FPN12-16

President's FY 2013 Budget Submission Puts Pressure on NIF

March 8, 2012

The President's FY 2013 Budget Submission to Congress signals a change in priorities for the experimental ignition campaign at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The budget document proposes a $26 million decrease (from $110 M in FY 2012 to $84 M in FY 2013) for experiments aimed at achieving ignition, stating, "The decrease is consistent with resuming funding of Support of Other Stockpile Programs within the ICF program in FY 2013."

The budget writeup states, "The National Ignition Campaign will be completed at the end of FY 2012, with NIF transitioning to routine operations in support of the Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP)." It says, "Funding for non-ignition research in support of stockpile science and near-term stockpile needs resumes in FY 2013 in the Support of Other Stockpile Programs subprogram." It says, "Ongoing efforts toward ignition (if not achieved in FY 2012), the development of a reproducible ignition platform, and advanced ignition concepts will continue at a reduced pace in the Ignition subprogram as funding for Support of Other Stockpile Programs resumes."

The document states, "If indirect-drive ignition has not been achieved by the end of FY 2012, development of a detailed physics understanding will be used to improve the designs in concert with the development of alternative ignition concepts. This will allow a discovery, rather than a schedule-driven, program that will provide more opportunities for comparison with simulations and feedback from them to resolve the outstanding physics questions."