NIF is a money pit, NRDC says 

Andrea Widener / Contra Costa Times 16jun00

Project is labeled too costly, too poorly managed and doomed to fail

In the National Ignition Facility, 192 laser beamlines direct 1.8 MJ of laser energy onto ICF targets.

A nuclear watchdog group says the National Ignition Facility is doomed to failure by a lack of independent reviews and an intentional over-estimation of the laser's capabilities.

In a report released Thursday afternoon, the Natural Resources Defense Council says multiple agencies failed to verify claims by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and the Department of Energy that the massive laser, now under construction, would work or how much it would cost.

It goes on to say that the 192-beam laser will cost billions more than the DOE and the lab are saying, even after an estimated cost overrun of $1 billion was announced, said the study's author, senior researcher Christopher Paine.

The lab responded by saying that NRDC scientists were entitled to their opinion, but that multiple reviews by the DOE, the lab and several national science groups had concluded that the project was feasible.

Even now, after the project's management and technical problems have been revealed, several reviews have said the laser project be built at full size, said lab spokeswoman Susan Houghton. A DOE spokesperson said Thursday that no one was available to discuss the report.

The NRDC, whose nuclear program has been following the NIF project since 1994, recommends that Congress halt all funding for the project and terminate outstanding contracts while working prototypes of both a single beam and an eight-beam "bundle" are built. They also ask for a rigorous review of the laser's feasibility by the National Academy of Sciences.

As originally designed, the NIF would focus 192 massive laser beams on a target the size of a BB, creating temperatures and pressures like those inside the sun or a nuclear explosion.

In September, the lab revealed that technical problems would cause both cost overruns and delays. Several reviews have said management problems played a big role in the problems.

This year, the DOE decided to proceed with building the laser with all 192 beams at a cost of $2.2 billion -- $1 billion more than previously estimated -- and a four-year delay.

As Paine noted, and the lab and DOE agree, the $2.2 billion cost is just for construction. It does not include designing the laser's targets or other related research, which in itself will cost $1 billion or more. And operating the laser over its 30-year lifetime will cost billions more, Paine said.

NRDC's review says the laser will likely fail to reach its goal of ignition, the point at which scientists get more power out than they get in by creation fusion. It will fail because the computer codes the lab uses to evaluate whether it will work do not mesh with real-life experiments, Paine said.

He said independent reviews of the project were not, in fact, independent because most people had some link to the lab or the DOE.

The lab disagrees.

"There are a limited number of people who truly understand our business," Houghton said. "Chances are if you are in this field you have some knowledge of NIF."

The report can be found at http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nif2/nif2inx.asp

Andrea Widener covers science and the area's national labs. Reach her at 925-847-2158 or awidener@cctimes.com.

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