Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009

PNNL goes green

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer

Two new buildings opening at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have not only state-of-the-art science capabilities, but also state-of-the-art green pedigree.

Labs and offices will be heated and cooled primarily with a geothermal system that pumps up 62-degree well water. Workers will find their cars in the evenings in an LED-lighted parking lot that reduces light-pollution into the night sky. If a scientist leaves his lab, the ventilation system will automatically slow.

The Department of Energy and PNNL dedicated the Biological Sciences Facility and Computational Sciences Facility on Friday. They are linked by a glassed-in lobby and together cost about $75 million. They will be used for research not only for DOE, but also the Department of Homeland Security, the National Institutes of Health and other organizations.

About 300 employees have started moving in.

"We have some great scientists, and these facilities will provide them the equipment and tools they need to advance science," said PNNL Director Mike Kluse.

The Computational Sciences Facility will be used to come up with solutions to data overload. PNNL researchers will continue to work on ways to capture and analyze vast amounts of data with new hardware and software.

A single scientific experiment can produce a trillion bytes of data, far too much for a person to interpret. And intelligence analysts face similar challenges collecting and processing vast amounts of data from videos, audios, photos and text to better predict and detect threats.

The adjoining Biological Sciences Facility will be used to learn more about the role microscopic organisms such as bacteria can play in projects that include producing renewable energy from plants, sequestering harmful carbon emissions and preventing pollutants from moving through ground water.

"It's a major step forward that these (buildings) are tied together because biological sciences cannot succeed without computational science," said Roland Hirsch, of DOE headquarters' Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research. It's not just the hardware and software, but the computational scientists who will know the best way to interpret a wide range of data, he said.

Inside the 75,000-square-foot Computational Sciences Facility, one room is devoted to a 7-by-16-foot high-definition screen that can transform the blurry spots on a scientist's high-resolution desktop computer screen into a landscape of detailed information stretching across a wall.

"We believe with the size and detail, they can get in and explore data," said Richard May, an information analytics group scientist, during tours of the buildings.

The 73,000-square-foot Biological Sciences Facility includes laboratories with modular lab benches.

"We roll with ever-changing science going on," said Paul Dotson, PNNL construction project manager.

If new equipment needs to be brought in, utilities such as power and information technology lines are unhooked from the ceiling, and portions of lab benches and storage rolled out of the way.

The energy savings designed into the buildings should be equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions from 395 passenger vehicles. Although laboratories traditionally use a large amount of energy, the two new buildings will use 31 percent less energy than a typical building, according to PNNL and its architects.

The buildings' white roofs reflect 87 percent of solar heat, and the heat generated by the computing hardware that will fill a 10,000-square-foot room will be recaptured and used for heating.

About 22 percent of the materials used in construction were produced from recycled substances. Other materials, like the bamboo paneling, are earth friendly.

The buildings also should be comfortable. Scientists can buy lunch at a small commercial deli or shower after a lunchtime jog. And when they hold meetings, they can schedule them in the Darwin Room or other conference rooms named for famous scientists.

The buildings replace Cold War-era buildings PNNL has used in south Hanford that are being torn down as part of cleanup of the nuclear reservation. But more modern buildings also were needed to enable a new generation of scientific discovery and advancement, said Mike Weis, manager of the DOE Pacific Northwest Site Office.

"I look at this as a continuing start to a new era for this community," said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., who championed the project along with Washington's senators. As Hanford is cleaned up, PNNL will help fill the economic void as cleanup workers are no longer needed, he said.

Ground was broken on the two buildings north of the Battelle Auditorium in June 2008. They are the first new buildings on PNNL's campus since 1995.

"It was a Herculean effort to complete the buildings on time and under budget and to maintain the safety record," Kluse said.

The Cowperwood Co., a real estate development company based in New York City, privately financed the buildings and will lease them to Battelle, which operates PNNL for DOE. The Seattle office of KMD Architects, based in San Francisco, designed the buildings, and D.E. Harvey builders, based in Houston was general contractor.

-- Annette Cary: 582-1533; acary@tricityherald.com