The U.S. Department of Energy's
(DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has received an additional $29.1 million
in DOE Office of Science (SC) funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act for a range of improvements and upgrades to major scientific facilities
and other projects.
University of Chicago scientist Rafael Jaramillo and Argonne scientist Yejun Feng study the element chromium at the Advanced Photon Source, one of the Argonne facilities to be upgraded with funds from the Recovery Act.
The new funds come in addition to an earlier $15.1 million in Recovery Act
funds provided for laboratory infrastructure modernization and $99 million in
Recovery Act money provided by DOE's Office of Environmental Management for
clean-up and remediation of legacy nuclear waste and facilities. The new funds
bring Argonne’s total Recovery Act funding to date to more than $140 million.
"These new initiatives will help to create new jobs while allowing the
U.S. to maintain its scientific leadership and economic competitiveness,"
said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "The projects provide vital funding and
new tools for research aimed at strengthening America’s energy security
and tackling some of science’s toughest challenges."
Approximately $7.9 million will be used to upgrade equipment and acquire and
install new detectors at the Advanced Photon Source (APS). The APS is a national
synchrotron X-ray research facility supported by SC’s Office of Basic
Energy Sciences. The APS provides the brightest X-ray beams in the Western Hemisphere
and is used annually by nearly 3,500 scientists conducting advanced research
in energy, materials science and other fields.
About $8.9 million of the Recovery Act funds will be used for upgrades at the
Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS), a national user facility supported
by the SC’s Office of Nuclear Physics (NP). ATLAS is a superconducting
linear accelerator for heavy ions used by scientists to study the atomic nucleus
and to understand the processes by which heavier elements—those with an
atomic number greater than iron—are formed within stars.
In addition, the new Recovery Act funding includes the following:
- $3.8 million for equipment upgrades at Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale
Materials, one of five Nanoscale Science Research Centers supported by SC’s
Office of Basic Energy Sciences and located at national laboratories around
the nation;
- $3.8 million for advanced research on particle detector technology, supported
by SC’s Office of High Energy Physics;
- $220,000 for NP’s U.S. Nuclear Data Program to enhance the program’s
efforts to compile, evaluate and disseminate experimental nuclear data for
use in basic research and as a resource for a variety of applied programs
such as reactor technology and national security.
Finally, Argonne has been allocated $4.5 million in Recovery Act funds from
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, part of $60 million provided to upgrade
equipment for the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility
(ACRF). The funds will be used to improve observational capabilities related
to cloud and aerosol properties to study the critical role that these phenomena
play in regional climate and atmospheric circulation changes. The ACRF, supported
by SC’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research, is a collaboration
of nine national laboratories, including Argonne.