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December
27, 2001
Energy
Department Extends for Five Years Contract for
Operation of Fermilab
House Speaker Hastert Attends Signing Ceremony;
Praises DOE's Efforts
BATAVIA, ILL. -- At a signing ceremony today attended
by the Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, the
Department of Energy (DOE) extended for five years
its contract with Universities Research Association,
Inc. (URA), to manage and operate the Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory.
The new agreement is estimated to have a value
of about $1.5 billion over the term of the agreement,
depending on future funding levels. Currently
funded at approximately $307 million for fiscal
year 2002, Fermilab employs more than 2100 staff
on a 6800-acre site 35 miles west of Chicago,
Ill.
"Fermilab's unique facilities and discoveries
have helped establish our nation's international
leadership in high energy physics," Secretary
of Energy Spencer Abraham said, announcing the
extension. "This scientific leadership enhances
our national security by laying the foundation
for our understanding of nature and the possible
development of future technologies undreamed of
today."
The Universities Research Association, which operates
Fermilab for DOE, is made up of 89 member universities,
many of whom also participate in the collaborations
carrying out research using the laboratory's particle
accelerators and detectors. In all, more than
200 universities and other institutions in this
nation and abroad participate in Fermilab experimental
programs. About a third of the 2300 scientists
using these facilities are from foreign countries.
Speaker Hastert, whose congressional district
includes Fermilab, said, "This new contract
illustrates our nation's continuing commitment
to leadership in science. There is no finer example
of this than Fermilab. I would like to congratulate
the U.S. Department of Energy and the Universities
Research Association for continuing an effective
partnership that produces world-class science,
contributes to our international leadership, and
lays the foundation for future technology and
economic progress."
"This new contract continues our efforts
to more fully utilize performance management principles
in the management and oversight of our laboratories,"
DOE Chicago Operations Office Manager Marvin E.
Gunn, Jr. said. "DOE and its contractors
must work in effective partnership, using best
management practices, to assure that these world-class
research facilities fulfill their potential for
producing great science and discovery." Gunn
and URA President Frederick Bernthal signed the
new contract in a ceremony at the laboratory.
The DOE Chicago Operations Office negotiated the
new agreement and provides on-site administration
of the contract with URA for management and operation
of Fermilab through its Fermi Area Office.
Fermilab's Tevatron, recently upgraded with a
more powerful new Main Injector, is currently
the world's highest energy colliding beam accelerator.
With its newly upgraded detectors, the Collider
Detector at Fermilab (CDF) and DZero, Fermilab
is currently the world's leading high energy physics
laboratory in the search for new particles and
phenomena. Such discoveries could reveal hidden
dimensions of space and time or confirm the existence
of the proposed Higgs boson, and point the way
to realizing Einstein's dream of a unified "theory
of everything."
The Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) project
and associated facilities are currently under
construction at Fermilab. NuMI will open up a
new chapter in high energy physics research when
beams of neutrinos are directed through the earth
from the laboratory in Illinois to detectors being
constructed in a cavern in an iron mine in Sudan,
Minnesota. Very recent experiments suggest that
neutrinos may have a small amount of mass. The
new NuMI facility will examine the question of
neutrino mass and help answer many puzzling questions
in both high energy physics and astrophysics.
Fermilab is also responsible for managing and
coordinating U.S. laboratory and university efforts
to develop magnets and detectors for the Large
Hadron Collider (LHC), a large colliding beam
accelerator being built at the CERN Laboratory
in Europe. When completed in 2006, the LHC will
become the prime focus of international high energy
physics. Fermilab and other U.S. laboratories
and universities will be active participants in
the research programs there.
The massive amount of data produced by Fermilab's
new accelerators and detectors presents unique
challenges to the computer systems used by scientists
to record and analyze the events detected. In
the on-going Collider Run II, Fermilab's detectors
produce 20 megabytes of data per second that must
be managed, evaluated and stored for later detailed
analysis. Over a year, these experiments generate
enough data to fill the hard drives of 80,000
top-line home computers. This is 10 to 20 times
the data produced before Fermilab accelerators
and detectors were upgraded. Data management needs
of future facilities, such as the LHC at CERN,
will require at least 10 times greater computer
data management capabilities. Fermilab data processing
needs for current and future research are driving
development of new, cutting edge computer technologies,
which are of great potential interest in other
fields of study and to private industry.
Media Contact:
Number: PR-01-217
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