[Sustain] Congressman Jerry McNerney has gone over to the dark side by supporting weapon design work at Livermore Lab
Eric Brooks
brookse32 at aim.com
Sat May 30 15:47:44 PDT 2009
All,
It looks like Congressman Jerry McNerney has gone over to the dark side
by supporting weapon design work at Livermore Labs. Any idea on who we
might support as an alternative for his seat in Congress?
Mike Boyd-CARE
*Ignition facility finally a reality...Suzanne Bohan*
http://www.contracostatimes.com/top-stories/ci_12480167
LIVERMORE — The director of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory struggled with
tears for a moment as he thanked the legions of lab employees who helped
build the National Ignition Facility, the 10-story tall building behind him.
"I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart," said George Miller, a
nuclear-weapons designer who assumed leadership of the lab in 2006.
Miller addressed more than 3,000 invited guests and lab employees who
had gathered for Friday's dedication ceremony for the facility, known as
the NIF. The event took place 12 years to the day after the
groundbreaking for what is now the largest laser facility in the world.
The NIF is designed to achieve fusion ignition, a holy grail of physics
that has been elusive thus far despite 60 years of worldwide efforts,
and billions spent trying.
The project, six years late and four times the original estimated cost,
has been dogged by enormous challenges, from technical problems, to
resistance or apathy in Congress, to skepticism in parts of the science
community about whether fusion ignition can be achieved.
Many times throughout the years, NIF's future was uncertain.
The dedication also drew protesters. Members of Tri-Valley CAREs, a
watchdog group that monitors lab activity, demonstrated outside the
northwest corner of the lab. Banners hung on a fence expressed
opposition to the facility, which the group asserts will be used for
weapons design work, upping the ante in the arms race.
The group displayed documents that it says back its case, but the lab
insists NIF won't be used for that purpose.
Still, the day belonged to the legions of NIF enthusiasts. Eleven
speakers, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and U.S. Sen. Dianne
Feinstein, shared their enthusiasm for the project, and their optimism
that the facility would achieve fusion ignition.
Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, described his earlier work in the
wind energy field and the colossal failures he witnessed. Then he
pointed in the direction of wind farms in the nearby hills of Altamont Pass.
"We persisted and made incremental improvements, and now wind energy is
overlooking the distant and advanced cousin we see today," he said,
referring to the massive green and yellow NIF building behind him.
Like wind energy, McNerney was alluding that the fusion energy quest has
endured one failure after another to achieve "ignition," in which more
energy is released by a fusion reaction than is used to create it. In an
ignition state, the reacting hydrogen is at least as hot as the sun. In
addition to potentially providing a virtually limitless source of
energy, creating such miniature suns on earth opens the door to studying
the fundamental nature of the universe, as well as nuclear material,
hence NIF's application in testing the safety and reliability of the
nuclear weapons stockpile without underground testing.
Every year during NIF's development, funding was in jeopardy, said three
lawmakers who spoke at the event — Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo; Rep.
Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose; and Feinstein.
Technical problems, skepticism over funding a long-shot success of
fusion work, and competition for dollars from projects in every other
state meant the annual request for funding to keep the project going was
often in question, Tauscher said.
Thomas D'Agostino, administrator of the National Nuclear Security
Administration, which oversees the lab's operations, provided assurances
that annual funding for the NIF's research work would continue.
"I plan to fully support this facility from an operational standpoint,"
D'Agostino said.
The crowd sat under the midday sun in chairs spread out over a large
lawn ringed by conifers. Many donned hats and kept cool using cardboard
fans provided by the lab, though a cooling breeze occasionally provided
relief.
Lab officials opened the NIF to tours throughout the day, with
technicians and scientists available to answer questions. A control room
with seven consoles and five monitors serves as the "brain" of the
facility, and was designed similar to NASA's control room in Houston.
"I'm very, very excited," said Jeff Atherton, project director for
target experimental systems, speaking of the fusion experiments that
will start this summer. "We've been working a long time to get to this
point."
The eyes of NIF operations manager Bruno Vanwonterghem also lit up when
describing the experiments that lie ahead.
"NIF is really the place where 50 years of fusion development and 50
years of laser development come together," he said.
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