Hazardous duty

Wednesday was the first day of competition in the lab's 14th annual Hazmat Challenge, in which 14 hazmat teams (mostly from New Mexico) converge deep in the woods on LANL property to run through eight elaborate simulations of varying hazardous-chemical scenarios.

LANL's emergency response division leader, Jeff Dare, said planning for the challenge begins each year in February or March, and setup for the exercises starts in May. Officials from the EPA and FEMA join lab workers in evaluating performance (full story—subscription or viewing of advertising is required).



The AIM interview: LANL's José Olivares

While originally organized for a single purpose: to design and build the atomic bomb, this Northern New Mexico advanced science center has played a key role in developing other modern technologies key to our national security.

About three years ago LANL’s Bioscience Division started working on small projects in algae — in New Mexico, with the Center for Excellence in Hazardous Materials Management (CEHMM), and on a DARPA project with General Atomics (full story).

LANL supercomputer simulates gulf spill spread

Los Alamos National Laboratories collaborates on a project using "Encanto," New Mexico's supercomputer, to show simulation of the Gulf Oil Spill (watch for yourself).




Spacequakes rumble near Earth

After THEMIS discovered the jets and quakes, Joachim Birn of the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico conducted a computer simulation of the rebounding process. Lo and behold, vortices appeared in good accord with THEMIS measurements (full story).




Computers show new strategies to avoid satellite collisions

Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Air Force Research Laboratory are collaborating to improve capabilities for detecting and monitoring space debris and other threats to space operations (full story).





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Labs' Research Awards Well-Deserved Honors

New Mexico's two premier national laboratories scored a "repeat" in a global competition for invention. Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories together tied their 2009 record, again winning nine prestigious R&D 100 Awards. Los Alamos took five and Sandia won four "Oscars of Innovation." This is the contest's 48th year (full story).

Lab security training facility seen as shot in the arm for local economy

The new training facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory could have a significant economic impact on the area. The $8.8 million facility, which will be completed by August of 2011, already has its first event set for September of 2011, officials say (full story).






Also in the Los Alamos Monitor:

‘Cool roofs’ coming to LANL
The roofs are part of the federal government’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Under a DOE program, the lab will be adding “cool roof” technologies — using lighter-colored roofing surfaces or special coatings to reflect the sun’s heat. The result? Less urban heat, more efficiencies, reduced cooling costs and offsetting carbon emissions. The announcement came Tuesday from U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu (full story).


D'Agostino: Los Alamos Plutonium Capability Top Priority

Testifying at the Senate Armed Services Committee's START hearing on Tuesday, July 20, 2010, National Nuclear Security Admistration chief Tom D'Agostino said upgrading Los Alamos National Laboratory's plutonium capabilities is among the agency's top priorities (full story).

Link to D’Agostino’s testimony

To subscribe to Los Alamos Report, please send an email and include the words "subscribe losalamosreport" in the body of your message; to unsubscribe, include "unsubscribe losalamosreport".

Please visit www.lanl.gov

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Labs' Research Awards Well-Deserved Honors

New Mexico's two premier national laboratories scored a "repeat" in a global competition for invention. Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories together tied their 2009 record, again winning nine prestigious R&D 100 Awards. Los Alamos took five and Sandia won four "Oscars of Innovation." This is the contest's 48th year. (Full Story)



Lab security training facility seen as shot in the arm for local economy

The training facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory will be patterned after Y-12’s National Security Complex near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and will include movable walls Photo by Los Alamos Monitor

The new training facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory could have a significant economic impact on the area. The $8.8 million facility, which will be completed by August of 2011, already has its first event set for September of 2011, officials say. (Full Story)


Also in the Los Alamos Monitor:

‘Cool roofs’ coming to LANL

The roofs are part of the federal government’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Under a DOE program, the lab will be adding “cool roof” technologies — using lighter-colored roofing surfaces or special coatings to reflect the sun’s heat. The result? Less urban heat, more efficiencies, reduced cooling costs and offsetting carbon emissions. The announcement came Tuesday from U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu. (Full Story)



(From John Fleck’s New Mexico Science Blog)

D'Agostino: Los Alamos Plutonium Capability Top Priority

NNSA Administrator, Tom D'Agostino

Testifying at the Senate Armed Services Committee's START hearing on Tuesday, July 20, 2010, National Nuclear Security Admistration chief Tom D'Agostino said upgrading Los Alamos National Laboratory's plutonium capabilities is among the agency's top priorities. (Full Story) D’Agostino’s testimony


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Nuclear weapons laboratories say “fiscal realities” weigh on U.S. arsenal

Directors of the three U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories said today they are worried the nation’s fiscal troubles and a lack of political consensus may threaten their ability to maintain the stockpile of warheads. (Full story)

Links to written testimony by the three lab directors (Note: link only works internally)

Senate resumes New START hearings

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee opened its 12th hearing on the New Strategic Arms Treaty Thursday by welcoming testimony from U.S. nuclear lab directors. (Full story)

Alternative nuclear fuel is surprisingly reactive

Uranium nitride, a nuclear fuel that might one day offer a more efficient alternative to the uranium and plutonium oxides now used, has been given a boost by research that has illuminated its reactive properties….

Uranium nitrides are denser and more stable, and conduct heat better than mixed uranium-plutonium oxide fuels – properties that suggest the fuels could run cooler in reactors to generate more energy, says Jaqueline Kiplinger at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Now – working with Robert Thomson and other colleagues at Los Alamos, – Kiplinger has synthesised a molecule complex that is the first known to contain just a single, isolated uranium-nitride bond. (Full story)

Elusive terminal uranium nitride found

Researchers in the US have discovered a new way to create the elusive discrete form of uranium nitride. The compound is important because its ceramic state, uranium mononitride, is a candidate for nuclear fuels of the future. (Full story)

Uranium azide photolysis results in C–H bond activation and provides evidence for a terminal uranium nitride

Uranium nitride [U≡N]x is an alternative nuclear fuel that has great potential in the expanding future of nuclear power; however, very little is known about the U≡N functionality. We show, for the first time, that a terminal uranium nitride complex can be generated by photolysis of an azide (U–N=N=N) precursor. (Full story)

Lab nabs top tech awards; LANL has won 117 of these awards since 1978

A super high speed camera. Green explosives. A way to pull fuel from algae using sound waves. Those are a few of the projects that netted five top awards for Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists. (Full story)

High-tech gizmo takes high-speed, X-ray images of explosions

Mikro, a decade-old company…in Albemarle County, grabbed a piece of the spotlight last week when a project it was a part of won a prestigious contest for new innovations. The winning gizmo, developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, is a camera that can create high-resolution, high-speed X-ray images of explosions. It was one of 100 exceptional new devices announced as winners of R&D Magazine’s R&D 100 contest. (Full story)

Governments fund pilots to test smart grid potential

Smart grid technology, bringing end-to-end intelligence to electricity supply networks to better manage demand, has caught the imagination of governments, utility companies and consumers alike, in both developed and developing countries.

...New Mexico has attracted $30 million in funding over four years from Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), along with participation of 19 Japanese companies, the State of New Mexico government, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the US Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories. (Full story)

Mathematics could be anti-terror tool

U.S. researchers say those fighting the war on terrorism may soon have a new weapon to add to their arsenal -- mathematics….

"If you have a mathematical model that can describe the structure of a terror network -- and the model works -- then you can predict the future," says Alexander Gutfraind, a mathematician at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. (Full story)

Harry Potter exhibit opens in New Mexico

Los Alamos, N.M., is hosting the exhibit “Harry Potter’s World: Renaissance Science, Magic and Medicine” through Aug. 9. (Full story)

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