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ORNL director paints 'healthy picture'
By Ellen Rogers
Oak Ridger

While Oak Ridge National Laboratory has contributed a great deal to the world of science over the past year, including developments in the $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source, lab director Jeff Wadsworth reports there are still plenty of challenges ahead.

And ORNL is fully prepared to meet these challenges, including the growing demands for energy, Wadsworth reported Tuesday night during his annual State of the Lab address.

"The world's population is going up ... meeting the world's energy demands is extremely challenging," Wadsworth stated at the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge.

"There is no single energy source that can meet the projected demands of energy. It's a very important problem we're working on. We're fortunate to have people like (U.S. Sen.) Lamar Alexander, who is passionate about this problem."

The lab is now managing ITER, an international fusion experiment that could lead to an abundant, environmentally-benign, and economical energy source. The project was transferred to the lab from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in February.

ORNL is prepared for this challenge as well.

"We have transformed ORNL's research campus," Wadsworth said. "It looks and feels like a university and we want it to, because when we recruit, we're competing with universities."

The lab is also working hard to clean up its central campus. Its partnership with the University of Tennessee is a great advantage for recruiting as well, he added.

"The international research and development landscape is changing; major scientific experiments are no longer the domain of the United States.

"There's tremendous competition around the world. We need to stay alert and stay ahead to recruit the best in the world."

Wadsworth praised SNS program director Thom Mason and his team for successfully firing up the $1.4 billion instrument, which produced a millisecond pulse of neutrons on April 28. When the facility is fully operational, it will produce a pulsing neutron stream 10 times more intense than that of any other research facility in the world.

"It really is quite remarkable that they did this - on time, on scope and under cost."

The High Flux Isotope Reactor will soon have a cold neutron source, which involves the passing of neutrons through liquid nitrogen.

All major cold neutron source components have been installed, Wadsworth reported.

The Center for Nanophase Material Sciences is also well under way, attracting users.

The lab's nanoscale science and technology will produce breakthrough innovations in energy, health and manufacturing, and it is considered the Department of Energy's leading lab for open scientific computing.

The ORNL budget for FY 2007 is about $1 billion - "a very healthy picture for a laboratory moving into the 21st century," Wadsworth said.

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