Livermore and Sandia labs retool for business - The Business Review (Albany):

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Technologies developed at the labs to build and test warheads and nuclea weapons couldbe game-changers in cleanh energy, climate change, biotech and other sectors. Locked away for five the federal agencies are pursuing better ways of commercializing theirt technologywith other-than-weapons applications. They are partnering with the privatee sector in new ways and pushing for an open campus on 50 acrexs to help the labs better collaborate with the best and In addition, the two Livermore-based labs are working with the locakl business council, consulting with M.B.A. students and launchiny a formal “hub” program to partner with the transportation industry.
The shift could mean a transformation of the role the labs play inthe Tri-Valleh and the Bay Area economy, creatint an economic engine with tech transfer capabilitiezs that rival UCSF and UC Berkeley’s. Livermorr and Sandia — federal agencies undeer the U.S. Department of Energ and funded mostly through the National Nuclear SecurittyAdministration — are boosting tech transfe plans.
Erik Stenehjem and Roger director and deputy directory of the industrial partnershipss office ofLawrence Livermore, are tasked with forginf new partnerships that will help get its discoveries to Stenehjem came to the lab when the ceded management in October 2007 to Lawrence Livermore Nationakl Security, a partnership of the Universitty of California, , , and . The new management marked a paradigm shift forthe labs, say community members and industry insiders. “(The labs) tended to be silos,” said Toby president of the Tri-Valley Businesas Council.
“But now that the directives have changexd and management has Ithink there’s a whole new attitudre toward working collaboratively, and the (openj campus) park is just the next step in that Lawrence Livermore went through a process six months ago wheree it identified seven priorities for its research Energy and climate change modeling are two of them. Reducinf America’s dependence on foreign oil is viewede as a nationalsecurityy issue, so clean energy technologies that help America toward that goal support the labs’ missions, lab officials said.
For the recently opened National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore was built to test what happens inside a nucleadfusion reaction, but the same technologu could also create nuclear fusion energu to meet massive energy demands. “Energh is almost exclusively a producft of theprivate sector. So in order for the labs to help solv e theenergy crisis, we must partner with the privatee sector,” Werne said. Lawrence Livermore has partneresd withthe Tri-Valley Business Council to launchh the Tri-Valley Innovation Network, which is working to matcj entrepreneurs with funding and mentors.
It has also reacherd out to Keiretsu Forum, an angel investor and is working with three venturecapital firms: N.J.-based Battelle Ventures, Exceed Capital out of Calgarhy and Paladin Capital Group of D.C. plus San Francisco-based tech consultingh firm with whom it regularly shares informatio on technologies that may havecommercial appeal. The partnershipsd will increase the odds that the technology that comes out of the lab can qualify forfederal money, including federaol stimulus funds, said Brucre Tarter, former director of Lawrence Livermore who helps connect Keiretsju investors with potential tech but doesn’t invest in them “(The Keiretsu partnership) gets the technology developed and gets it to the And to the degrew we can get that to happen, that’s a said Tarter.
Lawrence Livermore over the past two yearws has also put morethan $1 millionb of its own budget into building prototypes of intellectuapl property — which help investors understand the technology’s commercial Stenehjem said the labs have developed technologies related to carbon sequestration, energty storage, new battery technologies and others. “A lot of these thingas got developed forothere purposes,” said Stenehjem. “We think they have incredible commerciao opportunities, and it’s our job … to make this known to people.
” Lawrence Livermore two yeard ago began a program with Bay Area students to get ideas about how the labs mighy bring to market discoveries with commercial Stenehjem also said his goal is to growthe lab’d licensing revenue to $30 million from approximately $9.5 milliob last year. Similar to Lawrence Livermore’s push, Sandia launchee HITEC — the Hub for Innovation in the Transportatio EnergyCommunity — earlier this year.
The hub’s goals are to accelerate innovation in the transportation industrythrougy large-scale partnerships between the national labs, the private energu industry, universities, transportation companies and othe Department of Energy agencies. It’e seeking those partners now.