations came from DOE's Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC), a 25-member panel that helps steer one of the six major research programs within the department's $5 billion Office of Science. It was responding to a request from DOE science chief William Brinkman, who late last year asked BESAC and the five other advisory panels to help out with an effort to develop a 10-year plan that will set spending priorities for new and existing research facilities.


In particular, Brinkman's letter asked each advisory panel to consider how the facilities in their program "contribute to world-leading science," and to place each into one of four categories: "absolutely central," "important," "lower priority," and "don't know enough yet." He also wanted them to work fast, setting a 22 March deadline for responses.

Today, BESAC took a big step toward meeting that target by approving its facilities ratings list, which had been developed by a subcommittee. The action came near the end of a 2-day meeting held in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

Overall, the group rated seven of 13 existing BES facilities "absolutely central" for cutting-edge science. Four were rated "important." And just two received the black mark of the "lower priority" ranking. However, one of the downgraded facilities, the National Synchrotron Light Source at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, is already scheduled to shut down in 2014 as its much bigger and better replacement is under construction next door. The other low priority facility, the Lujan Neutron Scattering Center at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, is highly valued by researchers at other parts of DOE, committee members noted, but is of less importance to BES-funded scientists.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Come on folks, there should be no surprise to this ranking. The surprise is that LANCE is even still around to be ranked. It has been on the list for years to be defunded.

Anonymous said...

MaRIE !!!!
MaRIE !!!!
MaRIE !!!!

Remember that "strategic thrust" by LANL management?

Anonymous said...

LANSCE was old and decrepit while it was still called LAMPF (Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility), which illustrates the early focus of the accelerator and its target facilities. It finally reached its design proton energy just before it was declared outdated by many in the medium-energy physics community, and had to scramble to try to finish the neutron spallation source and create another life for itself. That held for a few years, but when it became clear that the promise of weapons-related research was empty, that was the end. It died many years before it realized it.

Anonymous said...

Now that someone has brought up MaRIE, if you ever needed proof that the labs are NOT operated as a private enterprise, there you have it. NO business would EVER permit such a foolish waste of so many funds in pursuit of such a useless dream. The kicker to all of this is that the chief snake oil salesman still has a job! Makes you wonder what sort of decisions the lab board make when Wallace is still around after all the millions and millions of money burned up on MaRIE.

Anonymous said...

And according to the memo today, he just got promoted in a different area!Sweet dreams Marie.

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...

And according to the memo today, he just got promoted in a different area!Sweet dreams Marie.

March 5, 2013 at 7:52 PM"

So is that the end of Marie?

Anonymous said...

Another failure in "strategic vision" by our overpaid executive management team at LANS.

Never fear, though. They'll continue to hand out awards and accolades to their buddies who make these poorly thought out decisions. Just look how they recently awarded the guy who was Project Director for the MaRIE disaster, John Sarrao, to be the next Associate Director for ST&E at LANL. Not saying the MaRIE disaster was Sarrao's fault but it is interesting the way the deck chairs are re-arranged on this USS Titanic (aka LANL).


Anonymous said...

God help us if MarIE is the next NIF.

Anonymous said...

MaRIE never made it to coveted "NIF Status". It's been smothered in the crib before it had a chance to grow up and become an huge, embarrassing waste of taxpayer money.

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