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Tri-Valley Cares needs to be on this if they aren't already. We need to make sure that NNSA and LLNL does not make good on promises to pursue such stupid ideas as doing Plutonium experiments on NIF. The stupidity arises from the fact that a huge population is placed at risk in the short and long term. Why do this kind of experiment in a heavily populated area? Only a moron would push that kind of imbecile area. Do it somewhere else in the god forsaken hills of Los Alamos. Why should the communities in the Bay Area be subjected to such increased risk just because the lab's NIF has failed twice and is trying the Hail Mary pass of doing an SNM experiment just to justify their existence? Those Laser EoS techniques and the people analyzing the raw data are all just BAD anyways. You know what comes next after they do the experiment. They'll figure out that they need larger samples. More risk for the local population. Stop this imbecilic pursuit. They wan...
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Going from creating free energy for all to discovery the secrets of the universe, NIF does it all.
https://www.llnl.gov/news/ignition-experiment-advances-stockpile-stewardship-mission
But, we could go back to punching holes in the desert.
https://republicans-science.house.gov/_cache/files/2/f/2f299f68-c3c2-43ef-b4c3-1ab1a8855f65/D55C637E9AF7637F0AB5B5669D84687F.2023-02-28-budil-testimony.pdf
Exactly. Well said.
3/13/2023 5:34 AM
10 billion is nothing to the taxpayer at this point. We give out hundreds of billions now to all sorts of random things like bail outs, Oligarchs,
hands outs, and so on. 10 billion more is just fine, heck at least we get a little bit out of NIF, as opposed to killing 10s of thousands of people, or giving billions or millions to rich people.
This may sound a bit cynical but at this point saying we are wasting "billions" simply is not an argument I buy anymore. If it costs billions so what, just print it. It makes no difference at this point.
Why have a DOE or NNSA budget at all? Just use billions and billions and print it. Sound reasoning? I wonder if this argument would have worked on the front side of the NIF project when initial funding was proposed? I don’t think so. At the local level , if you were another program at LLNL, you’d know NIF has been siphoning money away from other non-NIF programs by way of space tax charges for years. The “just print it” argument has been ineffective at the local level and has impacted non-NIF program funding for years.
I see your argument but without NIF there is no real point in funding LLNL. NIF is they to keeping LLNL going with the promise of free energy. Your arguments about cost are internal, just print it is external. DOE is fine with NIF using more money or else they would have stopped it. NIF is going to get even more money now, so jump on the ship or get left behind. I am not trying to be mean just realistic.
LANL is seen as the weapon/pit lab, one shop for NW lab. Sandia does missiles and stuff, LLNL does NIF.
Its NIF or nothing at LLNL get used to it.
Yes, NIF is a significant part of LLNL funding, and hopefully they can reproduce and increase shot gain going forward, but there are many other LLNL programs that are important too that are worthy of funding independent of NIF.
I hope Director Budil’s testimony came across as cautiously optimistic. Right or wrong, over selling the success of NIF probably cost Dr. Moses his job in 2014 after NIF failed to reach ignition in 2012. Unfortunately, Director Albright left LLNL in 2013 too.