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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)

#111

Post by bombcar »

rdtwo wrote: post #104
bombcar wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of thing is common in all industries - so much so that one way that railroad workers would strike is to “work to rule” - follow every single safety regulation to a T causing productivity to plummet. Many safety rules can be summed up as “don’t be a dumbass” but trying to proceduralize that can be difficult. It’s part of the reason nuclear stuff is so expensive - you have to work to rule every single time.

They typically end up written in such a way that no work can be done if rules are followed

Yep - there’s no compiler and the workers are basically forced to be there interpreter and deal with contradictory or impossible rules.

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

#112

Post by TMWNN »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #100
crooked-v wrote: post #3

So I guess it turns out that Homer Simpson was more realistic than we thought... all the way through to only avoiding nuclear accidents through sheer luck.

Homer is safer. He chucks a single rod out on the street in the opening scene, keeping it separate from the rest. At work he is lazy, so by doing nothing, he is not combining rods together.

>At work he is lazy, so by doing nothing, he is not combining rods together.

And whenever he is required to do something, disaster occurs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErwV24Bskyw>

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

#113

Post by xeromal »

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.

In the article, it looks like the public workers before the buyout were also careless so it sounds like people who work around dangerous plutonium just become careless over time.

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

#114

Post by chihuahua »

leetrout wrote: post #97
justinator wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You jumped to some conclusions. OP said a lab accident. This could have been from an animal sample. Everyone seems to conflate lab leak with lab manufacture (or jump further to purposeful leak).

In addition to what you said (conflating lab leak with various things), there's another factor: Early on, the people who were funding the gain-of-function research at WIV put out a statement that considering possibility of lab leak == racism, and some people are still following those orders.

There is no proof that it was or was not a lab leak, engineered or not, intentional or not. Whatever evidence there was has been destroyed.

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

#115

Post by bumby »

kragen wrote: post #99
bumby wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears that LANL is a safer workplace than average "Average workplace" probably isn't the appropriate comparison. Some industries (like construction) probably wouldn't be a good comparison. By contrast, the article states LANL had more incidents than all other 23 DOE combined.

Maybe they're all being counterproductively paranoid.

I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic?

I don’t think that claim can hold water in an area that 1) has the severity of this particular industry and 2) the org in question was written about because they have documented instances of very bad practices.

If it’s not sarcasm, do you think the Pu risks are overblown?

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

#116

Post by thrown_22 »

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.

There's a difference between escape and release. Not sure why you put words in my mouth.

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

#117

Post by julienreszka »

People's appetite for risk has always been very variable. Too much appetite is dangerous but too little just gets people nowhere because sacred shitless they do nothing. Just like during war you can only be bothered by bombs falling on your town and risking to destroy your home for so long. Eventually people get used to the risk as a way to stay sane.

I'm not certain what's the right way to do it but this has to be taken into account.

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

#118

Post by heavyset_go »

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…

Where I am, developments are constantly built on old landfill, including landfill used for industrial waste. People buy in and then are shocked 5-10 years down the line when they find out their soil is contaminated and they can't eat what they grow in their gardens.

That, and the developments that get built near Superfund sites or old industrial sites. Most of a nearby town's residential areas were built on property that once had Industrial Revolution-era refineries and mills on them, back when waste was regularly just buried or dumped in streams and rivers. To this day you're warned not to eat shellfish and fish caught in the bay because of heavy metal contamination from that era. Tons of people still eat them anyway.

Can't say I'm surprised to learn that the same mindset gets applied to old nuclear waste dumps, too.

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

#119

Post by seventytwo »

iancmceachern wrote: post #105
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…

This sounds like the same story as Rocky Flats west of Denver. Same thing, after "Cleanup" it's a (still radioactive) nature preserve and housing development now.

Do you have evidence of this? I’ve looked into Rocky Flats specifically because I live in the area, and I can’t find any evidence that radiation levels are dangerous.
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