Posted on 07/03/2005 10:00:05 PM PDT by neverdem
The Senate voted early yesterday morning to stop construction of the nation's costliest science project, a laser roughly the size of a football stadium that is meant to harness fusion, the process that powers the Sun.
The project, the National Ignition Facility, or NIF (pronounced niff), is at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and has cost $2.8 billion. About 80 percent complete, NIF is scheduled to be finished in 2009 at a cost of $3.5 billion and operate for three decades at an annual cost of $150 million, for a total of $8 billion.
The Senate's action, part of the $31 billion energy and water appropriations bill, prompted warnings from the project's leaders that its demise could damage the nation's leadership in a field important to confronting energy shortages. This week, an international consortium picked France as the site of the world's first large-scale, sustainable nuclear fusion reactor, a project with an estimated cost of $10 billion.
"What's at stake here is the opportunity to meet one of the grand challenges of science," Michael R. Anastasio, director of the Livermore laboratory, said in an interview. "It's essential for investigating fusion, which will help sustain confidence in our nuclear stockpile and inform our future thinking about fusion energy."
Other Livermore officials warned of a parallel to the Superconducting Supercollider, a proposed 54-mile particle accelerator that Congress killed in 1993 after spending $2 billion. Some physicists regard its fate as a symbol of the erosion of the nation's scientific standing.
The Bush administration backs the National Ignition Facility, and the Senate action could be reversed or modified later this summer in conference with the House.
"There's going to be some meeting of the minds," said Greg Mello, director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a private organization in Albuquerque that...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Yes, more oil, less solutions.
Thanks for the links. Happy 4th of July!
I feel like I'm in the twilight zone watching FReepers cheer for billions in Federal spending.
The only thing worse than profligate government spending is profligate government spending on something and then not spending what's needed to finish it. They should complete this project and then promptly privatize it so it won't be a drain on our wallets.
How about setting off some fusion bombs miles deep down in a hole in a salt deposit and tapping the thermal energy of the resultant well of molten material. Every time the well gets too cool to operate the generators, set off another one.
Barbara Simpson mentioned this yesterday on KSFO. Also mentioned something about France or a company in France winning the contract to build something similiar? I didn't get all the incidentals as I was driving. She seemed to think there might be a correlation.
Fusion power is the key to the future. If we cede fusion, we cede everything..
Let France pour money down a hole for 40 years if it wants.
At least the atom bomb (fusion/fission) and the fission reactor were children of a theory which actually worked out on paper before any construction began. And whaddya know, they went boom exactly as predicted. If someone could engineer credibly on paper a fusion design which would actually generate more power than it eats, then I would say let's go ahead and spend up to half the kingdom to build the darn thing. I get a sinking feeling that they aren't really finding out anything new about the physics of the process and they could already tell that what they are trying won't work.
I wonder who in the senate has a financial interest in the French companies that will benefit from this.
I got gas. How many millions is that worth to harness?
I'm jealous. But hey, I'm just an upstarter. At the present time I can heat the inside of my car, much to my wife's dismay.
Sustainable fusion is the key to our future prosperity.
If we were to take a FRACTION of the billions and billions wasted on so-called "entitlements" (you are only entitled to air, water, and what you earn through your own works), this project would be a slam-dunk.
Fusion power would turn our enemies' main source of funding for terrorism (petroleum) into an insignificant commodity used mainly to manufacture plastics. And with material sciences advancing progressing as they are, synthesizing long-chain polymers from raw elements can't be far off (if it isn't already being done in the lab).
It seems that there are those at high levels who are more interested in maintaining the un-maintainable status quo than in positive change.
The US is a full partner in the French fusion effort, and scientists from many countries are participating.
I think that's a pretty good way to do things: a group effort where all participate, contribute, and share the results.
Why in heck should we try to do it ourselves? I don't know anything about fusion, but if it's harnessed and safe, it may be the answer for the whole world's needs for energy. You can forget oil, burning fossil fuels, expending natural resources. Not bad.
not smart....not good.
Let's let China do it and then we can steal *THEIR* secret for a change!
The experiments, or 'shots' should continue as substantial progress has been made in generating increasingly larger terawatt outputs utilizing the z-pinch approach.
Progress has been slow but results have been positive. http://plasma-gate.weizmann.ac.il/ZP/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-Pinch
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.