LLNL - The True Story -

thief said... So..we've got a budget for the next two years! Apparently a "hatchet man" sits in the directors chair....when can we expect the next RIF/VSIP?

Tests show New Mexico nuke dump workers exposed... This looks bad! http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NUKE_REPOSITORY_RADIATION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-02-26-19-25-18 ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Thirteen workers were exposed to radiation during a recent leak at the nation's underground nuclear waste dump in southeastern New Mexico, according to the results of preliminary tests announced Wednesday. The U.S. Department of Energy and the contractor that runs the Waste Isolation Pilot Project said in a joint news release that they have notified the workers of the positive results and will do further testing. They declined to comment further until a news conference Thursday afternoon.

Anonymous February 25, 2014 at 7:44 AM Laser Focus World February 24, 2014 Assessing progress on laser fusion Jeff Hecht Publications from the Wall Street Journal to the Huffington Post hailed the new results from the National Ignition Facility in the February 20, 2014 issue of Nature as a "fusion breakthrough." The progress of the "high foot" experiments at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, CA) is welcome good news for inertial confinement fusion. But should it count as a "breakthrough" in the big picture of fusion research? The "high foot" tests performed last fall illuminate the fusion hohlraum with extra laser power early in the laser pulse in an effort to improve the early stages of fuel compression. An August 2, 2013 test tripled the yield of fusion energy to about 8 kJ, and a test at the end of September did even better. The Nature paper details results of those two tests and a third in November. As shown in the fig...

Weapons Complex Monitor February 24, 2014 Lawmakers Push Obama For National Ignition Facility Funding Seventeen lawmakers—all but one from California—late last week urged President Obama to provide “strong and sustained” funding for the National Ignition Facility and inertial confinement fusion activities at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In a letter to President Obama Friday, the lawmakers, led by Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), noted recent advancements at NIF, which has thus far failed to achieve ignition. Recent shots on the facility have been deemed a breakthrough on the path to ignition with the energy produced through the fusion reaction exceeding the amount of energy deposited into the fuel. “Just within the past few months, the NIF has recorded several record-breaking experimental shots,” the lawmakers wrote. “These newest results bring the experimental findings more closely in line with the theoretical models, highlighting a promising path ...

Dawn Stover has an excellent piece that manages to combine disarmament with energy policy. Examining the successful Megatons to Megawatts program between Russia and the US, Stover points out "...there's no reason that the United States can't safely turn more its own weapons into fuel, a process that would not have to involve large risky shipments over such long distances." I hope you find it of interest! Best, Janice Keep turning those ploughshares into swords: http://thebulletin.org/keep-turning-those-swords-plowshares --Janice Sinclaire Internet Outreach Coordinator

Contributed by J. Frank Strategic deterrence conerence PDF may be blocked from within LLNL

contributed by J. Franklin http://knoxblogs.com/atomiccity/2014/02/20/heres-bruce-held-said/#more-11729

Global Security Newswire U.S. Nuclear Weapons Agency to Delay Work on Interoperable Warhead By Global Security Newswire Staff February 18, 2014 The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration is opting to postpone work on a controversial interoperable warhead, Nuclear Weapons and Materials Monitor reports. Don Cook, who leads the Energy Department agency's weapons program, told the publication on Wednesday that recent assessments of the two weapons the project was intended to replace -- the W-78 warhead used on land-based strategic ballistic missiles and the W-88 warhead fitted to submarine-launched Trident missiles -- revealed they could remain in active use for roughly another 15 years. "We certainly have enough surveillance data ... to determine that we have confidence in those two systems, that we'll have confidence for a bit of a longer period of time," Cook said on the sidelines of last week's Nuclear Deterrence Summit in Arlington, Va. The initiative to...

LLNS is demanding that you prove your dependents are eligible for health care coverage to "comply with requirements and manage health care costs." And it's not so simple to comply with the document demands, especially if you were married a long time ago. comment: Seems like LLNS wants to save money by removing ineligible dependents (fair enough), but saving more money by making it difficult/impossible to prove real dependents are eligible (like demanding a copy of a government-issued marriage certificate from 40 years ago, after LLNL recognized the marriage all throughout 30+ years of employment.)

High priced selection committees are not needed, let Google decide! "Director Goodwin" = 48,700 hits "Director Moses" = 19,800 hits "Director Knapp" = 8,320 hits "Director Younger" = 7,810 hits

What does everyone think of the CIP at LLNL?

Scientists Say Their Giant Laser Has Produced Nuclear Fusion! http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/12/275896094/scientists-say-their-giant-laser-has-produced-nuclear-fusion Researchers at a laboratory in California say they've had a breakthrough in producing fusion reactions with a giant laser. The success comes after years of struggling to get the laser to work and is another step in the decades-long quest for fusion energy. Omar Hurricane, a researcher at , says that for the first time, they've produced significant amounts of fusion by zapping a target with their laser. "We've gotten more energy out of the fusion fuel than we put into the fusion fuel," he says. It is all over the news now! A Star Is Born: US Scores Fusion-Power Breakthrough Wall Street Journal - ‎6 hours ago‎ http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/12/275896094/scientists-say-their-giant-laser-has-produced-nuclear-fusion NIF hails fusion breakthrough Optics.org-9 hours ago Dr Hurrican...

While RIFS seem to have gone silent for some time a new creation called 'Transitional Labor' (at least new to me) appears to have provided a surrogate vehicle for LANL to reduce the workforce on a case by case basis. No one notices very much because the unlucky individuals are put on this program in single digit numbers. More likely to not arouse the suspicions of the herd. The beauty of this plan is that it appears not to require official Washington channels that would be required for a full RIF but still allows Becktel to reduce head count without the unsightly publicity in the local media. I'm not complaining about the undefined time period your are given to find employment (before termination) outside the group that has just thrown you overboard. It's just that there are no Lab Policies that define exactly how Transitional Labor is to be practiced. No rules, no limits, no boundaries. Upon questioning our local HR rep, the only response given was that TL is regulated...

Masako Toki believes the looming Japan-India nuclear cooperation agreement could help strengthen nonproliferation and disarmament worldwide. I hope you find it of interest. Best regards, Janice Heavy lifting ahead in the Japan-India nuclear deal:   http://thebulletin.org/heavy-lifting-ahead-japan-india-nuclear-deal --Janice Sinclaire Internet Outreach Coordinator.

Can you spell Cronyism? The Independent published what many of us have know all along: http://www.independentnews.com/news/article_c2759f2e-89f4-11e3-a8c1-001a4bcf887a.html LLNS sends HRA funds, (which now provides substantially less than "substantially equal" health care benefits,) thru a long drawn out wasteful process that appears to just cause delays, and allow lots of unnecessary "handling", and mishandling of the money. And the process does NOT work. The article asks: “This is one more example of the kind of complicated arrangement that the Laboratory has created by farming out the health care that the University of California used to handle,” said Carole Hilton, Chair of the Livermore Laboratory Retirees Association. “Why on earth do payments have to go from Kaiser to Aon Hewitt and back to Kaiser? Money that could be used to improve the medical care of retirees is instead funding unnecessarily redundant processes.” Almost every year the process has b...

While people discuss fictitious bulb changers for 60$, here a real example of corporate greed. Another example while we need strong worker representation. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/aol-chief-ignites-firestorm-over-401k-cuts-and-distressed-babies-remark/2014/02/07/2116c03a-9012-11e3-b227-12a45d109e03_story.html?hpid=z1

NIF results published as a PRL http://physics.aps.org/articles/v7/13

The lead guitarist of Queen has a PhD in astrophysics and experience as a university chancellor, he might as well be the next lab director: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_May

Well I heard (second hand) that workers at the Lab who change light bulbs can make as much as $58.00 an hour plus benefits plus possibly a pension (TCP-1). Is this true? Have we gone nuts!!! This is the upside world a Liberal union brings to our society. I do not think the Lab pays starting PHD's that. Next they will be giving campaign contributions to their liberal colleagues (Democrats)just to corrupt the system a little more. This is all from Democratic policies. Used to be Republicans were somewhat corrupt with Big Business but there is no question that the Democratic Party is by far the most corrupt. Oh I can't see my lights went out. Let me supply an account number to pay the poor union victim to come over and exhaust themselves changing my light bulb. Keep voting Democratic, it's ok they are for the workers.

LIFE was so close to working. This is what Mike Dunne had to say in a recent article ( http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_27-1-2014-9-56-31): "To speed up the timeline to energy generation, Mike and his team have collaborated with engineers from the power industry to create a design for a steam turbine to capture heat from the reaction. This means that once ignition is reached, fewer hurdles will stand in the way of adapting the system to feed into an electrical grid."

We should all enjoy the LIFE website while we can https://life.llnl.gov/letter.php

INSPECTOR GENERAL REPORT - ANYONE KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS? The Office of Inspector General has issued a report titled “Performance of Work for a Non-Department Entity at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory," (INS-O-14-01). This report is now available for viewing and can be accessed by clicking the link below: http://energy.gov/node/796196 If you are unable to access this report, please call (202) 586-4128 for assistance.

Good article in the Washingtonpost about outsourcing. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-federal-outsourcing-boom-and-why-its-failing-americans/2014/01/31/21d03c40-8914-11e3-833c-33098f9e5267_story.html?tid=hpModule_14fd66a0-9199-11e2-bdea-e32ad90da239&hpid=z14