EES Initiatives Development Activities

EES is in an unusual position within LANL in that it does not receive a significant amount of its overall funding from NNSA Defense Programs (DP), unlike much of LANL. This means that program development is an extremely important part of EES strategic planning. The EES Division Leadership Team (DLT), which is composed of the group leaders and deputy leaders, major program managers, and Science and Engineering Leadership Team (described earlier in this section of this report) devotes part of its planning to the identification of emerging research areas. Some of these emerging research areas are designated as “thrusts” for EES and resources (people and money) are devoted to developing these into bona fide programs.

Programmatic Initiatives

CARBON CYCLES

Our carbon thrust is an new environmental approach to the use of fossil fuels that recognizes the challenge of reducing the intensity of greenhouse-gas emissions (particularly CO2) while sustaining economic growth.

HOMELAND SECURITY

The division's close liaison with the Center for Homeland Security makes possible the Laboratory's rapid response to requests for technologies that serve emerging homeland security needs.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS EFFECTS

The NWE thrust is a Labwide effort involving the Earth and Environmental Sciences, Engineering Sciences and Applications, Decision Analysis, Theoretical, Nonproliferation and International Security, and Applied Theoretical and Computational Physics divisions

All regimes of NWE are included in current program-planning efforts, including weapon outputs, NWE in solid earth, low-altitude atmospheric effects, and high-altitude and space effects

Capabilities that EES specifically brings to bear on NWE include geophysics, geology, high-performance computing, and atmospheric sciences.

WATER

Our water thrust applies EES Division's capabilities in innovative ways, in order to solve critical water supply and water quality issues.