Uncertainty Marks DOE Scientists' Efforts To Adapt, As Their Labs Take On New Missions, New Objectives

The National Labs: Past, Present, and Future The Department of Energy has some 43 laboratories and weapons facilities. The nine multiprogram labs are the largest and most famous research institutions. These are the labs whose futures are being contemplated by the task force led by former Motorola Inc. chairman Robert Galvin and commissioned by Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary. (Figures are from 1993 unless otherwise stated.) Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Ill. Director: Alan Schriesheim Staff: 4,858 (1994); Budget: $425 million The laboratory has long emphasized energy research, with little defense work. According to director Schriesheim, it will place "more of a focus on outreach activities." The lab has many user facilities--containing large instruments not easily built by industry or academia, where scientists can come to do research. The coming "watershed event" for the lab, says Schriesheim, will be the opening of the Advanced Photon Source (APS), probably in 1996, a ...