National Ignition Facility Update
Marylia Kelley 
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a controversial U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) nuclear weapons project currently under construction at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, about 45 miles east of San Francisco, California. NIF is a stadium–sized mega–laser, intended to blast a radioactive fuel pellet with 192 laser beams in order to create a thermonuclear explosion inside a reactor vessel.
NIF is the biggest and most expensive component of DoE's euphemistically titled "Stockpile Stewardship" program to use laboratory–based technologies to develop and certify new and modified nuclear weapons. The DoE and Livermore Lab tout NIF as a means to attract and train a new generation of bomb designers in the absence of full–scale underground nuclear testing.
Independent scientists, policy analysts, and disarmament advocates oppose NIF for a growing list of good reasons including its weapons applications, proliferation impacts, spiraling costs, and environmental harms. Moreover, NIF is acquiring a reputation for science fraud, something that DoE has been unable to squelch despite spending large sums of money on hand–picked review panels to 'bless' the project.
Plutonium, HEU, and Lithium Hydride
In the face of a growing opposition, Livermore Lab is rolling out plans to expand the types of experiments to be conducted on NIF. The goal? To give NIF new missions and to attract additional monies.
The latest proposals call for plutonium, highly–enriched uranium, and large amounts of lithium hydride to be used in NIF experiments, along with the deuterium–tritium mix capsules that comprise the targets for NIF's thermonuclear, or fusion, experiments.
Livermore Lab will reveal the scope of its new plans in an upcoming site–wide Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The draft EIS is due in September 2003. The use of these additional materials in NIF is called the "preferred alternative" in the mandatory legal notice published last year.
The first glimmer that DoE and Livermore Lab wanted to use these materials in NIF came from documents that were declassified (redacted) and released pursuant to a lawsuit undertaken by Tri–Valley CAREs, Natural Resources Defense Council, and dozens of colleague groups in 1997. The groups had sued DoE for conducting a grossly inadequate environmental review of its Stockpile Stewardship program.
The plans called for plutonium–239 to be used in NIF in at least two kinds of experiments, equation of state (in which plutonium is compressed) and fission induction (in which neutrons from the fusion 'fuel' pellet are used to begin the fissioning process in the plutonium). These tests can also be conducted with highly–enriched uranium.
The lithium hydride would be used in large Neutron Multiplying Assemblies (NEUMAs), weighing up to ten tons. One of the declassified reports contains plans for as much as 100 pounds of lithium hydride at a time to be stored at NIF. The lithium hydride would be used to amplify the effects of the NIF's fusion 'fuel' (the deuterium–tritium pellet) in order to create a more intense nuclear warfighting environment inside NIF's reactor vessel. That chamber is large enough to encompass an entire weapon or other large objects.
These experiments, called nuclear weapons effects tests, will be used to determine how well satellites, warheads, and other military equipment will survive nearby nuclear explosions. Thus, NIF is being groomed for a role in U.S. plans for missile defense as well as for nuclear weapons development. The declassified documents further allude to NIF experiments to develop nuclear–tipped interceptors and other 'Star Wars' paraphernalia.
Last month, high–ranking DoE officials suggested that they were still considering which of the proposed new experiments to include in the site–wide environmental report. Plutonium experiments are very likely to go forward, while NEUMAs are still under some consideration, according to DoE. "We will make that decision soon," I was told.
Technical Problems and Money Troubles
In 1993, NIF's cost was estimated at $677 million. In 1997, it rose to $1.2 billion. Poised to begin construction at that time, DoE promised Congress that NIF's cost would not continue to rise. On June 1, 2001, the U.S. General Accounting Office (an investigative arm of Congress) estimated NIF would cost $4.2 billion to build. That same year, Tri–Valley CAREs commissioned Dr. Robert Civiak, a physicist and former White House budget official, to undertake an independent analysis of NIF. Dr. Civiak found that pre–completion costs were likely to reach $5 billion and that the full cost to build and operate NIF for 30 years, as DoE plans, would top $32.4 billion. (The full report is available at www.trivalleycares.org)
Serious technical difficulties at the NIF were one source of its soaring price tag. By mid–1999, employees began telling Tri–Valley CAREs about problems and cover–ups at the NIF. For while the government was busily building NIF's massive outer structure, it was hiding major problems with the laser. Years of development had failed to create an ignition–capable target for NIF. The Lab and DoE were still unsure of which material to use – each one they investigated from plastics to beryllium exhibited unique troubles that would prevent it from achieving the self–sustaining fusion reaction that was NIF's scientific goal. There were unresolved beam focusing problems. And, it turns out, the Lab knew that NIF's final optics assemblies—through which the beam lines must pass after their conversion into ultraviolet—would shatter at full energy after only a very few shots. (Interestingly, these basic problems remain unsolved. DoE, for example, now refers to NIF's final optics problem as a "maintenance issue." That's a redefinition, not a solution.)
Congress responded to these reports of NIF's cost, schedule, and technical difficulties by insisting that DoE reassess the NIF. This process was called the NIF "rebaseline."
Conflicts of Interest and Legal Woes
DoE undertook the NIF rebaseline with a combination of fanfare and secrecy, convening a panel that it proclaimed as independent but keeping the names and meetings closed and confidential. In 2000, the DoE announced that the rebaseline committee had given NIF a clean bill of health. The agency transmitted the committee's report to Congress (to obtain money). It was at this point that the committee members names became public. Lo and behold, the touted 'independent' panelists all held financial and career interests in NIF. Many worked on NIF. Two were the signatories on large NIF development contracts. One was the optics manager for NIF's near–twin, the French Laser Megajoule, which has a shared contract for laser glass with NIF.
Armed with this and other information, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Tri–Valley CAREs sued DoE for violating the Federal Advisory Committee Act. This past October, the court issued its final ruling. Federal court judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that DoE had repeatedly violated U.S. law by convening biased, closed committees to assess NIF, including the rebaseline committee. Additionally, the court acted to force DoE to disband a similar, 'new' committee made up of many of those same members. The ruling casts a deserved shadow over NIF and points to the fact that the mega–laser has never undergone a truly independent scientific review. It is our belief that NIF could not withstand the scrutiny of an objective analysis.
2004 Budget
On February 3, 2003, the President's fiscal year 2004 budget request went to Congress. The DoE's inertial confinement fusion campaign, which funds NIF, came in with a request for $467 million. The way the budget is constructed, it is not possible to tell exactly how much of that goes to NIF. One can calculate the funds that are specifically identified as NIF, however. They total $365.7 million, roughly comparable to this year's budget. The first four out of the 192 planned beams at the NIF began operating at low power early this year, though they have yet to be focused on any target. "Laser test more show than science," is how the headline in one local newspaper put it.
Conclusion
Livermore Lab is already on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's "Superfund" list of most contaminated sites in the country. NIF will generate toxic and radioactive wastes; even its 'routine' operation will create pollution for the surrounding communities. The situation could be exacerbated by newly–planned experiments and the addition of materials with long–lived isotopes like plutonium.
Few scientists believe NIF will achieve its scientific objective of ignition, though it will reach energies, temperatures, and densities of interest to weapons designers. In essence, it's a machine to keep weapons designers busy at their deadly pursuits. NIF runs counter to the U.S.' disarmament obligation under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Many believe is violates Article 1 of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as well. From conducting laser fireball experiments, to providing detailed analyses of mix, to studying new fusion weapon concepts to creating a test bed for weapons effects, NIF will push the envelope of nuclear weapons physics - and demonstrate once again that the United States will not practice the disarmament it so sanctimoniously (and forcibly) prescribes for others.
On the other hand, NIF's completion date has already been pushed back six years—to 2008. The NIF is not a "done deal." We can still stop it.
