BusinessTN

When automaker Volkswagen announced plans for a billion-dollar manufacturing plant in Chattanooga, the news made headlines statewide. Ditto with announcements by both Wacker Chemie and Hemlock Semiconductor regarding billion-dollar projects planned in Bradley and Montgomery counties, respectively. Yet, no such headlines appeared in January following the official announcement by Oak Ridge National Lab that the Department of Energy had given the green light to a billion-dollar expansion of the Spallation Neutron Source.

No doubt the spalling of neutrons for scientific research is a bit more esoteric than the making of cars or solar panels. Nevertheless, the economic impact on the state is just as real. In fact, the impact of this current expansion stands to be as big or bigger than the original $1.4 billion SNS project that came online in 2006 because it will be completely managed and operated out of Oak Ridge, and not in partnership with other federal labs.

Why now? As ORNL director Thom Mason explains, research space is already getting scarce. "We've been allocating beam lines and will have filled up the first target station by 2014 or 2015," Mason says. "It takes a long time to build this, so if you're going to have the capability to continue to grow the use of SNS, you need to get started on it now."

"Spallation" is a German prospecting term referring to what happens when you hit a rock with a hammer and fragments fly off in all directions. That's essentially how SNS makes neutrons. Only its hammer is the billion-volt proton that comes out the end of an accelerator. And when a billion-volt proton hits just about anything (in SNS's case, a target made of neutron-rich mercury), it knocks out neutrons.

SNS's visiting scientists are interested in neutrons because they are interested in the materials that things are made out of--like polymers for use in plastics or proteins--and how they work in the body for the development of drugs. In all such cases, the materials behave the way they do because of their atomic structure. Neutron scattering provides not snapshots but movies of a structure,
revealing how the atoms are arranged and how they move around. That information can be used to make materials cheaper, stronger, lighter or more energy efficient in products common to most every household and experience--cars, computers, etc.

Neutron scattering is also helpful in the pursuit of energy solutions. "With most energy problems, when you peel away the layers, you find there are materials problems underneath," Mason says. "That should position us well."

The expansion also likely ensures Tennessee's continued global dominance in the field of neutron science. A European consortium is discussing a five-megawatt facility (SNS at full power will be 1.4 megawatts), but building such a facility will require a multi-country consortium to cooperate long enough to fund it. That's unlikely.

"We've got a big head start, even if they do get going with a European Neutron Source," Mason says. "At the moment, no one in sight is going to eclipse us. There's no reason we can't stay out in front for decades." Harriet Kung, DoE associate director of science for Basic Energy Sciences, echoes Mason's confidence, saying approval of the expansion "reflects the department's commitment to securing and expanding the nation's leadership position in neutron science."

That's newsworthy.