November 10, 2003
The National Press Club
Remarks by Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham

Thank you all for coming.

And thanks to the National Press Club for hosting this event.

I’d like to welcome the directors of the Department of Energy’s national laboratories and the chairs of our science advisory boards who are with us today.

They play an important role advancing science at the Department of Energy, and I want to thank them for their many important contributions.

I would also like to welcome Al Trivelpiece, who led the Department’s science effort under President Reagan.

Introduction

Ask the average American to describe the mission of the Department of Energy and you are more likely to hear about oil wells and gas prices than you are about science.

That’s not surprising.

The Department of Energy makes news when oil and gas prices spike.

But the Department of Energy makes history every day because we sustain the enterprise of science – the original, innovative, and risk-taking basic research that defines our mission and our tradition.

Most Americans don’t know that the Department of Energy operates a network of national laboratories where research has led to profound breakthroughs in medicine, environmental science, biology, and physics that have transformed – and continue to transform – the way we all live.

These Department of Energy labs are a national treasure.

They are centers of scientific discovery – as witnessed by the number of Nobel Prizes and other honors they have produced – including the most recent Nobel Prize in Physics that was awarded to Alexei Abrikosov of the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago.

Dr. Abrikosov and his fellow researchers won the Nobel Prize for their research into superconductivity – a technology that will help make tomorrow’s electric power systems more reliable and efficient.

He joins Dr. Leon Lederman, who is with us today, as one of the 70 Nobel Prize winners who have been funded by the Department.

Their work is just a small example of the research being conducted by the Department of Energy that is helping to shape the future … research that requires sophisticated facilities … long range planning … and … of course … the world’s most talented scientific minds … from universities, industry, and the laboratories themselves.

But if we are to continue that kind of success we need to look to the future. So I am here today to release a 20-year roadmap for future scientific facilities. These facilities and upgrades to our current inventory will revolutionize science … and society. They are needed to extend the frontiers of science, to purse opportunities of enormous importance, and to maintain U.S. science primacy in the world.

Leading this effort at the Department of Energy is the Office of Science.

Our Office of Science funding request for fiscal year 2004 is more than $3.3 billion, and it will fund basic research for national and energy security, and to advance our knowledge and understanding of the physical sciences and areas of biological, environmental, and computational sciences.

Throughout its history, the Department of Energy has designed, constructed, and operated many of the world’s most advanced large-scale research and development facilities. The facilities are shared with the global science community and contain technologies and instruments found nowhere else on earth. Some 18,000 researchers from universities, other agencies, private industry, and foreign nations use our facilities every year.

We are the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences, accounting for approximately 40 percent of all federal funds in this area over the past decade.

This research is conducted at our national laboratories and at approximately 250 universities nationwide.

I’ve often said that the Department of Energy could just as well be named the Department of Energy and Science, given our world-class research facilities and the pivotal role we have played in supporting both basic research and technology development.

Just consider a thin slice of our legacy.

We are the heirs to the work of Enrico Fermi and Leo Szillard, who created the first controlled, continuous source of nuclear energy – and, before them, to the discoveries of Niels Bohr and others who described the atom as a nucleus with orbiting electrons, rather than a solid mass.

We are the heirs to the wizardry of Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, and many others who shaped the course of World War II and gave us a nuclear deterrent that helped prevent global conflict during the Cold War.

We are the heirs to the engineering and scientific gifts of E.O. Lawrence who designed the first machine -- his cyclotron -- to break down atomic nuclei to understand the fundamental workings of the atom.

And we are the heirs to the speculative genius of Albert Einstein, whose intuition and imagination have allowed us to describe and understand the universe in new and important ways.

Because of our concern for and work on the effects of radiation on human health, the Department of Energy built on the discovery of the basic chemistry of life by Watson and Crick and launched the Human Genome Project in 1985.

This is a proud legacy … and the tradition of funding world-class scientific research continues today with the construction of the Spallation Neutron Source that will, when completed in less than three years, provide the world’s most intense supply of neutrons for scientists to study and engineer materials.

Today, our investments in nanoscience – the science of very small things – are making the Department of Energy a leader in a global scientific effort that will give us the ability to build new and better materials from the molecular level.

It was science like this that brought us discoveries like Kevlar, silicon chips, and flat-screen TVs.

Imagine an aircraft wing that repairs itself or an automobile frame twice the strength and half the weight of current models.

Nanoscience could lead to tremendous energy savings, vastly more efficient solar cells, engines the size of atoms working everywhere, including within our own bodies, and artificial retinas that can help the blind to see.

The Department of Energy is home to some of the world’s fastest computers, and they are getting faster every day.

Today we measure computers in teraflops, or the ability to perform trillions of operations in a second.

Our supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore lab has a peak performance of 12 teraflops.

That means it is capable of 12 million-million operations in one second, something that would take your handheld calculator 342,000 years to accomplish.

There is no real way to measure the competitive advantage this kind of computing power can give us.

At each stage along the process of discovery, America’s economy grows stronger, with new tools to improve human health, generate new industries, improve our everyday lives, or boost efficiency – the things that help give our nation its competitive edge.

And we need science to maintain that competitive edge – especially in high technology, which every day becomes more central to our economy.

But the competitive advantage that comes to us through America’s scientific enterprise goes well beyond that.

If we build the required facilities and equipment, and support the large laboratories that accelerate discovery, America is assured of remaining the world’s center of scientific research for many years to come.

This is where the world will want to come to explore the future.

This is where the world will want to come to do science.

Facilities for the Future of Science

If we want to remain the focal point of scientific discovery, we must look to the future.

And that is why I am here today.

Today, I am pleased to announce the Department of Energy’s 20-year plan for building the scientific research facilities of the future.

It is our plan to keep the United States at the scientific frontier.

Nothing of this scope has ever been attempted by our Department, or indeed by any other science agency in government.

We are not only planning two decades out, but we are prioritizing our facility needs across all fields of science supported by the Department of Energy.

In the 21st Century, the health and vitality of U.S. science and technology will depend upon the availability of the most advanced research facilities.

Not only because science today is so complex, but because science now requires that chemists, physics, biologists … that all fields of science … work together. The facilities we propose today will bring the sciences under one roof and give researchers the tools they need to work their wonders.

Let me discuss the way we made our decisions and give you some flavor of the enormous benefits we see flowing from these new projects.

The process we followed was transparent and interdisciplinary.

The Associate Directors of our six science divisions – Basic Energy Sciences, Fusion Energy Sciences, High Energy Physics, Nuclear Physics, Advanced Scientific Computating, and Biological and Environmental Sciences – were asked to list in rank order the major facilities necessary to maintain world scientific leadership in their programs over the next 20 years.

Some 46 facilities were identified in this process.

This list was then submitted to the respective programs’ Advisory Committees, which are composed of top scientists from universities, industry, and our laboratories.

We asked these committees to analyze the scientific importance of each proposed facility and to add or subtract as they saw fit.

The appetite for new facilities grew, and a total of 53 new projects were recommended.

Then came the hard part.

The Director of our Office of Science, Raymond Orbach, reviewed these proposals, ordered them across disciplines, and recommended 28 be considered for funding over a 20-year planning horizon.

This may appear unilateral, but the selection was informed by the best minds in all the affected fields.

And, frankly, the alternative of decision by committee was not acceptable, because committees … despite their best efforts … are notorious for delivering compromise documents that too often settle on the lowest common denominator.

This effort has been endorsed by the directors of our science laboratories, who understand the importance of modern facilities for future scientific discovery.

In addition, the Task Force on the Future of Science at the Department of Energy, which was established at my direction and is chaired by Dr. Charles Vest, President of MIT, has praised this effort in its recent report.

It is gratifying that this effort has received support from those who understand the enterprise of science best.

This list of facilities is driven by science and the Department of Energy mission, nothing else.

Our criteria were straightforward: Which facilities are most important for Department of Energy science over the next two decades, taking into account whether the prospects for construction were in the near, mid, or far-term?

Clearly, this document has implications for the budget. But it is not a budget document.

It will be up to Congress and the Administration to determine how much to spend on science and on new scientific facilities and to balance them against other national priorities.

Once that decision is made, however, we owe it to the American taxpayers to demonstrate that we have thoroughly evaluated what sequence of investment we believe best for the science we do at DOE.

Let me stress one point here.

We believe this list of 28 facilities outlines to an important extent the future of science in America – and indeed the world.

These facilities cover the critical areas where discoveries can transform our energy future, boost economic productivity, transform our understanding of biology, and provide revolutionary new tools to deal with disease.

They can make major and necessary contributions to national security – and give us the ability to understand matter at its most fundamental level.

They can also do something else. They can surprise us.

The unexpected benefits of work on at these research facilities will lead us in directions we cannot even imagine.

And we are looking down the road far enough to the time when facilities that are now under construction, such as the Spallation Neutron Source, will need enhancements.

That is the purpose of this list – to look into the future and to be prepared.

And as with all our existing facilities, any new projects we undertake will benefit a wide spectrum of scientists … and will profit from close cooperation with other agencies.

So, let me now profile some of our top priorities … a set of facilities that not only represent tremendous opportunities, but demonstrate the breath of the science encompassed by the Department.

The full list of facilities, with descriptions of the benefits each may deliver and how they are grouped in a near, mid and long-term time frame, is contained in the booklet we have made available today. I urge you to review it to understand the full scope of this effort.

First on our list is fusion. The prospect of a limitless source of clean energy for the world leads with our commitment to join the international fusion energy experiment known as ITER.

This is a Presidential priority with enormous potential. Successful negotiations among the international partners will lead to the first-ever fusion science experiment capable of producing a self-sustaining fusion reaction.

If we reach agreement, ITER will be our top facility.

Next on the list is our desire to regain global leadership in areas of supercomputing that many believe we have lost. Japan’s new Earth Simulator machine is a remarkable achievement. It has the computing power of the 20 fastest U.S. computers – combined.

The Japanese are to be congratulated for launching a new era in scientific computing, but the U.S. must be part of this era.

We can create new computer architectures that can boost computing power by 100 times over current machines.

Such an achievement will give scientists the ability to simulate complex reactions as never before – and give industry the ability to virtually prototype everything from new aircraft engines, to super-efficient auto bodies, thus saving hundreds of millions of dollars.

Scientific computation deserves the kind of serious attention we believe our facilities list gives it.

We will also look at advancing our lead in light sources.

The Linac Coherent Light Source would provide x-ray brightness that is 10 billion times greater than current light sources.

That would allow researchers, for the first time, to create real-time images of chemical reactions at the atomic scale, leading us to far greater understanding of how our bodies work – indeed, how virtually all materials are put together.

As I already mentioned, the Department of Energy launched the human genome project nearly 20 years ago in our effort to understand how radiation affects cells at the most fundamental level.

The Protein Production and Tags Facility can help us build on these discoveries and make a huge contribution to our Genomes to Life Program.

We are now taking the insights from that project to create microbes that do everything from making hydrogen, to sequestering carbon dioxide, to accelerating environmental clean up.

The Protein Production and Tags Facility will join the Molecular Machines Facility to help create a facility to mass-produce tens of thousands of proteins a year, code them by their DNA, and make them available to researchers around the country.

Using current methods, it is virtually impossible for us to understand the thousands of proteins that make up the microbes we want to put to work for our energy mission. But these facilities, together, will speed this process dramatically, and give energy and medical science powerful new tools.

The Rare Isotope Accelerator can help us understand how everything from the cosmos to heavy elements were formed.

It would allow our scientists to learn how the chemical elements that make up the world around us were developed, help us develop new nuclear medicine techniques, and improve our ability to model the explosions of nuclear weapons.

This project would be a major addition to the Department’s nuclear physics program and make a major contribution to stockpile stewardship.

The Joint Dark Energy Mission, a space-based probe to be developed with NASA, will help us understand one of the greatest mysteries in science today – why the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.

By placing a new wide-angle telescope in space, researchers will be able to see farther back in the evolution of the universe to help unravel this strange thing called dark energy … a force that is apparently working against gravity to speed up the expansion of the universe.

As we look out into this expanding universe, we are also thinking of how best to understand the materials that make up our day-to-day world.

A new generation of electron microscope can help us study how atoms combine to form materials, and how materials respond to external factors such as electric fields.

This new instrument, the Transmission Electron Achromatic Microscope or TEAM, will help us design lighter, more efficient materials for everything from automobiles to advanced fuel cells.

In addition to launching new projects such as these, we are also planning important upgrades to existing facilities.

Improvements to our energy sciences computer network – what we call E. S. Net – which links researchers around the country to our laboratories and research facilities, will allow us to accommodate the huge demand for this network.

E.S. Net puts the power and capability for our investment in light sources and accelerators literally at the researcher’s desktop.

To keep up with the demand, and the technology that improves virtually by the day, we need to upgrade our network.

And upgrades to facilities, such as the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator, would essentially create new facilities by applying advanced technology to our current stock of powerful research machines.

The upgrade to this accelerator, located at Thomas Jefferson Lab, will double its power and apply advanced computing power to help us explain the properties of one of the strangest particles yet discovered – the Quark.

From the very large, with new pictures of how our universe evolved, to the very small, with insights into the structure of the nucleus, the facilities we are proposing will secure American pre-eminence in science for the better part of the 21st Century.

Conclusion

What I have discussed today is just a snapshot of the detailed roadmap we have drawn for our major science projects over the next two decades.

We recognize that, from time to time, this prioritized list should be re-examined in light of discoveries in science that may offer new opportunities we cannot imagine today.

But that should not be done casually.

The American taxpayers deserve to see how we would invest their money over the next 20 years.

More than that, the public deserves to know what our priorities will be over that time period.

They need to see that decisions of this magnitude are made after serious thought, and that their government can commit to long-range planning.

We believe this list of 28 science facilities fulfills that responsibility.

Indeed, we think it is the cornerstone for the future of critical fields of science in America.

Now, I can’t tell precisely how or when the projects and research I’ve discussed today might uncover deep mysteries of science or deliver immediate practical benefits.

But that’s the beauty of science.

It can have so many unexpected outcomes.

But even if we knew our search for Dark Energy or our particle physics research would have no direct impact on our every day lives, we still would want to go forward.

We would want to go forward, because we want to know why the universe and our planet act the way they do.

We do basic research to understand.

And many times that’s justification enough.

But we also want to go forward because that is what a great nation does.

It explores.

It attempts to know and to understand.

Some people have told me it would be hard to explain why the Department of Energy’s basic scientific research is so important. I haven’t found that to be the case. Everyone understands that investments in science produce benefits for our lives.

And I think everyone is curious. Discoveries like Dark Energy lead to deeper mysteries that, themselves, compel us to continue our search -- even when we know the search is not in any normal sense practical.

To be sure, no one knows what field of science, or what potential new science machine, will produce the next big discovery.

But we can be certain of one thing. There will be a big discovery. A solitary genius, or a group of scientists from a half dozen fields working together, will take some step, apply some test, seek some insight, that will inevitably lead beyond their expectations to a result as unexpected as it is wonderful.

All we are doing is giving them the tools … and the freedom … to work these mysteries out.

And we don’t insist on results on some time scale … basic research doesn’t work that way.

We expect only that science will employ the traditions of inquiry and curiosity that extend in a straight line from today’s Nobel Prize winner directly back to Aristotle.

I believe the blueprint we have presented today will allow that tradition to grow and prosper. And it will provide the foundation for the next generation of scientists to work their wonders.

Thank you.