PLUTONIUM IN NIF COMING SOON
The NNSA Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Request states that plutonium shots at NIF will begin in the coming fiscal year. For those who want to check the reference, it is in Volume 1 on Page 156 under “Highlights of the FY 2015 Budget Request.” It does not mention what may happen re: contamination of the NIF target chamber. Nor does it reference the LLNL environmental impact statement that describes an increase in radiation exposure to employees if plutonium is used in NIF.
The NNSA Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Request states that plutonium shots at NIF will begin in the coming fiscal year. For those who want to check the reference, it is in Volume 1 on Page 156 under “Highlights of the FY 2015 Budget Request.” It does not mention what may happen re: contamination of the NIF target chamber. Nor does it reference the LLNL environmental impact statement that describes an increase in radiation exposure to employees if plutonium is used in NIF.
Comments
May 14, 2014 at 9:22 PM
If you knew anything, you'd know Pu isn't "toxic." It is a mildly radioactive heavy metal in the isotopic form under consideration. And the comparison wasn't to NTS, it was to LANL firing sites, which have used Pu in contained shots for decades.
If you need to get your information from something that basic, you're not qualified to be brandishing it with such certainty.
Plutonium, like many heavy metals, has potentially toxic properties. The quantities of plutonium available to disperse, however, are too small to make those effects particularly relevant, unlike the case with uranium. For plutonium, radiological effects predominate from a regulatory and health effects perspective.
Plutonium is nothing to treat lightly. If ingested, it yields a statistically increased chance of developing certain cancers over a 50 year period. As far as toxicity goes, however, it pales in comparison to any number of common industrial chemcials that can kill you immediately in accidental releases.
Budgets.
Safety analyses.
You may discern by their completely different names that they are, in fact, completely different topics. Surrprisingly enough, they answer to different requirements as well. As amazing as it may be to believe, there are actually documents outside a budget request that specifically address safety issues and potential radiation exposures from the use of plutonium targets at NIF.
Where does that gram of evaporated Pu go? As stunning as it may seem, in a nationwide endeavor stretching back almost seventy years, involving the handling of metric tons of plutnoium across the country, people have actually figured out how to contain a gram of plutonium in pretty much any form. In fact, if you're fixated on that single gram it's not really very hard at all.
Give the whole industrial revolution thing a little credit, huh?
And I'm not even saying plutonium isn't a hazard. But how do some of you idiots even sleep at night with all the obvious and ubiqitous hazards in your house from modern technology? Oh, that's right--you're completely ignorant of them and the associated risk factors.
May 15, 2014 at 6:44 AM
Certainly not the ones who actually know something!
There is a huge difference between inhaling some plutonium that might give you cancer somewhere down the road and getting enveloped by a cloud of chlorine gas that eats your lungs out in seconds.
May 15, 2014 at 2:28 PM
Duh, moron.
I think that's what everyone has said. That's where the statistically increased chance for cancer over 50 years comes from. Which is still nowhere as bad as things that will kill you today.
May 15, 2014 at 8:49 PM
This must be a job description for a LLNL "scientist"
That reminds me, aren't we supposed to hear about a breakthrough discovery regarding a high pressure Ta phase transition from experiments on NIF?
Still waiting. But not holding my breath.
What I read them saying is that it's not a significant risk to shoot tiny targets of plutonium in NIF,certainly not for anyone outside the building itself. The facts seem to back that up.
This kind of stuff just discredits environmentalism. If you want to know why we're having such a hard time getting real environmental threats taken seriously by too much of the public, look in the mirror. This kind of "boy who cried wolf" nonsense over everything hurts the movement as a whole.
Emotional fixations absolutely convinced of their own self-righteousness are not trusted by anyone thinking clearly. That's why you're baying at the moon about a fictitious public. One that isn't rising up against an activity authorized by their elected representatives.
May 16, 2014 at 5:31 AM
Sure, but not about science, because they know little and care less.
May 16, 2014 at 5:31 AM
Again, your emotional fixation on things you do not understand leads you astray.
I don't actually work at the Lab. I just know some people who do. So I speak with plenty of people outside the gates who don't have PhDs, almost all of whom could care less about NIF. If presented with your arguments and the tone in which they are presented, most of them would consider you a hysteric.
Actual knowledge of what one speaks matters. The way in which one chooses to communicate matters as well. You would benefit from working on both.
May 16, 2014 at 12:02 PM
E.g., "the truth."
Get an education before you start posting garbage.
My point exactly.
Different materials, but how many chamber related "special material" leaks, near miss situations, or employee mishandling or exposure to toxic or carcinogenic materials have occurred in NIF already? Zero? Just asking.
The plutonium questions are reasonable and yes many on this blog don't work at LLNS or NIF. The constructive thing to do is to point to formal design reviews and discussions to shed light on the matter. Calling people "haters" makes you come off as just another shill for NIF at all costs.
May 18, 2014 at 1:46 PM
Probably. The people in charge of the effort are 3rd-rate, and under enormous pressure to produce something that others can claim as valuable. So the official outcome is predetermined, whether or not reality supports it.
May 18, 2014 at 2:25 PM
Sure, but that simply begs the question. It would require people who are knowledgeable about NIF to weigh in, but they have all abandoned this blog.
2. We can build NIF within budget
3. We can build NIF on schedule
4. We ran into ignition challenges
1. We can design systems in NIF for safe plutonium
experiments
2...
3...
It's only fair that we use its fine new tool to further our advancement in this area. We are the world's experts in this area and will always be pushing the limits of what is possible. We are born to lead, not follow. Bravo, LLNL!
What does plutonium work in NIF at this time signify if anything?
> It signifies LLNl's struggle to remain in some way connected to Pu science.
How would plutonium experiments in NIF impact ignition experiments that are already very pricey per shot?
> Very little if they are designed properly for containment, except possibly for schedule, which no one cares about anyway.
Turn around time?
> Again, about the same as an "ignition" shot, if they are designed properly.
It begs the question why we have LLNL at all to begin with. There is a stupid gentleman's agreement regarding mission-space among the labs. LLNL is not a center of excellence for anything, and all they have to protect their "turf" is this so-called agreement. It's time to throw that out. LANL, LLNL and Sandia should be able to compete for funds over all mission spaces, including engineering, and primary physics.
pay off?
May 23, 2014 at 2:48 PM
Sure, what the hell? It's only been 40 or so years of completely wasted taxpayer money. Who cares?
May 23, 2014 at 2:58 PM
More like 50 years ! Oh, but they now have the codes corrected and well calibrated against the real world, so everything is hunky-dory. When your grandchildren push the switch, light will be due to ICF. (NOT)
fission plants? Conservation won't cover the growing demand either.
pay off?
May 23, 2014 at 2:48 PM
Arguments like this brought us to spend the many billions we already have. It's a recipe for never, ever stopping, as long as the cost of the next couple years is small compared with what you have already spent then you cannot ever stop. What if, what if.
What are the viable environmentally friendly energy alternatives given the projected global need?
Finally, everyone knows (even if some won't admit it) that ICF will NEVER be a viable power source.
http://web.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html
Perhaps some of the funding being wasted at LANL for plutonium research can now be moved over to LLNL were it can be more effectively be used to further plutonium research. NNSA needs to stop wasting money at a lab that only seems to know how to shutdown their facilities for safety reasons and then never gets them restarted.
May 23, 2014 at 8:42 PM
It is not going to happen, at any lab, anywhere, any time. ICF is a failed scientific concept that has cost too many dollars for too many decades. Keep trying to make gold from base metals, it would be more cost effective. The quest for "ignition" has become religious instead of scientific. The modern Holy Grail. With as much chance of success. Give it up, already.
May 23, 2014 at 9:28 PM
No, that was in about 2005, when the NIC started. It's triple-down time on NIF.
1. It will prevent other experiments from easily occurring.
2. It will greatly increase the D&D costs and extend the D&D timeline, which would be good for the local economy.
My guess is that management will use Pu as the last desperate experimental series. The last best hope.
May 25, 2014 at 7:28 AM
And therefore, officially it will be a resounding success. There will be unbearably pressure on the scientists involved to overplay the results, because it cannot fail. This pattern has played out many times at the labs.
Or did you mean other programs in the complex?