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.
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.
Comments
Godfather II: You broke my heart Fredo - Feinstein to Albright
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcFlp6kl508&feature=youtu.be
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.
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.
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.
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'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
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.
May 18, 2013 at 11:12 AM
My only question is: What did she do?
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?
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!!
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!
Which current/former manager did you want to start with?
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.
May 21, 2013 at 10:19 PM
There are also "Livermites."