NS&D Monitor
6/20/2014
LANSCE Refurbishment Meeting Targets, But Risks Remain
Los Alamos National Laboratory is generally meeting its management milestones in the $253 million effort to refurbish its aging Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE), according to an analysis the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General released earlier this month. But fluctuating budgets and unpredictable labor and material cost increases leave the project’s 2019 completion at risk, which could jeopardize key experiments for the B61 life extension and other weapons, the IG found.
LANSCE is an accelerator that provides neutron beams for a variety of scientific work, from probing material properties of nuclear weapon components and other materials to the production of rare isotopes for medical work. Built in 1972, it has long been part of the lab’s scientific backbone, but in the last decade it has been showing its age, and over the last decade the lab and the National Nuclear Security Administration have faced a series of fix-it-or-close-it decisions. Four years ago, the NNSA decided on the “fix it” path, and developed a “LANSCE Linac Risk Mitigation Strategy” to provide the necessary equipment replacement and upgrades to keep the facility alive.
Funding Mechanism a Risk
In general, the IG team found that the lab is meeting its milestones, in some cases ahead of schedule, and generally keeping within budget. But risks remain, which are exacerbated by the failure to incorporate the work into the Department of Energy’s Project Assessment and Reporting System (PARS II). One risk involves the funding mechanism being used: pay-as-you-go within the lab’s Readiness In Technical Base Facilities Budget. That has left the work vulnerable, according to the IG’s report. Funding the work out of the lab’s overall RTBF account has meant fluctuating allocations. On at least one occasion, the fluctuations happened within a single budget year. The 2014 allocation was originally set at $20 million, then unexpectedly dropped to $18 million, then raised again to the full $20 million.
In addition, increased labor and material costs could cause a one- to two-year delay in completion, which the IG’s analysis acknowledged were “circumstances beyond the (managers’) control” but which required flexibility in adjusting to remain within budget. The report quotes a Los Alamos weapons physicist as saying delays in the project’s completion “could adversely impact LANL’s ability to execute experiments necessary for decisions to be made in the life extension program of the B61 and other weapons programs.” In response, NNSA management concurred with the IG’s findings, and said they would make management process changes to bring the project into PARS II.
Lab Seeking Expressions of Interest for Pro Force Work
Los Alamos National Laboratory is beginning the process of recompeting its protective forces subcontract, issuing a Request for Expressions of Interest this week. SOC Los Alamos, a Day and Zimmerman subsidiary, has provided security at the lab since 1992, beating out WSI (now known as G4S Government Solutions) and several other companies to retain the contract in 2010. Its contract expires Sept. 30, 2015. In the Request for Expressions of Interest, Los Alamos said the source selection criteria for the contract will include specific “pass/fail” criteria in nine key areas, requiring contractor to clear several hurdles to be considered for the contract.
The criteria includes experience protecting Category I special nuclear material at a Department of Energy site, handling and protecting classified material, safely managing weapons and ammunition, as well as a host of DOE requirements. The scope of the contract is essentially the same as the current contract, with the addition of work to manage, staff and implement an Unmanned Aerial System Program. Interested companies have until July 11 to respond to the lab with their name, contact information and a “very brief description” of their capabilities and qualifications.
New Supercomputer Up and Running for Unclassified Research at Lab
A new supercomputer is up and running at Los Alamos National Laboratory and will be used for unclassified research, the lab said this week. Dubbed “Wolf,” the Cray Inc. machine has 616 computer nodes that each have two 8-core 2.6 GHz Intel “Sandybridge” processors, 64 gigabytes of memory and a high speed Infiniband interconnect network, the lab said. The machine will initially be used to model climate, materials and astrophysics.
With a total of 9,856 compute cores and 19.7 terabytes of memory, the machine will operate at 197 teraflops per second. “The Laboratory’s Institutional Computing program provides production-computing resources for open and collaborative science at the Laboratory,” the lab said in a statement. “Institutional Computing provides access to every scientist and engineer at the Laboratory through a competitive, peer-reviewed proposal process. Los Alamos scientists use these systems for fundamental as well as applied research in a wide variety of technical fields.”
