from October 1, 2003, News-Sentinel

original URL:
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/opinion_columnists/article/0,1406,KNS_364_2311543,00.html

Clock always runs fast in world of supercomputers

By Frank Munger
October 1, 2003

In 1995, Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Intel Paragon was the world's fastest supercomputer. It was capable of performing 150 billion calculations per second.

My, how times do change in the computer world.

The next-generation machine ORNL is developing with Cray will reportedly have a peak speed of 100 teraflops - 100 trillion calculations per second - when operations begin in 2006 or thereabouts.

The Cray X2 is designed for 32 cabinets, with 128 processors per cabinet, with 25 gigaflops of power per processor.

According to Thomas Zacharia, the lab's computational sciences guru, it will take only 6 processors of the Cray X2 to match up with the Intel Paragon, the planet's supreme computing machine just a decade ago.

Gee whiz.

NUKEVILLE: There have been reports that researchers were finding products of nuclear fission in Bear Creek on the government's Oak Ridge reservation.

The interpretation on the rumor mill was that such material might be evidence of leaks from a nuclear landfill constructed adjacent to the creek a couple of years ago. If so, that would be a major concern because leaks are difficult to track and fix.

The reason for suspicion was that fission products likely could be traced to the reactor operations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which has been sending some of its low-level waste to the new disposal cell.

John Owsley, the state's environmental oversight chief in Oak Ridge, confirmed that some fission products have been found in small amounts around the landfill in the tributaries that feed Bear Creek.

But Owsley said those trace quantities were probably the result of materials that washed there in overflow conditions during this year's monsoons. He said there's no evidence of any leaks in the multi-lined landfill.

He also noted that trace amounts of fission products in Bear Creek have been attributed to operations at the nearby Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. Even though Y-12 doesn't have any reactors, some materials housed there have been processed in reactors - thus explaining the presence in plant discharges.

Overall, Owsley said the Bear Creek situation is not a concern. But it is something state inspectors will continue to monitor, he said.

SECONDS, ANYONE? The U.S. Department of Energy loves good news so much that it is quite willing to recycle it again and again, even when there is no news at all.

Does that make sense? Let me explain.

Last Thursday, the Bush administration's media-control camp in Washington sent out an electronic news release touting another monster achievement.

"Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham today announced that researchers at DOE laboratories and companies with research funded by DOE have won 35 of the 100 awards given this year by R&D Magazine for the most outstanding technology developments with commercial potential.''

ORNL, as usual, was one of the big winners.

The problem is that the same awards were announced with the same hullabaloo nearly three months ago.

ARMED SMILES: I don't plan to turn this column into a Wackenhut forum, love them or hate them, but in the constant pursuit of fairness I will include the comments of Pam Toon.

Toon is union president of Local 109, Security Police and Fire Professionals of America. She has about 90 security guards in her unit at the East Tennessee Technology Park, formerly the K-25 uranium-enrichment plant.

She was upset by comments from some security guards at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant who were critical of Wackenhut and its general manager, Jean Burleson. The critics thought Wackenhut, the government's security contractor, was taking too much credit for improvements in Oak Ridge.

Toon is a Burleson fan, and she said he's popular with other guards, too.

"He's made a complete change of the guard force out here,'' Toon said. "He's tried his best to work with the union.''

She said Burleson had been willing to talk about pension issues that others before him didn't want to touch.

"I've been here 16 years, and I think he has done a wonderful job,'' Toon said.

Senior Writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for the News Sentinel. He may be reached at 865-342-6329 or at munger@knews.com. This column is also available in the opinion section of knoxnews.com.