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What’s Ahead
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| From left: OSTP Director Arati Prabhakar, National Science Foundation Director Sethuraman Panchanathan, National Institute of Standards and Technology Director Laurie Locascio, and ARPA-Health Director Renee Wegrzyn discuss the president’s budget request at an event on March 13. (Image credit – The White House) |
Rollout of Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Request Continues
The Biden administration is continuing to release the details of its budget request this week after providing a general outline and highlights last Thursday. Its proposals for science agencies are broadly consistent with previous requests, with some shifts in emphasis:
- NSF: A proposed 15% increase to $11.3 billion for the National Science Foundation includes $1.2 billion for the new Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships Directorate, a nearly 30% increase that would still leave it with about a third of the budget targeted for this year in the CHIPS and Science Act.
- DOE: A proposed 9% increase to $8.8 billion for the Department of Energy Office of Science includes a 32% increase for the Fusion Energy Sciences program, which would bring its funding to just over $1 billion, in line with the target Congress has set for the program.
- NASA: A proposed 6% increase to almost $8.3 billion for the Science Mission Directorate would entail cutting the Heliophysics Division budget by 7% to $751 million. NASA is seeking $949 million for the Mars Sample Return mission and flags that the mission is facing escalating cost estimates.
- NOAA: A proposed 10% increase to $6.8 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s base budget would go in large part toward developing next-generation weather observation satellites.
- NIST: A proposed 32% increase to $1.6 billion for the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s base budget would entail doubling construction funding to $262 million. That money would help the agency tackle dire problems with facilities degradation, though it is well short of sums recommended in a recent study of the situation.
- DOD: As it seeks to brake the rapid growth of the Department of Defense’s research, development, test, and evaluation spending, the administration requests major cuts across early-stage R&D activities, including a 15% cut for basic research to $2.5 billion.
- Regional technology hubs: The administration asks Congress to fund the hub program the CHIPS and Science Act established within the Commerce Department through a special multiyear $4 billion appropriation, short of the $10 billion target set in the act.
Conference to Explore Experimental Models for Research Funding
Starting Tuesday, the National Academies is hosting a two-day conference that will explore opportunities for federal agencies to experiment with new methods for funding research and evaluating research outcomes. Examples of such experiments include a “golden ticket” mechanism that the National Science Foundation is considering piloting, which would allow individual peer reviewers to unilaterally fund grants that are not highly rated by the other reviewers, potentially allowing a wider range of promising but risky proposals to be funded. Erwin Gianchandani, the head of NSF’s new Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships, will participate in a panel discussion on challenges agencies have faced with experimentation in the past. Also participating on the panel is a former official from the newly created ARPA–Health, which similarly aims to promote high-risk, high-reward research without relying on consensus views from peer reviewers. Other sessions at the event will focus on non-governmental and international perspectives on experimentation as well as ways to institutionalize experimentation in government.
Path Cleared for NIST Research Reactor Restart
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave the National Institute of Standards and Technology the go-ahead on March 9 to restart its research reactor on its campus in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The reactor has been offline since February 2021, when an improperly secured fuel element caused a radiation release that exposed workers to elevated doses, albeit within safety limits. Although the fuel element in question was damaged and fission products had to be filtered from the reactor coolant, the facility itself was undamaged and NIST has spent much of the intervening time reinforcing its safety protocols and culture to prevent future incidents and secure NRC approval to resume operations. NIST indicated in a statement that, following some further checks, the reactor will go through low-power testing for “several weeks” before resuming science operations. When it is operating, NIST’s reactor provides about 40% of the entire U.S. capacity for neutron scattering research and typically serves more than 2,500 users annually. It is also the preeminent U.S. facility for research with “cold” neutrons. Although its cold neutron source is scheduled for an upgrade, NIST has stated it will prioritize the resumption of science operations for several months before taking the facility back offline for about a year to accommodate that work.
Draft Research Security Requirements Open for Comment
Last week, the White House opened a public comment period for a draft policy establishing minimum standards for research security programs that organizations must implement if they receive more than $50 million annually in federal science and engineering funding. The policy covers subjects such as cybersecurity, foreign travel security, and export control compliance training. For instance, it requires that organizations maintain a “disclosure and authorization requirement” for international travel tied to professional purposes such as research and conference attendance. The requirement to establish research security programs comes from a January 2021 presidential memorandum known as NSPM-33. Comments are due June 5.
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In Case You Missed It
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| A series of magnets used in Arizona State University’s Compact X-ray Light Source (CXLS), a precursor to the planned Compact X-ray Free-Electron Laser (CXFEL). (Image credit – ASU) |
NSF Funds Compact X-ray Free Electron Laser
The National Science Foundation announced last week it will contribute $91 million to construction of a Compact X-ray Free-Electron Laser (CXFEL) at Arizona State University. This room-scale instrument will be dramatically smaller than existing X-ray free electron laser facilities, which use kilometer-scale beamlines, and will be able to produce tunable attosecond x-ray pulses. ASU plans to contribute about $80 million to the project, building on a prototype device that just began operation. CXFEL is the first award NSF has made in the latest funding round of its Mid-scale Research Infrastructure-2 program, which supports projects that cost between $20 million and $100 million. The program has funded five other projects since it launched in 2020 and plans to announce additional awards in the coming months. The CXFEL project previously received $4.7 million from NSF’s Mid-scale Research Infrastructure-1 program, which supports projects costing less than $20 million as well as design studies for larger projects.
DOE-NASA Project Aims to Pave Way for Lunar Far-Side Telescope
NASA and the Department of Energy announced last week they are collaborating on an instrument called the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment–Night (LuSEE–Night), which will collect data on the radio environment on the far side of the Moon while withstanding the harsh conditions of the 14-day lunar night. The lunar far side is an attractive location for a radio telescope because there is no ionospheric interference and it is always turned away from the Earth’s constant radio traffic, potentially permitting the observation of faint emissions from the “dark” period before stars appeared in the Universe. LuSEE–Night’s primary objective will be to help determine whether such a telescope is feasible, but if circumstances are favorable it might also make breakthrough observations of its own. The idea of building a far-side radio telescope has been gaining momentum since NASA refocused its attention on the Moon under the Trump administration. LuSEE–Night will be transported by one of the commercially operated robotic landing missions the agency has been supporting as part of its broader lunar exploration agenda.
X-energy Reactor Demonstration Moving to Gulf Coast Site
The company X-energy announced this month that the demonstration nuclear power plant it is building with about $1.2 billion in Department of Energy support will no longer be located in eastern Washington State and will instead be at one of the Dow chemical company’s facilities along the Gulf of Mexico. X-energy’s reactor, known as Xe-100, uses pelletized, meltdown-resistant TRISO fuel that is cooled using high-temperature helium gas and it has a modular design allowing several 80-megawatt units to be combined in a single plant. According to the Seattle Times, X-energy and Grant County, Washington, were unable to settle on a specific site for the demonstration, which is targeted for completion in 2028, leading X-energy to move a project it was already planning with Dow to the front of the line. The Times and Power magazine report that X-energy and Grant County are still aiming to complete a reactor in the early 2030s. A second reactor demonstration project that DOE is supporting, TerraPower’s Natrium reactor in Wyoming, recently announced its completion date would be delayed by at least two years due to anticipated short supplies of the high-assay low-enriched uranium that both it and the Xe-100 will employ.
DOE Rolls Out $6 Billion Industrial Decarbonization Program
The Department of Energy launched a $6 billion Industrial Demonstrations Program last week that will support “first-of-a-kind” and “early-stage commercial-scale” projects aimed at decarbonizing energy-intensive, high-emitting industries such as steel, aluminum, and cement production. The program is part of an administration-wide industrial decarbonization push and is funded primarily through the Inflation Reduction Act with some funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Managed by the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, the new program will provide up to 50% of the total cost of each project, prioritizing efforts with the potential to spur follow-on investments in new technologies or expand the market for cleaner industrial products. Applicants are required to submit a Community Benefits Plan describing how their projects will contribute to goals such as environmental justice and equitable economic growth. Concept papers for applications are due April 21.
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Events This Week
All times are Eastern Daylight Time, unless otherwise noted. Listings do not imply endorsement.
Monday, March 13
Space Generation Advisory Council: SGx2023
(continues Tuesday)
Tuesday, March 14
Wednesday, March 15
Thursday, March 16
Friday, March 17
Monday, March 20
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Opportunities ITER Hiring for Three Top Jobs
The ITER Organization is hiring a chief scientist, a chief engineer, and a construction project leader. The three roles will work under recently appointed Director-General Pietro Barabaschi to steer ITER through its final phase of construction and into scientific operations. All three roles require an advanced degree in physics or engineering and significant technical and management experience within large-scale international projects, especially fusion or fission projects.
NIST Hiring for CHIPS Act R&D Jobs
Emerging Technologies Institute Hiring Budget Intern
The National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies Institute has an immediate opening for a data intern to contribute to a series of white papers on trends in defense science and technology funding. Applicants must be a rising junior or senior with a background in computer science or data science as well as strong writing and communications skills. The position requires approximately 10 hours of work per week and will run at least through the end of the semester. Interested applicants should email a resume and cover letter with the subject line “ETI Spring Research Intern” to Camilla Shanley at ETI@NDIA.org.
Know of an upcoming science policy event either inside or outside the Beltway? Email us at fyi@aip.org.
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