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 ...
That should have been:
http://plasma-gate.weizmann.ac.il/ZP/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-Pinch
Is this about perfecting the engineering of a process proven in theory, or is this about woodshed experimentation?
Speaking of money holes, what's IRaq at now, gotta be over $200 B's down that mideast rathole by now (I know, I know, sacred cow...).
The amount of energy independence that amount could buy is staggering.
Stomping on Al Qaeda to the point they fear to cross us is worth it, when the alternative is vastly worse.
Theories abound and one needs to configure an experiment with the most promising outcome, try it and then, such as in all experimental lab work, make changes which get you closer to the expected outcome.
But as you probably know the process does not always cooperate. The diode approached was abandoned several years ago in favor of z-pinch.
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/17/5/6
http://www.sandia.gov/capabilities/pulsed-power/hedicf/ionsource/
How much has Iraq cost thus far? About $200 billion and rising right? And medicare wasnt that to the tune of about $500 billion.
Squiblling about the 3.5 or 15 compared to those numbers makes you appear outright stingy.
Gravity Probe B is one of the longest running government projects ever, going back almost to the beginning of NASA. What do you think the measurements will show? I don't think there'll be any surprises as frame dragging has already been measured, I believe by observing a pulsar.
That said, scientists need to learn how to build projects in multiple congressional districts with influential representatives.
Did he ever have any?
Why are people complaining that government is cutting the budget? Government has no business funding research. We waste billions each year on all this garbadge.
IMHO, basic research is vital to our national defense. That is exactly the kind of stuff our government should be funding.
"This sounds like raw, jealous political wrangling at its worst. Crazy Pete needs to step back and stop acting like someone's spurned lover."
Hmm.. Boxer and Feinstein eh? Wonder what the tradeoff will be to allow this to complete.
Which would have never happened.
It all would have gone to leftist welfare, social engineering, and energy and research would be exactly as before, with the possible exception of stem cell and aids research..
Look at the sun.
Yeah, what the h*ll was that stupid Manhatten project about anyway?
Yeah, what the h*ll was that stupid Manhatten project about anyway?
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I'm talking about non-military research.
Yep. Another case of "follow the money".......
The poster who observed that $2.8 billion could have had a working fission reactor online and producing enormous amounts of badly-needed electrical energy by now has a very cogent point.
In a breeder fuel cycle, there is enough uranium on Earth alone to supply the entire Earth's population with US standards of electricity consumption until the sun burns out. Fission? Why bother?
'So they are flushing 2.8 billion??? Why? Lemme guess, they want to spend the money to force some emission nonsense?'
maybe so we can send all those billions to the starving people in RWanda...oh, wait, there aren't any people left in Rwanda....
Live8, "We are the World", etc...just more money for the african strongmen locals/UN to steal...
we need an update of the Tsunami aid...but don't send Carter or Clinton, cuz they'll take their cuts, too...
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