US groups call for NIF closure

17 Jun 2002

The National Ignition Facility and Laser Mégajoule projects should be abandoned, say two US-based groups.

The National Ignition Facility and Laser Mégajoule projects violate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and should be abandoned, say two US-based groups.

The National Ignition Facility (NIF), based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and the France-based Laser Mégajoule projects are planning to induce inertial confinement fusion using high-energy laser beams.

According to the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) and the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP), this means that both the US and France contravene the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

IEER president and co-author of the report Arjun Makhijani said: "The CTBT bans all nuclear explosions, even if the devices in which they are carried out cannot be weaponized."

Makhijani adds that while the US Department of Energy (DOE) claims that all planned fusion experiments at NIF are allowed, the CTBT states that experiments involving nuclear explosions are banned, regardless of whether they are induced by fission or fusion processes.

As well as the US and France, Japan and Germany are cited as violating the CTBT because the German company Schott and Japan-based Hoya supply laser glass products for the two installations. The UK supports NIF financially, and is also contravening the CTBT, says the IEER/LCNP report "Rule of Power or Rule of Law?".

The five countries have all signed the CTBT, although the US has yet to ratify it.

"The explanations offered by the DOE regarding the planned explosions in NIF simply do not stand up to scrutiny," said Makhijani, adding: "There is some evidence of an agreement between a few states, not known to all the parties, to brush this issue under the rug."

The report concludes that the US, France, UK, Japan and Germany should stop all plans for laboratory nuclear explosions.

NIF declined to respond to the report when contacted by Optics.org.

Author
Michael Hatcher is technology editor of Opto & Laser Europe magazine.