Feinstein and NIF... Kiss of Death!!!
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Feinstein-declines-to-halt-NIF-budget-cuts-4523794.php
Feinstein declines to halt NIF budget cuts
Congressional
supporters of the multibillion-dollar National Ignition Facility in
Livermore called on Sen. Dianne Feinstein this week to help save the
huge laser experiment from $110 million in budget cuts proposed by the
Obama administration.
In a quick response Thursday, the California
Democrat turned them down, saying that it's high time to "reassess" the
project's experimental efforts to assure the safety of the nation's
nuclear arsenal and create sustainable fusion energy that have proved
unsuccessful so far.
Feinstein is a member of the powerful Senate
Appropriations Committee and chairs its subcommittee on energy and
water development.
She rejected their request to support NIF's
request for $486.6 million for the coming year, saying it "is hard to
justify" as there is no "clear path forward for achieving ignition."
"NIF
has failed twice to achieve its stated goal of achieving ignition,"
Feinstein noted - in 2010 and again in 2012. Her committee had
appropriated "close to $1 billion" to speed those efforts, she said, but
the money was never meant to cover beyond those two years.
"It is
impossible at the moment to predict whether ignition can be achieved,"
Feinstein said, and "now is the perfect opportunity to reassess the
goals of this program."
She said she has asked the project's leaders
at Livermore and at the National Nuclear Security Administration, who
oversee the NIF, to develop "clear and measurable goals to track
progress in achieving ignition and meet the needs of the stockpile
stewardship program."
"I asked for new milestones and program goals more than six months ago and still have not received them," Feinstein said.
42 comments:
Wow! This totally reminds me of the following scene from Godfather II:
Godfather II: You broke my heart Fredo - Feinstein to Albright
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcFlp6kl508&feature=youtu.be
For once I agree with Feinstein.
How the HECK can they be 6 months late on sending congress a plan? After every line in that article and I'm asking myself, "WTF?" Is NIF and the lab ACTUALLY doing as bad as people on this blog are saying since missing the milestone? Someone post something, like a Science or Nature article, or SOMETHING to prove otherwise.
Goodwin was smart to make his lateral move. Whoever is stuck with whats coming down the pipeline (hints are in the other threads) is getting a raw raw deal.
Bruce is no dummy!
Feinstein (and Boxer) have NEVER been friends of the Lab, so this is no surprise. However, I observe that both are like NIF - lot's of machinery but no light...
The lab didn't do anything to help it's own case either. While you may question the intellect of Feinstein, this decision... really WAS a no-brainer for her and many others.
Ouch. Looks like the chickens are coming home to roost. I'm glad I didn't get pathed over to LSEO.
NIF got good reviews from a NAS study, available for download, titled "An Assessment of the Prospects for Inertial Fusion Energy" Now, the circle jerk that must have been occurring to evaluate all those systems studies in that report makes me wonder how these people (review committee members AND lab people) spend so much time on issues on power production when not one of them has gotten break even. You get a false impression that ignition is just around the corner. It's true, nobody can predict, as Feinstein has mentioned. But "what has NIF done for the NNSA lately?" The longer they don't hit a milestone, the more scrutiny we need to put on them and the funding they receive. NIF is on the hook for ignition. If their new Hohlraum design doesn't have substantial improvements in the neutron yield, I would say it's over for them. Get a better neutron yield, then they deserve more time.
It should be possible to mothball a few of the more expensive facilities until the fiscal environment improves. They can still work on omega.
How the HECK can they be 6 months late on sending congress a plan?
Dude....it's LLNL. I spend 25 hours a week in meetings...and at each meeting somebody else wants to "help out" just a little bit more. DiFi might never get her plan.
She wants ANOTHER study!!!!! Read the JASONS report or any of the other multiple reports on NIF Diane, make a decision!
How the HECK can they be 6 months late on sending congress a plan?
May 17, 2013 at 7:54 PM
Come on, the NIF folks are too busy preparing for the plutonium shot. They don't time another "stinkin" report.
Has NIF saved the world yet with clean, free, energy? This snake oil pitch has finally run it's course. Time to come up with another too-good-to-be-true ad campaign to sell your wares to the cash strapped American taxpayer.
Leave it to LLNL and their overreliance on models. In the meetings I go to they still talk " We can model this and that and we don't need experimental data." This is how they win competitions and NNSA loves it. When will the Government wake up!
I have been following the National Ignition Facility since 1992, when it was called the Nova upgrade. Livermore Lab promised Congress that NIF would cost $1 billion. The Lab (in the person of Ed Moses) admits to spending $5 billion. A truer number is around $7.5 billion.
Ignition was first promised in 2003. Then it was “rebaselined” to 2010. Then 2012 became the “final” deadline. The NIF’s best experiment was only able to achieve 10% of its most critical parameter, called the IFTX or ignition threshold factor.
NIF is not likely to achieve ignition no matter how much money the government throws at it.
Senator Feinstein’s action merely refused to increase NIF’s budget from the $350 million-plus already requested for fiscal year 2014. If anything, Congress should cut its budget further.
Further, regarding NIF's impact on LLNL, for at least a decade the mega-laser enjoyed a special SCAP that allowed it to pay a much lower overhead rate than other programs at LLNL (in 3 different categories in fact). This means other programs were paying higher overhead for NIF year after year. The scheme was illegal, and the NNSA Office of Field Financial Management said so.
My group started doing advocacy on this in late 2009. The special SCAP was finally ended in 2013.
HOWEVER, Moses et al then struck a deal with Congress and OMB - and they received a special Reprogramming of $88 million for 2013 to offset the loss of the illegal SCAP.
The $88 million, I was told, is coming out of other LLNL programs and, in particular, the LLNL budget line that used to be called RTBF. So, today, other LLNL programs are still subsidizing NIF.
I also was told that Moses et al wanted the reprogramming to be larger - and that LLNL management may be seeking to get permission to reprogram an additional $30 million or so later this year. That, too, would be money shifted from other LLNL programs to NIF.
All of this is in addition to the letter that was the subject of the San Francisco Chronicle story. That specific letter asking for more NIF appropriations is what Senator Feinstein finally said "no" to.
In my book, NIF is still getting a large budget (in excess of $350 million in the FY14 request) plus the $88 million reprogramming that I was told was already a done deal.
Therefore, my conclusion is that in this instance, Senator Feinstein did the right thing.
Actually, I think the original estimate was $600M.
If I had to make a guess for how to get that reprogramming, it would be to erode or eliminate capabilities associated with site 300, HEAF, cams, perhaps jasper and nts experiments, alot of the basic sciences at the fringe, like metallurgy and materials science (stripping them down and cherry picking). I suppose if they don't strip their successful and growth programs, maybe they have a chance at longer term stability that is insulated from all the uncertainties surrounding NIF. Wci's fate is so strongly tied to NIF's fate. They should never have let that happen.
Yes, Virginia. NIF truly is little more than fantasy and "science fiction".....
==================
'Star Trek' at Fusion Lab: When Fantasy Meets Real Life -- Live Science, May 17, 2013
If the Starship Enterprise's warp drive looks especially realistic in the new "Star Trek" film, that's because it was shot in a real-life laboratory for nuclear fusion research: The National Ignition Facility in California.
The J.J. Abrams-led crew of the new film "Star Trek Into Darkness," got special permission from the U.S. Department of Energy to film scenes from the movie at the facility, which is part of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.
news.yahoo.com/star-trek-fusion-lab
-fantasy-meets-real-life-175421955.html
If LLNL people are in meetings 25 hours per week, I am frightened to ask... How much of that is actually effectively spent time.. 25 hours per week generating proportionate amounts of action items for everyone? If not its a good indication that your management is spinning the wheels hard and fast but going nowhere, perhaps pretending to act busy to justify their existence, while others actually are trying to solve problems.
The refusal to send a plan is not because they are busy. It is because they have no plan. But to be fair, what that plan must look like is so much contingent on the outcome of other short-term fixes they are trying like the new hohlraum. You can't spend a month writing a plan then be forced to gut it because of new short term developments. They are in crisis mode, where there are no "plans." If they got their stockpile stewardship shots worked out and in good shape, that might have bought them more time.
Therefore, my conclusion is that in this instance, Senator Feinstein did the right thing.
May 18, 2013 at 11:12 AM
My only question is: What did she do?
Think.. The godfather 2 clip but replace the characters with Feinstein and pick- your-lab-manager-of-choice. Feinstein is the one planting the kiss of death.
Is Marylia as unflattering looking (politically correct term) as they say.
Can't we get a hot looking anti- America loon like at other Nuclear Facilities..
Maybe we can make a trade........
Why do we always get the short end of the stick with other Labs?
Not all of us can be as beautiful on the outside as you people at LLNL. Take Foster. That guy was sooo good looking during his early years... DAMMNNN I bet he had it going on!
It's too bad that appearances do matter. Because we can go on and on about how good looking that man is. And for the norms of social interactions during that period... daaaaangg!!
We can keep going on and on and on about other good looking livermorons, losalamorons, sandidiots, etc. etc... soo many good looking people both male and female!!! It makes you wonder what "office life" must have been like for such beautiful people...
Feinstein is my hero for saying "No" to NIF. That money is better spent on just about anything else INCLUDING defense spending. Obama deserves credit for having foresight and good judgement,fairness and balance in terms of the NIF budget. No decision could have been more fair or wise. We should be thankful to both the democratic and republican politicians working together to demonstrate fiscal constraint with regards to NIF. It is clear that they are hearing our calls for fiscal conservatism.
Gutting site 300, HEAF, cams to reprogram funds? I guess they gotta do what they gotta do. But talk about doubling down instead of hedging. Will the big gamble pay off? The clock is ticking. Regardless of how it all ends, someone like Perlman has got to write a novel on NIF eventually.
Indeed Bruce made a genius move, considering the crap about to hit the fan. Kudos to Bruce!!
I hope LLNL tries to push a Pu NIF shot. That's just more free press for tvc, nrdc and more news for journal editorials and for Perlman and the news outlets. Too bad Friedman hasn't come back.to the topic of NIF. He should eventually. After all, he was conned just like everyone else. Nobody is going to blame a victim.
Is the point of May 18, 2013 at 7:26 PM to point out how important it is for beauty that is skin deep, and its other effects, for both men and women, to play such an important role in the day-to-day "activities" for managers at LLNL in the past and present? I'm glad you brought it up, because there are many shared stories to tell. I'm sure you have as many as the rest of us, we should trade stories here!
I'm just saying.....Maryia a little fat for most America haters.
Can't we get one of those Berkeley students that works out at the gym once in awhile.
Maybe a vegetarian who takes care of herself a little better, easier on the eyes.
I'm just asking!
Can someone say.. "defamation?" A number of rulings that establish precedence for very similar situations. I say go after him.
we should trade stories here!
Which current/former manager did you want to start with?
Is it true the lab went to her and asked for $150M to take care of their potion of the sequestration and she told LLNL to go pound sand. If this is true I would bank on an ISP in September even if Parney gets his 325 to 366 people he needs to wipe out his debt between now and Oct 1st. These SSVSP people don't even touch the $80M shy for FY-14, the $70M LLNS is going to need to cover the 130 people suing that are going to win similar $$ awards and it surely doesn't cover the $150M sequestration funds needed. So what do we have here starting Oct 1st 2013. $160M in the whole before one gets started. Hum? I'd say that good for another 533 people out the door. Any volunteers? Oh I forgot you missed that boat. Now you'll be grabbed by the ear and shown the gate. See yah!
Brutal
If NIF can just Keep focus on the real prize of ignition, they can worry about LIFE and the SSP afterwards. Robust LIFE and SSP work requires ignition. I think that is what the lab has been doing for the past 6 months so I eagerly await the outcome of the short term studies. Seriously, The state of laser EoS is not a big deal if ignition opens the door to new diagnostic capabilities for high pressure experiments. Doubling down in NIF is the right decision because the only question that matters right now is whether NIF provides a viable path for fusion energy and/or stockpile stewardship.
I hate to think what the contingency plan is if they cannot reach ignition. But management at any big organization has to plan for such possibilities.
Ouch, LLNL was expecting another 1B from Feinstein. That is a huge miscalculation for NIF. I guess they should be happy for getting funding that is still sizeable. They can make do like everyone else that has to make do with less.
May 21, 2013 at 12:47 PM
I was glad to see her turn down the request for funds and I hope she continues to make the same $$ cuts year after year until LLNL has a project worth funding. She needs to divert all those funds to global security where they'll be used to keep America safe from JA's like the Boston Bomber's and any other sleeper cells we have in this nation.
If LLNL becomes a primarily global security lab, then maybe taking parts of Sandia ca would make sense. All that nuclear enterprise assurance work and DHS WFO amounts to a decent amount of money.
That ignition threshold factor is misleading because getting 10% of it does not mean that they are 10% there. The relationship between that parameter and ignition is highly nonlinear. They are much further off that you are led to believe. You need real metrics like neutron yield to be reported. Last numbers I have out of NIF are woefully inadequate.
Are these the common derisive ways for addressing people at the 3 labs? I only heard the first one.
May 21, 2013 at 10:19 PM
There are also "Livermites."
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