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.
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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.
MaRIE !!!!
MaRIE !!!!
MaRIE !!!!
Remember that "strategic thrust" by LANL management?
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.
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.
And according to the memo today, he just got promoted in a different area!Sweet dreams Marie.
"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?
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).
God help us if MarIE is the next NIF.
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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