ABSTRACT
Introduction .................................................................................................. 459 DOE’s National Laboratories ....................................................................... 460 Cold War Role of the Nuclear Weapons Labs ............................................ 463
Impact of the End of the Cold War ................................................... 465 National Nuclear Security Administration ................................................. 466 Diversifying the Work of the National Laboratories.................................. 467 Creating a Role for the National Laboratories ........................................... 468 The National Laboratories and Homeland Security — Present and Future ..................................................................................................... 470 Acknowledgment .......................................................................................... 471 References ...................................................................................................... 472
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) operates an extensive system of national laboratories. These world-class facilities are staffed by some of the best scientists and engineers in the nation. These laboratories provide a broad gamut of technical services ranging from basic research and development to highly applied national security work. The national labs were created to serve a variety of purposes. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and the Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) are primarily responsible for the military use of nuclear energy. These three laboratories are administered by DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Idaho National Laboratory was created to develop nuclear reactor technology, particularly for naval applications. Ten other laboratories are
overseen by DOE’s Office of Science. These laboratories conduct studies across an astonishing range of science and technology including, for example, biological and genome research, chemistry and materials science, climatology, computing, energy, environmental sciences, geoscience, high-energy physics, nanotechnology, and nuclear medicine and physics. Still other national labs are focused on specific aspects of energy research and environmental restoration. The location of each national lab and its administrative office within DOE is shown in Figure 14.1.
