[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
NATIONAL LABORATORIES:
WORLD LEADING INNOVATION IN SCIENCE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 14, 2018
__________
Serial No. 115-52
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
_________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
29-779 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
DANA ROHRABACHER, California ZOE LOFGREN, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
BILL POSEY, Florida AMI BERA, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
RANDY K. WEBER, Texas DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
STEPHEN KNIGHT, California JACKY ROSEN, Nevada
BRIAN BABIN, Texas JERRY McNERNEY, California
BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia PAUL TONKO, New York
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana BILL FOSTER, Illinois
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida MARK TAKANO, California
JIM BANKS, Indiana COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona CHARLIE CRIST, Florida
ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas
NEAL P. DUNN, Florida
CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana
RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
C O N T E N T S
March 14, 2018
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 4
Written Statement............................................ 6
Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking
Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House
of Representatives............................................. 8
Written Statement............................................ 10
Witnesses:
Dr. Mark Peters, Director, Idaho National Laboratory
Oral Statement............................................... 13
Written Statement............................................ 16
Dr. Susan Seestrom, Advanced Science and Technology Associate
Laboratory Director and Chief Research Officer, Sandia National
Laboratory
Oral Statement............................................... 25
Written Statement............................................ 27
Dr. Mary E. Maxon, Associate Laboratory Director for Biosciences,
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Oral Statement............................................... 39
Written Statement............................................ 41
Dr. Chi-Chang Kao, Director, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,
National Accelerator Laboratory
Oral Statement............................................... 65
Written Statement............................................ 67
Dr. Paul Kearns, Director, Argonne National Laboratory
Oral Statement............................................... 73
Written Statement............................................ 75
Discussion....................................................... 86
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. Mark Peters, Director, Idaho National Laboratory............. 114
Dr. Susan Seestrom, Advanced Science and Technology Associate
Laboratory Director and Chief Research Officer, Sandia National
Laboratory..................................................... 119
Dr. Mary E. Maxon, Associate Laboratory Director for Biosciences,
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.......................... 122
Dr. Chi-Chang Kao, Director, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,
National Accelerator Laboratory................................ 126
Dr. Paul Kearns, Director, Argonne National Laboratory........... 131
NATIONAL LABORATORIES:
WORLD-LEADING INNOVATION IN SCIENCE
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 2018
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m., in Room
2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. The Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare
recesses of the Committee at any time.
And welcome to today's hearing entitled ``National
Laboratories: World-Leading Innovation in Science.''
And I'll recognize myself for an opening statement.
Today, we welcome a diverse group of Directors from five of
DOE's national laboratories. They oversee innovative work in
basic science and early-stage research performed daily by some
of the best scientists and researchers in the world.
Our witnesses represent national labs that fulfill the
Department of Energy's missions within the Office of Science,
applied energy and national security programs. The Science
Committee's jurisdiction over the DOE budget includes over $9
billion for civilian research, development, demonstration, and
commercial application programs, much of which is conducted by
the national labs. Over the past 70 years, this research
community has led to monumental achievements in medicine,
manufacturing, computing, and energy technology development.
The labs that are represented here today have made
invaluable contributions to U.S. scientific progress and
leadership. They have repeatedly demonstrated that basic
science research is the most effective way to encourage
innovation in technology.
In 1942, a group of scientists in Chicago created the first
nuclear reactor. Four years later, Argonne National Laboratory
was formed to continue this groundbreaking nuclear research.
Using the lab's expertise in materials and nuclear science,
Argonne designed the nuclear reactor used in the USS Nautilus,
the first nuclear-powered submarine. These reactor designs also
became the prototype for most of today's commercial nuclear
power plants. The impact of Argonne's research is far beyond
what the early nuclear scientists could have imagined.
In the 1960s, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
conducted its first groundbreaking experiments in particle
physics using the first linear particle accelerator. This
research led to the discovery of quarks, elementary particles
that are the fundamental components of matter. Their discovery
has changed the way we understand our universe at the most
fundamental level. SLAC has led the world in linear accelerator
technology for decades, expanding its focus from particle
physics to include materials science, alternative energy
research, biology, and cosmology.
Although Sandia is one of the Department's four nuclear
weapons labs, the lab's expertise in science and engineering
has broad applications across our economy. In the 1980s, Sandia
National Lab collaborated with industry to develop the primary
drill bit used in horizontal drilling. Sandia's basic research
in geology led to the development of microseismic fracture
mapping techniques for hydraulic fracturing. Industry partners
adapted these techniques for commercial use and deployed
technology to maximize energy production across the country.
At Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a large
multipurpose science lab, researchers have discovered 16
different elements, fabricated the world's smallest synthetic
motor, sequenced part of the human genome, and discovered dark
energy through the Supernova Cosmology Project. Scientists at
Berkeley Lab also developed the genetic engineering technology
known as CRISPR, which could one day allow scientists to remove
cancerous genes.
Finally, Idaho National Laboratory is the Nation's premier
nuclear technology laboratory. INL scientists have designed and
constructed 52 nuclear reactors, including the first reactor to
generate electricity in 1951. Today, INL's nuclear expertise
supports the military's naval propulsion system, the civilian
nuclear power industry, and develops tools to detect hidden
nuclear material around the world.
DOE user facilities provide our nation's researchers with
the most advanced tools of modern science, including particle
accelerators, light sources, and supercomputers. Approximately
32,000 researchers each year from academia and the private
sector use DOE facilities to perform new scientific research
and develop new technologies.
Last month, the House passed three bipartisan Science
Committee infrastructure bills that authorize DOE funds for
critical upgrades to a number of high-priority national lab
user facilities. In fact, user facilities from four of the five
labs represented here today are included in those pieces of
legislation. We look forward to hearing from our witnesses
about the potential impact of these upgrades.
It is a central goal of this Committee to ensure that our
national labs remain the best in the world. To maintain our
competitive advantage as a world leader in science, we must
continue to support the research that will lead to next-
generation energy technologies.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. That concludes my opening statement, and
the Ranking Member, the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Johnson, is
recognized for her opening statement.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As a matter
of fact, that was an outstanding statement, and I want to thank
you for holding this hearing and also from hearing the
witnesses from the Department of Energy national laboratories
for testifying today. We look forward to it.
Our national laboratories, as we all know, are part of the
foundation of the U.S. research enterprise. The work of the
scientists and engineers at our labs is truly extraordinary and
has been the catalyst for so many scientific and technological
breakthroughs. You can look at nearly every growing industry in
the United States and see the fingerprints of federally funded
R&D and more than likely see the work of researchers at our
national laboratories.
Scientific infrastructure and research activities play a
vital role in our nation's economic strength, as well as its
security, and we need to support them. This year's DOE budget
proposal submitted by the Administration is a slight
improvement over last year's, thanks in large part to a budget
deal we struck here in Congress. While I'm glad to see the
Administration is not proposing an overall cut to the Office of
Science, I think we can all agree that these vital activities
warrant funding increases, not just a continuation of
stagnating and declining budgets year in and year out.
A key remaining challenge for DOE's Office of Science is
that the dysfunctional congressional budget process has
prevented new projects and facility upgrades from moving
forward. I hope to work with my colleagues in the House and
Senate to ensure that we find a way to fund these important
projects as soon as possible.
Beyond the Office of Science, the rest of DOE did not even
achieve stagnation in the budget proposal, and the national
laboratories are in line to suffer as a result. The
Administration is proposing 66 percent cut to the Office of
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, a 32 percent cut to the
Office of Electricity, and a 25 percent cut to the Fossil
Energy R&D, and a 26 percent cut to the Office of Nuclear
Energy. These draconian cuts are simply not acceptable.
By all credible accounts, American industry will not fund
the activities that are proposed for elimination no matter how
much the Administration would like to think so. The Department
could have heard that--from industry directly, but the second
year in a row we heard from Department officials that they did
not formally engage with the private sector in deciding what
activities they would cut. However, that did not stop the
Administration from rationalizing these cuts by stating that
the private sector is better suited to carry out activities
that are being cut.
I hope we can get back to reality during this hearing. I'd
like to hear from our witnesses who regularly engage with the
private sector about how they foresee the private R&D changing
if cuts like those proposed are enacted. In almost every case,
research funded by the Department is too high risk to attract
private sector investment. If the technology matures and the
private sector sees an opportunity to profit, I assure you that
they will happily find the capital to ensure the technology
finds its way to the market.
Our challenge has been that we have trouble moving
technologies far enough along the innovation pipeline for this
to occur. The problem we are facing is not that our federal R&D
budgets are too high or that we're doing too much. Quite the
opposite. I have not met a single person with actual industry
experience who would advocate for smaller federal R&D budgets.
Now, to be clear, I am not saying that every program the
Department currently implements is perfect. We should continue
to identify smart reforms and debate our priorities. We must be
thoughtful investors of the taxpayers' dollars, but I'm
confident that investing robustly in our national laboratories
and early and appropriately reviewed later-stage R&D is the
right decision.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
And I'll introduce our experts today. And our first witness
is Dr. Mark Peters, Director of Idaho National Laboratory, and
President of Battelle Energy Alliance. Before joining Battelle,
Dr. Peters served as the Associate Laboratory Director for
Energy and Global Security at Argonne National Laboratory. He
currently serves as a Senior Advisor to the Department of
Energy on Nuclear Energy Technologies, Research, and
Development Programs and Nuclear Waste Policy. As a recognized
expert in nuclear fuel cycle technologies and nuclear waste
management, he is called upon frequently to provide expert
testimony and to advise in formulation of policies for nuclear
fuel cycle, nonproliferation, and nuclear waste disposal.
Dr. Peters received a bachelor's degree in geology from
Auburn University and his doctorate in geophysical science from
the University of Chicago. He has also completed the Strategic
Laboratory Leadership Program at the University of Chicago
Booth School of Business. He was honored as a fellow of the
American Nuclear Society in 2015.
Our next witness is Dr. Susan Seestrom, Associate
Laboratory Director for Advanced Science and Technology, and
Chief Research Officer at Sandia National Laboratory. Prior to
joining Sandia, Dr. Seestrom spent over 30 years at Los Alamos
National Laboratory serving in a number of leadership positions
including Associate Laboratory Director for Experimental
Physical Sciences and Associate Laboratory Director for Weapons
Physics. Dr. Seestrom was named a fellow of the American
Physical Society in 1994 and served as Chair of the Nuclear
Science Advisory Committee for the Department of Energy and the
National Science Foundation from 2009 to 2012. In her current
role, Dr. Seestrom manages multiple science programs,
environmental technologies, computing, modeling, and simulation
Laboratory-Directed Research and Development, user facilities,
and education programs.
Dr. Seestrom received her bachelor of science and Ph.D. in
physics from the University of Minnesota. She is the co-author
of over 140 referred publications with over 1,800 career
citations. Excuse me.
Our third witness is Dr. Mary Maxon, the Associate
Laboratory Director for Biosciences at Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory. There, she oversees the Biological Systems
and Engineering Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology and
Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging Divisions, as
well as the DOE Joint Genome Institute.
Prior to joining Lawrence Berkeley, Dr. Maxon worked in the
private sector of the biochronology and pharmaceutical
industries and the public sector serving as the Assistant
Director for Biological Research at the White House Office of
Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the
President. With her extensive background in industry,
scientific foundations, and state and Federal Government, she
is a national leader in science and technology policy.
Dr. Maxon earned her bachelor's degree in biology and
chemistry from the State University of New York Albany and her
Ph.D. in molecular cell biology from the University of
California Berkeley.
Our next witness is Dr. Chi-Chang Kao, Director of the
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, pronounced SLAC, and
National Accelerator Laboratory. Previously, Dr. Kao served as
Chairperson of the National Synchrotron Light Source at
Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. He joined SLAC as
Associate Laboratory Director for the Stanford Synchrotron
Radiation Lightsource in 2010 and became the fifth Director in
November 2012. He has been named a fellow of both the American
Physical Society and the American Association for the
Advancement of Science. His research focuses on x-ray physics,
superconductivity, magnetic materials, and the properties of
materials under high pressure.
Dr. Kao earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering
from National Taiwan University and a doctorate in chemical
engineering from Cornell University.
Our final witness today is Dr. Paul Kearns, Director of
Argonne National Laboratory. With nearly three decades of
management experience, Dr. Kearns has a strong background in
science and engineering, along with extensive experience with
the U.S. Department of Energy. Prior to his work at Argonne,
Dr. Kearns was Director of the Idaho National Engineering and
Environmental Laboratory where he also served as Deputy
Laboratory Director and Associate Laboratory Director for
Environmental Technology and Engineering. Dr. Kearns has held
leadership and advisory roles in the Department of Energy's
Office of Energy Management in Washington and in regional
offices, including the Chicago operations office.
Dr. Kearns is a fellow of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science and a member of the American Nuclear
Society. He holds a doctorate and a master's degree in
bionucleonics and a bachelor's degree in natural resources and
environmental sciences, all from Purdue University.
Among the four experts we have here today, there are at
least 50 different titles, an indication of their knowledge and
expertise. And so we will begin, and Dr. Peters, if you will
lead us off.
TESTIMONY OF DR. MARK PETERS,
DIRECTOR, IDAHO NATIONAL LABORATORY
Dr. Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Smith,
Ranking Member Johnson, and Members of the Committee, thank you
for the opportunity to appear before you today. It's an honor
to speak to you about the Department of Energy national
laboratories.
I've submitted my written testimony for the record and will
summarize it here. My name is Mark Peters, and I'm the Director
at Idaho National Laboratory. I'm also serving in a one-year
term as Chairman of the National Laboratory Directors Council,
an organization created by the Directors of the 17 national
laboratories.
A rapidly changing world results in a complex and evolving
set of challenges for our nation. Primary among those are
insuring our national security at home and abroad; increasing
the availability of clean, affordable, and reliable energy; and
continuing to enhance U.S. competitiveness in the global
market. I am confident in our country's ability to meet these
challenges in part because the United States possesses the
unique asset: the Department of Energy's national laboratories.
Our laboratories are among the Nation's top science and
technology enterprises with a rich history of accomplishment
that has driven American prosperity. This Committee's
jurisdiction includes the national laboratories, and I believe
each of you can take a great deal of pride in the system you've
helped build and support.
Our national laboratories are home to state-of-the-art
facilities who capably support DOE, the Department of Defense,
the Department of Homeland Security, the intelligence community
and our military to provide technical solutions to national
security challenges.
Finally, our partnership with industry and academia drives
technology, science and technology solutions to the
marketplace, creating jobs and driving economic growth. But we
can never become complacent or be unwilling to honestly assess
our strengths and weaknesses and work to improve. I would argue
that we can and should strive to do more as a national
laboratory system.
In October of 2015 the Commission to Review the
Effectiveness of the National Laboratories delivered its first
report. We all took careful note of the contents of that
report, specifically how the relationship between DOE and its
management and operating contractors had, in the words of the
Commission, eroded over time. My colleagues and I understand
our vital mission to serve the American taxpayers best served
by embracing reform and improving the way we operate.
I also want to emphasize that the Department of Energy,
under the leadership of Secretary Moniz and now Secretary
Perry, is deeply committed to the national laboratories and is
partnering with us to improve our effectiveness. Last fall, the
National Laboratory Directors Council wrote a letter to
Secretary Perry in support of DOE's efforts to drive
fundamental change across the laboratories.
As we continue to evolve the relationship between DOE and
its M&O contractors, let us focus on the following areas:
rebuilding trust between DOE and its contractors; restoring
responsibility, authority, and accountability for decisions and
performance; bureaucratic reduction; and, when appropriate, the
use of consensus standards. We understand that in asking us to
be empowered, we also are betting on ourselves, and we need to
embrace the culture of safety and transparency.
Now, moving onto the focus of the importance of research
and development. Idaho National Laboratory is proud of its
status as the nation's leading nuclear energy research and
development laboratory. As part of our effort to maintain and
extend the lives of the U.S. nuclear fleet, we are working with
utilities to modernize control rooms and help transition DOE's
Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program to one focused on
not only helping with extending licenses but also reducing
operating costs.
But it's important to note that if we are to maintain our
historic advantage in civil nuclear energy, we must establish
private-public partnerships between the Federal Government and
the nuclear industry. In that we are working on advanced
reactor designs at the laboratory in partnership with industry,
and vital to all that is the--vital to all that, we must
maintain research and development talent, capabilities, and
facilities at the national laboratories. This includes a
versatile fast neutron source, which I thank the Committee for
strongly supporting. INL is also a multi-program laboratory
that addresses a broad range of energy and security challenges,
including protecting the grid from cyber attack.
So in the end, our mutual success requires stability.
Maintaining our country's leadership in science and innovation
requires sustained and strong support and building cutting-edge
scientific and engineering facilities and infrastructure and
maintaining an outstanding workforce. Other countries are
doubling down their investments in government-funded R&D. This
threatens our long-held science and technology leadership
position. The national laboratory system is strongest when DOE
is strong. It is absolutely critical that DOE's core missions
have strong support and stable funding across the entire R&D
spectrum.
So in closing, DOE is working actively with the national
laboratories to make the system more effective and efficient.
Secretary Perry and his team are to be commended for
spearheading this effort, which cannot help but result in
better outcomes for us all. For our part, we at the
laboratories are committed to working with Secretary Perry and
the DOE to build trust and accountability and ensure the best
possible return for the Nation's investment in the DOE national
laboratories.
Thank you again for the opportunity to be here and look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Peters follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Peters.
And, Dr. Seestrom.
TESTIMONY OF DR. SUSAN SEESTROM,
ADVANCED SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATE LABORATORY DIRECTOR
AND CHIEF RESEARCH OFFICER,
SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORY
Dr. Seestrom. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Johnson, and
distinguished Members of the Committee, I thank you for the
opportunity to testify today about the role of engineering,
science, and technology at Sandia National Laboratories, the
Nation's largest federally funded research and development
center. I'm Susan Seestrom, Associate Laboratories Director for
Advanced Science and Technology and Chief Research Officer.
There's four points I would like to emphasize in my
testimony today. The first is that Sandia National Laboratory's
core mission is to ensure the safety, the security, and the
effectiveness of our nation's nuclear deterrent.
My second point is that our ability to carry out that
mission rests on our strong foundation as a science-based
engineering laboratory.
My third point is that the scientific capabilities that
we've developed in executing our mission for the nuclear
deterrence are often applied to other missions of DOE and other
government agencies.
And finally, as an FFRDC national security lab, Sandia
requires the flexibility to pursue forward-leaning research and
development so that we can anticipate and prepare for national
security challenges beyond the present scope of programs.
As an engineering lab, our purpose at Sandia is to develop
advanced technology to ensure global peace, and that mission
is--mainly sees itself in our nuclear deterrence. As one of
three NNSA laboratories, Sandia provides foundational science
and engineering to the NNSA in order that they can maintain and
modernize the nuclear stockpile and ensure its effectiveness in
an evolving international landscape.
We at Sandia have the responsibility for the weaponization
of the nuclear explosives through weapons system engineering
and the integration of nonnuclear components into the nuclear
explosive packages that are designed by our sister NNSA
laboratories. Nuclear deterrence has been our core mission for
almost 70 years, and the complex and multidisciplinary nature
of that mission has enabled us to solve some of the most
pressing national security challenges facing the country in
areas such as nonproliferation, energy, and cybersecurity.
We conduct such work for a number of government
stakeholders beyond the NNSA, including the broader DOE, the
Department of Homeland Security, and DOD. This work enables us
to strengthen our key expertise, our expertise in key areas,
invent new and unique solutions to problems, and to nurture our
R&D staff. Our Laboratory-Directed Research and Development
program, or LDRD, is essential to us as our primary source of
discretionary research fund. In a future of rapidly evolving
threats, LDRD provides us with flexible resources and the
agility we need to anticipate and prepare for national security
challenges that are beyond the horizon of present programs.
Sandia needs its LDRD to invest in long-term, high-risk, and
potentially very high payoff R&D that stretches the lab's
science and engineering capabilities. We also use partnering
with industry, academia, and other labs to extend our
foundational research understanding and contribute results that
are important to us and to our partners.
I would like to close my testimony with one example of the
synergy that I've tried to describe above. There are more
examples in my written testimony. A series of projects over ten
years sponsored by various sources, including Laboratory-
Directed Research and Development, deepened our understanding
of semiconductor physics. Standard semiconductors are
susceptible to natural and hostile environment radiation
sources that our nuclear weapons can be expected to encounter.
We developed a scientific understanding of the rich material
science and special processing techniques that allowed us to
design radiation resistance directly into our semiconductor
devices at our Microsystems Engineering and Science
Applications capability, MESA. MESA is the only U.S. facility
to produce strategically radiation-hardened microelectronics
for the nuclear weapons complex.
Sandia's rad hard semiconductor devices reduce the
development costs of the W76-1 Life Extension Program, and
Sandia is now scheduled to produce more than 40,000 rad hard
integrated circuits for the stockpile modernizations over the
next 10 years.
With that, I thank you for your attention and the
opportunity to testify here today.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Seestrom follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Seestrom.
And, Dr. Maxon?
TESTIMONY OF DR. MARY E. MAXON,
ASSOCIATE LABORATORY DIRECTOR FOR BIOSCIENCES,
LAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LABORATORY
Dr. Maxon. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Johnson, and
distinguish Members of the Committee, thank you for holding
this hearing and for the Committee's support for science.
My name's Mary Maxon, and I'm the Associate Laboratory
Director for Biosciences at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, a
DOE Office of Science lab managed by the University of
California. It's my honor to participate in this hearing. Thank
you for inviting me.
Berkeley Lab was founded in 1931 by Ernest Orlando
Lawrence, UC Berkeley physicist who won the 1939 Nobel Prize
for physics for inventing the cyclotron. Lawrence and his
colleagues discovered that scientific research is best done by
teams of people with different fields of expertise working
together. This teamwork concept is a Berkeley Lab legacy
reflected throughout the national lab complex today. With five
national scientific user facilities that are used by around
11,000 users annually Berkeley Lab is a key part of the
Nation's scientific and innovation infrastructure.
Today, we're a multipurpose lab, delivering world-leading
advances in energy, materials and chemical sciences,
biosciences, earth sciences, and physics. Other countries are
busy building their own national labs. The time is now to
invest strategically to ensure that our advantages don't
disintegrate and leave us behind.
Fortunately, progress is being made from upgrading our
light sources to the exascale computing initiative. Positive
actions are being taken by this Committee and the Department to
ensure that American researchers have access to the very best,
and this is good news. Other areas, more attention is required.
Renewing laboratory infrastructure--utilities, water
drainage, buildings--is needed to support modern research.
Although the Office of Science is addressing this aggressively,
much more is needed. We encourage the Committee to address this
long-term challenge.
Another long-term challenge is ensuring a diverse and
talented workforce at the labs. Cultivating talent and
promoting inclusion is central to the creation of a successful
work environment, driven by a diversity of thought, partners
working toward shared objectives. Among the national labs,
Berkeley Lab was the first to publish workforce diversity
statistics. We know that our success as a national lab depends
upon our ability to create a community that brings together
people with diverse backgrounds, points of view, and approaches
to problem-solving. This is critical.
In my remaining time, I'd like to describe how the labs
succeed by integrating unique resources and world-leading
expertise. National labs play a key role in our innovation
ecosystem, uniquely talented equipped to tackle grand
challenges by integrating resources and expertise at a scale
and breadth impossible by other institutions.
The labs also provide a longer-term outlook on success than
is available within industry, one that can take science from
the bench to the user facility and ultimately to collaboration
with industry and the marketplace. One really exciting example
is the microbiome for energy and environmental sustainability.
It's got great promise, but it's a tough scientific nut to
crack. Microbes are the most abundant life form on earth. In a
handful of soil, there are more microbes than stars in our
galaxy. They exist in a network of communication and
collectively work to impact their environments, whether healthy
soils for agriculture or the biodegradation of toxic
pollutants.
Deciphering this world of microbiomes is a huge
undertaking. It's like taking 1,000 puzzles, each with
thousands of pieces, and then scattering them in a pile and
trying to reconstruct them without a picture. It requires a
national lab.
Genome sequencing, engineering biology, advanced high-
performance supercomputing, success here could mean more
productive energy crops, faster remediation of contaminated
soils, and new bioproducts to fuel the Nation's bio-economy. In
this and other examples, there are no bright lines between
fundamental research, applied R&D, and commercialization. It's
a continuum. The national laboratories work well along this
continuum and play a key role in shepherding discoveries to the
point of commercial viability.
A recent example is the Agile BioFoundry. Established in
2016 by EERE, the BioFoundry is a biological engineering
platform that aims to reduce the time and cost of producing
biofuels and bioproducts, a difficult challenge. The BioFoundry
is a consortium of eight national labs established in response
to industry, the need that was articulated at listening days
with industry representatives. They specifically identified
issues that are beyond their capacity to address.
It's now a scientific platform de-risking a number of
technologies, and a recent solicitation shows that there's a
significant demand for this type of research. Nineteen
companies applied for $20 million in requested funds, four
times more than what is available.
I thank you for the opportunity to testify at this
important hearing. I'm happy to answer your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Maxon follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Maxon.
And, Dr. Kao.
TESTIMONY OF DR. CHI-CHANG KAO, DIRECTOR,
STANFORD LINEAR ACCELERATOR CENTER,
NATIONAL ACCELERATOR LABORATORY
Dr. Kao. Mr. Chairman----
Chairman Smith. I still don't think your mic is on.
Dr. Kao. I need to punch it.
Chairman Smith. There. Okay.
Dr. Kao. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Johnson, and
Members of the Committee, my name is Chi-Chang Kao, the
Director of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. I'm happy to
be here to talk about how SLAC is leading the way of basic
research and innovation in the United States.
SLAC, located on the Stanford campus in Menlo Park,
California, is one of the ten Office of Science labs. We have
an annual research budget of around $300 million with another
$280 million in fiscal year 2017 to construct two new large
user facilities.
SLAC was established in 1962 as a center of particle
physics, as the Chairman described at the beginning. The
laboratory has evolved over the last ten years into a
multiprogram lab. The focus of the laboratory is on fundamental
science, discovery of the things that we don't know about
nature. The work has led to four Nobel Prize over the last few
decades.
Let me give you two examples. The laboratory today operates
two major x-ray facilities. One of them is Stanford Synchrotron
Radiation Lightsource. The other one is Linac Coherent Light
Source. Linac Coherent Light Source is the world's first x-ray
free-electron laser. A free-electron laser is a very different
kind of x-ray source. It comes in a very short time, one
millionth of a one billionth of a second, the timescale in
which electrons move, atoms move. It let us to take snapshots
and to make movies of how things actually work in nature.
And after the machine was built in 2009, there was
international competition both when Europe and Asia tried to
duplicate what we have done. And so there is an LCLS-II project
currently ongoing, and then also two high-energy upgrades
beyond that. These two projects are made possible because of
multi-laboratory collaboration between Fermilab, Argonne
National Lab, Berkeley Lab, and SLAC that allowed us to make it
happen quickly and have the technology better than our
competitors.
And when these two upgrades are completed in the mid-2020
time frame, we will have the world's most powerful x-ray
facility available to scientists around the United States for
research on materials, chemistry, biology, and applied energy
programs. These will lead to better electronics, batteries, new
drugs, and also new materials like quantum materials that may
be important for quantum computing in the future.
SLAC is also participating in a collaboration between the
National Science Foundation and Department of Energy High
Energy Physics Office where we are building the Large Synoptic
Survey Telescope. This is the largest digital camera made to
survey the sky, half of the southern sky every few days. That
data will be made available to everyone in the country, even
the high school students. They can look at this to understand
the mysteries we still don't know about dark matter and dark
energy.
And in partnership with DOE, SLAC and Stanford University
have developed a new M&O contract. That new contract allows us
to streamline processes that we use, and give back autonomy and
local control to the laboratory so we can be more efficient and
more effective in utilization of the resources that we have.
Finally, in the last 55 years, SLAC has made significant
contributions to basic science. Those contributions serve as a
basis for the future. The 1,500 staff at SLAC are looking
forward to the future so that we can make even more
contributions after these facilities are built.
I'm happy to be here today, and thank you for the
invitation. I'm looking forward to the questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Kao follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. And thank you, Dr. Kao.
And Dr. Kearns.
TESTIMONY OF DR. PAUL KEARNS, DIRECTOR, ARGONNE NATIONAL
LABORATORY
Dr. Kearns. Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Johnson and
Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you. It's my honor to join my colleagues from
Idaho, Lawrence Berkeley, Sandia, and SLAC to speak about the
national laboratories and the world-leading innovation they
deliver.
I am Paul Kearns, Director of your Argonne National
Laboratory. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the
DOE Office of Science. At Argonne, our research pushes the
boundaries of fundamental and applied science to solve complex
challenges and develop useful technologies that transform the
marketplace and change the world.
In fiscal year 2017, Argonne employed 3,200 people in the
Chicago area. Our budget was $751 million with approximately 80
percent of the funds from DOE and the balance from the
Department of Homeland Security, other government agencies, and
the private sector.
Argonne's major strategic initiatives are targeted to
deliver breakthroughs in science and technology in areas that
support DOE's mission and reflect our vision for the future.
They include hard x-ray sciences, advanced computing, materials
and chemistry, manufacturing and science, and the fundamental
study of the universe. Our unique scientific facilities include
a world-leading x-ray source, particle accelerator,
supercomputers, and a nanoscience--a nanoscale science center.
As the nexus for thousands of visiting researchers and
collaborators, these facilities extend Argonne's impact beyond
our own laboratory. At the Advanced Photon Source national user
facility we use hard x-rays to characterize materials at the
atomic and molecular level to understand, predict, and control
their properties. The APS is helping Argonne make additive
manufacturing more reliable and hypersonic flight possible. One
of the most successful drugs used to stop the progression of
the HIV virus into AIDS got started at the Advanced Photon
Source.
The Advanced Photon Source upgrade will create a world-
leading ultimate 3-D x-ray microscope, enabling researchers to
observe individual atoms interacting in real time. This new
microscope will make it possible to see changes at the
molecular level such as before a steel girder starts to crack,
before a healthy brain succumbs to Alzheimer's, and before an
electric car's battery begins to fail.
At the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, two of our
supercomputers are among the 20 fastest in the world. We've
applied our high-performance computing to challenges in energy,
materials, extreme weather, and more. The ALCF is part of the
multi-lab initiative with the National Cancer Institute and the
Department of Veterans Affairs to apply big data and artificial
intelligence to health care and genomic data to determine
optimal treatments, improve outcomes, and reduce cost.
In 2021, ALCF will welcome Aurora, an exascale system that
will be at least 50 times faster than the most powerful
supercomputers in use today. Argonne's efforts in exascale are
part of DOE's larger exascale computing initiative.
Argonne's knowledge and facilities, coupled with our
approach to deploying these assets, distinguishes us as an
institution. We work across the continuum from basic discovery
to use-inspired to translational science in order to deliver
positive societal impact. Conventional wisdom states that
translating scientific advances and impact is a decades-long
process. The national laboratories, as you've heard today, have
long worked to accelerate this process by enabling researchers
to execute more experiments in the same amount of time.
Advanced computing in the form of deep learning, machine
learning, and artificial intelligence is providing a powerful
new boost to the speed of discovery. Argonne's energy storage
work, dating to the 1960s, is an excellent discovery-to-impact
model upon which to build.
In the mid-1990s, the DOE supported investigations aimed at
a more stable and greater capacity electric vehicle battery. In
2000, we patented our signature battery cell technology, and in
2007 began licensing it for mass production. In 2011, our
technology made its market debut in the Chevy Volt.
When it comes to next-generation batteries, the Joint
Center for Energy Storage Research, JCESR as we love to call
it, which is led by Argonne partnered with 20 other entities,
has literally and figuratively changed the formula. JCESR has
yielded revolutionary new battery materials in an operations
model to optimize entities from many sectors working together.
We're taking our storage--energy storage experience to new
frontiers, including catalysis, materials for clean water.
We're also working on quantum materials with--which promises
nothing short of a revolution in computing speed and accuracy.
Argonne and the University of Chicago have set up the
QUANTUMFACTORY, an experimental facility, and have collaborated
with Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory on the Chicago
Quantum Exchange to enable graduate students to learn from
national laboratory scientists and academics.
America's national laboratories are powerhouses of science
and technology. My fellow Laboratory Directors and I appreciate
this Committee's continued support for the national laboratory
system and your commitment to leadership in science and
technology. Our national laboratory infrastructure is the envy
of the world. The DOE and its laboratories are advancing
projects that will keep the United States at the forefront of
innovation for decades to come.
Lastly, before I close, I'd like to thank this Committee
for its leadership in advancing legislation through the House
of Representatives to improve and update critical science
infrastructure across the national laboratory complex including
H.R. 4377, the Accelerating Americans Leadership in Science
Act, which, among other important priorities, authorizes
funding for the APS upgrade project.
Thank you for your time, and I welcome your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Kearns follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Kearns. I recognize myself
for questions, and let me address my first one to Dr. Peters.
Dr. Peters, in your prepared testimony, you expressed some
concern that the national labs are losing their position as
trusted advisors to the Department of Energy. What steps is DOE
taking to maximize the effectiveness of labs in your opinion?
Dr. Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Department has
reengaged us as a group in a really meaningful way. It's--as I
said in my summary, it started with Secretary Moniz, and it's
continued with Secretary Perry and his team. So we're--we have
active nearly day-to-day engagement with them on aspects
related to how we operate the laboratories but also more
importantly the strategic directions of the Department, and
particularly now with the Under Secretaries in place, there's a
lot of back-and-fourth about research priorities and whatnot,
so I think we would collectively say the partnership is headed
in a very positive direction.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Good. Thank you.
And, Dr. Kearns, we talked about this earlier today, but
you mentioned that JCESR's goal is to develop next-generation
batteries that deliver five times the energy at 1/5 the cost. I
think we all know that the key to success for encouraging the
use of alternative fuels and energy is a better battery, a more
efficient battery, a lighter battery, and a battery with
greater storage. And when we have that breakthrough, we'll, I
think, change the energy world. How close are we to developing
that kind of battery, the kind of battery that you've been
working on, the five times energy at 1/5 the cost?
Dr. Kearns. Progress has been substantial. Significant
progress is being made. I'm happy to report that by working
with our colleagues from four of the other national
laboratories and five universities, along with the members,
representatives if you will from industry, we've made good
progress in terms of the discovery of new materials that are
less expensive. They do allow greater energy storage, energy
density to be stored and will last much longer, so significant
progress is being made.
We've achieved the cost objectives that we talked about in
terms of five times less expensive, in terms of the materials
that have been discovered through JCESR. We've made good
progress as well in terms of energy density, the developments
applied to both grid and transportation if you will, storage
technologies. I'd also report that we've had three spinout
companies, technologies that people have come and taken a look
or perhaps helped us develop and then taken to--really into the
innovation pipeline to really result in commercial-scale
products, so progress has been good.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Would you want to hazard a guess when
such a battery would be commercially available?
Dr. Kearns. I'm afraid--well, I don't think I can really
guess that.
Chairman Smith. How about an order of magnitude----
Dr. Kearns. Okay. Okay.
Chairman Smith. --next two or three years maybe?
Dr. Kearns. The pace of innovation is accelerating.
Chairman Smith. Yes.
Dr. Kearns. You know, I think certainly within the next
five years, we'll see a very dramatic change in the field of
energy storage both in terms of grid and transportation
technology.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Good. Thank you. Final question to
all of you all, and that is what steps are the national labs
taking to reduce the cost of nuclear power? We all know that
nuclear is clean, it's a little expensive. If we're going to
encourage the use of it, we need to reduce the cost. So what
steps are you taking and how optimistic are you that we will be
able to reduce those costs? And I guess we'll just work our way
through Dr. Peters and then Dr. Seestrom.
Dr. Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First on the existing
fleet, as I summarized the DOE's Light Water Reactor
Sustainability Program that INL and Oak Ridge and Argonne all
have a role in is focused on trying to not only sustain the
existing fleet but also drive down operating costs for the
existing fleet, so that's one. In advance reactors I think
going to modular construction, modular manufacturing and
construction and--but the advance reactors I think are the
opportunity to really--to do research and development to try to
drive down system costs because the economics of nuclear, it's
probably the thing that has to be addressed.
Chairman Smith. Great. And, Dr. Seestrom?
Dr. Seestrom. No comment on this one.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Dr. Maxon, no comment?
Dr. Maxon. No comment here. Okay. Dr. Kao?
Dr. Kao. No comment.
Chairman Smith. Oh, my gosh. This is--you don't have--I
mean, there's an old adage that scientists should be able to
talk one minute on any subject, so--but we won't push you.
And Dr. Kearns?
Dr. Kearns. I will offer a couple of thoughts, and one is,
as Mark mentioned, Dr. Peters mentioned, we are active--very
active in terms of collaboration with both Idaho and Oak Ridge
in advanced nuclear energy, and one of the current efforts
underway that I think is really a great model in terms of
working with industry is GAIN, the Gateway for Acceleration of
Innovation in Nuclear Technologies, and so we're really pleased
to be a part of that. And Mark probably can speak more
eloquently than I to the impact, but it's really a wonderful
opportunity if you will for companies interested in nuclear
technology, developing advanced reactor technologies to really
come and engage with the Department and its laboratories, use
our facilities, and partner shoulder-to-shoulder with our
researchers, and so it's really a great opportunity in that
way.
Let me pass it back to Mark in case he wants to say
anything more specifically on GAIN.
Chairman Smith. Okay.
Dr. Peters. Is that okay, Mr. Chairman, if I just--could I
just elaborate a little bit?
Chairman Smith. Sure.
Dr. Peters. So, yes, thanks, Paul, very much.
And I would tie it back to this Committee's had a lot of
discussions about R&D testbeds and the ability of government
sites to ultimately demonstrate technologies. That's what GAIN
is. That's what the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in
Nuclear is. So what you all are talking about in your
deliberations is actually starting to happen out there.
Chairman Smith. Good. Okay. Very good news. Thank you all.
And the Ranking Member, Ms. Johnson, is recognized for her
questions.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much. To all witnesses, if the
President's proposed budget for fiscal year 2019 was enacted,
DOE's renewable energy R&D portfolio would see a 60 percent
reduction. The sustainable transportation budget would get a 70
percent cut, and energy efficiency activities would be cut by
80 percent. It would cut critical research on the electric grid
by over 50 percent and would cut nuclear energy and fossil R&D
by 25 percent each. And it would eliminate ARPA-E and the Loan
Programs Office. I'd like each of you to please describe the
impact of these proposed cuts on the research capabilities and
personnel of each of these labs, and then what are the
consequences of drastically reducing U.S. R&D for U.S.
competitiveness in a globalized economy?
Dr. Peters. Thank you, Ranking Member Johnson, for the
question. So I'll speak at it from the perspective of the
Applied Energy Programs because that's really what effect I
know. So we get funding from the Office of Nuclear Energy,
Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, and the Office of
Electricity, all three. If we were to--if those cuts as propose
we're to be realized, we as a laboratory would have effects and
capabilities in applied materials science and engineering, in
chemical engineering and nuclear chemistry and nuclear
engineering, as well as in user facilities, so there would be--
we wouldn't lose capability but we would have impacts on those
capabilities.
Now, I don't have to remind you that this is a process, and
so--but the numbers, if we took it at face value, would be
order of ten percent of the INL workforce. But watching the
process play out, I'm not anticipating significant reductions
once Congress weighs in, and we will respond to Congress'
appropriations.
Dr. Seestrom. Thank you, Congresswoman. Sandia has a
substantial portfolio in Applied Energy Programs, roughly $140
million. Without seeing the details of the cuts, it's hard to
say the exact impacts to our programs, though it's surely true
that many deliverables would be slowed down. Because of our
broader national security portfolio, we have some ability to
move staff between our energy programs and other programs in
the lab, so we don't anticipate that we'd have any reduction in
force but would certainly lose traction on important research.
Dr. Maxon. At Berkeley Lab I guess I would say the same
situation is true, that without the details it's really hard to
know how these cuts would manifest. That said, we could predict
something on the order of 100 FTEs lost in particular areas of
the lab. I mentioned the Agile BioFoundry as one particular
collaboration facility that's funded by EERE. There would be
serious impacts to that, and that affects not only academic
users but also industry as well.
And finally, I would mention the FLEX Lab, which is a fully
instrumented collaboration facility that's used by a large
number of academic and industry users. There would be some
serious effects there as well.
Dr. Kao. For SLAC, Congresswoman, since we have a
relatively small program in EERE the impact would really be
small.
Dr. Kearns. And at Argonne about ten percent of our funding
comes from the Applied Energy Programs, and much like other--my
other colleagues here, it's a little hard to know really what
the impacts would be without the specifics of the program in
terms of where the cuts would be made.
I will say Argonne works across the spectrum, as I talked
about, a continuum from discovery science to use-inspired to
translational science and certainly funding for the Applied
Energy Program is really--allows us to complete that continuum
if you will and really work closely with industry, so we're
strong supporters of the applied energy portfolio in the
Department and would encourage the Committee and Congress in
general to continue its hard work on behalf of those programs.
Ms. Johnson. Could you comment on the elimination of ARPA-
E? Either one?
Dr. Peters. I mean, INL doesn't currently have active ARPA-
E projects, so I can't speak at it from the lab's perspective.
I will say that from the broader perspective in my opinion,
I've watched ARPA-E and I've seen a lot of success come out of
ARPA-E.
Dr. Kearns. I would also add, if that's okay, to that
comment by indicating that ARPA-E--you know, one of the
requirements for funding there is that we bring an industry
partner, an industry partner brings in the laboratory if you
will to apply for the funding there, and so it's a great model
of working with industry I believe.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much. My time is expired.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
The gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Lucas, is recognized for
his questions.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thought that one-
minute rule on any subject applied to Members doing town
meetings. Weak attempt at humor.
Dr. Maxon, in your prepared testimony you discuss Berkeley
Lab's extensive work in fundamental biological sciences, as
well as technology to create better biofuels, more resilient
crops, and bio-based chemicals. And in all fairness, I have the
privilege, in addition to serving on this great Committee, of
serving on the Ag Committee. And I'm a farmer by trade, so
let's expand for a little bit. Could you provide more
information on how researchers at Berkeley are improving these
processes?
Dr. Maxon. Thank you for that question. I'll take a shot at
that. From an agricultural perspective, I mentioned the
microbiome science, the uncharted territories of the billions
of organisms that are in every gram of soil. One could imagine
that, with a deeper understanding of how these microbials
communicate with each other and influence the environments
around them, it's not too far-fetched to suppose that there
would be opportunities to improve, through the soil itself,
abilities to provide fewer inputs to the soil, that plants
would be able to--crops would be able to get along with less
water, less fertilizer because the microorganisms themselves
could be enhanced to deliver those nutrients like nitrogen and
phosphorus directly to the crops.
Mr. Lucas. Well, along that line, your testimony mentions
the Joint BioEnergy Institute, JBEI, and looks at improving
those bioproducts at the molecular level. Give us some examples
of how JBEI can accomplish this but only in a national lab-
competent environment.
Dr. Maxon. Yes, thank you. So you can imagine that one such
bioproduct could be an enhanced biofuel crop, one that's got
more sugars to convert to fuels or chemicals that are
desirable, and as well as the chemicals themselves, one can
imagine that new types of plastics with higher desirable
properties and thermal behaviors, as well as, for example,
enzymes. Laundry detergent enzymes are ones that we use every
day. That particular market, for example, is on the order of
$6.2 billion, so being able to do end-to-end scientific
discovery from discovery to use-inspired and then hand off to
companies is something that the national labs and JBEI in
particular is very good at.
Mr. Lucas. Taking this one step further, I'm also
fascinated by the nexus between high-performance computing
research at Berkeley, particularly how Berkeley is using the
supercomputers to analyze massive amounts--I think that's the
appropriate phrase, massive amounts of biological data to learn
more about everything from microbes to biofuel. What are the
limitations to today's computing systems when you're trying to
solve these complex biological challenges?
Dr. Maxon. We as biologists are, I would say, a bit behind
some of the other fields such as physics in big data
understanding and approaches. So I think one of the limitations
is trying to impart if you will our bioinformatics approaches
that we use today to analyze genomes and predict protein
clusters and those important aspects to a high-performance
setting. We don't have the right kinds of algorithms, and
biologists and computing scientists don't even speak the same
language. So I think one is technologies themselves. I think
the other is bringing the disciplines together to work more
productively like physicists and computer scientists do.
Mr. Lucas. Expand for just a moment on the technology side
of that equation, the physical part where we--where you need to
be going.
Dr. Maxon. Yes, so this is not my area of expertise, but
when you think about using computers that have multiple cores,
that means the algorithms run very differently than the
computers that don't use multiple cores, and so the things that
we are set up to do today--let's say analyzing a genome--can
take on the order of, I don't know, 40 days. You--transporting
that with new hardware and new software to a high-performance
platform, you can do the same type of analysis in about an
hour.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Doctor. And I would hope my dear old
freshman agronomy professor from Oklahoma State, Mr. Chairman,
would be proud that I focused on the important issues. Thank
you. I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Lucas.
The gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, is recognized
for questions.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Chairman Smith and
Ranking Member Johnson and all the witnesses, and happy Pi Day.
Before my questions, I want to recognize Muhammad and Raley,
who are high school students from Oregon who are here today.
They are finalists in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, so
please welcome them and keep your eye on them. They are our
future leaders.
So to the witnesses, President Trump has released his
budget for 2019, and I'm very concerned with many of the
proposals. Our nation is dealing with a growing global demand
for energy, for over--we have an overreliance on fossil fuels
and harmful emissions that are contributing to climate change.
We need to be investing more, not less in research and
development programs, especially to keep our air and water
clean.
Oregon has been a leader in renewable energy projects, and
I'm interested in hearing from our witnesses about how to
advance these efforts nationwide.
Dr. Kearns, I'm glad you're here today with your background
at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
The office in Portland has led efforts to improve energy
efficiency in residential and commercial buildings; to
strengthen renewables such as wind, water, solar; and to expand
storage systems for electric vehicles. The innovative work of
labs like PNNL benefits from consistent federal investment, but
unfortunately, Congress has been governing crisis to crisis
with a series of short-term continuing resolutions. That lack
of consistency affects research, but it also affects
infrastructure. For example, facility upgrades or new
construction cannot begin. The United States is competing, as
we know, against other countries that have dedicated,
significant, long-term funding to science and research.
So could each of you discuss your perspective on how the
lack of stability and funding has affected projects at your
labs and how that affects our global competitiveness? And I do
want to reserve a little bit of time for another question. Dr.
Kearns, would you like to start?
Dr. Kearns. Certainly. As Dr. Peters commented in his
introductory remarks, stability and funding is really
critically essential for, if you will, working across the
continuum of research that I spoke to in terms of discovery
science, use-inspired science, and translational science, and
so it's important that there be a stability of funding so that
one can do the needed planning and actually conduct the
research and have it proceed in a way that allows
accomplishments or expected expectations to be realized, so
it's very critical in that regard.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Anybody else want to add on to
the--how the lack of consistency in funding has affected your
work?
Dr. Kao. Maybe I can add something? So a lot of us actually
are involved in construction of major projects. These funding
profiles, if you have a continuing resolution, if you're on the
upswing curve, you're stuck with a lower level from the year
before, that tends to extend the total length of the project
and increase the cost.
Ms. Bonamici. Does anybody want to comment on how that lack
of consistency is affecting our competitiveness globally? Dr.
Seestrom, I know you--you look like you're ready to speak.
Dr. Seestrom. So I would make two comments, one, that I
think it's quite scary globally. You know, several of our staff
recently returned from a solar energy conference in China, and
their work is quite impressive. They have large efforts in
renewable energy. I think that other countries aren't slowing
down. And, you know, our scientists can work on many things,
and when we have funding shortages, they will walk with their
feet to the things that are funded.
I'll mention from our NNSA mission, not energy specifically
but, you know, funding delays have impacted our major--one of
our major starting LEPs, the W80-4. It's hard to start any new
project when you have continuing resolutions.
Ms. Bonamici. Right. And I'm going to ask Dr. Kearns, Dr.
Maxon, what role does energy storage play in promoting clean
energy? For example, at the National Energy Technology
Laboratory in Albany, Oregon, where they're currently
developing sensors and controls that enhance the efficiency of
power plants and the electric grid, their efforts should be a
model. Energy storage has implications of course for national
security and competitiveness as we move toward lower-emission
and zero-emission energy sources. So what about energy storage
and promoting clean energy, reducing emissions, and increasing
efficiency of the grid? Is our nation staying competitive in
energy storage technologies? Dr. Maxon?
Dr. Maxon. Energy storage technology is not my area of
expertise, but I do know at Berkeley Lab there is an industry
consortium that's spun out of our focus on energy storage, and
this industry consortium called CalCharge is enabling the
stakeholders to work together and collaborate in whole new ways
to accelerate more technology development.
I would say, though, that it's very likely that with a more
consistent funding profile that we'd see more advances more
quickly.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. And I see my time is about to
expire. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, is
recognized.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
thank you for your leadership over the years on this and other
issues where you have provided us great hearings like this that
are expanding our understanding of science and the important
role that people like this are playing, so thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, one of the things that I have been frustrated
about with the scientific community--and maybe it shouldn't be
frustration with the scientific community; I should--I'm going
to ask your opinion on that--is we seem to be still basing our
electricity production on things that are either risky or too
dirty, you know? Or something like that. Maybe--could you--and
I have understood over the years that we actually have the
capability of producing, for example, the next generation of
nuclear power. In fact, Dr. Peters, you mentioned that
research. Where are we right now? And getting away from light-
water reactors and into the next generation of reactors that
are safer and actually have a lot of potential, could you--
where are we at?
Dr. Peters. So thank you, Congressman. So first on the
existing fleet, I wouldn't characterize them as dirty or
unsafe. That would be my first comment. They're operating
safely and securely, and they will continue to do so for
decades. That said, there is an exciting number of new advanced
reactor concepts that are emerging.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, I was actually talking about other
sources----
Dr. Peters. I figured. I just thought I'd put that in
there.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
Dr. Peters. I won't go with the other part of this. So--but
the advanced reactor, there's a lot of companies that are
emerging. I know you're familiar with General Atomics. They're
not emerging; they've been around for a long time, but they've
got some interesting concepts. There are startups that are
popping up, and they're working with the labs, so some of those
companies are talking about having First Commercial in 2025 to
2030.
Mr. Rohrabacher. We actually have prototypes working of the
next generation of nuclear power?
Dr. Peters. We--when can we?
Mr. Rohrabacher. No, do we have any?
Dr. Peters. We do not.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And we've spent billions of dollars,
billions of dollars of research on this, and yet we don't have
even a prototype working. Now, is this lack of progress due to
being stymied by scientific obstacles that we can't seem to get
past, or is this a result of regulation and bureaucracy?
Dr. Peters. It's actually the--I'm not a company that's
trying to innovate and develop a concept, but I would tell you
they would probably tell you it's capital. Finding private
capital to take it to the next step is probably their biggest
hurdle.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Capital. But we have--in the meantime,
we've spent billions of dollars supposedly on research.
Dr. Peters. And we have, and we've done that research. And
so they're prepared to take it to commercial, but they have to
seek significant private capital to take it to the next step.
There's a partnership with the Federal Government, but you
can't expect the Federal Government to carry the entire freight
for commercializing their unit, so they're going to have to
find additional private capital.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, I would hope that that would be one
of our major goals is to finally have--with all the great
research that has been done on getting us away from light-water
reactors, which I believe are dangerous and leave us with
basically pollution in the sense that we have to store the
nuclear rods forever. We should get away from that and we
should be going onto this next generation. And so thank you
very much. I would hope that that message gets through.
One--and on the end there, Mr. Kearns, you were talking
about the batteries. In the Chairman's hometown in Austin
Texas, Dr. Goodenough has been--has supposedly had a
breakthrough and--a major breakthrough on this. Would you say
that this is accurate? Is it a breakthrough or is it being
hyped?
Dr. Kearns. I'm not--unfortunately, I'm not that familiar
with the breakthrough that's been described. I've heard some
things in the press, and it sounds impressive certainly, and it
certainly would--I pay a great deal of respect to Dr.
Goodenough. I think it certainly warrants some additional
follow-up.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And, Mr. Kao, you were shaking your head
yes about--you seem to--do you know about that project?
Dr. Kao. Yes, but like all science, you need more people to
go into it and repeat and to make sure it's all correct.
Mr. Rohrabacher. But would you say that on your preliminary
look on this----
Dr. Kao. The concept, yes.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So you--okay. We had another panel here of
course talking about that, about batteries and most everybody
gave it a good thumbs-up. What we are interested in making sure
is that the money that we are spending on research actually is
not done for the sake of research but instead is done to make
sure we're doing things that improve the life of the people on
this planet. And that's why I'm sort of trying to focus on the
next generation of nuclear power and things such as that. And
we're behind you, and we like--we want things to be done more
efficiently, but we also want to make sure the results are
actually put into practice in a way that will improve life. So
thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
The gentleman from California, Mr. McNerney, is recognized
for his questions.
Mr. McNerney. Well, I thank the Chairman, and I think I cut
in front of the gentleman from New York----
Mr. Tonko. But he's not yelling.
Mr. McNerney. Okay. But he's going to let me do this. I'd
ask, could anyone on the panel enlighten me on the distinction
between early-stage and late-stage research or is that sort of
a fantasy to think that there's such a distinction? Anyone on
the panel want to take that?
Dr. Seestrom. So there are different ways one talks about
research. The DOD uses technical readiness levels. It's a
continuum, as I think Dr. Maxon said. We like to think about in
terms of basic research. As a national security lab, we do a
bit of that, but our focus is on use-inspired going to really
applied research. I think the key distinction is how you can
cross that valley of death between when you know the science
and the technology, but the receiving end in industry is not
yet sure enough to invest their money to see they have a
product.
Mr. McNerney. So I've heard a lot about the valley of
death, and in fact I was in industry for a while, so I know
personally about it. Wouldn't it be better to think of it on a
case-by-case basis than saying, well there's early-stage and
late-stage research and we have to defund late-stage research?
Dr. Seestrom. I do not see that it's useful to talk about
defunding any research based on that distinction.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you.
Dr. Peters. May I--sir, may I--
Mr. McNerney. Sure.
Dr. Peters. --real quick? To your last point I would draw
out nuclear energy as--it is case-by-case in some sense. The
Federal Government role for getting to commercial nuclear
energy technologies is different perhaps than it might be for
another energy technology, and as you know, there's been a
long-standing federal partnership with the private sector but,
you know, doing the science, doing the applied science, but
actually going out to first-of-a-kind demonstrations for some
of these advanced technologies is probably--there's probably an
important government role in there, so that's important to
remember.
Mr. McNerney. Well, thank you. And there's some significant
cuts we're seeing in the Administration's budget. You've got to
think that the valley of death is going to get wider with that
sort of a cut. Is that a good assessment? I see headshaking but
that's about it. Nobody wants to speak up.
So, given the budget cuts, does anyone want to talk about
what their--what specific--a specific program that they like
that's going to suffer from this? I mean, fusion, for example,
we're going to suffer because we need to be invested in ITER.
Even though it's taking place overseas, America gets a lot of
bang for that buck. Are there any other programs that anyone
wants to talk about that are going to see harmful cuts that are
going to harm our national interests? Yes, Ms. Maxon?
Dr. Maxon. I'd like to mention that for the Department of
Energy's Biological and Environmental Research program, there
are some serious proposed cuts to earth and environmental
science studies, and from my perspective, if you think about
understanding the subsurface, this is important because that's
where carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, all these building
blocks of life are. And that particular program that I just
mentioned studies the watershed system and how the water--how
do we--what about drought resilience and how do the nutrients
and contaminants move underground? I think that's a very
serious--that would be a very serious loss, our ability to
predict resilience in local communities to extreme weather.
Mr. McNerney. Well, since I'm from California I
sarcastically don't care about drought resilience.
Yes, Dr. Kearns?
Dr. Kearns. Yes, I just would like to build on that a
little bit in terms of biological and environmental research.
One of the key things that's underway there in the earth and
environmental systems sciences program is really the evolution
if you will or further development if you will of our system's
computer models to actually run on our new exascale systems,
and so it's a critical component that needs--requires continued
investment, continued support in terms of funding.
And it does really--you know, development of enhanced
models here really improves our ability to understand the
global hydrologic cycle. It gives us deeper insights, as has
been mentioned, into future droughts, floods, wildfires, and
other concerns I know in California in hurricanes and
agricultural sustainability as well, so many topics that have
been touched on here today, so critically important that we
continue to invest so that we can further our understanding.
Mr. McNerney. Are labs an important element in bringing
together scientific collaboration? Is that going to be harmed
by these kind of cuts? Yes, Ms. Maxon--Dr. Maxon.
Dr. Maxon. It's my opinion that the labs are really an
integrator of communities of researchers. You've heard about
the scientific user facilities. That's an obvious example. But
there are other programs like, as mentioned before, the Joint
BioEnergy Institute, for example, that brings together
universities and national labs and companies to work together
on problems, so I do think that this is seriously at risk, the
integrator function and collaborations.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I'll yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. McNerney.
And the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Weber, the Chairman of
the Energy Subcommittee, is recognized.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Peters, I'm going to move over here a little to my
left. It'll be one of the rare times I do. This Committee has
taken a leading role in advocating for advanced nuclear energy
research. Specifically, my bipartisan nuclear energy research
legislation has passed the House on multiple occasions. This
bill would authorize the construction of a research reactor, a
versatile neutron source. I wish the gentleman from California
was here but--Mr. Rohrabacher could hear this questioning--
which you mentioned in your testimony the nuclear versatile
neutron source. And it'll open up for national labs for the
development of prototypes for advanced reactors. That's the
aim.
So, Dr. Peters, why is it important in your opinion for the
Department of Energy to invest in a research reactor?
Dr. Peters. So we--thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for all the support of what we do.
So just quickly, we do operate test reactors already. INL
operates the advanced test reactor and the transient test
reactor, two large reactors. The high flux isotope reactor is
operated at Oak Ridge. So they operate at a certain--not to get
too much into the physics, but they produce thermal neutrons as
opposed to fast neutrons, which your new proposed reactor would
do.
So we have that capability, but if a company or a
university professor or lab person wants to do research on
materials that would be apropos to a reactor that's operating
in a fast neutron spectrum, they have to go to a place like
Russia or a place like China to get those fast neutrons. So,
right now, the United States does not have that capability.
Mr. Weber. Right, and that's unacceptable. I think Dr.
Maxon said earlier about companies are reluctant to invest
until they see the dependability of something coming on.
So if the United States does fall behind--you mentioned
Russia and China--that has international implications in
nuclear research?
Dr. Peters. It does, and it also has national security
implications more broadly. If we're not--if we don't have a
strong civil nuclear sector, we don't have a seat at the table
internationally.
Mr. Weber. Right. Well, I want to go back to Chairman
Smith's question about the battery for Dr. Kearns. Can you give
us the time frame on when that five times more powerful
battery--when can we expect this versatile neutron reactor?
Dr. Peters. Oh, the versatile fast neutron source could be
in place, pending appropriations, in 10 years.
Mr. Weber. Ten years, okay.
Dr. Peters. Yes. Yes.
Chairman Smith. Well, we get a better answer from Dr.
Kearns, who said within five years.
Dr. Peters. Yes, right.
Mr. Weber. Okay. All right. So can we----
Dr. Peters. Well, it's nuclear versus battery, sir, so----
Mr. Weber. So maybe we need to have some bidding going on
here. If this legislation is signed into law, what role do you
expect INL to play in designing and building this test reactor?
Dr. Peters. We already have a team formed with actually
Argonne and Oak Ridge. My hope is is that it would be built at
the INL. I've got a place picked out that's ready to go, but
we've got a team for them, so as appropriations come on, we're
ready to run.
Mr. Weber. Okay. And, Dr. Kearns, how about the Argonne
National Lab? We seem like we have some collaboration going on
here.
Dr. Kearns. Oh, yes, absolutely. And certainly Chairman
Smith paid a very nice tribute if you will to Enrico Fermi,
really the founding further of Argonne, in his opening
comments. And Argonne's maintained if you will a deep expertise
in nuclear technology from day one, and we are very actively
partnered with Idaho and Oak Ridge really in terms of
development in the new test reactor. We like to think that
there's a little bit of Argonne in every nuclear power plant
that's been built, and certainly we continue to really want to
participate in a very active way in supporting the development
of the test reactor----
Mr. Weber. So is it your testimony here today that you'll
put pressure on him to get it down to five years?
A question for all of you in my last minute. Last Congress,
the House passed the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act,
which provided National Laboratory Directors with the
flexibility--the ability to authorize cooperative research
agreements in priority research valued at up to $1 million.
Good thing, bad thing? Dr. Seestrom, I'll go to you.
Dr. Seestrom. I think it's a very good thing.
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Dr. Seestrom. These kind of CRADAs advance our interests
substantially. I'll just mention one example. Sandia has worked
with Goodyear through CRADAs for over 25 years. We brought our
advanced modeling and simulation capabilities to their business
of designing tires. You might not think that nuclear weapons
and tires have a lot in common, but the kind of material
interactions that we deal with in both areas are significant.
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Dr. Seestrom. They're able to improve their time to market,
and we're able to improve the codes that we do for the nuclear
weapons.
Mr. Weber. Perfect. Let me move to Dr. Maxon. Good thing,
bad thing?
Dr. Maxon. Definitely a good thing. I--well said. I can't
add much more. We have plenty of examples, too.
Mr. Weber. Okay. Dr. Kao?
Dr. Kao. Good thing as well.
Mr. Weber. Dr. Kearns?
Dr. Kearns. Yes, a very good thing, very----
Mr. Weber. Okay. Dr. Peters?
Dr. Peters. Good thing, and we need more things like it.
Mr. Weber. Okay. And we're working on that.
Mr. Chairman, I've got three seconds I yield back to you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Weber.
The gentleman from New York who should have been recognize
earlier, Mr. Tonko, is recognized now.
Mr. Tonko. It's all right, Mr. Chair. Thank you. And
welcome and thank you to our members of the panel.
Our national labs are I think a best-kept secret at times
and a tremendous empowering resource for this nation. And so
including our national lab at Brookhaven in my home State of
New York, you're leading us into the future using fundamental
science that will change our understanding of the world around
us and our universe.
I'd like to continue along the questioning that
Congressmember Bonamici indicated on energy storage. How can
energy storage be combined with utility-scale solar and wind
farms to help reach our clean energy and environmental goals in
the longer term? Dr. Kearns?
Dr. Kearns. Yes. I believe energy storage is really--would
be a great enhancement if you will to utility-scale solar and
wind as well. As you know, those sources tend to be
intermittent depending upon the climate and the weather if you
will, and so it's important to have a way to store energy
produced in that way so that we can discharge it when needed
and really have the additional reserve if you will. And it also
provides for a better balance across the--if you will the grid,
really allowing electricity to be deployed when and where
needed.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. And, Dr. Peters, how could storage
better enable a zero-emission hybrid energy system that
includes both intermittent renewables and advanced nuclear
power sources?
Dr. Peters. It's--modular nuclear reactors and storage
together are probably the way you change the game in my
opinion. The future energy system is probably a lot of
renewables and a lot of nuclear, but you have to have storage.
But the way that modular reactors work, you can run some
modules full out and others can be modulated to complement the
storage. So we're doing a lot of work actually--INL along with
National Renewable Energy Laboratory in particular--on so-
called hybrid energy systems, as you commented on, Congressman.
So there's a lot of research going on already, and we're
starting to engage in industry, both end-users, utilities, as
well as energy providers to figure that out, but it's a quite
exciting area of applied research.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. And, Dr. Maxon, the Office of Science
was flat-funded in the budget request, but there were harmful
cuts to important research within the Office of Science. The
Biological and Environmental Research program would be cut by
18 percent. Many would probably not be surprised to learn that
BER is the largest sponsor of climate change-related research
at DOE. And you talked about that impact on the earth and
environmental systems sciences area. For those in the
Administration or any that support these sort of cuts that
think climate change is unsettled science, wouldn't it make
sense then to further invest in the research to give us a
clearer answer on the state of our climate?
Dr. Maxon. Well, it's my opinion that understanding where
critical elements that drive the Earth's biogeochemical
cycles--carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, sulfur. Understanding
those things in great detail is really important not only for
climate science but also for the biological sciences, too, so I
do see a significant benefit.
Mr. Tonko. Yes. And I really do believe a lot of our
decision-making should be formulated by science and research.
Our biological systems science has fared much better in the
budget proposal, including increases to genomic science and
flat-funding for the Joint Genome Institute. What are
additional areas of opportunity that we should consider
exploring for biological systems sciences?
Dr. Maxon. I think that's a great question. One of the
things that I think remains largely untapped is the bringing
together of biological sciences and material sciences. I
mentioned the Agile BioFoundry that exists to reduce the cost
and increase the speed of generating biological products. We
don't yet know how to make a lot of things that, for example,
don't exist yet. As I mentioned potentially plastics that have
profiles that are improved over others. How about things that
don't exist yet? Shatterproof Bioglass, bringing together
materials science and biological sciences, I think that's a
great opportunity.
Mr. Tonko. Wonderful. And in a few--half-a-minute we have
left, what is the status of microbiome research at DOE?
Dr. Maxon. DOE is a leader in microbiome research, along
with the USDA, co-chaired the Microbiome Interagency Working
Group that put together a strategic plan that I'm hoping will
become public someday so we can see what the great
opportunities are for the nation's microbiome science.
Mr. Tonko. Wonderful. And thank you again for all the
leadership you provide with our labs and for the resource that
our labs happens to be.
With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Weber. [Presiding.] I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Hultgren, you're up next.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you all so much
for being here.
I think all my colleagues on this Committee and hopefully
throughout Congress know my passion for our laboratories and
just incredible work that you all do and just feel like it is
such a vital part of who we are as a nation is our
laboratories. And so I just want to congratulate you and thank
you and celebrate but also know that we've got work ahead of
us.
Specifically, for me having the privilege of representing
Fermilab and having Argonne just a few miles outside of my
district, I get a chance to go quite often and see the truly
groundbreaking work that happens and the breadth of research
that is happening just between those two labs and then you put
on top of it all of the other labs, it is wonderful and
exciting, but I see unlimited potential if we continue to do
the support we need to do and give you all the ability to do
the long-term planning and present the visions of what could
happen if you have that confidence of knowing that we are
supporting you here in Congress. Really, the sky is the limit,
so excited about that and just want to thank you for--all for
being here.
I had the great opportunity to also visit Sandia last May
and Berkeley last September, and each lab was truly uniquely
situated and breathtaking.
Dr. Peters, since you and I met at Argonne, you've always
been an incredibly valuable resource on nuclear security
issues, as well as a strong champion for the steps the Nation
need to take to realize the next generation of advanced nuclear
power. I know Idaho National Lab is proud to have you, but I
still kind of like the old name Argonne West if there's any way
that you might be able to continue to work on that.
One thing--and I'd ask my question for all of you if you
can have maybe a quick thought or statement on this. One thing
that I think is important about the work that you're doing is
the ability that you have to inspire the next generation of
young scientists. Here in the House we do a Congressional app
competition, and a few years back I brought my winner through
Argonne's computing facilities to show him what he could
accomplish if he continued to learn how to code and improve his
STEM skills.
Fermi also brings in literally thousands and thousands of
students every year for STEM activities, as well as teachers,
who they train, how to make accelerators with high school
students throughout the country.
I wondered if each of you could talk a little bit about the
STEM activities that your lab is involved in and how much of
this is voluntary for staff. At Fermilab I know we have Science
Saturdays, which is basically volunteer driven. Also, what
authority from DOE might make it easier to work with students
in classrooms across the country to help to get mentors and
experts where they're needed most? Should DOE look at this as
workforce development?
And maybe we'll just go down the line, start with Dr.
Peters, and if you have a thought of what your lab is doing,
specifically focus on what we can do to help increase that.
Dr. Peters. Yes, Congressman, great to see you again, sir.
Mr. Hultgren. Good to see you.
Dr. Peters. Argonne is still here.
Mr. Hultgren. Good.
Dr. Peters. But INL is a great place to be.
Mr. Hultgren. It is.
Dr. Peters. So we're doing a wide variety of things. Let me
take--it is about workforce development for--to your final
point. We're doing a lot of some direct funding from the
government, quite a bit of our own indirect investment going
back into it, but also a lot of volunteer.
Some examples, we're doing a lot particularly focused on
STEM, no surprise, but trying to bring kids to the lab, much
like you see at FERMI and what you see at Argonne. It's the--
this isn't rocket science, right? You get them in there and get
them excited.
We're doing a lot of teacher professional development as
well, bringing teachers in to show them what we do so that they
can get the kids excited, but I love it when the kids actually
come to the lab. We're building internship programs much like I
was used to at Argonne at INL. Just last week, we had My
Amazing Future, which is basically introduce-a-girl-to-
engineering day, which that's the one that I almost like the
most.
Mr. Hultgren. Yes.
Dr. Peters. A bunch of eighth-grade girls come in and we--
they interact with our scientists. So we're doing a lot.
In the State of Idaho, I would also put in a plug for the
State of Idaho. The State of Idaho is doing a lot of investment
in education, and we're a partner with them on that.
Mr. Hultgren. Good. Let me keep going down the line.
Thanks, Dr. Peters.
Dr. Seestrom. Sandia has a modest number of outreach
activities. One I'll mention is at our Advanced Materials
Laboratory, which is joint with the University of New Mexico
where we bring in a set of elementary school students to see
the cool things you can do with materials. Mostly, we're
funding that out of indirect and volunteer labor.
We're keen on internship. You know, as I travel around
Sandia and see the young engineers and scientists, many of them
came to Sandia because they were interns. And we are not so
well known as Fermilab and Argonne, and so getting these young
people in the door is critical. The last thing is we recently
established as a new management team the Jill Hruby Scholarship
to honor our previous Laboratory Director Jill Hruby as the
first woman Director of a national security lab, and we're
about to announce our first two winners of that prize to bring
two outstanding young women scientists into the lab.
Mr. Hultgren. Great idea. My time is expired. If I could--
if the Chairman would give me leeway just to quickly--the other
three, if you could just mention a thing or two. Thank you.
Dr. Maxon. Yes, thank you. The Joint BioEnergy Institute,
which you visited last fall----
Mr. Hultgren. Yes, it was great. It was awesome.
Dr. Maxon. --has a program focused on undergraduate--oh,
sorry, high school students that are underrepresented
minorities, who then go through a summer internship and
research opportunity that has, over the last ten years,
generated over a 95 percent college acceptance rate on those
students.
Mr. Hultgren. Fantastic. Dr. Kao?
Dr. Kao. So for SLAC, we try to leverage the funding from
the Department. Recently, we, actually working with Moore
Foundation, to encourage girls in middle and high school to
come to the laboratory because I think we need to do more to
build the pipeline for a more diversified workforce for us.
Mr. Hultgren. I agree. Thanks. Dr. Kearns?
Dr. Kearns. Yes, Argonne has a very active education
program, great outreach program. One thing that's coming up
that I'll mention is activities supported by the Department of
Energy Office of Electricity called the Cyber Defense
Competition----
Mr. Hultgren. Great.
Dr. Kearns. --where we actually bring students into the
laboratory. We set up a green team, red team, and a yellow team
basically, including representatives from industry and of
course it's a bit of a hackathon if you will----
Mr. Hultgren. Yes.
Dr. Kearns. --and students compete against each other at
various schools. We've got 210 students participating this
year. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Oak Ridge
National Laboratory have also joined the activity, and so we're
pretty excited about that. It happens here April 2 at Argonne
so if you're in the neighborhood, please.
Mr. Hultgren. I'll do my best. That sounds great. Thanks,
Chairman. Thank you all so much and yield back.
Mr. Weber. The gentleman yields back.
We will yield to Mr. Foster of Illinois if he brought a pie
for Pi Day.
Mr. Foster. Yes, well, it's in the back room there, but if
the staff will bring out the remaining crumbs if they haven't
already pounced on it.
Mr. Weber. The gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Foster. Well, I wanted to wish everyone a happy Pi Day.
It's a day where we celebrate the rational arts of logic,
science, mathematics with an irrational number, a number whose
digits continue as long and as randomly as, I don't know,
politicians' tweets perhaps. But I want to thank you all for
coming here----
Mr. Weber. The gentleman's time is expired.
Mr. Foster. I sometimes introduce myself as representing
100 percent of the strategic reserve of physicists in the U.S.
Congress. I also represent the 11th District of Illinois, which
includes Argonne National Lab, and before coming to Congress, I
worked at Fermilab for 23 years. And so I have a special
interest among the just incredible scientific facilities that
you operate in Argonne's facilities, including the Advanced
Photon Source.
On a recent tour of the national labs with Secretary Perry,
we visited both Fermilab and Argonne, and I spent the day with
him. I was really impressed by his enthusiasm for the crucial
science and the research conducted at the labs.
You know, you live in a situation where you have political
oversight at the very top levels. In previous Administrations
we saw a very strong scientific component at the top levels of
the Administration that doesn't seem to be as present in the
current Administration. And when we've had, you know, the
political level of appointees and below, you know, before this
Committee, they have acknowledged that and said how much they
depend on the scientific expertise at the labs.
And so your role there is more crucial than ever, and I
want to thank you for toughing it out. And we're doing our best
to protect you from the proposed budget cuts that would make
your life miserable if they came through. Among other things,
they would halt the--Argonne's Advanced Photon Source upgrade,
which would allow Argonne to rejoin Dr. Kao's lab at the very
forefront of leading light sources in the world and the
incredible things that you can do with them.
I have actually one specific question on energy storage
where I'm working now on a bipartisan bill with Representative
Knight talking about trying to set up demonstration programs
for grid-scale energy storage. And when you set up a program
with specific goals, it's important you set the goals right. I
think it's one of the most destructive things we can do is to
ask a group of talented technical people to do something that
they know is impossible. An example of that would, say, be
going to Mars on a flat budget, which is something we routinely
ask NASA to do.
And so there are three specific goals that we're thinking
of right now: first, to have an installed energy capital cost
of $100 per watt and a minimum of one charge and discharge
cycle every day. That's a grid scale thing. And a lifetime of
5,000 cycles of discharge and charge at full output. And, you
know, you can respond either now or for the record whether
those are sufficiently challenging to get the next generation
of people interested in it and sufficiently achievable that
you're not just asking people to go to Mars on a flat budget.
And so I'd be interested if you have any immediate
reactions to those, if they're in the ballpark, because there
is a bipartisan interest in--including by our Committee Chair
in making the transition to an energy economy that doesn't dump
large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and energy
storage is crucial there. Yes, Dr. Kearns.
Dr. Kearns. Let me respond by--initially and then also
some--promise some follow-up in terms of a more formal
submission, but those look like they're in the ballpark to me.
They look like they're aggressive enough and yet realistic
enough in terms of where we're at today and where we'd like to
drive.
I guess the one question I might have in terms of follow-up
is the time frame as to when you'd like to achieve these goals,
any established----
Mr. Foster. Yes, these would be actually starting--choosing
and starting the projects 3 to five years from now.
Dr. Kearns. Three to five years, okay. So let me get back
to the lab and ask a few folks that have a greater knowledge
than I do on this subject to make sure that we're responding
appropriately, but I'd say they're in the ballpark.
Mr. Foster. Yes, thank you. Any other reactions to that?
Dr. Seestrom. We'll take it offline and bring you back an
answer.
Dr. Peters. Yes, but I concur. They sound properly
aggressive, but I think we need to take it for the record so--
--
Mr. Foster. Yes, it's tough. You can't--you know, President
Kennedy said we're going to the moon within a decade----
Dr. Peters. Right.
Mr. Foster. --because there were detailed parameters for a
mission to the moon that could be achieved with known
technology at the time.
Dr. Peters. Right.
Mr. Foster. And so that is--it's a very different thing. It
doesn't mean it's easy, it doesn't mean it's certain, but it's
important that we set those right.
And, you know, I really want to take advantage of that
bipartisan enthusiasm for--now for transitioning to a low-
carbon economy. And I am now zero on my clock, so thank you and
yield back.
Mr. Weber. Okay. The gentleman yields back. Thank you.
Dr. Babin, you're recognized.
Mr. Babin. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank all of you witnesses for being here today, very
interesting, very valuable information.
Dr. Kearns, I have a couple of questions for you if you
don't mind. At Argonne, a team of researchers discovered a way
to attach oil-attracting molecules to polyurethane foam that--
the same foam commonly used in furniture and insulation by
priming it with the metal oxide glue.
The new and reusable material called the Oleo Sponge can
absorb oil from an entire water column, not just up at the
surface. The sponges will be used it to clean up oil spills, as
well as diesel and oil buildup in ports and harbors. And what
collaborative efforts led to this technological breakthrough,
and what about the research environment at Argonne that
developed this technology? And what steps will be taken by
Argonne to transfer this technology to the fossil fuel
industry?
And I'll repeat that if you answer the first one and then
don't remember what the second one was.
Dr. Kearns. Thank you. Thank you.
Mr. Babin. Okay.
Dr. Kearns. Yes, the Oleo Sponge is a very exciting
development. It's really--the genesis if you will was really
funded through the laboratory's directed--Laboratory Director's
Research and Development program, the LDRD program mentioned
earlier by Dr. Seestrom as really essential if you will to
really allow the laboratories to really develop new thoughts
and pursue new ideas, and so it's initial funding was provided
through the vehicle.
It also built upon some capabilities that the Office of
Science Basic Energy Sciences program funded through the Center
for Nanoscale Materials really. It's a cross-collaboration
between two different divisions at the laboratory, one very
basic in terms of its approach at the Center for Nanoscale
Materials but one more applied in terms of the Energy Systems
Division at the Argonne, so great story in terms of where it
began, really building off that initial investment by the
Office of Science and further developed with LDRD funding and
then really a cross-laboratory collaboration.
In terms of what's occurring as we work to commercialize
that technology, an opportunity announcement was made I'd say
eight, ten months ago. The response has been tremendous. We
have over 140 companies that have reached out and expressed an
interest in the technology, and we've been in serious
conversation with several since that time. We're down to a
handful of folks that we're talking to currently that might
take an interest if you will in terms of application of this
particular technology and develop it for commercial products.
Mr. Babin. Great. That's excellent.
And, Dr. Seestrom, did you have anything you wanted to add
to that since you we're involved in it? Okay. All right. Thank
you.
And also, Dr. Kearns, the Technology Commercialization Fund
allocates .9 percent of the funding from the Applied Energy
Offices to invest in commercialization of energy technology.
When I look at this program and the decision under the
Obama Administration to establish the Office of Technology
Transitions, I'm concerned that we're consolidating funding
decisions in Washington instead of giving more flexibility to
our national labs, which tend to have direct relationships with
industry and better understand the technology needs. How can
Congress work with you to ensure that we don't centralize our
technology transfer programs in Washington, which we're trying
to not do?
Dr. Kearns. Good question. I think there are number of
things that could be done. One is the labs do, as you suggest,
work directly with industry. A good example of an outreach
activity at the Argonne National Laboratory is really we held
an industry day focused on energy storage, and we had over 100
companies come to the lab really to learn about our
capabilities and express interest if you will in terms of their
needs, their desires for further development of their ideas.
And, as a result of that, a handful of opportunities that
develop into CRADAs, the Cooperative Research and Development
Agreements, and other examples of the laboratory working side-
by-side with industry in that way.
So that's one great example I think of how to work with
industry. What you might do is really encourage--as was
discussed earlier, encourage more vehicles like the Cooperative
Research and Development Agreement and the Strategic
Partnership Project efforts the Department of Energy has
underway.
I'd also say the Technology Commercialization Fund you
mentioned has been very active. We've been--Argonne has been
very active and it's been a very attractive program for our
industrial programs in that way as well, so a good history,
good record there in terms of accomplishments.
Mr. Babin. Okay. That's great.
Well, Mr. Chairman, I'll yield back eight seconds. Thank
you.
Mr. Weber. The gentleman yields back, thank you.
And, Mr. Dunn, you're recognized for five minutes and eight
seconds.
Mr. Dunn. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank the
panelists for coming here today to inform us about your labs. I
look forward to coming to visit you at the labs and probably a
lot more informative visits when you can actually teach me in
the place.
I'm a physician. I tend to focus on the healthcare in my
questions, and if I could start with Dr. Kearns. Millions of
people around the world have been helped with medical isotopes
in these diagnosis treatment imaging and other diseases, cancer
and whatnot. We're--we lack the capacity in the United States
to produce all the needed isotopes, and some of our isotopes
are in fact produced in highly enriched uranium reactors, which
carries proliferation risks.
Your lab is helping two companies develop new methods to
make these isotopes in accelerators rather than reactors. I'd
ask you to explain why it's important to the medical community
to have these isotopes and to the patients to have these
isotopes but also why avoid the highly enriched uranium
reactors.
Dr. Kearns. Yes, the last question first, fairly simple to
understand. With the use of highly enriched uranium, the
concern is one of proliferation and really safeguarding if you
will the materials in a way that doesn't allow them to end up
in the hands of those who might wish ill on individuals or
nations, and so that's really the key component there.
Certainly, you know, one of the primary examples--and the
other laboratories involved should--I think in the isotope
program should also comment, but the one program that's been
active at the Department--at Argonne has been the Moly-99
program, which is funded by the NNSA, working with a couple of
industrial companies if you will to commercialize that
technology. It's a great example really again of industry-
laboratory partnerships and really driving towards a well-
defined outcome if you will.
I think the--why do that--Moly-99 is pretty essential
really in terms of, you know, how we conduct medicine today.
It's critical for the United States because we don't have any
domestic production of Moly-99 currently. We're really
dependent upon foreign sources, and of course the reliability
of the sources is from time to time of concern. And so--
Mr. Dunn. It's actually interrupted my practice on
occasion.
Dr. Kearns. Oh, has it?
Mr. Dunn. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Dr. Kearns. Yes.
Mr. Dunn. So it's important for us to be able to get to
those.
Now, some of the isotopes simply cannot be produced in an
accelerator, they need a reactor, and I know in recent years
we've pushed to move from HEUs to low-enriched uranium
reactors, and I understand that, I'm on board, but the low-
enriched uranium reactors generate roughly ten times the
radioactive waste as the HEU reactors. And the United States
has zero capacity to reprocess radioactive waste at this time.
I believe I'm right on that. There's no MOX plants in the
United States? Dr. Peters?
Dr. Peters. There's not the capability to reprocess
currently, yes.
Mr. Dunn. Okay. And the MOX plant that's been under
construction in South Carolina is slow or off-track?
Dr. Peters. It's behind schedule, overbudget, and it's
dedicated to reprocessing of the 34 metric tons of surplus
plutonium--
Mr. Dunn. Okay. So that----
Dr. Peters. --so, no, it's not going to reprocess HEU.
Mr. Dunn. Okay. Well, that's worth knowing. Thank you. And
so I invite all the panelists to bend your considerable talents
and resources to solving the problem of reprocessing our
domestic radioactive waste, which should not be treated as
waste in the first place but as a valuable precursor commodity.
And I think we all know that the second generation radioactive
waste that comes out of these reprocessed and reused--that
you've changed the half-life of those--that radioactive waste
in the far end of the cycle to something that's a lot
rhythmically less, right? I mean, we move from hundreds of
thousands of years, millions of years half-life to hundreds of
years half-life, so I would encourage everybody to solve those
problems. I know you can do it. I have faith in you.
I'm going to sneak in another question if I can on the
ultrafast--this is to Dr. Kao--the ultrafast frame rate x-rays
you use to capture molecular movies, fascinating stuff. I've
seen some of the work that's available. Can you explain how we
use that information on a molecular level and how it might
pertain to health care?
Dr. Kao. Okay. So what the ultrafast x-ray does is you can
take snapshot of a protein that typically these are targets for
drug development, and in particular those on the surface of a
membrane, membrane protein, they are very difficult to
crystallize into crystals, so they tend to be very small. And
so with this ultrafast x-ray, you can take a snapshot of these
and you drop them down into the x-ray beam, you hit it, it
disappears, but you capture the image. You do a million shots
of these. You then reconstruct the three-dimensional atomic
structure of that, and then you can use that to guide you to
develop drugs.
Mr. Dunn. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Weber. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Louisiana is recognized for five
minutes.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank this
brilliant assemblage of scientists before us. Your testimony
has been personally inspiring to me.
Historically, DOE's research programs have had the greatest
impact on resources that are focused on completion of certain
goals or missions. Our national debt certainly leads us to
righteous funding restrictions at the federal level, and that
should lead us to a focus on result- and mission-oriented
research. In my opinion, this is particularly true for advanced
nuclear power.
New modular technologies hold great promise and should be a
priority for the Department. I believe we should establish a
clear set of goals for completing a program leading to the
demonstration of new nuclear technologies, real technologies,
achievable technologies, technologies that can be deployed.
Earlier this week, I introduced legislation H.R. 5260, the
Advanced Nuclear Energy Technologies Act, which would set a
goal of demonstrating four commercially competitive advanced
reactor designs over the next decade. Setting mission-driven
goals at DOE will help the United States regain its global
leadership in nuclear energy security, open new markets for
domestic power generation, retake a key strategic advantage
from China and Russia, and put thousands of American engineers,
manufacturers, and tradesmen to work. Further, a robust
American nuclear energy sector is essential to President
Trump's vision of American energy dominance.
Dr. Peters, how can we better utilize DOE's nuclear
programs to expedite the demonstration and ultimate
commercialization of small modular reactors?
Dr. Peters. Thank you, Congressman. First and foremost, let
me say that I support what you're trying to do with your
legislation. As you know, there's similar legislation coming
out of the Senate to look at four demos roughly ten years from
now.
Because--but I'm a big supporter of trying to start to
drive the R&D program to cost targets to try to drive down the
economics and nuclear systems. I think that's important. So the
R&D needs to be done now to help us get us to that aggressive
demonstration goal that you articulated.
I would also want to say that, in addition to the versatile
fast neutron source, which this Committee is already fully
supportive of, being able to go actually build these prototype
demonstration units would be really, really important for
putting us back in leadership position because other countries
are doing this. China is building these--prototyping all of
these advanced concepts, so it's very important.
The other part of this is where would you put the demos? A
place like INL would be a place you could build these
demonstrations. I'd be happy to do that.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you for your answer. Do you concur that
a demonstration of a working prototype is certainly the link to
a public-private partnership?
Dr. Peters. It is. It is because I mentioned earlier about
the private sector needing capital, but it's going to have to
be a partnership with the government. But I do believe if we
get those out to first-of-a-kind demonstration for some of
these advanced concepts, that will then enable them to get into
the market and move very quickly and penetrate the market.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Doctor.
Dr. Kearns, do you have anything to add?
Dr. Kearns. No, I think I fully support what Mark has
responded with. I think we're good.
Mr. Higgins. Well, I have an additional question a bit that
has been really touched on here today. Please respond as you
see fit. What steps do your labs take to protect the classified
intellectual and proprietary information and property from
access, copying, and theft by foreign nationals? Any member?
Dr. Seestrom. Of course at Sandia, as a national security
lab, we place the highest priority on protecting our classified
information,. We have very few foreign nationals mainly
accessing only external areas of the lab.
Mr. Higgins. You feel comfortable that your lab is
sufficiently protected?
Dr. Seestrom. I do. I would say I am as worried about
insider threat as I am about foreign nationals.
Mr. Higgins. As we should be. Does anyone else have
something to add there? We're very concerned about intellectual
property theft.
Dr. Peters. Yes, maybe a little bit on the industry
engagement perhaps. I mean all of us--I'm sure we have
extensive controls in place, nondisclosure agreements and
whatnot, so when we engage industry, we protect that
information. And as you heard here, all of us are looking into
increase our industry engagement, so that's very, very
important.
But we all have the ability to control the culture of the
labs because we're dealing with classified material throughout
our history. I think the industry engagement really is treated
in a very similar way. We have to protect this information
very, very carefully.
Mr. Higgins. I thank you all for your answers. My time has
expired, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Weber. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Biggs, you are up next.
Mr. Biggs. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. And I'd like to thank
Chairman Smith for inviting you. And this is an august panel,
and it's been very informative and very interesting and I've
learned a lot. And I just am very impressed at what we've
talked about today, and thank you for being here.
Dr. Seestrom, after a tsunami damaged the Fukushima-Daiichi
nuclear power plant in 2011, massive amounts of seawater cooled
the reactor. During cleanup activities, a molecular sieve
created by Sandia National Lab scientists was used to extract
radioactive cesium from tens of millions of gallons of seawater
on the reactor side. It's my understanding that this technology
was developed using Laboratory-Directed Research and
Development, LDRD, funding at Sandia. Can you tell us a little
more about how the technology was developed and how it made its
way to Japan to play such an important role in the cleanup?
Dr. Seestrom. So thank you very much for that question,
Congressman. This is actually quite an informative story. So as
you probably know, molecular sieves are crystalline substances,
and the size of the pores limit the size of molecules that can
go through. So the particular technology that was developed at
Sandia in one of our earliest CRADA work with industry,
crystalline silico-titanate had specific strength for removing
cesium. We had a partnership with a company called UOP actually
based I think in Des Plaines, Illinois. We licensed it to them.
This was back in the '90s, we won an R&D 100 award based on
that.
When Fukushima came along, one of our eminent senior
scientists, the chemist Tina Nenoff, who had worked on disposal
of waste and cleaning of products at Hanford for a long time,
was able to quickly test the CST for its applicability to
putting the seawater through it, found that it would work just
fine, and UOP managed to work with TEPCO in Japan to put that
on the ground there.
Mr. Biggs. It's fascinating. That's a great story. So
you've talked about LDRD funding being a key part of how the
labs pursue new research opportunities. What steps can Congress
take to facilitate more of this flexible but mission-focused
research?
Dr. Seestrom. Well, continue the good work that Congress
has done in setting both an upper threshold and a lower
threshold for LDRD. We value every penny of that research. I
could, if we had time, give you a list of five different
inventions that came out of our LDRD program that transformed
our missions, including our work in rad hard micro
semiconductors, so just keep the limits there for us.
Mr. Biggs. And so I want to talk about the budgeting
because people talked about the CRs and its detrimental impact
on all of you, but I'm new to Congress and we're going to vote
on our seventh CR in six months, and I'm kind of embarrassed by
that. I hope--there's not enough people in here to join me in
my embarrassment. But over the last 20 years we've done more
than 100 CRs, an average of five--in excess of five, almost six
CRs per year, and I'm--you know, I realize that it's
detrimental, but is it baked in at all in your budgeting as
you--you know, the fact that--it looks to me like budgeting in
some ways is actually a reasonably stable but with this kind of
crazy blip every two or three months where we say, well, we're
going to shut down government for a weekend or whatever it may
be. Is it baked in at all or can you elaborate on that I guess
is what I'm trying to say?
Dr. Peters. Well, given that it's, as you note, an annual
occurrence, we understand how to manage through it, but I would
never say that it's a good thing because it's the constant
challenge to keep the staff excited and motivated when you're
going through this, particularly--I'll also particularly note
the early career staff who--some of us--we've been through this
for a long time, but the early career staff watch this and they
say why am I at a lab? Why don't I go work somewhere else? So
it's a challenge. So the more we get the regular order and
stable research funding, the better we can innovate.
Mr. Biggs. Well, don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that
that's the way to do it.
Dr. Peters. Yes--
Mr. Biggs. I'm all with you on a----
Dr. Peters. Yes, I understand. But it does--but I'm just
reacting to--
Mr. Biggs. Yes.
Dr. Peters. It's baked in in the sense that from the
management perspective we know how to manage it, but that
doesn't mean that the staff--
Mr. Biggs. Fair enough.
Dr. Peters. --don't get put through a lot of churn.
Mr. Biggs. Yes.
Dr. Seestrom. But I would say we're all used to, after 30
years, seeing continuing resolutions for a month or two, but
the length that we're going now is really hard to deal with.
Programs begin to lose funding and it's particularly hard on
new starting projects--
Mr. Biggs. Sure.
Dr. Seestrom. --which can't get going in a CR.
Mr. Biggs. We did one from December 8 to December 22 this
year. How idiotic--I mean last year. Anyway, sorry. Dr. Kearns?
Dr. Kearns. Yes, I was going to comment as well. I think a
couple of things--and one is it is particularly difficult for
early career scientists because it creates uncertainty, and of
course they have lots of opportunities to go other places, as
has already been mentioned by the panel. I think it's critical
that during this time of uncertainty that the Laboratory
Directors need to show some leadership and really step out
front and talk about it being a process and also share our
experience in terms of positive outcomes.
I would also say, though, it really is, as has just been
commented by Susan in terms of impact on new starts or
construction activities--or perhaps not a new start but where a
ramp-up in funding is really planned for an ongoing project is
particularly critical. You know, certainly, the Advanced Photon
Source at Argonne has suffered this time and time again, and so
we're really, you know, pleased with the indications of the
fiscal year 2018 budget and hopefully the fiscal year 2019
budget will show a different story.
But really, it creates a lag. It takes away sense of
urgency. It really kind of--really challenges us to really stay
at the edge in terms of our thinking, so it's important that
we're able to move forward.
Mr. Biggs. Yes, and I will just tell you I'll keep pushing
for us to do an annual budget so everybody can be more stable
and more predictable. So, again, thank you for being here.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Weber. Mr. Norman, you are up.
Mr. Norman. I just echo what Congressman Biggs says about
the CRs where you can't run your business on a month-to-month
basis, nor should we expect you. Thank each of you for your
testimony.
Dr. Peters, in your prepared testimony, you talk about the
work that the Idaho National Lab is doing to support the
existing light-water reactor fleet like developing the new
accident-resistant fuels are working with utilities to
modernize nuclear power plant control rooms. What other
research is the lab undertaking to help nuclear energy
technology remain competitive?
Dr. Peters. In the light-water reactor area, we're also
working on materials so--because when the--when a utility want
to take a reactor from 20 to 40 to 60 or even 80 years of
operation, we need to ensure that the materials will survive
that long. We see no showstoppers there, so every--all
indications are that they'll be fine.
In the advanced reactor area where we're working with a lot
of companies in partnership to help them mature their designs,
make them more cost-competitive, everything from the reactor
core itself to the fuel. We do extensive work on fuel
development. So you mentioned accident-tolerant fuels that
would go into light-water reactors but also developing advanced
fuels for advanced reactors.
We're working a lot--we haven't talked a lot about it
today, a lot on the nuclear fuel cycle, so we're--as you know,
we're pursuing going to a repository now, but could there be
options for reprocessing in the future? We're doing a lot of
research in that area as well.
But I want to stress, you know, we're an applied
laboratory, so we work very closely with industry across the
whole gambit, and that's an important part of our focus.
Mr. Norman. Related to that, Dr. Peters, is there a direct
benefit to the Department--to DOE, Department of Energy, to
have the labs perform multidisciplinary science research for
different programs across the Department? As an example, how
does it benefit the Office of Science or NNSA to have the
respective labs engage in diverse research for other DOE
programs or federal agencies?
Dr. Peters. We all have very--we all have unique
capabilities, so I very much think that, for example, Sandia or
Argonne is two good examples have capabilities that they've
built in either the security or the basic science area that are
very applicable to the applied programs. We partner very, very
effectively. If you look at the capabilities at the 17 labs,
some would argue you see duplication. I actually see a lot of
complementarity, so there's tremendous opportunity.
And we're an applied nuclear lab, and we do a lot of work
in the national security space and cybersecurity and whatnot
because we have capability that can solve national problems. So
collaboration is really important across the system, and I
think it's quite effective actually.
Mr. Norman. It makes sense. Dr. Seestrom, as a nuclear
weapons lab, Sandia has a specific mission to accomplish for
DOE, but from your testimony, it sounds like the impact of
Sandia's research has been much more broad. Can you provide
some examples of areas of research that Sandia conducts for its
nuclear weapons mission but that has also led to benefits in
the civilian economy?
Dr. Seestrom. So, you know, Sandia has expertise in
hydrogen materials coming from our mission in NNSA for gas
bottles. That leads us to certain expertise in chemical
processes. In our Combustion Research Facility, we do research
with each of the major U.S. car companies looking at improving
fuel efficiency for light-duty and heavy-duty trucks as an
example. You know, we have thousands of CRADAs there.
Our work for NNSA where we are responsible for radars have
led to other national security work where, for the DOD, we've
developed a next generation of synthetic-aperture radar, which
lets us save our troops on the battleground with much better
visibility through clouds that comes back to impact our core
national security mission.
Mr. Norman. What about manufacturing?
Dr. Seestrom. I don't think I can answer on manufacturing,
but I'll take that for the record.
Mr. Norman. Okay. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Weber. I thank the witnesses for their testimony and
the Members for their questions. The record will remain open
for two weeks for additional written comments and written
questions from Members. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
----------
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Dr. Mark Peters
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Dr. Susan Seestrom
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Dr. Mary E. Maxon
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Dr. Chi-Chang Kao
[[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Dr. Paul Kearns
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]