Editorial: LANL director wise to get New Mexicans on staff
Los
Alamos National Laboratory
Director
Thomas Mason
Los Alamos
National Laboratory Director Thomas Mason is the first to admit the work LANL
does will never be popular with a significant portion of the population in New
Mexico.
That’s one of the reasons he feels community relations is an
important part of LANL’s agenda under new operator Triad National Security LLC.
“There are probably some people who are never going to like what
we do because they don’t like nuclear weapons, which is actually
understandable,” Mason said in an interview with the Journal. “It is kind of a
weird thing to be working really hard on something you really hope will never
be used.”
Mason pledges to be as open as possible with the communities
with which the labs work. That’s a good start given the nature of the work done
by the lab securing our nation’s nuclear arsenal. (Full story)
LANL
economic impact is in the billions
Los Alamos National Laboratory had an average annual economic impact of $3.1 billion from 2015-17, according to independent research from the University of New Mexico’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research released Monday. The same entity pegged the lab’s economic impact at $2.3 billion in a similar 2011 report using 2009 data, said David Moore of the lab’s Community Partnerships Office.
The laboratory in the coming year intends to focus on
stimulating new business growth and strengthening existing companies. It is
doubling the local price preference from 5 to 10 percent given to contract bids
from businesses based in the seven counties surrounding the laboratory,
according to a news release. (Full story)
Why
Did NASA, Lockheed Martin, and Others Spend Millions on This Quantum Computer?
Credit: Gizmodo
So why use
bother with one of these devices? We posed that question to researchers using
D-Wave computers at Lockheed Martin, Los Alamos National Lab, Volkswagen, and
elsewhere. In short, D-Waves are in their early days, but these organizations
are hoping to eventually use them to solve problems, like predicting elections,
routing taxis in traffic jams, or picking crucial data out of background noise.
This is just something Los Alamos scientists do: They test high
performance computers. “It’s an important but modest part of our entire high-performance
computing strategy,” John Sarrao, deputy director for science, technology, and
engineering at Los Alamos, told Gizmodo. “It is a technology that seems to be
interesting, that quantum seems to play a role in, and is available for people
who want to try things out. For us, that’s a enough to say it’s worth an
exploration as part of a broader overall advanced computing strategy.” (Full story)
Micro-reactors
As Cheap As Natural Gas Without Air Pollution
The Megapower micro reactor.
This
article looks at the mid-2020 timeline for micro-reactors which has strong
Department of Defense interest. Nextbigfuture has been interviewing the project
lead, Venkat Rao, for what was the Los Alamos Megapower micro-reactor.
They are working on automated mass production of the heat pipes.
Heat pipes are the critical technology for the reactor. They are looking to
reduce the cost of heat pipes by ten times.
After the first reactors are built, they will scale up to
factory mass production. They will be able to build complete units in one month
or less. (Full story)
Five
cool things you can do with an ‘atom smasher’
The LANSCE control room, LANL photo.
Los Alamos
National Laboratory has several accelerators peppered throughout its 43 square
miles. By far its largest is the accelerator at the Los Alamos Neutron Science
Center (LANSCE). The most powerful linear accelerator in the world when it
opened in 1972, LANSCE speeds protons, one of the basic building blocks of
atoms, to 84 percent the speed of light and energies as high as 800 million
electron volts.
The protons traveling down the accelerator are moving a trillion
times faster than a mosquito traveling down the same accelerator — that’s a
pretty big deal. Protons are very light, so each one carries very little actual
energy, but there are so many that together they deliver nearly a megawatt, one
million watts, of average power to targets at the end of the accelerator. (Full story)
More
stable light comes from intentionally ‘squashed’ quantum dots
Colloidal quantum dots (top) are formed of an emitting cadmium/selenium core, LANL graphic.
Intentionally
“squashing” colloidal quantum dots during chemical synthesis creates dots
capable of stable, “blink-free” light emission that is fully comparable with
the light produced by dots made with more complex processes. The squashed dots
emit spectrally narrow light with a highly stable intensity and a
non-fluctuating emission energy. New research at Los Alamos National Laboratory
suggests that the strained colloidal quantum dots represent a viable
alternative to presently employed nanoscale light sources, and they deserve
exploration as single-particle, nanoscale light sources for optical “quantum”
circuits, ultrasensitive sensors, and medical diagnostics. (Full story)
Gary
Grider from Los Alamos on the new Efficient Mission-Centric Computing
Consortium
Gary Grider, LANL photo.
insideHPC:
Gary, thanks for having me today. We haven’t seen each other for a while. I
remember you and I were on a panel in Manhattan, I don’t know, something like
10 years ago at the Structure conference. Anyway, can you tell me more about
this new organization you are part of?
Gary Grider: So we’re forming a consortium to chase efficient
computing. We see many of the HPC sites today seem to be headed down the path
of buying machines that work really well with very dense linear algebra
problems. The problem is: hardcore simulation can often not be a great fit on
machines built for high Linpack numbers. (Full story)
Also from Inside HPC this week"
Ramping
up for Exascale at the National Labs
David Montoya, right, image from Inside HPC.
In this
video from the Exascale Computing Project, Dave Montoya from LANL describes the
continuous software integration effort at DOE facilities where exascale
computers will be located sometime in the next 3-4 years.
A key aspect of the US Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing
Project’s (ECP) continuous integration activities is ensuring that the software
in development for exascale can efficiently be deployed at the facilities and
that it properly blends with the facilities’ many software components. (Full story)
‘Realistic’
new model points way to more efficient and profitable fracking
Illustration of branching into densely
spaced hydraulic
cracks, LANL image.
“Our model
is far more realistic than current models and software used in the industry,”
said Zdeněk Bažant, McCormick Institute Professor and Walter P. Murphy
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and
Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of
Engineering. “This model could help the industry increase efficiency, decrease
cost, and become more profitable.”
Despite the industry’s growth, much of the fracking process
remains mysterious. Because fracking happens deep underground, researchers
cannot observe the fracture mechanism of how the gas is released from the
shale. (Full story)
Venture
fund helps with funding, technical aid
Bison Star Naturals owners Jacquelene
and
Angelo McHorse with their 1-year-old
daughter,
Judy. Photo from the Journal.
At the time
of LANL’s management transition, more than $390,000 had been invested in the
regional economy through the Native American Venture Acceleration Fund (NA
VAF). Triad, LANL’s new manager, has vowed to retain most of the laboratory’s
economic development initiatives – programs such as the NA VAF – although a
spokesperson said some programs may look different going forward.
2018 recipients include Jacquelene and Angelo McHorse, owners of
Bison Star Naturals, Jacqueline Gala Jewelry and PM Waterlily of Taos Pueblo,
Butterfly Artist Market of Pojoaque Pueblo, Aguilar Consulting of San Ildefonso
Pueblo, and the Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Council based in Ohkay Owingeh. (Full story)
