Hot fusion's future in doubt

This past Sunday's New York Times carried an article, "So Far Unfruitful, Fusion Project Faces a Frugal Congress" on the future funding prospects for the National Ignition Facility. NIF, located a few miles due east of the San Fransisco Bay on the campus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Wikipedia entry), is a decades long program, started in the 1990's, to initiate fusion in a "peppercorn" sized nodule of nuclear fuel (a solid and gaseous deuterium-tritium mix). At issue are both the scientific and political value of continuing such a large scale research program. I'll argue here that it is -- especially in light of the unbelievably wasteful nature of typical large-scale government expenditures like the military and weapons budgets. And the incomparable pay-off of actually achieving a fusion reaction (even the one-time, pulsed event that NIF aims to achieve).

We first cover the physics of hot fusion (and remind the reader not to confuse this process with so-called "cold fusion) -- how it works and the some of the technology being developed to initiate it. Then we'll cover the history of the NIF and where it stands now. Finally, all too briefly, the funding of NIF and its erstwhile future.

What is fusion?

All of the useful energy that falls upon the earth, courtesy of old Sol up there 93 million miles away, is a consequence of fusion reactions that occur in the solar interior. Basically, if you have a chunk of matter -- let's take water as our fusion `fuel' to emphasize how astonishing fusion is -- and you compress it and heat to sufficiently high pressure and temperature you'll initiate fusion reactions among the particles (protons and neutrons) that comprise the nuclei of the water atoms. Of course, in order to do this, you'll have to do a lot of squeezing (compressing) and heating. You'll pretty much need to heat and squeeze the water to temps and pressures that are found in the middle of the sun. (For the numerical folk out there the temp is about 15 million degrees Kelvin or Centigrade and the pressure is about 350 billion times earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level.)

Having explained the initiation of the fusion reaction, I should tell you why the heck you would do something that even sounds this difficult. It's because there's a huge pay-off when the reaction 'goes.' A tremendous amount of energy is released. By "tremendous" we're thinking of 'big' on scales compared to the sub-nuclear and atomic scales. In fact, the energy is chicken-feed for you and I. If a fusion reaction happened next to your ear you wouldn't even flinch. But when many, many (like on the order of 10^{23} per second) fusion reactions occur nearly simultaneously and in close proximity, you have the most intense -- and clean! -- source of energy known to human beings.

To do:
[Mention tritium "problem".]

[Short entry] FY 2013 Appropriations Committee Reports: National Nuclear Security Administration

The American Institute of Physics reports in its useful FYI report that the Senate Appropriations Committee

is concerned about recent findings in a February 2012 National Research Council study that concluded that the overall management relationship between NNSA and its national security laboratories is dysfunctional. The Committee recommends that NNSA and the laboratories identify and eliminate unnecessary bureaucratic functions that affect the quality of science and engineering at the labs and detract from primary mission goals. The elimination of these functions shall not undermine operational goals related to safety, security, environmental responsibility and fiscal integrity.

This echoes sentiment expressed in a recent paper by George Mason University's Hugh Gusterson (professor of anthropology and sociology) titled "The assault on Los Alamos National Laboratory: A drama in three acts". [Here for comments on slashdot.] Gusterson's point is that poor management is destroying the academic and creative environment at Los Alamos National Lab.
Interestingly, Foreign Affairs carried an article this month on a related topic. Hymans argues there that we shouldn't get our shorts in a bunch over Iran because, paraphrasing, they're likely to fail anyway, being as they are a dictatorial regime that pushes on scientists too hard.

[short entry] Could North Korea hit the US with a missile? (CS Monitor)

CS Monitor: Could North Korea hit the US with a missile?
There's a lot of noise coming out of N. Korea's recently installed dictator, Kim Jong-un. But it's completely overblown. (We'll get into this in a regular entry soon, I hope.)
Here's something to note about NK's Unha rockets:

But previous launches of Unha-based rockets in 2006 and 2009 failed, raising questions about the technology’s reliability, CNS points out. In addition, it is a liquid-fueled rocket. This means it has to stand on the launchpad for hours, indeed days, for fueling. During that time it would be a sitting duck for attack.

[Short entry] The Real News-Former IAEA Inspector: Misleading Iran Report Proves Nothing

Evidence continues to accumulate that the recent IAEA report is not a document of political substance nor scientific merit. The Real News interviews a former IAEA weapons program inspector, Robert Kelly. Kelly is currently a senior research fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Edit: Part 2 of the above interview.

[Short entry] Joe Cirncione on the IAEA report on Al-Jazeera

Corroborating viewpoint (video) to that espoused here by Joe Cirncione of the Ploughshares Fund:

The hype about the latest IAEA report about Iran’s nuclear program was much more frightening than the actual content. Yesterday, Joseph Cirincione, the president of the Ploughshares Fund, an organization devoted to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, informed a seemingly stunned Tony Birtley that most of what’s been revealed “is not new”.

[Short entry] IAEA report on Iran released; much more ado about not much

Politico's 'Morning Defense' daily email column reports today that:

IN ITS LONG-AWAITED REPORT, the International Atomic Energy Agency says it "has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program. After assessing carefully and critically the extensive information available to it, the agency finds the information to be, overall, credible. The information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device." The report released Tuesday is here: http://politi.co/tgsvX9

Politico's "take":

The IAEA's report is likely to put to rest doubts about Iran's intentions that have fueled debate in the United States since 2007, when a National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Tehran had abandoned efforts to build a nuclear bomb. Look for a new urgency to deal with the issue as world leaders take seriously the signals from Israel about a possible attack.

The 2007 NIE certainly did call into question Iran's bomb program. But according to David Albright, speaking at The George Washington University October 7, 2011, Iran has likely enriched enough low-enriched uranium to allow them to make enough high-enriched uranium for at least one nuclear weapon upon further enrichment within the timescale of a couple to a few years.

But writing last year in Foreign Affairs, Lindsay and Takeyh, assure us that, 'Washington can contain and mitigate the consequences of Tehran's nuclear defiance, keeping an abhorrent outcome from becoming a catastrophic one.'

I think this is the right perspective. Nuclear weapons proliferation is abhorrent in any context, as is their very existence. The central issue being that in a post-nuclear-Iran world, they have an even less useful weapon than the U.S. or its allies possess: for Iran's use of such a weapon would be attributable and the response would be swift and apocalyptic for Iran's leadership and, unfortunately, its people.

[Short entry] Switzerland to abolish nuclear power (maybe)

Switzerland Senate Endorses Nuclear Phase Out

I'm a little behind the headlines with this posting (as research and preparations for the move to New Mexico have been keeping me pretty busy) but this important news item shouldn't be overlooked.

The Federal Assembly of Switzerland or Parliament, with the September 28 vote by the Senate, has passed the law banning the development of new plants (with a stipulation to 'keep Parliament informed'), to phase-out nuclear power by 2034, and to develop renewable sources.

Of course, there's the question of replacement sources for the 40% of Switzerland's current total power use that comes from nuclear power plants and what this says about the feasibility and eventuality of putting this decision into practice.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet that there will be further legislative decisions affecting the outcome of the planned 2034 phase-out.