Recovery.Gov Project Tracker

[paperburn1]

H. R. 4310—676
SEC. 4701. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY NATIONAL SECURITY PROGRAMS
(In Thousands of Dollars)
Program FY 2013
Request
Conference
Authorized Inertial confinement fusion ignition and high yield
campaign
Diagnostics, cryogenics and experimental support ................... 81,942
Ignition ........................................................................... 84,172
Support of other stockpile programs .................................... 14,817
NIF diagnostics, cryogenics and experimental .......................... 0 0
Pulsed power inertial confinement fusion ................................ 6,044
Joint program in high energy density laboratory
plasmas ....................................................................... 8,334
Facility operations and target production ............................... 264,691
Total, Inertial confinement fusion and high yield
campaign .......................................................................... 460,000
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112h ... 310enr.pdf
all i could find on fusion so far

[ladajo]

This is the annual report format. I see it as old news.

FPDS has a new entry. They paid $600K in Feb/Mar against the contract.
Completion date remains 9/30/2013.

FPDS N6893609C0125 Contract

[paperburn1]

Dollar by dollar maintenance funding continues.....

[dnavas]

Dollar by dollar maintenance funding continues.....

My fear is that this is a fate worse than death.
Not enough money to actually accomplish anything, just enough money to keep mouths shut.

[mvanwink5]

It would seem there should be news coming soon given the winding up of current funding, either as a WB-8 funding extension or opening of the WB-8.1 option. Look, people can't live their lives month to month and will be looking for other jobs if strung along with an uncertain future. Good people will be first to leave. Moreover, the panel got together nearly a year and a half ago. Surely the data acquired since then should be sufficient to make serious project decisions. The EMC2 employees may have been given assurances of the Navy's intentions on future funding, but would you trust your family finances to unbudgeted assurances from the government?

On the other hand, WB-8 may truly be in shoestring career science project, bureaucrat safe mode. In which case we won't see any funding changes until September, and it will just be a continuation of the current project funding dribble, where decisions are dodged to avoid bureaucracy risk. So what if you lose good people if progress or delay is not of interest? We'll know soon...

[KitemanSA]

If you click on Ladajo's link and "view" the P00013 action you will see two interesting things. First, the "Action Obligation:" added $600k to the total obligation (to ~$10.8M) which is certainly sufficient for a load of testing, analysing, and reporting over the rest of this fiscal year. Second the "Base And Exercised Options Value:" is at ~$16.3M. Nota bene: EXERCISED options. This means the Navy fully plans to provide the additional $5.5M, subject to the whims of congress.

[mvanwink5]

KitemanSA, The completion date is still 9-30-13, so I don't understand what you are saying. Are you saying the WB-8.1 has been authorized? If so, I must have missed that. If not, then the project is still in limbo land, which is uncool for those who support their families and have mortgages to pay.

[KitemanSA]

The Navy has said "we want you to do the work we have on the contract". They have not said "and we have the money to pay you for it". But that is the problem with the current method of funding work. They NEVER have the money until Congress passes and the President signs the budget bills. Picking up the option is the strongest statement that can be made without obligating the money.

What I am not positive about is whether the contract was modified so much that 8.1 is not one of the options. Such things do take place.

However, it seems reasonable that the higher power electron source is viable for 8.1 so the over all cost of THAT option may be small enough to b the UN-exercised option left on the table. My suspicion is that the last un-exercised option may be the WB-9 concept design option. Just a guess.

[mvanwink5]

Well, my memory is that the WB-8.1 was originally the 5.5 million remaining. It looks like the Navy is at the fish or cut bait point in the project, at least to me it looks that way, but this is red taped world of mystery and bureaucrats. Where I worked, budget was just for place holding money and until the project got the official word to go ahead, nothing was a done deal. We were on salary though and had a job whatever projects were approved or not. The issue for these guys is they are contractors, and that these people can't work hand to mouth, month to month. So, that go ahead should have been decided or the WB-8 is history.

I guess the only way to know is watch the money or garage sales.

[mvanwink5]

"Rounding error in the budget," is a good descriptor for polywell funding and slowed to a crawl project speed. By now, these guys should have characterized and bullet proof documented polywell's scaling and plasma space, with knobs. So, even with under the budget radar expenditures (rounding error line in the budget), the next move should be known. Has any of our lawn chair occupants seen next stage movement? The way the board is behaving this summer either polywell has moved to area 51 or it has moved into the phantom zone.

No doubt, given the foresight typifying Animal Farm Planet decisions, these guys have been on unpaid holiday along with researchers predicting effects of global warming on guppy tail length in the Arkansas' Sasquatch creek.

[paperburn1]

https://www.fpds.gov/common/jsp/LaunchW ... ersion=1.4
I thought the end date was sometime in 2014 , now it looks like its 09/30/2013.
Am I just FUBAR or have things changed?

Last I knew


N68936-09-C-0125
ENERGY/MATTER
CONVERSION
CORPORATION
SS $ 17,554,409
9/10/2014
Research Development Test Evaluation (RDT&E) Plan
Plasma Fusion (Polywell) project for research, analysis,
development, and testing to validate the basic physics of the
plasma fusion (polywell) concept as well as requirements to
provide the Navy with data for potential applications of
polywell fusion with a delivered item, wiffleball 8 (WB8) .

[mvanwink5]

I wonder if the garage door is still down for that extra security? Surely this project needs some fresh air. The way Obama's EPA is shutting down base load coal power stations, he is acting like electric utilities aren't required for the 99%, the new cave dwelling American progressive. I would have suggested that his guys know Polywell will work and that their sanity is just misperception, but that would assume they know what electricity is.

I think it is the end of August so maybe as soon as the budget people's kids get back to school and the unpaid holidays are over, perhaps .gov will be updated to reflect that an additional $100k was added for a new green composting toilet.

Given Area 51 is coming out of the closet, there must be a new location and we'll have to relocate our RV's as soon as we find it.

(Does that qualify as a rant?)

[paperburn1]

Given Area 51 is coming out of the closet, there must be a new location and we'll have to relocate our RV's as soon as we find it.

(Does that qualify as a rant?)

Area 54 but who knows whats out there and you have access only via groom lake
In realty there is a large amount of space out there only accessible via government land and disclosure of area 51 is not news. It has been an open secret and even part of Hollywood movies for 20 years. In the past 5 years Google maps has lowered resolution on that entire area so you cant see much. There is a USSR version of Google maps but I can not remember the URL.

[KitemanSA]

Given Area 51 is coming out of the closet, there must be a new location and we'll have to relocate our RV's as soon as we find it.

(Does that qualify as a rant?)

It has already been outed. There is a "Los Alamos" annex in south western Utah that is vastly larger than "Area 51". It is also fuzzed out in Google maps.

[KitemanSA]

https://www.fpds.gov/common/jsp/LaunchW ... ersion=1.4
I thought the end date was sometime in 2014 , now it looks like its 09/30/2013.
Am I just FUBAR or have things changed?

I was under the impression that the Navy had decided that using the "Recovery Act" funds was making the project too conspicuous so they changed to internal Navy funding which doesn't need to be posted on the RA site.