NCAR to relocate to Cheyenne (Boulder: how much, houses, buying)

[lovethewest]

This is probably old news to most, but I just found out about it. Apparently, the NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) is relocating from Boulder, CO to Cheyenne in a new $60 million dollar complex housing a "supercomputer." UW also has a hand in this, so hopefully this will put Cheyenne, UW, and southeastern Wyoming on the map as well as diversify the economy. Here's the website: NWSC

[Clay Lady]

This is very exciting news for UW! That is the best chance of higher paying jobs than I have heard about in awhile. A lot of grant money is going into research.

[sunsprit]

It's not exactly a "relocation", it's another facility for their operations.

They had no room to build this in Boulder.

[lovethewest]

According to the article I read, both Wyoming and Colorado bidded to house NCAR, and Wyoming won. It made it sound like they were pulling up their roots and moving north, but I could be wrong.

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by lovethewest

According to the article I read, both Wyoming and Colorado bidded to house NCAR, and Wyoming won. It made it sound like they were pulling up their roots and moving north, but I could be wrong.

Check the front page article in today's Cheyenne T-E. If that's the article you read, distributed by wyomingnews.com under Michelle Dynes byline, it made no assertion or inference that NCAR was doing anything except moving forward with a new computer campus in Cheyenne. Even at this point, all they're doing is the final selection of an architect for the project, with hopes to fund construction starting this fall.

Many places were putting in bids for the "Supercomputer Center", and Colorado and Wyoming were the finalists.

But all that is being built is a new facility with a powerful computer for climate modeling and other research, with a projected total of 40-50 jobs at the facility when it's in operation.

That's a far cry from the thousands that work in Boulder at a huge complex with many buildings and specialized labs. There's simply no plan to pick up NCAR and relocate it to Cheyenne, no matter how much you'd like it to be so.

Nor does Cheyenne have the infrastructure to support or house those many thousands of jobs ... and I doubt that many folks who love Boulder's NCAR campus would even consider moving to Cheyenne.

[lovethewest]

"It will replace NCAR's aging Mesa Laboratory center in Boulder, which will reach its floor-space and power-supply limits by the end of the decade."

This is a quote from an (old) article in The Boulder Camera. Obviously, things could have changed since this article was written.Wyoming lassos supercomputer : CU News : Boulder Daily Camera

[sunsprit]

lovethewest ... I guess you don't have a clue as to how many acres, how many labs, how many thousands of people work full time or are based out of the NCAR complex in Boulder.

One lab ... the Mesa center ... is but a small fraction of the total NCAR complex. Even at that, they're forecasting only 40+ jobs at the Cheyenne facility, which will supplant the Mesa Laboratory computer complex ... but the Mesa Lab will still be running and staffed. The problem that they had there was no room for a new supercomputer facility in the existing area, so they sought out a new location, which was awarded to Cheyenne. The Mesa Lab will still be doing research in Boulder when the new computer lab is built. They just wanted a much larger computer for the climate modeling project, and that's what they plan on building.

To even suggest that this one lab being built in Cheyenne, employing but a few workers compared to the Boulder facility is going to replace all the NCAR facilities and labs in Boulder is highly misinformed. No article ... including the one you reference ... suggests such a thing is happening.

[lovethewest]

Fine, maybe I "don't have a clue." Thanks for enlightening me. I'm simply being optimistic about the economic future of Wyoming. If the Mesa Center is only a part of the NCAR complex, where's the rest of it?

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by lovethewest

Fine, maybe I "don't have a clue." Thanks for enlightening me. I'm simply being optimistic about the economic future of Wyoming. If the Mesa Center is only a part of the NCAR complex, where's the rest of it?

Your thread asserts that "NCAR is relocating to Cheyenne" ... and you still seem to be unable to grasp that only one small Lab portion of the NCAR research facilities will be building a new computing facility in Cheyenne. The "rest of it" will remain in Boulder, where it's been since 1947 ... and there's a lot of it.

I appreciate your view that it's an economic boost to Wyoming, but you also seem oblivious to the fact that a substantial amount of the funding for the facility (which is why Wyoming "won" the bid) is coming from the Wyoming taxpayer through the UWYO partnership with the new supercomputer facility. They're projecting 40+ jobs, a small fraction of what is employed in Boulder's Mesa Lab complex in the computing division.

While you can go to NCAR's website NCAR.edu and look over the 2008 annual report, I'll save you some trouble ...

The NCAR campus on Table Mesa Drive houses many many buildings, labs, and support areas on a large acreage campus (more acreage than the UWYO campus), and thousands of workers. The "Mesa Lab" building is but one of the structures, although it's the largest single building and a hallmark of the place, being an I.M.Pei designed structure to blend in with the foothills surrounding the campus.

But to give you an overview of the some of the major labs based at Boulder ... and this is only a portion of the projects/labs NCAR operates there ... here's a partial list:

Computational & Information Systems Lab (CISL) ... this is the group which provides computing services to the NCAR scientific community. They just purchased and completed installing in 2008 an IBM 575 Supercomputer, which is the 30th largest computer in the world ... at the Mesa Lab center. This investment will not be abandoned when the larger supercomputer center is built in Cheyenne, but will be used for continuing support of many projects.

Earth Observing Lab (OSL).

Earth and Sun Lab (ESSL).

Research Applications Lab (RAL).

Institute for Society and the Environment (ISSE).

Mass Storage Library (incl Earth System Knowledge, and Terragrid Projects).

All of the above are based at the Mesa Lab facility in Boulder. They're not moving to Cheyenne.

There's at least 36 relationships with state Universities throughout the USA, managed and directed from the home offices at Boulder's Mesa complex. That alone requires a lot of staffers, planners, and support folks ... including grant writers ... to support the various scientific research projects. All of those projects came about in the same manner as Cheyenne's project ... by funding from the various states to establish the partnership relationship.

All that's happening here in Cheyenne is that NCAR (or UCAR, the parent financial organization) is expanding an internal computing support service by building a larger computer than the one they have now. It's hardly a "relocation" of NCAR in any sense of the word .... but an additional joint partnership facility, and just one of many that NCAR operates. And the state of Wyoming is buying most of it to have about 40 new jobs in the area ... we're spending millions of dollars for each of those jobs to be based here. Most of those jobs will be support staff ... not "scientists" with high paying jobs. The computer is merely a "tool" to be used by the scientific NCAR community which is based across the USA. As best I can tell from their annual report, the only function being moved to the new Wyoming computer facility is the "climate modeling" task because they need more computing power for all the data and models then they have with the current computer in Boulder.

You can "roll your eyes" all you want, or you might try removing the wool from them .... IMO, there's other ways that Wyoming could have spent this money and created more jobs in the Wyoming businesses that are paying for this project.

[lovethewest]

Thanks for the info, but the reason I rolled my eyes was because you were being rude to me.