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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)

#61

Post by bumby »

rdtwo wrote: post #54
bumby wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is very true. At a certain point, management needs to be willing to prioritize what safety requirements they are willing to endorse. The worst of both worlds is when leadership isn't willing to formally do so, but push an informal culture to ignore safety rules.

It’s worse when it’s low probability but high severity risks. Sometimes something that is critical but low probability is more easily conflated with not being a legitimate risk. I dog think it’s telling that the article made it seem like the entire safety team quit en-masse

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

#62

Post by jahewson »

bmc7505 wrote: post #60
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?

Hey, there’s a first time for everything!

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

#63

Post by justinator »

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’m not sure why you’ve been downvoted

Because "Covid 19 was engineered in a lab, then released" is nothing but a conspiracy theory.

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

#64

Post by credit_guy »

joshuamorton wrote: post #41
credit_guy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right. The idea that bringing a few bars of plutonium next to each other for a photo could result in a criticality event is completely bogus. The real issue of course, is that you want people at a facility that handles plutonium to adhere very strictly to procedures. If you don't freak out when they take some selfies, next day they'll do something else. And one day, one of these things will be stupi…

I mean no, it's completely correct. Criticality happens when there's enough plutonium in a small enough space (or not enough plutonium, but in a space with a high density of neutron reflectors). The demon core incident(s), the Cecil Kelley criticality incident, and others don't involve explosives. Just read through the wikipedia list[0], and you'll see that causes included dropping a tungsten brick, an unexpected poo…

Those examples, especially the Demon Core, had much higher quantities of plutonium. The Demon Core [1] was a sphere of 6.2 kg of plutonium surrounded by neutron reflecting tungsten carbide.

The photo in this article shows a few small sticks of plutonium. They are not in contact with each other. They are not surrounded by neutron reflecting materials. The chance of criticality in that configuration was insignificant.

Of course, any journalist worth his salt will make it look like we very nearly avoided an Armageddon.

I stand by my statement: the danger in that situation was not the plutonium configuration itself, but the attitude towards safety of the workers. In that immediate instance the chance of a criticality excursion was close to nil, but if not reprimanded, those workers could have done something much more dangerous next time.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core

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

#65

Post by eru »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #53
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.

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

Pick two or less..

Sure, but I don't see how that relates to the topic at hand? This constraint exists for all organisations. As do budget constraints.

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

#66

Post by hotpotamus »

rdtwo wrote: post #51
heavyset_go wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If true, that sounds like a serious indictment of manufacturing power sources with the ability to destroy a good portion of the Earth.

That does remind me of the incident where a technician dropped a socket off a wrench and quite nearly detonated a 9 megaton bomb in Arkansas.

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

#67

Post by thret »

Reading what happened to Ouchi makes me think two things: 1. Anyone who has not gotten that far, skip the "Ghastly deaths after the blue glow" part. 2. Euthanasia for someone exposed to lethal radiation should be the recommended treatment. Give the patient a choice, but also the option.

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

#68

Post by tormeh »

justinator wrote: post #63
bumby wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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’m not sure why you’ve been downvoted Because "Covid 19 was engineered in a lab, then released" is nothing but a conspiracy theory.

Conspiracy to cover up a mistake, maybe. There's no way to know, but given what is known about the origin of covid it's too plausible to just dismiss. We'll just have to live with the ambiguity.

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

#69

Post by code_duck »

code_duck wrote: post #49

My favorite nuclear disaster! Criticality events. I lived in Los Alamos for a while. I looked into renting a studio space. I became curious about the property across the street from my prospective rental which was surrounded by a chain link fence with green canvas. I researched and learned it was the site of an original Manhattan site waste dump which had, a few years prior, been enclosed with a negative pressure ten…

Looking into this, I have most of the names wrong. For anyone interested this site is a decent guide to the basics: https://n3b-la.com/mda/

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

#70

Post by s0rce »

rdtwo wrote: post #54
bumby wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is major issue in my experience. Even introducing new benign chemicals can lead to lengthy reviews and project delays. I've also found that when I've asked directly how to safely handle something the safety people don't have an answer and end up with an extremely conservative approach that doesn't appear to be driven by actual risks (severity or probability).
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