Argonne moves from nuclear roots

The institution credited with moving the world into the nuclear age is scaling back the program that first brought it fame.

Officials with Argonne National Laboratory announced Friday they will end experimental work involving significant quantities of nuclear material at the facility near Darien.

The lab will continue research using small amounts of nuclear material, sized less than a gram, officials said.

The decision was some months in the making. In July, Argonne leaders temporarily suspended work on larger quantities of nuclear material after concerns about the work environment where experiments were being conducted.

"These were very old facilities and we had modern compliance issues," said lab Director Robert Rosner, adding, "No one was endangered."

The cost of upgrading the facility with updated ventilation, equipment and fire prevention systems was too prohibitive, officials said.

Argonne scientists will continue experiments with larger amounts of nuclear material at the government's Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina. One project researchers have focused on is how to extract elements of interest to terrorists, such as plutonium, from spent nuclear fuel so it can be stored more safely.

The lab also will continue to store some nuclear materials necessary for research.

Argonne, established in 1946, is America's first national lab. It grew out of the Manhattan Project where scientists at the University of Chicago led by Enrico Fermi created the first controlled nuclear chain reaction.

With new areas such as nanotechnology emerging, nuclear science is just one of many disciplines studied at the lab now. Still, Rosner acknowledged it was a difficult decision.

"Argonne used to be the place where this work was done. We had a number of nuclear reactors, and they're all closed down now," Rosner said.

When asked what Fermi's reaction would be, Rosner said, "I think he'd see it as a natural evolution."

Argonne's budget is about $500 million with the nuclear program taking up more than $20 million and $3 million going to the discontinued portion.

Argonne is operated by the University of Chicago for the U.S. Department of Energy.