Pensioners
Didn't LLNS know when they bid on the contract they were taking on pensioners?
We're not DOE employees, we're LLNS employees. UC puts in their money. LLNS, not DOE, needs to put in theirs.
Sorry you miscalculated your profits. When you take post tax contributions from your employees, you have no place to hide.
By the way, you don't need permission to do the right thing.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Record energy at NIF
Laser fusion experiment yields record energy at NIF
http://nnsa.energy.gov/blog/laser-fusion-experiment-yields-record-energy-nif
http://nnsa.energy.gov/blog/laser-fusion-experiment-yields-record-energy-nif
LANL plutonium mission
From the Los Alamos Monitor
By The Staff
Saturday, August 24, 2013 at 4:20 pm (Updated: August 24, 7:26 pm)
Los Alamos National Laboratory director Charlie McMillan reportedly sent a letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz in July warning of dire consequences for the plutonium mission if sufficient funding is not secured.
According to a letter obtained by the Nuclear Weapons and Materials Monitor, McMillan cited the lack of action on a $120 million reprogramming request from the NNSA to begin work on an alternative plutonium strategy and the funding cuts included in both versions of the FY 2014 Energy and Water Appropriations bills.
Congress has not signed off on the reprogramming request, which came about when the decision was made to defer the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility.
There have been reports the lab is considering an alternative strategy based on a modular approach to maintain the nation’s plutonium capabilities.
“Los Alamos will continue to do everything possible to keep our people and programs intact should these funding reductions come to pass, but I am very worried that these FY 14 Pu program reductions will place the mission is on an unrecoverable trajectory,” McMillan reportedly wrote in the July 1 letter. “With the 2019 closure of CMR and significant underfunding of Pu infrastructure, we will simply not have the capability to produce much more than the current pit output.”
The trade publication reports that parts of the reprogramming request would go to studying that approach while other money would allow the lab to begin purchasing materials and equipment for existing facilities that will play a larger role in the plutonium strategy, which is expected to enable the lab to produce up to 30 pits by 2021.
By The Staff
Saturday, August 24, 2013 at 4:20 pm (Updated: August 24, 7:26 pm)
Los Alamos National Laboratory director Charlie McMillan reportedly sent a letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz in July warning of dire consequences for the plutonium mission if sufficient funding is not secured.
According to a letter obtained by the Nuclear Weapons and Materials Monitor, McMillan cited the lack of action on a $120 million reprogramming request from the NNSA to begin work on an alternative plutonium strategy and the funding cuts included in both versions of the FY 2014 Energy and Water Appropriations bills.
Congress has not signed off on the reprogramming request, which came about when the decision was made to defer the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility.
There have been reports the lab is considering an alternative strategy based on a modular approach to maintain the nation’s plutonium capabilities.
“Los Alamos will continue to do everything possible to keep our people and programs intact should these funding reductions come to pass, but I am very worried that these FY 14 Pu program reductions will place the mission is on an unrecoverable trajectory,” McMillan reportedly wrote in the July 1 letter. “With the 2019 closure of CMR and significant underfunding of Pu infrastructure, we will simply not have the capability to produce much more than the current pit output.”
The trade publication reports that parts of the reprogramming request would go to studying that approach while other money would allow the lab to begin purchasing materials and equipment for existing facilities that will play a larger role in the plutonium strategy, which is expected to enable the lab to produce up to 30 pits by 2021.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
What???
A typical potpourri of NIF hype about improving neutron yields by a
factor of 1.5x and tales of visits to the Czech Republic with a
Bechtelian to get a $50M contract for LLNL to build a laser for the
Czechs. Does anyone know how LLNL could even be considered for that?
Why wouldn't they just hire a private laser engineering firm? Does LLNL
have a QA/QC department or a pricelist?
What did Parney say?
Did Parney have an all hands meeting last Wed. to discuss FY14 and if so, what was said?
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Great story on the founding of LLNL.
Great story on the founding of LLNL.
"Study Recounts Early, Difficult Years Of Lawrence Livermore National Lab" - The Independent. Friday, August 23, 2013. By Jeff Garberson
http://www.independentnews.com/news/article_44e876e2-0aad-11e3-a35f-001a4bcf887a.html
I am struck by this, and how its compares today to life at the Lab....
"Guided by Lawrence’s legacy from the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory, Livermore staff were young experimentalists who shifted fluidly between groups as jobs required. They lacked job titles for the most part – even York, who led the Livermore site, did not receive the title of Director until Lawrence suggested it offhandedly in 1954.
Most important, perhaps, Lawrence was always upbeat and looking to the future. He would not allow gloom or despondency. Even after the third failed nuclear test, he showed up at the Livermore site and told the young scientists not to despair but to ask what they could learn from the failures."
"Study Recounts Early, Difficult Years Of Lawrence Livermore National Lab" - The Independent. Friday, August 23, 2013. By Jeff Garberson
http://www.independentnews.com/news/article_44e876e2-0aad-11e3-a35f-001a4bcf887a.html
I am struck by this, and how its compares today to life at the Lab....
"Guided by Lawrence’s legacy from the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory, Livermore staff were young experimentalists who shifted fluidly between groups as jobs required. They lacked job titles for the most part – even York, who led the Livermore site, did not receive the title of Director until Lawrence suggested it offhandedly in 1954.
Most important, perhaps, Lawrence was always upbeat and looking to the future. He would not allow gloom or despondency. Even after the third failed nuclear test, he showed up at the Livermore site and told the young scientists not to despair but to ask what they could learn from the failures."
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Dysfunctional LLNL
My name is Kevin Moore and I recently left the Lab after 10.5 years. My new job has shown me just how dysfunctional LLNL is, and revealed the lab's greatest problem: it's inability to fire those who should be.
Repeatedly, I watched failed scientists/engineers not be terminated, but"coaxed" into management. These folks, typically with no managementexperience beyond some two-day LLNL coarse, made horrible managers. Theymoved their way through middle management, arriving to a place where theywere seen as a person who guides science/engineering at the lab. We then had a failed science/engineering with poor management skills trying to
build programs and direct the lab. The result is what we have today: a rudderless monolith with ghastly overhead.LLNL was a truly sad place to be, and the day I got out was one of the most happy periods I had in years.
If I can suggest anything to our government, come into the weapons labs with a team of competent strategists and start slashing useless managers and failed scientist. Use metrics like peer-reviewed publications to gauge a persons quality, not spot awards or other worthless internalrecognitions.
If I can suggest anything to our government, come into the weapons labs with a team of competent strategists and start slashing useless managers and failed scientist. Use metrics like peer-reviewed publications to gauge a persons quality, not spot awards or other worthless internalrecognitions.
Kevin Moore
Manager, Materials & Corrosion Engineering
Exponent Failure Analysis Associates
149 Commonwealth Drive
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