By Jay Davis,
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I noticed an August 2nd entry that needs correction on the record. I did many things for the Lab in my 31 years there: RTNS-II, CAMS, heading the Woodruff Grievance Panel, and service in Iraq and at DTRA. However, I had nothing to do with the departure of Moses and his coterie fifteen years go. If that was done by a Davis, it must have been Jim Davis, who had been their supervisor for over a decade and who presumably had the information and leverage to make that possible. I did work with that group for 17 months on AVLIS in the 82'-84' period and found it a searing and shattering experience, both personally and professionally -- and I am not a delicate flower. I fortunately have never experienced such personalities or behaviors since. Unlike many, I was able to rehabilitate myself within the Laboratory, for which I am eternally grateful to John Nuckolls. As CAMS was the result, I suppose it came out all right in the end. CAMS is today and may well remain the Lab's most productive and valuable user facility.
There are eerie parallels between NIF and AVLIS. Both demonstrate superb engineering design and execution, negligible cost control or strategic management of resources, and inadequate physics to accomplish the intended mission. If it turns out that the fiscal and intellectual resources squandered on the laughable pursuit of LIFE could have provided the diagnostic set required for a mature and informed ignition campaign, the Laboratory and its overseers will have to answer some very hard questions in the difficult months ahead.
Comments
LIFE [dead in the water]
Stockpile Stewardship [JASONs: not needed at for some time]
Experimental Astrophysicists' Playground [still viable]
If NIF becomes a user facility for #3, NNSA will have to foot the full cost of subsidized astrophysics Experinents on NIF? Is #2 still viable? Trying to figure out what's coming down the pipeline in terms of the benefits assuming NIF is not shut down like the mirror machine, and operations is funded for some time. How much does one shot cost?
I could only speculate that the LLNL participation was hijacked by NIF because that small program was making impressive progress on solid state laser technology and stealing the thunder from NIF, did not have to live up to non-credible and escalatingly larger promises as NIF had to, and relied on different technologies than NIF.
I think from the point of view of science and engineering, that such elements of laser technology should keep on being funded independently of NIF, and that the talent and capabilities should not have to go down with the NIF ship. There are other possible applications for high average power laser technology beyond power prouduction, astrophysics, or high strain rate experiments. There are really talented, honest and hard working people who are unfortunately held hostage by the situation created by NIF.
So this question about the alpha heating failule roadblock is a puzzling thing to me, since it was a surprise to me to see (after being away from this field for so long) that energy production became part of the NIF mission, since energy production had originally been part of a different technology evolution path some time ago.
But I could be wrong. Would love to hear more perspectives from people who are better informed on more current news and research. It's a very interesting area, and there are so many questions that I am sure many of us have.
Does anyone remember the yig yang magnets that were there one day and sold for scarp metal the next. Was that MFTF? Can't reacall it been way to long.
August 6, 2012 4:19 PM
Yup, thats the one. Never "flipped the switch".
The rumor at the time was that the AVLIS leadership team under Moses and Spaeth very seriously alienated the government sponsors men. Jim Davis was the post-Emmett AD, and the Laser Directorare senior leaders were competitive with each other. Cliques and power-centers lead to clashes on pogroms. Enigineering ranking in those days was a laugher as the big egos played out kabuki pissing contests by saying their pet engineer was more important because his program was more imporant. We let them play this game for our amusment and the completed the correct ranking in subsequent closed sessions. Fun madness.
Scientists are amusing creatures.
Jay was not part of this, he and many others seconded to AVLIS had suffered his purgatory and moved on to his fate.
Inaccurate and incomplete.
MFTF operated as a technical system long enough to demonstrate all of its original engineering technical performance milestones - vacuum, cryogenics, magnetic field and I think, neutral beam power delivered, prior to its mothballing.
It is true that it did not pursue the mirror fusion concept because TMX-U showed the magnetic bottle in the quadupoles did not stem plasma leakage as well as predicted. So DOE, asked to cut budgets by Congress that year, went with the Tokamak confinement scheme, and tech development, while stopping funding of magnetic mirrors.
They allowed the completion and operation of the key technologies, the cryogenically cooled superconducting magnets because these were the first and still the best large-scale superconducting magnet system in the world. The materials and techniques developed will still be used today in ITER.
But it took so long to develop that most of the key LLNL technologists have moved on to other very successful projects. Many now have retired, and a few sadly, like the inimitable Bob Nelson, have died.
There was no Congressional fusion budget reduction from previous years, but it was also clear that there would be no large increases. DOE submitted a budget to OMB that included the MFTF-B program. OMB then recommended cancelling MFTF-B and shifting the funds to the tokamak program. The head of the DOE fusion program very publicly resigned in protest against this “green eye shades” person at OMB who he claimed had destroyed the management plan. For the succeeding year there were widespread statements that the cancellation of MFTF-B was a terrible mistake. Eventually, informally, people agreed that OMB had exercised better scientific judgement than the management at DOE.
Kintner was the head of the DOE fusion program who resigned in protest.
From memory.
10-6 Torr was achieved,
The giant cyroplant operated successfully, producing 2kw of 4K He (I think, too long and my MFTF-B final report is hidden in the garage).
The giant superconducting magnets produced the design magnetic fields. Held together at 4K, Had acceptable cooling losses, did not quench. Operated within the superconductor design parameters.
A monumental engineeing achievement in its own right, and still much of the technical design basis for the very much larger ITER torodial and poloidal field coils. Both NiTi and NbSn still very advanced were used. This may be better success than ITER has achieved recently with its cental solenoid demo.
Very strong engineering team that served the lab well for the next 40 years.
NIF enginners are just as strong and will serve the national interest for the next 40 years.
Been there. Done that.
NTIS Order Number: DE87002340
$86.00-Print on Demand
Page Count: 326 pages
Date: Oct 1986
Author: K. H. Krause T. A. Kozman J. L. Smith R. J. Horan
The Mirror Fusion Test Facility (MFTF-B) construction project was successfully completed in February 1986, with the conclusion of the Plant and Capital Equipment (PACE) Tests. This series of tests, starting in September 1985 and running through February 1 ...
Inaccurate and incomplete.
MFTF operated as a technical system long enough to demonstrate all of its original engineering technical performance milestones - vacuum, cryogenics, magnetic field and I think, neutral beam power delivered, prior to its mothballing.
It is true that it did not pursue the mirror fusion concept because TMX-U showed the magnetic bottle in the quadupoles did not stem plasma leakage as well as predicted. So DOE, asked to cut budgets by Congress that year, went with the Tokamak confinement scheme, and tech development, while stopping funding of magnetic mirrors.
They allowed the completion and operation of the key technologies, the cryogenically cooled superconducting magnets because these were the first and still the best large-scale superconducting magnet system in the world. The materials and techniques developed will still be used today in ITER.
But it took so long to develop that most of the key LLNL technologists have moved on to other very successful projects. Many now have retired, and a few sadly, like the inimitable Bob Nelson, have died.
August 6, 2012 8:47 PM
But, but, but,.....man you guys at Livermore could sell a Yugo claiming it's a Farrari. Unfortunately, LLNL has no credibility with a long list of failures, X-ray Laser, Brilliant Pebbles, National Ignition Failure, ......
The fools at DOE, like Bodman and Pryzbylek own this failure.
It is part of the system and cannot be remedied.
Talented leaders like those who lead the lab previously are no longer be empowered. Those in place are impotent, by design.
From their perspective, this is working great....and like clockwork.
How do we change that equation?
But Bechtel has taken that mild downward trend (from a pretty amazing plateau), tipped it sharply downward and punched the accelerator big time.
On the other hand, most of the Bechtel moves are all moves I saw in corporate america starting in the 80s. So, in many ways, we're just catching up.
Our catch-up will be complete when they freeze the pension (and ultimately hand it over to PBGC paying out 30 cents on the dollar) and do another major layoff -- at which point everyone will be doing the work of 3-4 previous people (some of which weren't working very hard).
One significant difference with corporate america:
Corporate America cut a lot more middle management in the 80s-90s. LLNL is bloating (I didn't think it was possible!) the middle and upper management even further.
But, besides that, it's basically 80s-90s corporate america.