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Another sign that NNSA's national labs are fading away while DOE's national labs grow....
Bay Area national labs get new Recovery Act funding
By Suzanne Bohan
Contra Costa Times
08/04/2009
A $327 million initiative to bolster research and infrastructure programs at national laboratories is funneling more than $61 million to Bay Area facilities, the Department of Energy announced on Tuesday.
Under the initiative, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory will get $37.8 million in federal Recovery Act funding, with $11 million designated for fusion energy research, $13.1 million for new equipment at the Joint Genome Institute, and $4 million for new instrumentation at the Berkeley lab's Joint BioEnergy Institute. Another $8.8 million will go toward improvements at the lab's Advanced Light Source facility, which generates intense light for scientific research, and $875,000 will support development of "smart grid" technology, which uses computing and communications technologies to improve the efficiency of the electricity grid.
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park also gets an infusion of $21.8 million from the initiative, with $20 million designated for construction of a new station at a facility that studies high energy density plasmas.
In support of fusion energy research, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory gets $810,000 and Sandia/California National Laboratories receives $75,000.
The Bay Area facilities are part of a network of 17 national laboratories, which are managed by the Energy Department and engage in research for advancing energy technologies and national security.
"The projects provide vital funding and new tools for research aimed at strengthening America's energy security and tackling some of science's toughest challenges," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
4 comments:
It's become clear that the NNSA labs are *NOT* the place to be if you want to have a thriving scientific career.
The future looks much brighter at the DOE energy labs. At the NNSA weapon labs, the only thing you have to look forward to is yet more lab downsizing and job insecurity.
61 million really isn't that much money. Probably less than 3 percent of the total lab budget.
"In support of fusion energy research, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory gets $810,000 and Sandia/California National Laboratories receives $75,000."
Of course, this is a net loss for LLNL, since we stood up an office trying to capture stimulus funds and I suspect its cost far exceeds this amount of money.
61 million is a hugh deal and LLNL could have used that money. Calling it small change is short-sighted.
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