Biographical Data Martin Blume is Deputy Director of Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY. He received his bachelor's degree from Princeton and his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Harvard. He has been at Brookhaven since 1962 and was appointed Deputy Director in 1984. He is a member of the Committee on Materials Science and Engineering, which is preparing a report on the status of Materials Science and Engineering in the United States. He received the E.0. Lawrence Award for physics in 1981 for his research in theoretical solid state physics. STATEMENT OF DR. DANNY L. HARTLEY, VICE PRESIDENT, ENERGY PROGRAMS, SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES, ALBUQUERQUE, NM Dr. HARTLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our energy programs involve approximately 1,000 FTE's at Sandia out of our total of 8,250 people. Although we are generally considered to be a defense lab, I am sure that you will agree that a commitment of 1,000 quality recruited scientists, engineers and support staff is a significant commitment to energy programs. Our energy programs also cover the gamut from BES to fossil conservation, nuclear waste disposal, renewables and solar. Because of our Bell Laboratories ethos and our Bell Labs leadership, we built our energy programs in a coordinate, mission oriented way. We find a central theme and we build on our strengths around that theme. This has been especially true for our BES programs. As a result, we found our niche with BES in material sciences and chemical sciences and geosciences and in applied math. These have been world class activities that we are very proud of, and much of the scientific product has moved through technology programs at Sandia and have been subsequently transferred to industry. The material sciences are focused on scientifically tailored materials. This award-winning talent combines our skills in solid state sciences, atomic level diagnostics, and materials processing sciences to produce new, tailored materials for the U.S. energy industry, the electronics industry and for defense. Sandia's strained-layer superlattice technology, for example, has already been applied at companies such as Hughes Aircraft and Northrup Corporation. Superlattice has also promised to provide the basis for photovoltaic cells with sunlight conversion conversion efficiency of over 30 percent. Two weeks ago we also announced our success in synthesizing a new thallium-containing ceramic superconductor which loses its resistivity at 120 degrees. This is significantly above the nominal 90 degree barrier that was announced recently by several other researchers. To enhance even more our technology transfer efforts in the materials science area, we will be relocating much of our BES materials program into a new building, the Integrated Materials Research Laboratory which is being funded by the Defense Programs. This facility is adjacent to our Integrated Circuit Research Laboratory that Dr. Zucker referred to earlier as such a beautiful, magnificent facility. The combination of those facilities we will be using to form a microelectronics research park so industries can have access to those terrific facilities. Incidentally, the clean-room technology that all of that is built on was an invention of Sandia Laboratories a few decades ago. In chemical sciences, our entire focus is on combustion science in our Combustion Research Facility, the CRF, at Sandia-Livermore. This facility applies advanced methods, lasers, computers, to solve energy-related combustion problems. Over 90 percent of our energy and virtually all of our air pollution comes through a combustion process and those are typically 1950's technology. It shouldn't be surprising that industry worldwide is recognizing the need for improved combustion science. The CRF has become pre-eminent in that field, yet it is relatively small. Only 40 professional staff are at Sandia. During 1988 we will have over 850 scientists join us in research at the CRF; 75 of those are long-term resident scientists from outside including representatives from General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Cummins, Navistar, Exxon, Unocal, General Electric, Weyerhaeuser, and Lennox, to give you a few examples, and from several universities all across the United States. In addition to helping industry with many of their specific problems, CRF staff discovered a remarkable chemical process called RAPRENOX for removing nitrogen Oxides from combustion gases. This discovery has received worldwide acclaim, and the inventor has set up his own business with major industry support to commercialize the process. In the case of RAPRENOX, BES supported the fundamental work leading to its discovery, and the DOE conservation engine combustion program, colocated at the CRF, supported the developmental studies in research engines that created a level of confidence that attracted the industry funding. Mr. VALENTINE. Dr. Hartley, let me just ask you if you will suspend for a few minutes. We must be getting close to 10 minuteswe have a vote. I apologize for that, but if we don't go over and vote when we have the opportunity some folks will hold that against us. Dr. HARTLEY. I understand. Mr. VALENTINE. We will be back in a few minutes. [A brief recess was taken.] Mr. VALENTINE. The Subcommittee will come to order. Before we get far into the testimony Mr. Morrison will be along soon. Dr. Hartley, will you proceed. Dr. HARTLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope that you will take my word for it that I have managed to convince you of the wonderful science that we are doing in materials and in the combustion area with a considerable amount of technology transfer. When we had to discontinue, I was discussing our Combustion Research Facility at Livermore, which is a true paradigm of a valuable energy-related user facility in this country. In order to maintain our leadership role in combustion and meet our DOE program needs, we ask that our construction project, which is CRF Phase II in the budget be carried to completion. CRF II was proposed to DOE in 1984. DOE had it as high priority including cross-office support from managers in fossil energy and conservation as well as BES. We also received extensive peer review and peer endorsement in 1986, and have been funded in fiscal year 1987 and 1988 by Congressional initiative. Our geoscience program is, in many ways, similar to our combustion program. You combine a solid BES-supported program in geosciences with major geotechnical responsibilities for many DOE program areas. Characterization of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, geotechnical evaluations of both the defense and commercial nuclear waste repositories, seismic verification technologies for de fense and lead geoscience roles in geothermal, oil, oil shale and gas programs. Technology transfer accomplishments abound in our geoscience and our geotechnology programs. A few recent examples are a downhole seismic source and an anelastic strain recovery system that were developed by BES geophysics sponsorship at Sandia and were first fielded by our DOE geotechnology programs with fossil energy and with renewables. These are now being used successfully in joint programs with industry, for example, Amoco, Phillips and British Petroleum. To enhance the vital linkage between geoscience and geotechnology, we have recommended to DOE a Geoscience Research Park in Sandia-Albuquerque. This user facility, operated like the CRF, has been submitted as an Office of Energy Research-funded facility. The initial phase is a Geoscience Research Laboratory an Simulation Facility that would unite our efforts and make these accessible to visiting scientists. Finally, our efforts in mathematics for BES are young, but have focused on massively parallel computation. Last week we announced our significant accomplishment in running a custom built parallel system composed of 1,024 processors. We achieved a computational speed up of over 1,000 which allowed this small system to out perform the latest supercomputers at one-tenth the cost. In summary, we believe that our BES programs have benefitted from Sandia's management style, our high quality staff, from our mission orientation. Our facilities, both existing and planned, are designed to advance science, make an impact in their field, get the results to industry and to improve our linkage with our peer community. We hope that you will continue to support these efforts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [The prepared statement of Dr. Hartley follows:] The Value of Basic Energy Science in the National Laboratories Submitted to: The Subcommittee on Energy Research and Development of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee The Honorable Marilyn Lloyd, Chairwoman Submitted by: Danny L. Hartley, Vice President SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES Albuquerque, New Mexico March 23, 1988 |