Big Ideas Lab - 24 Hour Operations

Episode Date: February 24, 2026

The world’s most demanding science never sleeps. From facilities that operate around the clock to the people monitoring safety, power, and infrastructure overnight, this episode goes behind the scenes of the invisible operations at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that keep critical science moving forward - even when nothing appears to be happening. Guests featured (in order of appearance): Cynthia Rivera, Principal Associate Director of Operations & Business, LLNL Robert Scripp, Emergency Management Department Head, LLNL -- Big Ideas Lab is a Mission.org original series. Executive Produced by Levi Hanusch. Script by Elizabeth Sherman. Sound Design, Music Edit and Mix by Matthew Powell. Story Editing by Levi Hanusch. Audio Engineering and Editing by Matthew Powell. Narrated by Matthew Powell. Video Production by Levi Hanusch. Brought to you in partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's 3 o'clock in the morning at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. There's no alarm going off, no emergencies, no headlines. On the surface, it seems like nothing is happening. And that's exactly the point. You just assume when you come to work that everything's working. We have other people that actually make that happen. It's the work you don't hear about. It's the people you don't hear about.

projects where success is measured by how invisible the outcome is. Across miles of buildings and disciplines. Beneath fusion ignition, this is where for the first time, scientists were able to create a fusion reaction that generated more power than it took in. Exascale computing. Officially home to the world's fastest supercomputer. Planetary defense.

A spacecraft intentionally crashed into an asteroid. This is a first. for humankind. And thousands of other interconnected systems. This is the story of the people who keep the science running around the clock. Welcome to the Big Ideas Lab, your exploration inside Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Hear untold stories, meet boundary-pushing pioneers, and get unparalleled access inside the gates. From national security challenges to Computing Revolutions discover the innovations that are shaping tomorrow today. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is not a single building. It's closer to a small city.

Nearly 10,000 employees spanning over 7,500 acres. Roads, gates, utilities, power systems, offices, labs, all contributing to world-changing innovation. Like any, city, when most of the lights go out at night, it's quiet. But look closer. There's a system that never really sleeps. It appears invisible because that's the intent. And it keeps the lab running so the science can continue. We do this by providing the people, places, processes, services, and things needed to accomplish work safely and securely while being mindful stewards. of the environment. Cynthia Rivera is the principal associate director for operations and business at Lawrence Livermore.

Our mission in operations and businesses to enable Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, national security mission, and world-class science. That mission includes more than 2,000 people, spaining a wide range of roles, many of them operating outside conventional hours. Most people don't even think about this. Our janitorial staff come in pretty early in the morning, and they're also coordinating the trash pickup that starts at midnight. Our landscapers and grounds crews often have to come in or stay late when there's going to be a major storm, because they need to clear the drainage areas.

They need to be sure that before the storm, the site is ready, and then after the storm, they're there. If there's trees or limbs down or things blocked or things blown over, there to help get it ready for the rest of the staff to be on site. If the lab were staged, the team working 24-hour operations would be the stage crew. You don't see them during the performance, but without them, the curtain never goes up. It's not as dramatic as center stage, but it's essential for the show to go on. For Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the show is life-changing, cutting-edge movement for the world, and every instrument has to be ready.

Things happen, pipes break, are maintenance mechanics, technicians, and health and safety technologists. In the event something goes wrong, there's some kind of equipment failure or something. They're there. It's not easy to do those kinds of shifts, and it requires that kind of dedication

and willingness to be able to accommodate that over a period of time. It's not all big moments of setup, repair, or preparation. In some areas, it's thousands and thousands of small things. Our shipping and receiving team, they make sure that the packages get to where they go, either receiving them or sending them out when they need to, and it's amazing how much volume they take care of. It can look as simple as someone arriving at their normal gate for work. A badge gets scanned, a name gets checked,

but sometimes that name isn't cleared. Occasionally, people think it'd be full. fun to go take a spin around the lab. They don't actually get on the lab. They're stopped by security. The lab's protective force. Security has the predominant 24-7 operations across the site. They monitor access points. They respond to alarms. They keep track of what's normal and what isn't. But they're not the only incident response team. Evacuation update. 20% out accounted for.

pushing a second pigment of their devices now. Operations to Engine 3. We've got employees in that zone that haven't checked in. What's your status? We're inside. Area news is asking for a statement. Send them to media relations. No response on the safety check in.

All personnel safe and sound. Great work, everybody. All right. Let's go grab some lunch. Lunch? This wasn't a disaster. It was a drill. We're not a normal business.

We're not a normal operation. We're not a normal government organization. organization even. That's Robert Scrib, head of the Emergency Management Department at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. We have a lot of things here. Our National Ignition Facility, the NIF, does amazing work in fusion energy. They do a lot of their work at night.

So it's really important that we have people monitoring alarms and we have our fire department here on scene. This is the scale emergency management plans for. Not a single room, a mini city with two locations and a lot of real- estate. It can go from that lovely evening in the firehouse to responding to something rather significant. A lot of people don't realize during work hours, after hours, they're responding to a lot of alarms. It all starts with the plan. The drill set in place for any possible disaster. The two most significant ones that we often prepare for are wildfires. One official says

firefighters are facing every challenge that there can be. The other one we do a lot of exercising for is earthquakes. On the west coast of four point. three magnitude earthquakes jolting the San Francisco area this morning. We have a lot of things that would be impacted by that, so we prepare for those with a lot of really realistic exercises. Robert's goal is to make these exercises as realistic as possible. To do so, he gathers over 65 people from various divisions in the lab's emergency operation center, or EOC, all working together as the hypothetical scenario unfolds. It's Lawrence Livermore's version of the White House Situation Room.

We have a field operations component, so we will involve our fire services here on site. We'll involve our protective force division, which is our security side of the house. We'll involve our building evacuation teams. So there'll be an on-send component usually with one of our exercises, and then we have the emergency operations center. We will manage that incident from the moment that we bring in the realism of it through whatever our objectives are to achieve that. The more realistic the exercises are, the more ready for an action.

event the site will be. We actually did a drill this year that was really great where we had a news media operation come in from one of the other laboratories. They came in and act as though they were the media. They brought their cameras in. They put the camera right in your face and they started asking everyone tough questions. Well, that's how the real world would be. Then there's the employee alert system itself, complete with safety checks at every level. We have an emergency notification system, and it is what we use to notify either individuals or groups or the entire operations. We can send messages out to everyone on this campus, all 10,000 people in a matter of seconds. And the alert doesn't just ping you to let you know something dangerous is happening.

It also is the key to marking staff as safe. But if you don't submit a response, it's relentless. If we need to get accountability, it will keep calling those devices until it gets a response that you're good. And that is the ultimate goal. Life safety is always number one. Buildings can be replaced. The equipment can be replaced too, but the people are the priority. The people are both the center of the mission and the core of its success. People that you might not think of would be our emergency response teams for local emergencies. The volunteers like our community emergency response team or cert, the FEMA national level

organization, cert teams that many communities have. We have one for the site as well. And it's about 135 people now of volunteers who are trained. There's also a group large enough to support three shifts at the operation center. Employees who all have regular jobs in the lab, but have taken on the extra responsibility of assisting in a crisis. It's that all-hands-on-deck mentality that makes Lawrence Livermore's Emergency Response Organization elite. We have a very common sense of mission, and that's what brings the team together. And it takes us all. It's recognition that it takes the person who's there at midnight, and it takes the thousands of people that are there during the day to make it all happen.

A promise built long before an emergency ever happens. Through drills, coordination, and invisible tasks taking place around the clock, all designed in service of something bigger. place shines. When you walk around here, when you talk to the people and you find out what they're working on, it's brilliant for making sure that the science can continue, but you're surrounded by the smartest people in the world. And that to me is unique. You don't get that in other organizations. Brilliance is what I would describe it as. Every morning the lab comes back to life. Cars are lined up at the gates. Badges scanned, lights on. Seemingly nothing is happening.

And that's exactly the point. Thank you for tuning in to Big Ideas Lab. If you loved what you heard, please let us know by leaving a rating and review. And if you haven't already, don't forget to hit the follow or subscribe button in your podcast app to keep up with our latest episode. Thanks for listening.