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A near-disaster at a nuclear weapons lab takes toll on America’s arsenal (2017)

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Re: A near-disaster at a nuclear weapons lab takes toll on America’s arsenal (2017)

#51

Post by rdtwo »

heavyset_go wrote: post #9
wisnoskij wrote: post #7

They keep saying that profit seeking was the issue, but taking selfies with plutonium, running a lab for 4 years that produces nothing, and not having any employees that don't understand the most basics of nuclear physics does not sound like profit seeking. It sounds like someone just has way too much money and runs a nuclear weapons lab as vanity project.

If you continued to read the article, you'd see that there was a culture of throwing caution to the wind to increase productivity at not only that lab, but other nuclear facilities around the world. Hell, the article even went on to say that workers at the facility even came up with a euphemism for orders that ignored basic safety protocols, they called them "Bubba said" orders. And the article said that after those…

Doesn’t that happen in every manufacturing or dangerous environment? I always assumed the bubba said or similar euphemisms exist everywhere

Re: A near-disaster at a nuclear weapons lab takes toll on America’s arsenal (2017)

#52

Post by xattt »

Arainach wrote: post #6

The photo didn't shut things down. A culture of disregard for safety over years, and a failure by management to take the issue seriously, shut down the lab.

You’re right, but eyeballs want to peek at plutonium and secretly want to see the stuff glow as green rods.

Re: A near-disaster at a nuclear weapons lab takes toll on America’s arsenal (2017)

#53

Post by chadcmulligan »

eru wrote: post #28
CobaltFire wrote: post #5

Putting a profit motive anywhere near anything that is safety critical is almost never a good idea. Naval Nuclear Power has it's issues, yet it is so safe that we have almost no incidents. That's because things like this don't happen there due to the culture of safety. That said, this is about production rather than operation, but the overall communities are relatively small and aligned.

> Putting a profit motive anywhere near anything that is safety critical is almost never a good idea. Why? And exactly how do you mean that? Is the safety track record of private industry worse than that of eg non-profit or state owned industry.

You can have it cheap, good or fast pick two.

Re: A near-disaster at a nuclear weapons lab takes toll on America’s arsenal (2017)

#54

Post by rdtwo »

bumby wrote: post #47
thrown_22 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very gung ho culture in labs about safety. It slows you down to do things right and when it comes to reviews the cowboys (and girls) who do things wrong but fast get better reviews because they get more done. Nuclear labs kill the people inside them at worst. Bio labs ... Well there's a reason why I think covid was the worst lab accident in human history.

I’m not sure why you’ve been downvoted but this is a very prevalent attitude at hazardous facilities that are run by contractors. In particular, when the hazards are relatively low probability events and there are perverse incentives to roll the dice in the name of productivity. In a previous job in a hazardous facility, I’ve had very senior managers sit me down to tell me I don’t want to get the reputation for slowi…

I think this is universal. The safety rules go so overboard that the critical ones get ignored with the stupid ones because employees don’t know which ones are the important ones. If everything is critical nothing is

Re: A near-disaster at a nuclear weapons lab takes toll on America’s arsenal (2017)

#55

Post by femto113 »

hit8run wrote: post #43

Maybe just stop building nuclear weapons!? The last thing the world needs is more of this shit.

LANL's plutonium facility is also the only place that can safely dismantle the nuclear weapons that already exist.

Re: A near-disaster at a nuclear weapons lab takes toll on America’s arsenal (2017)

#56

Post by bumby »

ars wrote: post #34
CobaltFire wrote: post #5

Putting a profit motive anywhere near anything that is safety critical is almost never a good idea. Naval Nuclear Power has it's issues, yet it is so safe that we have almost no incidents. That's because things like this don't happen there due to the culture of safety. That said, this is about production rather than operation, but the overall communities are relatively small and aligned.

The safety issues pre-dated any profit motive: "In 2005, shortly before the profit-making firms wrested majority control of the laboratory from the University of California, the lab's "nuclear criticality safety program did not meet many of the" nuclear industry's standards, according to a DOE report in 2008." The lab just doesn't have a culture of safety, it has nothing to do with profit. The profit motive was menti…

It’s possible it isn’t quite so easy to parse the profit motive in that manner.

For example, I worked in a not-for-profit research facility. The top line managers were govt but the vast majority of workers were for-profit contractors. There was about a 9:1 contractor to civil servant ratio. On paper, it was a govt run facility but in practice, the for-profit culture dominated.

Re: A near-disaster at a nuclear weapons lab takes toll on America’s arsenal (2017)

#57

Post by eru »

Retric wrote: post #42
eru wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Putting a profit motive anywhere near anything that is safety critical is almost never a good idea. Why? And exactly how do you mean that? Is the safety track record of private industry worse than that of eg non-profit or state owned industry.

It’s hard to do a direct comparison as government jobs tend to inherently be more risky and accident reporting rates vary. An Air Force pilot isn’t directly analogous to an airline pilot nor is a police officer even vaguely equivalent to private security. Private sector hospitals, which are arguably the closest direct analog with public sector counterparts, have higher rates of workplace injury than public sector hos…

Thanks.

I was more thinking of industrial accidents, for example.

In any case, when given the right incentives, profit seeking companies are excellent at promoting safety.

Similarly, bureaucrats working for organisations without a profit-motive don't magically follow the same preferences we might dream up in our armchairs. They also need to be given the right incentives.

Re: A near-disaster at a nuclear weapons lab takes toll on America’s arsenal (2017)

#58

Post by [deleted] »

ineedasername wrote: post #10

I would have though the decision tree for placement of concentrated plutonium was firmly established after the demon core incidents, set roughly in stone as the following: Should I bring high purity plutonium samples together? | V Do you want to die a horrible radiated death taught in textbooks for decades? | | V V No. Yes | | V V Then don’t you’re fired. It seems like Los Alamos may be in need of a fresh printout of…

[deleted]

Re: A near-disaster at a nuclear weapons lab takes toll on America’s arsenal (2017)

#59

Post by phdelightful »

hit8run wrote: post #43

Maybe just stop building nuclear weapons!? The last thing the world needs is more of this shit.

Nice idea, but our current world except without US nukes is a much worse world. We’re sort of stuck in a local minimum of nuclear weapon danger for the time being.

Also I think the main accident in the article was during research into converting enriched uranium for civilian use.

Re: A near-disaster at a nuclear weapons lab takes toll on America’s arsenal (2017)

#60

Post by bmc7505 »

ineedasername wrote: post #10

I would have though the decision tree for placement of concentrated plutonium was firmly established after the demon core incidents, set roughly in stone as the following: Should I bring high purity plutonium samples together? | V Do you want to die a horrible radiated death taught in textbooks for decades? | | V V No. Yes | | V V Then don’t you’re fired. It seems like Los Alamos may be in need of a fresh printout of…

Your flowchart neglects to mention the potential upside: Do you want to experience the results of runaway nuclear chain reaction firsthand? Become a Wikipedia entry? Impress the labmates with your prowess at tickling the dragon's tail?
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