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Saturday, August 23, 2008
Mini-LLNL
Anonymously asked: If every other facility at LLNL were to shut down except for NIF support personnel and the Super Computer how many people would LLNL need to operate?
12 comments:
Anonymous
said...
The Supercomputer center is just a provider of services to other divisions, so it would shutdown along with the other divisions.
Similarly NIF has a fairly large logistics tail.
When you talk about shutting down the other parts of LLNL you basically are shutting down all of it.
Fermilab has 1,900 employees (900 physicists, engineers and computer professionals), annual budget $350 million. Argonne National Lab has about 2,800 employees, (1,000 scientists and engineers), annual operating budget of about $530 million. PNNL has approximately 4,000 staff members and a business volume of $760 million. Oak Ridge National Lab has a staff of more than 4,200 and annual funding exceeds $1.2 billion.
So I would guess LLNL with NIF/Computations as the exclusive missions would be in the total staff range of 2,000 to 3,000.
Now we're talking. 2,000 - 3,000 people. That's 1,000 people under the original plan displayed on a viewgraphs I saw early during the transition period. So guess where we're going people?
I thought that most of the users for the supercomputer were Lab people working on their projects. If you got rid of those people, who is left to use the supercomputer center? at a classified site no less.
give that the SNM is going away, Superblock and Site 300 are being closed, and RRW is dead... what's the rationale for LLNL remaining a classified site... NIF will end up doing as many classified shots as Nova did, and it was not a classified facility...
I see both NIF and the Supercomputers becoming user facilities with visiting researchers using them. This the model across most of the DOE Office of Science sites...
The site is too expensive to run just for visiting users of computers.
If that's all DOE has for LLNL to do it might as well tear down the place or turn it into a theme park.
Hey folks. Come visit Nukeland Park! Ride the monster NIF-Coaster, see the daily glow-in-the-dark show, kids of all ages will adore our egg-head petting zoo.
At least we'd have some decent work during the build.
Don't worry. Your classified stonghold will be gone very soon, to LANL. Remeber, no need for duplication in the DOE complex and I for one hope this is very true. It's time to get this crap out of Livermore
"If every other facility at LLNL were to shut down except for NIF support personnel and the Super Computer how many people would LLNL need to operate?"
Not sure how many would be left, but that vision sounds about right. They only real question is whether it will happen over the next two years or over the next decade. My guess is that it will happen a lot faster than most people at LLNL expect.
I'll give it 24 to 36 months and that should wrap it up tight. I was hoping for more but I lose hope everyday I see what LLNS is doing or am reminded of LLNS has done. It's a sad situation.
It's a sad day for science at most of the National Labs. Congress seems to have little idea about what's really going on here.
I doubt you will find many scientists at LLNL or LANL who believe their kids should study the hard subjects in school and follow in their footsteps. It's not worth the effort any longer. Job security and attractive pay and benefits are quickly disappearing at our National Labs.
How ironic that Congress, which supposedly cares so very much about science and math education, is letting the National Labs (our "crown jewels" of science) slowly fall apart.
I have been telling capable students who have an interest to go into law or medicine vs getting a PhD for quite some time now. Those occupations have their own sets of issues of course, but heavy offshoring and competition from foreign students hasn't hit them nearly as hard as science and engineering.
Had a guy in another group at LANL who just finished his PhD in engineering over the summer. He bailed and started medical school this fall. Story is, he looked around and didn't see much to recommend being an engineer.
12 comments:
The Supercomputer center is just a provider of services to other divisions, so it would shutdown along with the other divisions.
Similarly NIF has a fairly large logistics tail.
When you talk about shutting down the other parts of LLNL you basically are shutting down all of it.
Fermilab has 1,900 employees (900 physicists, engineers and computer professionals), annual budget $350 million. Argonne National Lab has about 2,800 employees, (1,000 scientists and engineers), annual operating budget of about $530 million. PNNL has approximately 4,000 staff members and a business volume of $760 million. Oak Ridge National Lab has a staff of more than 4,200 and annual funding exceeds $1.2 billion.
So I would guess LLNL with NIF/Computations as the exclusive missions would be in the total staff range of 2,000 to 3,000.
August 24, 2008 9:56 AM
Now we're talking. 2,000 - 3,000 people. That's 1,000 people under the original plan displayed on a viewgraphs I saw early during the transition period. So guess where we're going people?
I thought that most of the users for the supercomputer were Lab people working on their projects. If you got rid of those people, who is left to use the supercomputer center? at a classified site no less.
August 24, 2008 6:46 PM
give that the SNM is going away, Superblock and Site 300 are being closed, and RRW is dead... what's the rationale for LLNL remaining a classified site... NIF will end up doing as many classified shots as Nova did, and it was not a classified facility...
I see both NIF and the Supercomputers becoming user facilities with visiting researchers using them. This the model across most of the DOE Office of Science sites...
The site is too expensive to run just for visiting users of computers.
If that's all DOE has for LLNL to do it might as well tear down the place or turn it into a theme park.
Hey folks. Come visit Nukeland Park! Ride the monster NIF-Coaster, see the daily glow-in-the-dark show, kids of all ages will adore our egg-head petting zoo.
At least we'd have some decent work during the build.
August 24, 2008 6:46 PM
Don't worry. Your classified stonghold will be gone very soon, to LANL. Remeber, no need for duplication in the DOE complex and I for one hope this is very true. It's time to get this crap out of Livermore
"If every other facility at LLNL were to shut down except for NIF support personnel and the Super Computer how many people would LLNL need to operate?"
Not sure how many would be left, but that vision sounds about right. They only real question is whether it will happen over the next two years or over the next decade. My guess is that it will happen a lot faster than most people at LLNL expect.
I'll give it 24 to 36 months and that should wrap it up tight. I was hoping for more but I lose hope everyday I see what LLNS is doing or am reminded of LLNS has done. It's a sad situation.
It's a sad day for science at most of the National Labs. Congress seems to have little idea about what's really going on here.
I doubt you will find many scientists at LLNL or LANL who believe their kids should study the hard subjects in school and follow in their footsteps. It's not worth the effort any longer. Job security and attractive pay and benefits are quickly disappearing at our National Labs.
How ironic that Congress, which supposedly cares so very much about science and math education, is letting the National Labs (our "crown jewels" of science) slowly fall apart.
Lessons learned. We won't be fooled again.
I have been telling capable students who have an interest to go into law or medicine vs getting a PhD for quite some time now. Those occupations have their own sets of issues of course, but heavy offshoring and competition from foreign students hasn't hit them nearly as hard as science and engineering.
Had a guy in another group at LANL who just finished his PhD in engineering over the summer. He bailed and started medical school this fall. Story is, he looked around and didn't see much to recommend being an engineer.
Dear September 1, 2008 9:12 PM,
I think I've been kicked in my "Crown Jewels"
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