Where Left Is Right / The Old Site

Once you start to scratch the surface of almost anything the executive branch does nowadays, you find at least tentative evidence of mis- or malfeasance.

Something about the Idaho Falls story I posted on the other day didn't feel right. It wasn't just the usual worries about bad stuff like plutonium, the inability of government to carry through on its wishful-thinking promises, and so on -- although all that was bad enough. It has nothing to do with the technical or environmental merits or otherwise of using Plutonium 238; it has nothing to do with the bureaucratic case for or against consolidating Pu238 production at a single facility. No, what triggered my internal alarm bells was simply the size and duration of the project. If there's anything the misAdministration's normal way of doing business has taught us, it's that big -- expensive -- contracts tend to the dubious end of the respectability scale.

So I started to poke around a little. I'll dig deeper into this in the next few days. What follows, though, is what I've got so far.

Disclaimer: While I have had some training as a journalist, I haven't done anything like this since I was in college, 30 years ago. I've got no "informed sources," anonymous or otherwise, to feed me answers to my questions -- let alone to volunteer answers to questions I haven't thought to ask. Basically I expect to just wander around the Internet some, to see (as the saying goes) what there is to see.

The Idaho National Laboratory (INL)

While I've been referring to the DOE's Idaho location by way of the town in which it's located, Idaho Falls, it's formally known as the Idaho National Laboratory, or INL. That's the name by which I'll refer to it henceforth.

The INL Web site appears to be pretty straightforward -- and, surprisingly to me, apparently pretty open. Online are various information resources about the work of the INL and so on, even including handy driving directions to the various specific facilities there. Google Maps, Mapquest, and Terraserver all claim that there's no match to any of the exact addresses provided on the INL contacts page, but -- based on the driving directions -- here's an aerial photo of the general area. (Note the coy blurring of the image on the east -- and relevant -- side of the river.)

So I was wandering around the INL Web site, when I came across a press release dated February 1, 2005:

Battelle Energy Alliance Assumes Management of the New Idaho National Laboratory

Today, the Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (BEA) assumed the management and operational responsibility for the new Idaho National Laboratory, following a transition period lasting nearly three months.

On November 9, 2004, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded BEA a $4.8 billion, 10 year contract to transform the Idaho facility into the “preeminent” national nuclear energy laboratory.

BEA is owned by the Battelle Memorial Institute. Team members include BWXT Services Inc. of Lynchburg, VA; Washington Group International of Boise, ID; the Electric Power Research Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Idaho National Laboratory will combine the currently existing research and development components of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory-West.

[etc.]

Here are a couple of the people quoted in the release:

• (Now former) U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham

• William D. Magwood IV, Director of the Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology for the U.S. Department of Energy

The news release concludes:

One of the laboratory’s major tasks will be to lead an international research and development effort to create advanced nuclear energy technology. The technology initiative is focused on delivering a modern, economically viable, environmentally responsible and technically achievable nuclear energy option to provide for our country’s electrical demand. It is also focused on using nuclear energy to produce hydrogen as a transportation fuel reducing the nation’s dependence on imported fossil fuel. This work supports the President’s National Hydrogen Fuel Initiative and is an important element in the development of a clean and efficient hydrogen economy in the United States.

The laboratory will also lead the establishment of the Center for Advanced Energy Studies (CAES), a collaborative effort between the State of Idaho, the laboratory and universities in Idaho and across the country. This center will bring academia into the life of the laboratory in a substantive way and provide students and professors access to the laboratory’s unique capabilities. Through this center, the INL will become a nationally and internationally recognized focal point in the advancement of education in energy science and technology.

The CAES mentioned in the last paragraph was formally "inaugurated" a few weeks ago, on June 1. Participating in the ceremony were Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne and the current Energy Secretary, one Samuel Bodman (who earlier this year replaced Spencer Abraham).

Next:

• What on earth is the Battelle Energy Alliance? what's the Battelle Memorial Institute, which owns BEA? and who are the other "team members" mentioned in the press release?
  
• Who are all these people?