Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 2007 Annual Report

Abstract

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's many outstanding accomplishments in 2007 are a tribute to a dedicated staff, which is shaping the Laboratory's future as we go through a period of transition and transformation. The achievements highlighted in this annual report illustrate our focus on the important problems that affect our nation's security and global stability, our application of breakthrough science and technology to tackle those problems, and our commitment to safe, secure, and efficient operations. In May 2007, the Department of Energy (DOE) awarded Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (LLNS), a new public-private partnership, the contract to manage and operate the Laboratory starting in October. Since its inception in 1952, the Laboratory had been managed by the University of California (UC) for the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and predecessor organizations. UC is one of the parent organizations that make up LLNS, and UC's presence in the new management entity will help us carry forward our strong tradition of multidisciplinary science and technology. 'Team science' applied to big problems was pioneered by the Laboratory's co-founder and namesake, Ernest O. Lawrence, and has been our hallmark ever since. Transition began fully a year before DOE's announcement. More than 1,600 activities had to be carried out to transition the Laboratory from management by a not-for-profit to a private entity. People, property, and procedures as well as contracts, formal agreements, and liabilities had to be transferred to LLNS. The pre-transition and transition teams did a superb job, and I thank them for their hard work. Transformation is an ongoing process at Livermore. We continually reinvent ourselves as we seek breakthroughs that impact emerging national needs. An example is our development in the late 1990s of a portable instrument that could rapidly detect DNA signatures, research that started with a view toward the potential threat of terrorist use of biological weapons. As featured in our annual report, activities in this area have grown to many important projects contributing to homeland security and disease prevention and control. At times transformation happens in large steps. Such was the case when nuclear testing stopped in the early 1990s. As one of the nation's nuclear weapon design laboratories, Livermore embarked on the Stockpile Stewardship Program. The objectives are to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile and to develop a science-based, thorough understanding of the performance of nuclear weapons. The ultimate goal is to sustain confidence in an aging stockpile without nuclear testing. Now is another time of major change for the Laboratory as the nation is resizing its nuclear deterrent and NNSA begins taking steps to transform the nuclear weapons complex to meet 21st-century national security needs. As you will notice in the opening commentary to each section of this report, the Laboratory's senior management team is a mixture of new and familiar faces. LLNS drew the best talent from its parent organizations--Bechtel National, UC, Babcock & Wilcox, the Washington Group Division of URS, and Battelle--to lead the Laboratory. We are honored to take on the responsibility and see a future with great opportunities for Livermore to apply its exceptional science and technology to important national problems. We will work with NNSA to build on the successful Stockpile Stewardship Program and transform the nation's nuclear weapons complex to become smaller, safer, more secure, and more cost effective. Our annual report highlights progress in many relevant areas. Laboratory scientists are using astonishing computational capabilities--including BlueGene/L, the world's fastest supercomputer with a revolutionary architecture and over 200,000 processors--to gain key insights about performance of aging nuclear weapons. What we learn will help us sustain the stockpile without nuclear testing. Preparations are underway to start experiments at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world's largest laser. They will help us resolve the most important questions we still have about nuclear weapons performance. Future NIF experiments will also explore the promise of an essentially inexhaustible source of clean energy from nuclear fusion. In addition, we have begun the process of eliminating significant quantities of special nuclear materials from the Livermore site. We will carry forward Livermore's tradition of exceptional science and technology. This is the S&T that led to the design and construction of NIF and leadership in an international consortium that is developing the Gemini Planet Imager. When the Imager comes on line in 2010 at an observatory in Chile, the Imager will bring into sharp focus planets that are 30 to 150 light years from our solar system.