In the last few months, the PR team for the National Ignition
Facility (NIF) at Lawrence
Livermore National Lab has certainly earned its keep. Even though the project is not complete, 400
percent over budget, at least 10 years behind schedule,
and hiding its costs within other Lab program budgets, it
has gotten a lot of buzz
in the media.
However, today, the GAO released a report stating that it is too soon to say that the project is a success, and that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Lab have conducted “weak oversight” of the project. From the report:
The cost, schedule, and scope of ignition-related activities at NIF and supporting facilities have expanded substantially because NNSA officials and [National Ignition Campaign] NIC participants failed to follow required processes. In addition, weak oversight by NNSA has allowed the lead NIC participant, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, to defer critical performance requirements, construction activities, and key equipment acquisitions needed for ignition experiments at NIF, which could delay ignition or other NIC goals beyond 2012.
The report confirmed many of the concerns that we voiced to Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chu last year, after the Secretary gave the NIF an award for "Project Management Excellence."
While the GAO states that it has cost $3,500,000,000 to design and construct the NIF facility and to install NIF’s 192 lasers and their associated components, they also note that “Although NIF construction was officially completed in 2009, construction and installation of the safety infrastructure is currently under way….The work is expected to cost around $50 million.” But that’s not the end of the costs… to actually complete the goal of the project, NNSA created the National Ignition Campaign (NIC). The GAO explains that the costs of NIC have also spiraled from $1.6 billion to over $2 billion. This brings the cost of the unfinished project to almost $6 billion.
-- Ingrid Drake
Photo by PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE, used under Creative Commons License.
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