Within a flat overall budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Biden administration proposes to ramp up funding...
https://www.aip.org/fyi/2021/fy22-budget-request-national-nuclear-security-administration
Within a flat overall budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Biden administration proposes to ramp up funding...
30 comments:
It’s time to eliminate a facility like Rochester Omega or the Z machine. There’s definitely no ICF future for Z and no possibility of a future pulsed power machine. Maybe phase out Z after some more EOS experiments.
“Within its requested flat topline, the administration proposes to ramp up funding for efforts to reconstitute plutonium production capabilities while paring back certain stockpile R&D activities, including the inertial confinement fusion program, which recently underwent an internal review that concluded it is unlikely to achieve fusion ignition with its current capabilities.”
Fasten your seatbelts LLNS National Ignition Facility (NIF) & Photon Science employees, your managers were probably informed of this potential reduction in funding months ago. Is a RIF coming?
Looks like lost of cuts. Is the ICF cut that big of a deal at this point everyone knows that was coming and pits is where things are going. Of course it looks more like Savannah River to me. The LANL people are just going around say Savannah River can never do it and they are all losers. Sounds kinda of like wishful thinking to me. Savannah River has something that New Mexico does not and I will leave that for the next poster to figure out.
Since this is ICF post, I am not sure what to add other than this cut has been expected for some time. What could help, well some kind big break through could happen for some reason, I mean a real breakthrough not some, "we are so close" this "looks so promising". Like a real breakthrough such that ICF achieves real fusion at Livermore, of course that might bring in some other issues but my point is you need something big now, if you want money to come pouring back in.
From breaking ground in 1997 to a possible financial hit in 2022, that's a 25 year run. Over at Computations we were being told that the new computer facility - TSF - would be part of the 1-2 punch for stockpile stewardship with NIF providing the physics of the fusion. Trying to sell that politicians could be a rough deal. So of course, you can claim dual use, we could use each system to do "good stuff" for the world.
Do genetic profiling with TSF and get that fusion reactor going for clean unlimited energy. Yes, we can sell that to Sen. Feinstein much easier than saying this is the substitute for real testing.
We didn't get the infinite source of energy, but hopefully we got our monies worth in the stewardship side of thing
But, But, I heard that NIF was too big to fail?
I think the Rochester Omega or the Z machine will be first to be cut.
A more likely case Omega does not get cut because they are cutting academic programs. The cuts will be NIF and Z-machine, probably going to keep both those going not hiring have few people encouraged to retire, work on pits at LANL, or do something else. It will not be pleasant but I doubt Z or NIF will just be cut.
Sunk costs like the NIF, are a hard pill to swallow. In 2021, we need peer reviewed passively safe nuclear fission power plants that can be constructed with today's technology. The billions spent on NIF and the promises made, are for the historians to review. DOE budgets should reflect this. Almost a decade ago, NIF was at the brink of destroying their laser optics to achieve ignition and it still failed. Time to move on.
Sunk costs like the NIF, are a hard pill to swallow. In 2021, we need peer reviewed passively safe nuclear fission power plants that can be constructed with today's technology. The billions spent on NIF and the promises made, are for the historians to review. DOE budgets should reflect this. Almost a decade ago, NIF was at the brink of destroying their laser optics to achieve ignition and it still failed. Time to move on.
7/12/2021 10:34 PM
I think you failed understand how any of this really works. NIF was never going to work, no one ever believed it was going to work, I can show you post after post from the blog going back to 2006 saying it was not going work and no one expects it to work. It was like the moon landing, the LHC, the bridges to nowhere ect, the space shuttle, the ISS. It was only built because it was big. No one believed we would get anything out of going to the moon with people in 1970, no one believed the space shuttle was even even remotely worth what we got out of it. It was big so it got funded. That was all the was the main reasons. LLNL needed some funding, because it was getting hard to justify two labs so the pitched something really big to keep it going and it worked. In many ways NIF achieved exactly what it was suppose to achieve.
NIF is not.
Yes, the NIF resident and somewhat arrogant, long pampered 40-50 something leadership, tried to force the newly hired (temporary) NIF 30 somethings to monitor the damage threshold of the NIF optics, the effort was called “Laser SHIELD”, these young engineers did their job well, but the underlying design of the NIF optical system proved to be a failure in terms of achieving ignition.
"I can show you post after post from the blog going back to 2006 saying it was not going work and no one expects it to work."
Go back at least a decade earlier, including nonpublic sources, and you will learn the truth.
7/13/2021 9:30 PM
Fist NIF is an engineering accomplishment, and it works, lux! Second and most importantly NIF trained thousands of staff than will maintain the stockpile for the next generation this is its biggest legacy. Third, there is so much more in the realm to be explored so much more, discoveries await.
NIF is the culmination of thousands of man years of effort culminating in 1.8MJ of laser light able to compress targets to extreme conditions of temperature and pressure bringing us closer and closer to replicating conditions inside the sun. Why many of you would want to stop support of research on this platform is mind boggling. It is not just about NNSA relevant boost and EOS vs ignition and power production but also about plasma and astrophysical sciences. To stop now would be to throw away all the knowledge and expertise gained over the past decade. While the PR campaign may have been seen as an unsavory element of the facility and its management, the platform is capable of supporting most of the research goals, and any oversell does not diminish the contributions in these non-ignition research goals. The call should be to advocate for getting rid of certain personalities in NIF management, rather than taking aim at the facility itself.
Good science does not operate according to a pre-set schedule. You cannot run discoveries on NIF according to a schedule. One must be allowed to explore the realm of possibilities, to get a more clearer grasp of what questions are out there, and to be given the opportunity to investigate these questions whether they pertain to ignition or to other fundamental physical phenomena.
Seeking ignition and an understanding of the universe on NIF is like looking for the cure to cancer. You don't stop just because you reach a point in time, despite all that has been accomplished. You keep marching forward.
NIF is Remarkable. Fantastic.
From an idea, an unclear concept 15 years ago to a 100-square acre, flawlessly operating instrument assimilating amazing new technologies from material, to modelling to controls...
1.8MJ of blue light.. 500TW every 4 hours on a 3 mm target... Wow.
Brilliant.
24 beamlines 192 beams, adaptive optics, 5 MJ of capacitors, amazing 9000 pcs of 40cm x40cm Nd glass, meter-long 9000 flashlamps, literally millions of optics... Cleanest large surfaces ever produced, 1000s of times better than in wafer production.
A reliable 4K target system in a shielded 10m diameter vacuum sphere. DT targets regularly meeting exacting standards. Calibrated diagnostics systems to determine performance. Models to support interpretation.
All to the highest seismic standards, every system with a safety note, checked and rechecked.
Truly a magnificent lifetime achievemnt. Something Haussman dreamed of when he hired Emmett. What Paisner, Simmons, Hurley and Frietag strove for in setting high scientific and engineering standards. What Trenholme's team predicted.
Over 1000 labbies contributed years of their lives and many, many late nights.
Remarkable. Unprecedented. The damn thing works...it regularly meets its design specs.
Thanks for the confirmation Al.
"FIAT LUX" is fulfilled.
Now on to discoveries...
Now on to discoveries...
7/14/2021 10:16 AM
Not without funding.
Now on to discoveries...
7/14/2021 10:16 AM
Not without funding.
7/14/2021 5:25 PM
Somone always has to ruin the party.
Z and Omega will not be cut for a few reasons. Instead, NIF will be cut. Omega is doing the basic research very cost effectively, which is exactly what JASON said to focus on. Z provides competition and applied research for much less money than NIF. NNSA will double down on Omega and Z and reduce NIF to focus more on the applied research for training and to chart a path forward. NNSA has to get real answers and cut through the oversold science BS of the last couple of decades from LLNL.
Frankly, if laser ignition is never possible within reason, it might even make sense to shut down NIF and just get the same or similar results from Z for a fraction of the cost.
Someone needs to write a new code proving that NIF has already achieved breakeven.
It’s time to eliminate a facility like Rochester Omega or the Z machine. There’s definitely no ICF future for Z and no possibility of a future pulsed power machine. Maybe phase out Z after some more EOS experiments.
7/11/2021 1:15 PM
Really? How 'bout:
It’s time to eliminate a facility like NIF. There’s definitely no ICF future for NIF and no possibility of a future laser machine.
Use the money that would have been wasted on NIF upgrade to do real science at Rochester and Sandia.
Cut Z. Their fusion program is complete joke. Worthless. They have this concept called MAGLIF that barely gets any neutron output. They predicted break even on Z years ago and didn’t get jack. Their program is not very cost effective compared with NIF. They get about $100 million/year and only are able to do a few relevant experiment on Pu. Bruce Goodwin used to tell NNSA to cancel them based on this fact alone.
Rochester is a huge money sink that’s protected by Senator Schumer.
RIF??? When?!
Use the money that would have been wasted on NIF upgrade to do real science at Rochester and Sandia.
7/17/2021 7:59 AM
Better yet use the money to improve the lives of millions of Americans who have been marginalized my the corrupt systems.
The person responsible for the NOVA D2 EOS fiasco, who never retracted his paper with largely fabricated data, is now a bigwig at Omega Rochester. For that reason alone, CANCEL THE ROCHESTER OMEGA PROGRAM!
Geez, I thought it was done. But no, yet another NIF/ICF endless grievance thread. Let's trot out all the old names who screwed NIF or who were heroes of NIF. Let's argue again about all the "competing" facilities and which should be shut down. Has any one of these facilities actually done any real science of import in the past 10 years?
7/18/2021 1:30 PM
Omega is gong nowhere.
In any case I though Biden wants to give 4 Trillions to rebuild the nation. I think we can afford NIF, Omega and Rochester.
In any case I though Biden wants to give 4 Trillions to rebuild the nation. I think we can afford NIF, Omega and Rochester.
7/18/2021 7:30 PM
Nope. Free day care, free community college, free money for people who refuse to work, all those are more important than any stinkin' science. And who needs nuclear weapons anyway?
...and who needs nuclear weapons anyway?
sayeth 7/20/2021 6:30 PM
If these facilities had anything of value to offer modern nuclear weapon research there would be no debate about their funding. Obviously, they have not stepped up to the bar, and they will be fighting over scraps at the back door for the rest of their short pitiful existence.
Overheard in the NIF hallways, "I think we're going to need a bigger code."
"Overheard in the NIF hallways, "I think we're going to need a bigger code." "
All of this was resolved years ago (beamlit) - there are no issues :)
looks like somebody panicked about NIF being cut and made up some flashy results a month later
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