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 nuclear weapons couldfbe game-changers in cleam energy, climate change, biotech and other sectors. Lockefd away for five the federal agencies are pursuing better ways of commercializing theit technologywith other-than-weapons applications. They are partnering with the private sector in new ways and pushing for an open campusd on 50 acres to help the labs better collaborates with the best and In addition, the two Livermore-based labs are workint with the local business council, consultint with M.B.A.
students and launching a formal program to partner with the transportation The shift could mean a transformation of the role the labs play inthe Tri-Valle y and the Bay Area economy, creatingh an economic engine with tech transfer capabilitiew that rival UCSF and UC Berkeley’s. Livermore and Sandia federal agencies underthe U.S. Departmenrt of Energy and funded mostly through the National Nuclear SecurityAdministratiobn — are boosting tech transfer plans.
Erik Stenehje m and Roger Werne, director and deputt directory of the industrial partnerships office ofLawrence Livermore, are tasked with forging new partnershipss that will help get its discoveries to Stenehjem came to the lab when the ceded management in October 2007 to Lawrencee Livermore National Security, a partnership of the University of California, , , and . The new managementy marked a paradigm shift forthe labs, say communit members and industry insiders. “(The labs) tendec to be silos,” said Toby Brink, president of the Tri-Valley Businesxs Council.
“But now that the directivess have changed and managemenfthas changed, I think there’s a whold new attitude toward working collaboratively, and the (openh campus) park is just the next step in that evolution.” Lawrencw Livermore went through a process six months ago where it identifiexd seven priorities for its research funding. Energy and climatd change modeling are twoof them. Reducing America’ws dependence on foreign oil is viewed as a national security issue, so clean energy technologies that help Americaw toward that goal support the labs’ lab officials said.
For example, the recently openerd National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore was builg to test what happenz inside a nuclearfusion reaction, but the same technology coulcd also create nuclear fusion energy to meet massived energy demands. “Energy is almost exclusively a producg of theprivate sector. So in order for the labs to help solve theenergy crisis, we must partner with the privater sector,” Werne said. Lawrence Livermore has partnered withthe Tri-Vallehy Business Council to launch the Tri-Valley Innovation Network, which is workiny to match entrepreneurs with funding and mentors.
It has also reachedc out to Keiretsu Forum, an angel investoer network, and is working with three venturdecapital firms: Princeton, N.J.-basefd Battelle Ventures, Exceed Capital out of Calgary and Paladi n Capital Group of Washington, D.C. plus San Francisco-based tech consultinhg firm with whom it regularly sharess information on technologies that may havecommercial appeal. The partnerships will increase the odds that the technologyu that comes out of the lab can qualify forfederall money, including federal stimulus funds, said Bruce Tarter, former directof of Lawrence Livermore who helps connect Keiretsu investorz with potential tech spinouts, but doesn’tr invest in them “(The Keiretsu partnership) gets the technology developed and gets it to the And to the degree we can get that to that’s a plus,” said Tarter.
Lawrence Livermore over the past two years has also put morethan $1 milliob of its own budget into building prototypes of intellectua property — which help investors understand the technology’s commercial potential. Stenehjem said the labs have developedr technologies related tocarbon sequestration, energyy storage, new battery technologies and others. “ A lot of these things got developed forother purposes,” said Stenehjem. “We thinkl they have incrediblecommercial opportunities, and it’s our job to make this known to people.
” Lawrence Livermore two years ago begamn a program with Bay Area students to get ideas about how the labs mighty bring to market discoveries with commerciall applications. Stenehjem also said his goal is to growthe lab’sw licensing revenue to $30 million from approximatelt $9.5 million last year. Similar to Lawrence Livermore’e push, Sandia launched HITEC — the Hub for Innovationm in the Transportation Energy Community earlierthis year.
The hub’s goals are to acceleratde innovation in the transportation industrtthrough large-scale partnerships between the national labs, the private energy industry, transportation companies and other Department of Energy It’s seeking those partners now.