Thursday, September 20, 2012
Ignition Facility Misses Goal
Anonymously contributed:
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Article About NIF Woes in Science Magazine:
Ignition Facility Misses Goal, Ponders New Course
Science, Vol 337, 21 September 2012 Issue, Published by AAAS
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It includes some very well done photos of the facility.
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Excerpts:
The National Ignition Facility (NIF), a $3.5 billion laser fusion lab in California, looks certain to miss its deadline at the end
of this month for achieving ignition...
By law, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), part of the U.S. Department of Energy, has until 60 days after the deadline to produce a report explaining what barriers to ignition remain, how they can be overcome, and what implications there are for the stockpile...
Managers at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, the home of NIF, are playing down the significance of the end of the National Ignition Campaign (NIC)...
... Others view the missed deadline differently. “It’s going to be a big deal here,” says a congressional aide who asked to remain anonymous.
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51 comments:
The link to the article summary is here. Not sure if this is openly downloadable or only by those with subscriptions...
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6101/1444.summary?sid=e69f717d-946e-425f-9afc-13e2a6ad2059
Slight correction in the title. We still have a tiny bit of time left in the fiscal year. However, the article does mention the likelihood that the lab will miss its deadline.
Wow the neutron yields are horrible. You can't even do many of the more interesting experiments that would use produced neutrons for diagnostics, even without ignition. So this is a double whammy.
This almost slipped past me while reading this article... that performance is going down as they struggle to figure out why performance is low, and they didn't have the plans in advance for experiments that should have been done earlier on other platforms to mitigate this particular risk. Then going back through older comments criticizing technical risk management... That hit the nail right on the head despite all of the comments blasting that criticism and constantly telling us to Trivelpiece and JASONs and Lehman. The smoking gun is right here in the Science article. LLNL does not know how to manage technical risk. I dread to ask what quantitative methods that they apply.
Meanwhile, the much older, much cheaper Sandia "Z-Machine" has recently been producing some fantastic results on the way to achieving fusion:
http://www.sandia.gov/media/z290.htm
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Another dramatic climb toward fusion conditions for Sandia Z accelerator
Z's output has achieved three of four milestones; fourth reachable
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories' Z machine -- the former dark horse among accelerators meant to produce conditions required for nuclear fusion -- have increased the machine's X-ray power output by nearly 10 times in the last two years....
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Unlike the sleazy, unethical managers at LLNL, the people at Sandia didn't have to lie to further their project.
Here's a thought for those of you from LANL that are going full speed on the attack against LLNL over NIF. Take a look at the past five years and see how intertwined the two labs have become. They are now co-dependent on each other for success. Might want to ease up on the rhetoric just a bit in the interest of self preservation.
Nah, forget about it. It just wouldn't be "the LANL way".
Careful not to assume that all the attacks are from LANL. Think about how many people, sponsors, stakeholders, employees, etc. that LLNL and top management has alienated, lied to, mistreated, abused, etc. LANL is only the tip of the iceberg. That list is very long, and those offenders are still there at LLNL. Do you think times are bad? This is the time of reckoning. Things will get worse.
Bechtel apparently believed that the LLNL management model worked - so they applied it to LANL. Whoops!
This insider culture (particularly strong at LLNL but also there at LANL even before Anastasio) and the inbreeding that is needed to keep this culture, is why we see both labs in the condition it is today. LLNL blood being injected into LANL certainly seems to have accelerated it's demise.
Sandia has its act together, though it could easily tip quickly if arrogance and hubris grabs hold and causes problems (big ones) like those it has seen in the past.
The LLNL vs LANL stuff is nothing but a hearty sibling rivalry slap fest. But everyone takes seriously issues regarding the employees who don't deserve the kind of poor management and its effects trickled down from their respective upper level management at either lab.
It's about time to take out the trash.
everyone takes seriously issues regarding the employees
Everyone except management.
You just wait (another 20 years). Laser fusion is juuuust around the corner. You'll see.
You just wait (another 20 years). Laser fusion is juuuust around the corner. You'll see.
You don't even know anything but keep flapping your lips. Just because the codes are giving problems, you people think that you're oh so smart in your criticisms. Even Cook blames the codes you uninformed malcontent.
Yeah.. fix the codes and "...magic happens.." ignition will occur on NIF.
Those NIF scientists are smart but not THAT smart. They are blinded by their own hubris.
Those NIF scientists are smart but not THAT smart. They are blinded by their own hubris.
September 22, 2012 6:01 PM
No, DOE/NNSA is blinded by the NIF scientists' hubris.
Touche!
Unlike the sleazy, unethical managers at LLNL, the people at Sandia didn't have to lie to further their project.
September 21, 2012 12:50 PM
Yeah they (Sandia) move them to NNSA (i.e. Dr. Don Cook) where they can tell bigger lies. Ouch!
In the next round of budget cuts, one of the design labs may have to close.
To be fair, LLNL has shown that lasers are very useful for a variety of things including: promotions, full employment, high-minded hubris, even code "validation". We just haven't shown that lasers are useful for fusion.
The project has failed.
The piss poor neutron yields say everything. 6B essentially down the drain. Why throw good money after bad? Don't believe the convoluted logic or all the "proposed solutions" in 3m time. That is purely intended to support NIF employment social welfare while providing diminishing returns to support programmatic missions. Indeed NIF is a failure.
Wait, what is that I hear in the distance? I believe it's a fat lady singing.
LLNL has 5-days to achieve ignition and counting......
September 23, 2012 7:19 AM makes an interesting point. Before Don Cook, other Sandians, such as Everet Beckner, Gil Weigand, and Gene Ives, moved to NNSA. Ives seemed genuinely interested in the stockpile but Ev seemed intent on being politically correct and keeping the train on the tracks and Ev only cared about ASCI. Sandia has it's act together in pursuing WFO at the expense of the stockpile stewardship mission, including subsidizing its WFO on the SSP base, but besides WFO Sandia does not have its act together - look at what they have done to the cost of the B61 LEP!
Sorry - above I meant that Gil only cared about ASCI (not Ev)
In the next round of budget cuts, one of the design labs may have to close.
September 23, 2012 4:15 PM
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Funny you should mention that. I've begun to sense that this may finally be coming.
With the growing budget crunch, it's going to be harder and harder to justify funding two nuclear weapon design labs. One of them will likely go on the chopping block.
Hard to say which one, but it seems as if the political delegation in California is far more effective than the current delegation from New Mexico. LANL lost a huge supporter with lots of political power when St. Pete left the Senate. I would bet on LANL taking the fall. Back in the early 1980s, no one would have believed that Rocky Flats might someday be shut down.... but it was, nevertheless!
" September 25, 2012 8:49 PM"
One thing is that Bechtel could make a lot of money with closing operations. It will take 5-10 years to bulldoze and clean up everything and that is "long term vision" in terms of "corporate capture" $$$ baby. LANLS may push for this. The US cannot afford the labs anymore.
LLNL has 4-days to achieve ignition and counting......
LLNL has 3-days to achieve ignition and counting......
September 26, 2012 2:25 AM
Yeah real labbies know that you gotta lowball the cost estimates for big projects because once NNSA is committed, it's hard for them to back out when more realistic numbers are presented. Sugar daddy Tax-payers have always come through up to now.
LLNL has 3-days to achieve ignition and counting......
September 27, 2012 3:44 AM
It's sad to think that the only soul who gives a shit about LLNL about to miss their ignition goal is this poor bastard counting the days. Sad state of affairs at LLNL.
"Anonymous said...
LLNL has 3-days to achieve ignition and counting......
September 26, 2012 2:25 AM"
I may have my doubts about NIF but I have no doubt that you are a POFS. I guess sometimes bitterness is all one has to cling to but if that is the case than what is the point.
I think that he is laughing his butt off.
LLNL has 2-days to achieve ignition and counting......
LLNL has 2-days to achieve ignition and counting......
LLNL has 1-day to achieve ignition and counting......
....and still no ignition. Where should we park the next few billion?
LLNL has 7-hours to achieve ignition and counting.....
September 30, 2012 4:04 PM
And jettison Moses
National Ignition Facility (NIF)? I guess that's now a misnomer. NIF has shown that it can't "ignite" anything.
Time to change the name before angry Congressmen find out they've been fooled. Perhaps it can be used to burn up old, rotten US currency for the Treasury.
Burning up money.... that would be a fitting end to this expensive, vastly oversold money-pit called NIF!
This is Ed Moses. I want all of you fine scientists to know that sometimes, even when you are cumming tantalizingly close to ignition, its imperative to stick it through to the climax. Its hard, dirty work, and its not all fun and games--especially when you have been married to the same obese, slothful facility for well over a decade now. What may have seemed like a good idea in the beginning, sometimes doesn't look so great in hind sight. Well, I want you to know that it is no time to just give up. What about the children? They depend on our capacity to vaporize the world to keep them safe. What about the dissolution costs? Its going be a lot more expensive to end LLNL's relationship with NIF and start over again than to keep plugging.
But the bottom line is, if you think achieving ignition at NIF will be fantastic, just imagine what its gonna be like to reach ignition 10 times per second at LIFE, in a couple of years from now. That is a party nobody will want to miss.
A troll? The real ed Moses should not be stupid enough to use such language without letting legal scrub it. I vote that it is a troll. Gave me a chuckle though.
Let's build a fusion energy temple first to motivate the politicians and employees. You can tax non-NIF programs for the construction cost stating that the other programs benefit by basking in the wondrous glory of the 1kj emitted out of the target chamber glory holes.
They've pretty much given up. Even the self-delusional "I've got a plan to fix so and so" followed by the scurrying about and self-promotional patting-yourself-on-the-back has stopped. This party is over, people. The sickly cow is dead.
I reserve judgement on Trivelpiece because I highly suspect he and his committee did their job well - just that their job was NOT to manage technical risk, but rather to do something else completely (like technical/scientific assurance).
So here is an important point: All of the contrary technical views, doubts, concerns, etc., were either ignored, shut down, or supposedly "addressed" and yet here we find ourself with an epic failure.
So what does that tell you about the management's ability to manage technical risk? This is truly a failure of management, and heads really need to roll. It sounds like alot of people were sipping the coolaid, even NIF management... Shutting dissent and even abusing rules to do so... well the means are unethical but the end spoke for itself.
NIF is one of those gifts that keep on giving. Watching you people shred each other on this blog is amusing and mildly diverting. What "could have been" or "would have been" is a pointless exercise. Having worked at the NIF for about five years, I can say with some confidence that you caught whatever they had to give you; the contagion of fear, doubt and distorted perception. Do yourselves a favor, open the doors and let out the noise of your echo chamber before it’s too late.
They can't handle the kind of evidence that casts damning doubt on the thing. We knew for a long time that it wasn't going to work (except for the lemmings who blindly stare at computer simulations and proclaim that because it worked on a computer that there must be something fundamentally wrong with the laws of the universe). I've never known of such a predictable failure in NIF that is designed on the basis of computer code while ignoring very old experimental data as evidence. You can start to find in the communications over the past decade which senior scientists and managers need to pay with a pound of flesh. This is truly a disgrace. I watched this impending train wreck over the past decade. An impossibly slow-motion vantage. Many of us were right all along based on evidence. The whole NIF media self-promotion campaign made be embarrassed to have any past association with NNSA. Accomplish the big mission FIRST. THEN have your party.
Yes. It is LLNL tradition to make the same mistake over and over again never hashing and analyzing through the past mistakes, admitting errors, learning from them, putting in place assurances to not revisit them. It is not in the nature of the beast to admit that he screwed up big time. Analyzing mistakes is helpful for everyone else though. The "French, Chinese and Russians."
NIF, SCHMIF. Who the F cares? It means nothing to the average citizen, and therefore even less to the average know-nothing, partisan-blinded, incompetent, political hack of a congressperson. A big fall is coming, and I don't mean autumn. Well deserved too. A failed experiment whose genesis was more political than scientific, and whose claims were always false. No ignition, and no relevance to weapons. Result: Drop a wrecking ball on it.
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