[CPEO-MEF] NIF: Latest Problems for Nuclear Weapons Megalaser

[marylia@earthlink.net]

Megalaser's Technical Problems are Coming to Light

by Marylia Kelley
from Tri-Valley CAREs' December 1999 newsletter, Citizen's Watch

"I look forward to...advice on how to put this project back on track,"
declared Department of Energy  Secretary Bill Richardson in a Nov. 10, 1999
press release announcing the formation of a task force charged with
reviewing the National Ignition Facility. The group will report directly to
Richardson.

The problem? For starters, NIF is a train wreck. All the hoists and pulleys
at DOE's disposal cannot put it "back on track."

Following a late August shake up in NIF management, Tri-Valley CAREs
conducted interviews with scientists and others at the three key nuclear
weapons labs, Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia. As we reported in the
September 1999 Citizen's Watch, NIF is not merely off-track, it is beset by
serious, unresolved technical difficulties, particularly in the areas of
optics (glass), target fabrication (radioactive pellets) and diagnostics

As it  became public that NIF is at least $300 million over budget and over
a year behind schedule, three official investigations were launched into
NIF problems. The General Accounting Office is conducting an investigation,
likely to be the most comprehensive of the three, and expected to conclude
around March. The University of California, which manages the Lab for DOE,
published a cursory look at NIF's management issues (copies available on
request), and, most recently, Richardson appointed a NIF task force.

                                        NIF Limited to Half-Energy

Unresolved problems in the final optics mean that NIF will be able to run
at only half its design energy, Edward Moses, the newly appointed NIF
manager, admitted to the NIF task force. "We can run 4 to 5 joules per
square centimeter," he told the DOE panel. "This is 50% of NIF's rating."

In essence, as each of the laser's  beams travels toward the radioactive
fuel pellet -- at the key point where it must be converted to ultraviolet
(called the third harmonic) -- the beam will cause damage spots on the
optics to grow. This, in turn, will cause the lenses to shatter on very
short order.

Called "damage propagation," employees have been telling us of this problem
for some time. This is the first time, however, that NIF management has
openly acknowledged it.

                                        NIF Glass Fails to Meet Specs

Another serious hurdle is with the manufacture of NIF's laser glass. The
Lab has already spent an undisclosed amount of money building full-scale
production facilities at 2 companies, Hoya and Schott. The NIF plan calls
for them to make the glass  via a "continuous pour" method, unlike the
technique used for earlier lasers, wherein glass was produced in small
batches.

Scientists and vendors have said privately that NIF laser glass was
supposed to have been delivered in January and June. To date, only a small
portion of the order has been delivered, and it did not meet
specifications. The glass slabs, intended for NIF's amplifiers, contain
unacceptable stresses which make them "pop."  The underlying problems are
twofold: too much water in the finished product and a  lack of
"homogeneity," meaning there are serious imperfections at random locations
inside the glass.

The NIF's design calls for over 3,000 glass slabs with a combined weight of
around 150 tons. Therefore, the Lab cannot resolve the problem by going
back to the "tried and true" method used in the past to produce small
quantities of laser glass. The simple truth is that no one knows how to
make enough glass for NIF, and do it in a way that will meet the purity and
other necessary specs.

Our investigations have turned up many additional problems, from
anti-reflection coatings to beam alignment inadequacies, to silver coating
failures on the flashlamp mirrors, to target manufacture and loading
uncertainties -- and the list goes on.

                                NIF is Costly Aid Program for Weaponeers

In essence, the key parts needed to make NIF run are still in a research
and development mode, long after that phase was to have been completed. The
NIF project has gobbled up close to $1 billion dollars so far. Researchers
tell us that the acknowledged $300 million cost overrun is only the tip of
the iceberg. NIF's costs could ultimately double, from $5 billion to ten,
they say. And, the schedule delay may stretch from two to five years (to
more).

The Lab refuses to release its new "baseline" report for NIF, but it is
believed to contain a proposal to cut NIF in half, reducing it from 192 to
96 beams. Such a move will not resolve the serious technical difficulties.
It will, however, forego any pretense at reaching ignition, even if all
other problems can be solved.

Bigger than a football stadium, NIF is designed to train multiple laser
beams on a radioactive fuel target sitting inside a reactor vessel. The
scientific goal is to compress the target and initiate a thermonuclear, or
fusion, explosion. The weaponeers' goal is to use it as a tool to advance
nuclear weapons physics. This latter aim does not require ignition, and is
the only purpose that will be served by building NIF.

Like the Livermore Lab's "Star Wars" project before it, NIF runs counter to
disarmament goals, is being over-hyped to Congress in order to obtain
funding -- and won't work, to boot.



Marylia Kelley
Tri-Valley CAREs
(Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA USA 94550

<http://www.igc.org/tvc/> - is our web site, please visit us there!

(925) 443-7148 - is our phone
(925) 443-0177 - is our fax

Working for peace, justice and a healthy environment since 1983, Tri-Valley
CAREs has been a member of the nation-wide Alliance for Nuclear
Accountability in the U.S. since 1989, and is a co-founding member of the
international Abolition 2000 network for the elimination of nuclear
weapons.




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