Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's superlaser has once again come under fire from a coalition of environmentalists and taxpayer groups.
Calling itself "Green Scissors," the group listed the National Ignition Facility among 71 federal programs that could be scrapped or reduced to save taxpayers $49.5 billion.
The report says the superlaser is expensive and unnecessary, technically unsound, a spur to the spread of nuclear weapons and a future source of nuclear reactor waste. Eliminating its $1.2 billion construction cost and operating expenses for 30 years would save $4.7 billion, it said.