Saturday, May 30, 2009
By: Suzanne Bohan
Published In: Contra Costa Times
http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/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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