|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Issues >
Energy
> Printer
Version $5
billion
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons project being constructed at the Livermore Laboratory in northern California. NIF is a mega-laser designed to blast a radioactive hydrogen fuel pellet with 192 laser beams in an attempt to create a nuclear fusion explosion inside a reactor vessel. New plans would add plutonium and highly-enriched uranium experiments to the laser's mix. NIF's cost was estimated at $677 million in 1993. In 1997, the DOE asked for $1.2 billion for NIF construction and promised Congress there would be no further increases. On June 1, 2001, the General Accounting Office (GAO) estimated NIF's construction price tag to be $4.2 billion. That same year, a Livermore Lab watchdog organization commissioned Dr. Robert Civiak, a former White House budget official, to undertake an independent analysis of NIF's costs. Dr. Civiak found that NIF's pre-construction costs were likely to top $5 billion and that the full cost to build and operate NIF for 30 years, as DOE plans, would amount to $32.4 billion. This extremely expensive program is behind schedule, billions of dollars over budget, will create radioactive waste, and undermines U.S. non-proliferation goals. Green
Scissors Proposal Current Status The administration's fiscal year 2004 budget requests $467 million for NIF, which is $14 more than the administration requested last year, and $37 million less than the $504 million that Congress appropriated in fiscal year 2003. On October 1, 2002, a federal district judge in Washington, D.C., found that the DOE was guilty of violating a federal open-government law when conducting three committee reviews of its controversial NIF. The committee reviews were used by the DOE to "certify" to Congress revised NIF project costs and schedules. In 2003, the DOE will release a draft site-wide Environmental Impact Statement on operations at Livermore Lab. According to DOE, the new report will include plans to expand the hazards and the types of experiments to be conducted on NIF by using the laser beams to blast plutonium, highly-enriched uranium and large quantities of lithium hydride in addition to the radioactive tritium-deuterium fusion fuel originally proposed. Program Hurts Taxpayers NIF is extremely expensive. NIF is the single most expensive element of the DOE's nuclear weapons program (called Stockpile Stewardship). The GAO says that because "technical uncertainties persist, the cost of NIF could grow even higher and completion could take even longer." The NIF is an experimental program. Some experts at the DOE's own laboratories rate NIF's chance of achieving its scientific goal of ignition at less than ten percent. NIF offers no commercial use. The future of laser fusion as an energy source is both controversial and highly speculative. A commercially viable fusion demonstration plant remains 30 or 40 years in the future, if it will ever exist. Program Hurts the Environment NIF will create radioactive wastes. NIF's fuel contains radioactive tritium, and even its "routine" operation will create contamination. New plans will add plutonium, HEU and other dangerous contaminants. The site needs cleanup, not more waste. Livermore Laboratory is already a Superfund site, and fiscal year 2004 cleanup funding for the entire site will total less than 7 percent of the NIF-related R&D and construction budget. NIF undermines U.S. non-proliferation
goals. NIF fosters
the addition of new military capabilities in nuclear weapons,
promotes the spread of nuclear weapons knowledge and contravenes
the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Controversy exists as to
whether NIF violates the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as well. Contacts
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|