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National Ignition Facility Fails To Ignite Support In Congress
Hugh Pickens writes "For more than 50 years, physicists have been eager to achieve controlled fusion, an elusive goal that could potentially offer a boundless and inexpensive source of energy. Now Bill Sweet writes in IEEE Spectrum that the National Ignition Facility (NIF), now five billion dollars over its original budget and years behind schedule, deserves to be recognized as perhaps the biggest and fattest white elephant of all time. With the total tab for NIF now running to an estimated $7 billion, the laboratory has been pulling out all the stops to claim success is just around the corner. 'We didn't achieve the goal,' said Donald L. Cook, an official at the National Nuclear Security Administration who oversees the laser project but rather than predicting when it might succeed, he added in an interview, 'we're going to settle into a serious investigation' of what caused the unforeseen snags. On one hand, the laser's defenders point out, hard science is by definition risky, and no serious progress is possible without occasional failures. On the other, federal science initiatives seldom disappoint on such a gargantuan scale, and the setback comes in an era of tough fiscal choices and skepticism about science among some lawmakers. 'If the main goal is to achieve a power source that could replace fossil fuels, we suspect the money would be better spent on renewable sources of energy that are likely to be cheaper and quicker to put into wide use,' editorializes the NY Times. 'Congress will need to look hard at whether these "stockpile stewardship" and long-term energy goals can be pursued on a smaller budget.'"
Then he'll never cut it, no matter how much waste it is.
Either that, or find a way to spin it as a cut to Medicare.
Just make sure he knows it's got nothing to do with PBS, that massive drain on the federal budget that never produces anything of value. Why I can't count the ways it hasn't helped me!
...They had a schedule for achieving controlled fusion? Do they have a schedule for warp drive as well?
In the long run fusion will be the best source of energy. I don't mind having spent the money attempting to make this technology work but apparently it isn't the right solution. Time to move on.
That's it? This is what they claim is the biggest white elephant in our budget?
It isn't the 700 billion spent on Defense, or the 400 billion we spend on medicare, it's the god damn 7 billion spent on trying to obtain controlled fusion. Don't misunderstand me, it sounds like this project is wasting a ton of money, and something should be done about it. But claiming it is the single biggest flop in our budget, even as hyperbole, is laughable at best, and ill informed at worst.
There needs to be a very detailed account of what these people have been doing with public funds. Renewable energy in the form of wind, solar, tidal and geothermal generation cannot replace fossil fuels fast enough to keep Global Warming within reasonable limits, but all show promise.
We've already wasted too much time, and now we need some kind of generation technology to bridge the gap. Imagine what that money could have done helping develop a small, safe, easy-to-build thorium reactor, or overcoming the issues delaying wholesale change to LED lighting.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
With the total tab for NIF now running to an estimated $7 billion
That is it, only $7 billion. To put that number into perspective that is about 2 days of deficit spending (not total spending for those 2 days just the deficit) for the US government.
Time to offend someone
The NIF is part of the military essentially. While it has the side-benefit of allowing us to investigate inertial confined fusion, I thought the whole point of places like that was as a way to test nuclear weapons without actually setting them off?
Or, you know, spend 1T less on whacking tin-pot dicatooar, put $50B into the NIF to make it actually work, another $50B at ITER as a backup and enjoy the $900B savings...
1 billion on solar power satellites,
Also, seriously, since one speculative tech hit a snag and didn't work, your solution is to invest in another that is evel less likely to work eith current tech at a level which will ensure that it will never get aronud to be working.
£1b is orders of magnitude too low to get anywhere with solar power satellites. $100b _might_ cut it.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The experiment was a success. The outcome a failure.
There are two proposed approaches for fusion power generation: tokamak and ICF. ITER tests the tokamak approach and the National Ignition Facility tests the ICF approach. Thanks to the NIF we now know exactly what ICF is and isn't capable of. I'd call that an excellent return on investment.
There was the article on /. a while back where MIT was answering questions about fusion and it was pointed out that based on the historical cutting of fusion research investment, fusion power is about $80 billion away, and has always been 25 years away because it's budget has been progressively cut.
To put that number into perspective that is about 2 days of deficit spending (not total spending for those 2 days just the deficit) for the US government.
...for a project that few people really understand during tough economic times. While I'm very much in support of science projects like this, it should surprise no one that stuff like this is going to be first on the chopping block come budget time. Voters don't turn out because their favorite science project got the budgetary ax but they do turn out when medicare is threatened. Big budget science comes with big political risks. If it works, great but if it doesn't it is an easy target and it hurts the prospects of future science projects.
I agree thought that we really could use a few less bombers and a few more fusion research projects. The world would be a better place for it.
, and has always been 25 years away because it's budget has been progressively cut
ISTR tht the current level of funding it will basically never end up working.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Yes, in this case it isn't even some secret mission, but one of the reasons the program was set up. The NIF's goal is to improve our understanding of fusion. There are two stated applications for doing so: 1) improving designs for possible future fusion-power reactors; and 2) improving understanding of how matter behaves in a thermonuclear explosion.
The news seems to mostly be about #1, but really #2 is a pretty key part of the reason it exists.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The scientists at NIF have it all wrong; if they want to save their hides they need to get someone from the military to claim they need fusion for... I don't know, fighting terrorists or whatever. Just look at the rail gun--what a spectacular failure. Sure, we can make heavy things go fast, but they still haven't solved basic problems like how keep plasma from electrical arcing from melting the rails. Or the non-lethal microwave device that doesn't work in a light rain. Hypersonic missiles? Or even the myriad "totally necessary" fighter jets with backup engines being developed, just in case. What about space-based missile defense? Maybe NIF could claim that they could retrain their lasers on ICBMs? Clearly, if the military is into something things like price and feasibility are not a problem.
In all seriousness, how the f*ck can anyone take Congress seriously when it comes to spending? Here we have $7 billion spent trying to discover limitless sources of energy, but ohhhh, they're over budget and that sounds like a big number! The Big Dig (in Boston) was federally subsidized and cost around $8 billion and it was made so poorly (due to corruption and a lack of oversight) that some poor woman was crushed when a ceiling tile fell on her car. And what about the trillion dollar tax cuts enacted in the first term of W? Or the other trillion (give or take) spent on invading Iraq for no particular reason? I don't buy this "we have to start somewhere" nonsense of budget cuts when nothing defense-related is even questioned and just letting the Bush tax cuts expire as they were supposedly originally intended is a non-starter, not to mention the insanity of the blanket 15% capital gains rate (note: you don't tax money, it's fungible, you tax the actions of people and legal entities).
If anything, Congress should be embarrassed by how little they appropriate to science and how many of its members are on the record as refusing to accept Darwinian evolution or anthropogenic global warming (which probably explains their willingness to cut funding for NIF.)
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.
total cost of stealth bomer including development, engineering and testing, averaged US$2.1 billion per aircraft (in 1997 dollars), $2.87 billion today
London olympics, 2 week sports event, cost £11 Billion, or US$17.7 billion.
This is the largest, most complicated laser in history, give it a chance!
While it has the side-benefit of allowing us to investigate inertial confined fusion, I thought the whole point of places like that was as a way to test nuclear weapons without actually setting them off?
I've wondered this myself. The design of it seems to make little sense (to me anyway) for use as a sustainable source of power. You blast the target and hopefully get a fusion reaction but then what? There's no turbine or continuous generation of power and the design of it pretty much seems to preclude such use. It makes sense a way to study fusion reactions (and related weapons) but not so much for power generation. Maybe there is hope for some spin-off technology if it was successful but really it seems like a pricey attempt to get around nuclear test ban treaties.
The experiment was a success. The outcome a failure. There are two proposed approaches for fusion power generation: tokamak and ICF. ITER tests the tokamak approach and the National Ignition Facility tests the ICF approach. Thanks to the NIF we now know exactly what ICF is and isn't capable of. I'd call that an excellent return on investment.
Weird, you seem to be at odds with much of the article:
With the total tab for NIF now running to an estimated $7 billion, the laboratory has been pulling out all the stops to claim success is just around the corner. At the beginning of July, it announced that 15 years of work had paid off in "an historic record-breaking laser shot," in which 192 beams delivered more than 500 trillion watts of peak power and 1.85 megajoules (MJ) of ultraviolet laser light to its target." The lab's leaders predict that "ignition" -- the point where the 192 lasers actually deliver more energy than they consume -- could occur as early as next year.
So help me out here, if we now know the outcome is a failure why are the project leads asking for more funding and trying to convince us it's just around the corner? Maybe next year, possibly almost sure that it might could happen if the possibilities are totally just almost there.
Sounds more like "It's 20 years off. Wait, you're pulling our funding?! But it might happen as early as next year!"
My work here is dung.
That is it, only $7 billion. To put that number into perspective that is about 2 days of deficit spending (not total spending for those 2 days just the deficit) for the US government.
Is that you? How's business doing in Reno, Mr. Mayor?
Set your phasers on "funky"!
When my father was defending his PhD in fusion physics at the University of Wisconsin (1974), he had some very impressive results: 2 data runs, zero standard deviation, date-stamped polaroid photos of every step in each. The zero standard deviation was challenged; the response was to pull out the photos.
He got the PhD. But he didn't continue in the field. Partly why, may be that when he was asked about the future of practical nuclear fusion, he pointed out that for the last 40 years back then, practical nuclear fusion had been ten years away, and he figured it would be the same for the next 200 years. When asked why, he pointed out some standard feynmann estimates that showed that there isn't enough Lithium in the world to make nuclear fusion a practical power source, using the DT reaction.
So when the ignition facility gets a better reaction than the DT, and has a way of making *that* practical, then knock again. Till then, I'll be counting off another 160 years....
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It was clear from the start that this was the case, that this was the primary reason of building it.
Why do people keep repeating the propaganda?
Nothing about this project makes any sense at all from a nuclear power perspective. Be it the hugely inefficient, short-lifetime lasers that can be fired about once a day. Just 10% of the energy released from the lasing medium actually reaches the target. Even more energy is wasted creating the laser beam in the first place. Be it the miniscule amounts of *frozen* hydrogen, put into a GOLDEN, high precision capsule, put very precisely into a delicate assembly that needs to be rebuild after each successful shot ... while any significant power generation would need several shots per second, churning through the gold-plated fuel.
Absolutely nothing at all makes sense if you want this to build a power plant. Yet, everybody seems to have swallowed the propaganda hook, line and sinker. Nobody dared to mentioning the obvious:
The whole assembly is a weapon test stand, with the sole purpose to simulate an environment of radiation pressure that can only be found centimeters away from the explosion of a nuclear bomb, compressing deuterium and tritium - freshly bred in-situ from lithium - for nuclear fusion to boost the fission-chain-reaction of the primary.
I'm more afraid to go to the USA than to China ... there, at least, everybody knows the news are all about spreading propaganda. At least some people still think for themselves every once in a while.
How much did we spend to buy GM to satisfy the UAW? But we don't have enough $ to fundamentally transform the nature of energy creation for the human race?
Holy shit humans can be stupid sometimes.
I'm a libertarian who believes that government should be as small as possible and do only those things that are best done communally. Like the GPS system. Or figuring out how to harness fusion energy. We cannot do this "commercially" as the cost is too high. But compared to the other stuff that we spend federal money on (like $1T to turn Iraq into a pseudo-democracy) this is cheap and the benefit is incalculable.
We know what we need to do, let's do it.
Do you have ESP?
Meanwhile, we're throwing away $ 40 billion every month "until the economy improves". For me, that puts many things in perspective.
If we're going to flush money down the toilet, this seems like a much more potentially constructive way to do it.
Pretty soon you're talking about real money.
There. I fixed it. #sarcasm
The NIF started out attempting to research the tech needed to make a ICF powerplant, but over time they haven't had much success. After a few major rearchitectures and funding shifts across other national labs, they decided to latch on to Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program as their reason for existance. Unfortunatlly, their current direction isn't very helpful to either the original charter, or their new SSMP charter.
One might argue that based on its initial charter, it should have been canceled a long time ago, but when a government program is threatened, they attempt to latch on to whatever funding is available and basically that is what happened. As with most goverment pork programs, the managment was a mess and there was no oversight. In 2000, the whole project was rebaselined and new management was brought in. Initally, they thought they could theoretically achieve ignition with only a 1MJ or so. Now they have 500TW laser capable of 2MJ, and they acknowledge that the current design won't really work. Not blaming the science or the scientists, but just to clearly illustrate that they really aren't on the cusp of anything...
The SSMP stuff is just a ruse, the facility does whatever they want. The nuclear weapons test stuff was really the previous benefactor that was selected to be the source of funds for the pork. The lastest round of funding (the so-called National Ignition Campaign), was basically a pork-barrel earmark for Diane Feinstein. Their public schedule to achieve ignition was top down made to match the NIC funding duration. Since now they admit that it still doesn't work, it's not clear how long they can keep this house of cards funding up.
I suppose the military is up next, but if Obama wins re-election, they might have to go the PBS funding route ;^) National Ignition Nest Egg? (apologies to big bird)
I've read this in a number of places, but science, especially publicly funded science, seems increasingly doomed by "failure" -- ie, when scientists run a study to prove a link between A and B and the science tells them "A and B are not linked".
The headline is "Scientists fail to prove A and B" and the public opinion is that the scientists failed, as if it was a failure of effort, ability or character. It's never explained that the failure to link A and B *isn't* a failure really, it's a success of science because a theory was posited linking A and B and the relationship could not be scientifically proven.
It's further corrupted, especially in the case of the NIF, in that politicians and the general public (to the extent that the general public even comprehends what the NIF does...) has this kind of "profit motive" mindset where scientific endeavors are expected to provide some kind of return on investment to justify their existence, and the *science* and engineering they do provide isn't enough if their "mission" isn't a quick success.
And this will only get worse if Romney is elected. In the case of NIF, I'm not sure Obama/Dems are any better given the inherent anti-nuclear bias of the Democrats.
NIF has three missions:
- National security (stockpile stewardship
- Basic fusion science
- Understanding the origins of the basic building blocks of the universe
That's it.
I hate to break it you you, but much of what we do in basic science research is dual-use. It can be used for military applications, or purely scientific applications. Doing stockpile stewardship without nuclear tests is not "getting around" nuclear test ban treaties. It's maintaining the integrity of our increasingly smaller nuclear stockpile as a credible deterrent.
This overwhelming deterrent capability is part of the reason why the world has seen no major global conflict for seven decades, and has had the longest period of peace without global conflict for over five centuries. Tens of millions of people died in WWI and WWII.
We maintain a credible deterrent so it's clear that no one can ever strike us first without the certainty of themselves also being destroyed -- and if our principles and ideals and those of our allies are something you care about, then that should be important to you.
The world is changing, and some might say that the general "cyber" and information threats will more important than nuclear. China certainly seems to think so. Then again, China is also building out its nuclear weapons capabilities and stockpiles as the rest of the world, including the US, disarms. No worries, right? Delivery systems that can rain down nuclear warheads on targets anywhere in the world is just for "peaceful regional defense", right?
A world where the US doesn't maintain an overwhelming deterrent to forces which espouse principles and ideals counter to those of freedom and liberal democracy is not a pretty place.
(Note to people who think that the US is what's wrong with the world: you are sorely in need of historical perspective -- or, any perspective. The US is not perfect, but the US and West has done far more for the benefit of human life and humanity, on the whole, than any other nation, especially those with Communist, Socialist, or totalitarian systems of government. Wake up.)
Apparently the author is not familiar with the F-35. The estimated total cost of that project is $1 trillion dollars, or 142 NIF Controlled Fusion projects. But we can't cut the budget on military pet projects because that would just be evil.
The thing is this is applied research with a defined goal that's kinda far out there. So a clear forecast of how long it will take and how much it will cost isn't possible. But this is a potentially a multi trillion dollar payout project. So a large expenditure for a low probability it will work may be justified.
Just think if all that money had been spent developing cold fusion instead. We might have actual power plants by now.
Here's an analogy: They're trying to build the most powerful vacuum tube amplifier of thinking about replacing the vacuum tube with transistors.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
Don't do many science experiments, do you?
Since you "asked", my first real job was as a research assistant in a laser and plasma physics lab working on an experiment to study hypersonic shock waves for fusion research. I also have an engineering degree with a minor in applied physics. But thanks for assuming I'm ignorant without actually knowing anything about me.
It's an experiment, not a finalized design.
I'm well aware that it is an experiment. However it also is an experiment that almost certainly cannot be translated into a working power plant. It is designed to study weapons and if we happen to learn something useful for fusion power along the way that is terrific. Don't get me wrong, I support research endeavors like the NIF. I think there will be some terrific engineering and scientific spin offs. I just don't think the sort of research they are doing is likely to lead to fusion as a power source. I'd be delighted to be wrong but I doubt I am.
Their goal isn't to generate power. Their goal is to prove that it's possible to generate power.
The only way to truly prove that it is possible to generate power IS to generate power. There is no mechanism in this experiment by which a sustained fusion reaction will occur nor is there any effort I can discern by which they are attempting to actually generate electricity. It is a research experiment for nuclear weapons from which we might learn something useful down the road for fusion power.
In perspective, 7bn is less than 1% of the direct cost of the Iraq war.
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NIF has three missions:
- National security (stockpile stewardship [llnl.gov]
- Basic fusion science [llnl.gov]
- Understanding the origins of the basic building blocks of the universe [llnl.gov]
I hate to break it you you, but much of what we do in basic science research is dual-use. It can be used for military applications, or purely scientific applications.
So despite your condescending tone to someone you know nothing about, you acknowledge that the first purpose of this facility is weapons research. It also is useful for some basic research which is vitally important. We're on the same page.
Doing stockpile stewardship without nuclear tests is not "getting around" nuclear test ban treaties. It's maintaining the integrity of our increasingly smaller nuclear stockpile as a credible deterrent.
That's pretty much a fancy way to say it is a way to test nuclear fusion without setting off any actual bombs. Amaze me with how you think that is not a way to get around the test ban treaties. While I didn't bring it up, I don't think anyone is particularly worried that the US does not have a "credible deterrent" when it comes to nuclear weapons. We have more nukes than we will ever need and everyone knows it.
Oh and the rest of your reply appears to be an off topic defense of maintaining mutually assured destruction. I wasn't addressing that nor did I make any comments about whether fusion weapons research was good or bad. I merely observed that the first purpose of this facility appears to be for researching fusion based weaponry.
Given that the topic is Fussion, and the rhetoric from Congress is negative. One has to wonder who is the money backing this congressional outcry? Who would benefit from America not obtaining Fussion capability?
In America, reactor burns through funding. In Soviet Russia, funding burns through reactor!
Ignite interest? Hell, the National Ignition Facility fails to ignite anything.
I call that a fusion burn.
Everyone is missing the point here... despite massive greenwashing, the NIF really has nothing to do with fusion power. It's meant to study the processes that produce fusion in nuclear weapons.
Or, you know, spend 1T less on whacking tin-pot dicatooar, put $50B into the NIF to make it actually work, another $50B at ITER as a backup and enjoy the $900B savings...
To give some more specific numbers...
All direct military spending to date for the war in Afghanistan alone amounts to roughly $500 billion. What's worse is that the cost has been steadily rising ever since it began - right now we're wasting about $7 billion every month on it.
The millionaires need to keep paying the lowest tax rates since the inception of income tax. And they want to keep their capital gains at the 15% Rate.
But where are all these jobs they're promising by keeping the rates this low?
China and India.
It really does need to stuck under the purview of the department of defense. I mean DARPA has had a long term interest in cold-fusion, simply because if it's at all possible they want to know about it - just in case. You'd think the benefits of hot fusion to powering submarines and aircraft carriers would warrant similar interest.
It's a DOE project with the express goal of nuclear weapons research.
From Wiki's 2nd paragraph about NIF:
"NIF's mission is to achieve fusion with high energy gain, and to support nuclear weapon maintenance and design by studying the behavior of matter under the conditions found within nuclear weapons.[2]"
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
You know, doomsday Cassandras who say that the peak oil will cause a lot of troubles are usually shut down by the argument that "we will find something". Renewables do not cut it (too irregular, unable to absorb nightly peaks even if you are very optimist on efficiency improvements) so it had to be fusion.
If NIF fails, that is one out of three fusion ways that failed. Now we have to put our hopes on ITER (which should not produce any energy before 2030, optimist, on schedule estimation) or Z-pinch machines, which are awesome but do not come with a predictable schedule.
If both fail or if the peak oil hits us hard early (One day, Arabia's oil production will begin to decrease and things will get pretty nasty) we have no backup plans.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
All direct military spending to date for the war in Afghanistan alone amounts to roughly $500 billion.
But that's a small price to pay for establishing a peaceful democracy with its people friendly towards the West.. Oh, wait...
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Yes, that's right, it's the normal cabal of government scientists who rule the world that are preventing honest entrepreneurs from getting a nice simple cold fusion reactor to the market. Of course.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it