Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire

Major Energy and Environmental News and Commentary affecting the Nuclear Industry.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Fusion Experiment Planned at Livermore Lab

Fusion Experiment Planned at Livermore Lab


    The United States is set within one week to conduct the first of a new series of tests aimed at achieving nuclear fusion "ignition" with a massive laser array at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, the Monterey County Herald reported yesterday (see GSN, April 12).
    Officials overseeing the laboratory's National Ignition Facility had sought for years to begin carrying out "credible ignition experiments" before the close of fiscal 2010, which ended yesterday. The process under investigation is mainly intended to help measure the safety and dependability of U.S. nuclear weapons, but it might also have energy and other applications.
    "Credible means that we have no reason to believe it's not going to work," National Nuclear Security Administration head Thomas D'Agostino said in March.
    Still, the type of fuel pellet to be used in the upcoming test largely precludes the possibility of ignition taking place, LLNL spokeswoman Lynda Seaver said.
    "This is not ignition. It will take a year or two to get ignition," Seaver said.
    Laboratory representatives did not address why the imminent experiments were not directly aimed at achieving ignition, despite earlier pledges that the milestone would be reached in fiscal 2010. "These experiments put us further down the pathway to ignition," Seaver wrote in one e-mail message.
    Outside analysts also believed the upcoming tests were unlikely to prompt ignition, according to a Government Accountability Office report published earlier this year.
    "There has always been this skepticism about can they do this by Oct. 1, 2010. I think over the long term there was more confidence they would be able to achieve ignition," said GAO Assistant Director Jonathan Gill, who worked on the assessment.
    The laboratory's apparent decision not to seek ignition last month was "actually shocking," said Marylia Kelley, director of the watchdog organization Tri-Valley CAREs.
    "Its scientific goal was ignition," said Kelley, who contended that the purportedly $3.5 billion facility had received funds approaching $5 billion based on pledges that it would achieve ignition within a set time period (Suzanne Bohan, Monterey County Herald, Sept. 30).
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