LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY

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Site Budget

FY 2024 Enacted FY 2025 Request FY 2025 House Bill
287,479 275,232 275,232

(LANL Defense Environmental Cleanup and Los Alamos Excess Facilities D&D. Amounts in thousands of dollars. Click here for the latest site budget.)

Jessica Kunkle

Manager, Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office

CLEANUP ISSUES

    • Transuranic and Solid Waste Disposition

    • Soil and Groundwater Remediation

    • Facility Deactivation and Decommissioning

  • In March 2022, the Office of Environmental Management released a Strategic Vision for 2022-2032.

    Planned Cleanup Scope 2022–2032

    Over the coming decade, DOE will focus on addressing the groundwater contamination plumes, processing TRU waste stored aboveground, and retrieving belowground TRU waste for disposal. DOE will continue work to complete disposition of LANL TRU waste currently in storage at the Waste Control Specialists (WCS) commercial disposal site in Texas. Development of alternatives is ongoing.

    The full LANL Strategic Vision is available here.

Laboratory Missions

  • Deterrence and Stockpile Stewardship

    Los Alamos is the design agency for four systems in the stockpile, including:

    • B61 gravity bomb, deployed to a variety of strategic and tactical aircraft

    • W78, carried by U.S. Air Force’s Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles

    • W76 and W88, carried by U.S. Navy’s Trident missile submarines

    Protecting Against Nuclear Threats

    The Laboratory exercises its unique capabilities and expertise in nonproliferation, counterproliferation, and counterterrorism to prevent the unwanted dissemination and/or use of nuclear technology. In addition, Los Alamos National Laboratory maintains a highly specialized operational team that is trained and prepared for all phases of nuclear emergency response.

    Emerging Threats and Opportunities

    The Laboratory works in close collaboration with the Intelligence Community and the U.S. military to provide cutting-edge technology aimed to combat small-scale, intense conflict. An important focus of this effort is the discovery and identification of emerging, state-of-the-art technologies with the potential to increase our technological advantage and to provide the nation with an overwhelming strategic advantage over its adversaries.

  • Energy Security Solutions

    Los Alamos has three main areas of focus in energy security:

    • Safe and sustainable nuclear energy

    • Materials and concepts for clean energy

    • Mitigating impacts of global energy demand growth

    LANL scientists and engineers have expertise and perform research in a range of energy areas:

    • Fuel cells

    • Hydrogen storage & production

    • Hydrogen safety codes and standards

    • Carbon sequestration

    • Unconventional fossil fuels

    • Carbon dioxide separation & capture

    • Superconductivity

    • Infrastructure analysis

    • Solid state lighting

    • Biofuels

    • Energy storage

    • Geothermal energy

    • Nuclear reactor design

    • Nuclear fuels development

    • Material behavior under irradiation

    • Nuclear waste management and disposal

    • Environmental impacts of energy systems

Nuclear Energy Projects

  • Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), and NuScale Power entered into a teaming agreement to investigate the viability of developing the Carbon Free Power Project. UAMPS' participating partners are the project owners. Nuscale is the developer of the small modular reactor technology. UAMPS' participating partners expect to allow other entities to subscribe power through Power Purchase Agreements.

    Of the 46 municipal and cooperative utilities that comprise UAMPS, 28 members have subscribed power from the CFPP and make the decisions regarding UAMPS’ involvement. Los Alamos Department of Public Utilities is one of these members and is subscribed for 1.8 megawatts.

  • In February 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced its plans to build a Versatile Test Reactor, or VTR. Once built, the research community will be able to leverage VTR’s high neutron flux to test nuclear materials 10 times faster than what is currently capable today.

    VTR will:

    • Modernize DOE’s essential nuclear energy research and development infrastructure.

    • Accelerate the development of advanced nuclear fuels, materials, instrumentation, and sensors.

    • Reestablish the United States as a global leader in nuclear science and innovation.

    • Support the nation’s goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

    The VTR project is led by Idaho National Laboratory in partnership with five national laboratories (Argonne, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest, and Savannah River) and includes a host of industry and university partners.

Manhattan Project National Historical Park

  • In Los Alamos, New Mexico, Manhattan Project administrators found an ideal location for the secret laboratory where they designed and built the world’s first atomic weapons. During the Manhattan Project, Los Alamos became the home to many of the top scientific minds of the day: Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Norris Bradbury, Richard Feynman, Hans Bethe, and many more luminaries. These scientists worked together to develop the theoretical and experimental tests that created the first atomic weapons, using enriched uranium from Oak Ridge and plutonium from Hanford. Today, the nucleus of this once-secret city is still Los Alamos National Laboratory, though you’ll find plenty of historic and cultural resources to explore as well.

 
Photo courtesy of Energy.gov

Photo courtesy of Energy.gov

Updated August 2022.
Information in this profile is sourced from DOE, NNSA, and the site’s online resources.