Congressman John Garamendi spoke to LLNL employees on
Tuesday 1/5 at 2:30 PM.
Your opinion?
Tuesday 1/5 at 2:30 PM.
Your opinion?
Tri-Valley Cares needs to be on this if they aren't already. We need to make sure that NNSA and LLNL does not make good on promises to pursue such stupid ideas as doing Plutonium experiments on NIF. The stupidity arises from the fact that a huge population is placed at risk in the short and long term. Why do this kind of experiment in a heavily populated area? Only a moron would push that kind of imbecile area. Do it somewhere else in the god forsaken hills of Los Alamos. Why should the communities in the Bay Area be subjected to such increased risk just because the lab's NIF has failed twice and is trying the Hail Mary pass of doing an SNM experiment just to justify their existence? Those Laser EoS techniques and the people analyzing the raw data are all just BAD anyways. You know what comes next after they do the experiment. They'll figure out that they need larger samples. More risk for the local population. Stop this imbecilic pursuit. They wan...
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That was the message Congressman John Garamendi shared with employees Tuesday during and all-hands presentation.
“In 10 years, there could actually be legitimate fusion power,” he said. “You said you needed a few dollars to get that done. That dream is possible.”
He said the Laboratory is a place that cannot only help the country in national security and nonproliferation but in energy and climate change as well. “The Lab spins off incredibly important information. To watch the evolution of the Laboratory do so many other things besides the central purpose of national security is exciting.”
This was Garamendi’s first visit to the Lab since being elected last November representative of the state’s 10th district, which includes the Lab. Garamendi, formerly California’s lieutenant governor, won the seat previously held by Rep. Ellen Tauscher.
He sits on the Transportation Infrastructure Committee as well as the Science and Technology Subcommittee on Innovation, Technology, Energy and Water. He said the goal of this committee is to educate itself first on the important issues and then disseminate that to the public.
“It’s been three decades since our nation has dealt with nuclear energy issues,” he said. “We need to educate ourselves and develop support for projects such as NIF and fusion power.”
While the Laboratory did not receive a large amount of financial support for energy projects through the first round of funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Garamendi said there is a significant amount of dollars available for future projects.
“A lot of that money isn’t going where it may have the greatest potential,” he said. “In the first round, winners had been preselected and others were left out. There is second round that hasn’t been spent or decided how it will be used. Can some of that be used here on this campus? I’m going to push this process to work with DOE and other departments that are not normal funding sources here to bring the money to carry out the broad mission of this Laboratory.”
Garamendi commented on his privilege to represent the district with the greatest research facilities in the world. His district includes Livermore and Sandia labs and skirts Lawrence Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley.
“This is where it will be developed if we we’re willing to invest in those things and take the risks of the investment,” he said. “The knowledge in this area is unparalleled. There is some real serious thinking going on and I need to have that information so please share it with me. “
He seemed to be enthusiastic to be at the lab, hopefully that was not a show. I was pleased that he has a history with the Lab and it would appear that he feels that we have something to contribute.
But then, he said he believed Pelosi when she stated that there would be no additional taxes on the middle class to pay for impending medical plan. If the speaker can sell him that bill of goods, then maybe Moses and Miller can sell him on NIF producing commercial power in 10 years.
But I'll bet RRW is still dead.
She silently participated in the selling of LLNL to the corporate world!