Call for Department of Energy labs to ‘consolidate’ to save money

The US Department of Energy should establish an independent panel to comprehensively examine alternatives for evaluating, consolidating and realigning the department’s R&D laboratory complex, including its national laboratories, according to a report released by the department’s inspector general Gregory Friedman.

DoE operates 16 major laboratories, at an annual cost of more than $10.4 billion (€7.7bn). They include many important facilities used by university scientists and range in size from Ames Laboratory, with an annual budget of $30 million, to Sandia National Laboratories, a nuclear weapons lab with a budget of more than $2.3bn.