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Office of the President

TO MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL LABORATORIES SUBCOMMITTEE:

DISCUSSION ITEM

For Meeting of March 15, 2017

UPDATE ON THE NATIONAL LABORATORIES AND PRESENTATION ON THE STATE OF THE LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY

The discussion will provide an update on the activities of the three - affiliated Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboratories:  Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)  Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)  Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Presentation on the State of Los Alamos National Laboratory

LANL Director Charles McMillan will brief the Regents on the state of the Laboratory. The briefing will highlight accomplishments in fiscal year 2016 – including strong delivery of national security mission requirements and restoration of key capabilities in support of the Stockpile Stewardship Program – that led to an overall Performance Evaluation of “Very Good” by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which oversees the Laboratory on behalf of the DOE. The briefing will also showcase examples of innovative science and technology developed at LANL, and will address ongoing efforts to strengthen the Laboratory through recruitment of the workforce of the future and development of capabilities that will enable the future of Stockpile Stewardship. Los Alamos and sister laboratory LLNL fill an essential role in certifying the safety, security, and effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear deterrent. LANL is managed by Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS), with The Regents of the University of California as a primary partner.

Update on the Los Alamos National Laboratory Contract

The UC Office of the National Laboratories continues to monitor developments in Washington, D.C. and throughout the DOE complex in preparation for the anticipated recompetition of the LANL Management and Operating (M&O) contract, which remains set to expire on September 30, 2018.

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The Secretary of Energy was confirmed by the Senate on March 2, 2017, but other top DOE leadership have yet to be confirmed. The NNSA Administrator under the Obama administration, Frank Klotz, has been retained by the new administration in an interim role but his expected tenure is unknown.

As previously reported, NNSA announced the winning bidder for the Sandia National Laboratories contract in mid-December. No protests were filed against that contract award, and NNSA authorized transition activities to commence in late January. The new contractor will take over management on May 1.

The competition for the Nevada National Security Site contract remains open as of early February. It is anticipated that NNSA will complete this competition before starting any competition for the LANL M&O contract.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Berkeley Lab Breaks Ground on Integrative Genomics Building

The groundbreaking for the Integrative Genomics Building (IGB) on January 31, 2017 celebrated the future colocation of two partnering scientific user community resources and launched construction of the first building in the long-term plan for a consolidated biosciences presence on Berkeley Lab’s main site.

When completed in 2019, the IGB will house about 300 scientists and support staff, and will bring together under one roof researchers from the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and the Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase). JGI and KBase are two critical resources supported by the DOE for catalyzing solutions to energy and environmental challenges. Combined, JGI and KBase have nearly 3,400 users of their DNA sequencing, synthesis, metabolomics, and large-scale bioinformatics resources.

JGI was established in 1997 to unite the distributed DNA sequencing and analysis capabilities of the DOE to accelerate the completion of the Human Genome Project. After completing its Human Genome Project activities in 2003, JGI became the only federally funded, high- throughput genome sequencing and analysis facility focused solely on the genomes relevant to DOE missions in energy and the environment including non-medical microbes, microbial communities, plants, and fungi.

Founded in 2011, KBase is a collaborative, open environment for systems biology of plants, microbes, and their communities. KBase enables the scientific community to access and share sophisticated integrative data analysis and modeling tools supported by DOE enterprise class computing that will accelerate discovery, prediction, and design of biological functions. Together, JGI and KBase provide unprecedented power for measurement, analysis, and understanding of biological systems.

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The Berkeley Lab Biosciences Area, with $176 million in annual funding and approximately 800 people – including those from JGI and KBase – has the largest number of scientists in one organization dedicated to discovery, understanding, and engineering biology for solutions for energy, environment, and health challenges.

SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

LLNL and LANL Researchers Honored with Presidential Early Career Awards

Two LLNL researchers and one LANL researcher were among the recipients named by President Obama of the prestigious Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) announced in Washington D.C. on January 9.

LLNL’s Jonathan Belof and Eric Duoss and LANL’s John Yeager joined about 100 others this year in winning the highest honor the U.S. government gives to scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent careers for innovative research and community service.

Mr. Belof has performed research in stockpile stewardship at LLNL since 2010. He received the PECASE for his work in phase transition dynamics and non-equilibrium systems, as well as his efforts in teaching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and mentoring underprivileged students while at the University of South Florida, as well as in LLNL's High Energy Density Physics summer scholar program.

Mr. Duoss conducts research in advanced materials and manufacturing combined with microarchitected design and has worked at LLNL since 2010. In addition to his programmatic work, Mr. Duoss has dedicated himself to educating the younger generation of scientists and engineers about STEM pathways, volunteering countless hours and conducting Lab tours for students and teachers.

Mr. Yeager, of LANL’s High Explosives Science and Technology group, leads an exciting research program employing in situ probes to understand how the meso-structure of explosives affects their performance and safety. It is an example of science on the roadmap to Matter- Radiation Interactions in Extremes (MaRIE), the Laboratory’s proposed experimental facility to combine x-ray and neutron-scattering methods for unprecedented, time-resolved access to structural properties of materials from atomic- to meso-scales.

Mr. Belof, Mr. Duoss, and Mr. Yeager are among the 13 presidential early career winners from DOE in 2017. The awards are coordinated by the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President of the United States.

LBNL Team Discovers Metal Which Conducts Electricity But Not Heat

According to a new study led by a team of scientists at LBNL and UC Berkeley, electrons in vanadium dioxide can conduct electricity without conducting heat.

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The findings, published in the January 27, 2017 issue of the journal Science, could lead to a wide range of applications, such as thermoelectric systems that convert waste heat from engines and appliances into electricity.

Typically, good conductors of electricity are also good conductors of heat. That is not the case for metallic vanadium dioxide, which switches from an insulator to a metal when it reaches 67 degrees Celsius, or 152 degrees Fahrenheit.The study found that the amount of electricity and heat that vanadium dioxide can conduct is tunable by mixing it with other materials. Such mixtures could be used to help scavenge or dissipate the heat in engines, or be developed into a window coating that improves the efficient use of energy in buildings.

LLNL Record-breaking Laser Demonstrates Major Milestone

The High-Repetition-Rate Advanced Petawatt Laser System (HAPLS) recently reached a significant milestone: demonstration of continuous operation of an all diode-pumped, high- energy femtosecond petawatt laser system. With achievement of this milestone, the system is ready for delivery and integration at the European Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) Beamlines facility project in the Czech Republic.

HAPLS set a world record for diode-pumped petawatt lasers, with energy reaching 16 joules and a 28 femtosecond pulse duration at a 3.3 hertz repetition rate (3.3 times per second).

In just three years, HAPLS went from concept to a fully integrated and record-breaking product. HAPLS represents a new generation of application-enabling diode-pumped, high-energy and high-peak-power laser systems with innovative technologies originating from the Department of Energy’s fusion laser research and development.

In the decades since high-power lasers were introduced, they have illuminated entirely new fields of scientific endeavor, in addition to making profound impacts to society. When petawatt peak power pulses are focused to a high intensity on a target, they generate secondary sources such as electromagnetic radiation (for example, high-brightness X-rays) or accelerate charged particles (electrons, protons or ions). These effects enable unparalleled access to a variety of research areas, including time-resolved proton and X-ray radiography, laboratory astrophysics, medical applications for cancer treatments, and basic science applications, in addition to national security applications and industrial processes such as nondestructive evaluation of materials and laser fusion.

In the coming months, HAPLS will be transferred to ELI Beamlines, where it will be integrated into the facility’s laser beam transport and control systems, then brought up to full design specification, making it the world’s highest average power petawatt system.

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Key to Acronyms

DOE Department of Energy ELI Extreme Light Infrastructure HAPLS High-Repetition-Rate Advanced Petawatt Laser System IGB Integrative Genomics Building JGI Joint Genome Institute KBase Systems Biology Knowledgebase LANL Los Alamos National Laboratory LANS Los Alamos National Security, LLC LBNL Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory LLNL Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory MaRIE Matter-Radiation Interactions in Extremes M&O Management and Operating NNSA National Nuclear Security Administration PECASE Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers STEM Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math