nitions, none of these efforts could be counted as 

 basic research for the "Federal Funds" survey. 



The traditions — and the competing demands- 

 give research a less prominent role in many of 

 ERDA's energy technology programs. The primary 

 tasks during ERDA's short existence have been to 

 get demonstration projects underway with a view 

 to minimizing the time for commercialization. A 

 substantial number of individual basic research 

 efforts have nevertheless been started by the Divi- 

 sions of Solar Energy, Geothermal Energy, Electric 

 Energy Systems, and Energy Storage. For the most 

 part, this research, although fundamental in charac- 

 ter, is expected to yield information or techniques 

 immediately useful in other aspects of a division's 

 work. Some of the research under the solar electric 

 program provides an exception; fundamental work 

 is underway on the major classes of materials suita- 

 ble for solar cells, and on the determinants of device 

 and system parameters. 



Somewhat different considerations apply to the 

 basic research under the Assistant Administrator 

 for Fossil Energy. The basic research is carried 

 out as part of the activities of the separate Division 

 of Materials and Exploratory Research. In addition 

 to its function of supplying new information and 

 techniques, the basic research serves to strengthen 

 the institutional capabilities of ERDA's Energy 

 Research Centers (where small but distinguished 

 basic research efforts were started many years ago 

 under the Department of the Interior). Also, im- 

 portant ties are provided between fossil energy 

 programs and the academic community through 

 programs of grants to individual university investi- 

 gators. 



Special Mission Basic Research 



The role of ERDA's high energy physics pro- 

 gram and nuclear physics program differs in a fun- 

 damental way from the roles of the other ERDA 

 basic research efforts. The work can be viewed as 

 special mission research, or, in other words, as 

 research needed to meet responsibilities assigned 

 to ERDA that stand somewhat apart from the main 

 body of ERDA responsibilities. The basic re- 

 search, in itself, is the mission. The interactions 

 with other ERDA programs are important, but 

 they determine neither the magnitude nor the 

 directions of the principal efforts. 



These programs seek deeper understanding of 

 some of the most fundamental aspects of the be- 

 havior of energy and matter. The experiments are 

 centered around accelerators. High energy phy- 

 sics deals with elementary particles — their crea- 

 tion, their transformations, and the forces and oth- 

 er relationships among them. The overall goal is to 

 uncover the fundamental physical laws that reveal 

 themselves at very high energies. Nuclear physics 



deals with nuclear processes and structure. In 

 ERDA, the nuclear physics program is defined to 

 include the areas known as heavy ion physics and 

 medium energy physics; nuclear research at lower 

 energies retains strong ties with current applica- 

 tions of nuclear energy and is conducted as part of 

 the basic energy sciences program described ear- 

 lier. 



In FY 1978, ERDA has budgeted for outlays of 

 about $320 million for its high energy physics and 

 nuclear physics programs. These are among the 

 largest efforts in the physical sciences in the Unit- 

 ed States. The expenditures are similar in magni- 

 tude, however, to those used for a single laborato- 

 ry in Western Europe, CERN, which is operated 

 by the European Organization for Nuclear Re- 

 search and carries out work in these same fields. In 

 the internal ERDA research survey mentioned ear- 

 lier, these programs accounted for about 50 per- 

 cent of the operating costs devoted to basic re- 

 search. 



Progress in these fields depends sharply on the 

 design, construction, and improvement of major 

 experimental facilities. Over the past 15 years, 

 construction costs have averaged about one-fifth of 

 total program costs. The high energy physics expe- 

 riments are centered around four major accelera- 

 tors — the 500 GeV proton synchrotron at the Fer- 

 mi National Accelerator Laboratory, the Alternat- 

 ing Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) at Brookhaven 

 National Laboratory, the two-mile-long electron 

 accelerator at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Cen- 

 ter (SLAC), and the Zero Gradient Synchrotron 

 (ZGS) at Argonne National Laboratory. Construc- 

 tion is underway for a major new facility at SLAC 

 which will provide for experiments of unprecedent- 

 ed power using colliding beams of electrons and pos- 

 itrons. A design has been developed for a new facili- 

 ty providing colliding proton beams and using the 

 AGS at Brookhaven National Laboratory as an 

 injector. Closedown of the ZGS at Argonne is sched- 

 uled over the next several years. The major facilities 

 used in ERDA's nuclear physics program include the 

 Anderson Meson Physics Facility at the Los Alamos 

 Scientific Laboratory, the Bates Electron Accelera- 

 tor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a 

 linear accelerator for heavy ions (known as Super 

 HILAC) and a synchrotron at Lawrence Berkeley 

 Laboratory, and several cyclotrons and Van de 

 Graaff accelerators. A major new facility, the Holi- 

 field Heavy Ion Research Facility, is under construc- 

 tion at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. ERDA sup- 

 port for a large number of less powerful nuclear 

 physics facilities located on university campuses has 

 been terminated over the last several years. 



ERDA's high energy physics and nuclear phys- 

 ics programs continue the lines of scientific inquiry 

 that led to the current applications of nuclear ener- 



ENERGY RESEARCH 8 DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION 167 



