Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

science.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 254 posts

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

#221

Post by ncmncm »

Tangurena2 wrote: post #206
csours wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always/Never Always explode when we desire it/Never explode when we don't desire it.

You might want to watch the documentary of the same name by Sandia National Labs: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLouetuxaIMDrht4F8xiS4... About 2.5 hours (after sanitizing still-classified material). What has to be done to make it work "exactly when we want it to go boom" and also "never when we don't want it to go boom" is fascinating. Some of the other videos from Sandia and Lawrence Livermore are fascinati…

The number in the "permissive action links" was 00000000000000.

Random numbers are very easy to come by.

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

#222

Post by iancmceachern »

defrost wrote: post #159
iancmceachern wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Why do we need people going there? There is so much empty space in Colorado, just go anywhere else.

Your criteria for fencing an area off appears to based upon radiation hazard. I take it then you are also in favour of fencing off all the red areas in the USofA radon risk map also? It would seem to be inconsistent if you were not in favour. https://www.nationalradondefense.com/radon-information/radon...

This comment is Reductio ad absurdum.

My point is that we had a fenced off area where they did a bunch of bad stuff, leaked open containers of radioactive waste were left open and leaking for decades. We then went in, removed the top 3 feet of soil and replaced it with fill, and then removed the fences put trails all around and signs and advertising to call it a nature preserve. I argue that every action after and including the removal of the fencing wasn't value add to our society as a whole and shouldn't have been done. Clean it up, leave it fenced off and leave it called what it is, a nuclear waste dump that was partially cleaned up.

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

#223

Post by iancmceachern »

concordDance wrote: post #174
iancmceachern wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The world is full of radioactivity, including the banana you eat and the partner you sleep next to. What matters is the amount, is it dangerous?

True, and the amount of radiation left in thr Rocky Flatts area is dangerous, simple fact.

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

#224

Post by justinator »

thrown_22 wrote: post #116
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.

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

I'm certainly not putting words in your mouth. You asked why you were being downvoted. I mentioned that there's a conspiracy theory along the lines of what you're saying. In no way did I say, "YOU'RE propagating a conspiracy theory". Just that there is a thing, and that thing is in some way influencing people's opinion on your comment. That does not imply intent.

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

#225

Post by bumby »

sbierwagen wrote: post #186
rdtwo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My first job out of highschool: overnight loader/stocker at a hardware store. The guy who ran the big forklift in the lumber section was a bit of a cowboy. At the start of the night there would be a big pile of lumber, and he had to sort it and get it on the shelves. We couldn’t really run two lifts at the same time due to aisle width, so he did the job solo, and ran the equipment fast to get it done in time. Start o…

Yeah, that's more of a CYA than an actual strong safety culture. It's more safety theater than anything else. I've had plenty of similar instances, where managers were allowed to get rid of safety/quality requirements as long as they formally documented that they understood and accepted the risks. They almost were never willing to do so, but would still pressure their employees to, you know, find some other way to get the work done faster.

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

#226

Post by jjoonathan »

sbierwagen wrote: post #185
iancmceachern wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nuts that this is a legal practice. It's intentionally deceptive to the general public and also removes peoples right to avoid exposure to bad stuff in bad places. There should be some kind of law passed that at least forces these places to be labeled what they really are. This quote about the former Rocky Flats that has become a nature preserve sums it up: "The area is an industrial nuclear waste site, not a na…

Ah, the SEC approach to a problem. Require more disclosure, change the name to something scarier, but don’t fix anything.

I won't be happy until I see at least one youtube recommendation per day about the subject with a red arrow, yelling face, and fire on the thumbnail.

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

#227

Post by usefulcat »

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…

When I was in college, myself and a few friends briefly passed through Los Alamos on our way to the Grand Canyon. The thing I still remember (it was a while ago) was seeing a sign on the laboratory grounds saying, “dirt removal from canyon prohibited”.

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

#228

Post by yummypaint »

I know several physicists at los alamos and i can only conclude that the "manufacturing" parts of the lab have a very different safety culture than the "science" parts of the lab. Researchers at los alamos love coming to university accelerators to do work because they can actually get things done (Even things as simple as using a ladder involve beurocracy at national labs). The same kinds of criticality experiments that famously killed people in the past are essentially unrecognizable as far as interlocks and procedures are concerned.

From reading the article you would think it's the wild west out there, but it actually has one of the most rigidly enforced safety cultures i know of among scientists. Being categorically prohibited from using machine tools as a scientist, for instance, is one of the things keeping me away from working there (if you need something made it goes into queue and machinists get to it on their own time). It wouldn't be surprising if the people actually manufacturing pits etc are effectively employees of a different organization.

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

#229

Post by concordDance »

blululu wrote: post #204
concordDance wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is full of radioactivity, including the banana you eat and the partner you sleep next to. What matters is the amount, is it dangerous?

I’m not sure if this is a helpful comment. Yeah the dose matters. Do you have any numbers on the contamination levels of this site? Groundwater/soil contamination is notoriously hard to measure and the variance can be much bigger than the average. Given this history of government obfuscation around this issue, would you even trust their numbers? The concern is based on risk which needs to factor in more than the late…

It's a helpful comment if people reflexively go "there's radiation?! That's dangerous!", which they do in my experience.

Reminders that things need quantification are often helpful to prevent people getting worked up over nothing or ignore important issues.

Without knowledge of the numbers saying "There's radioactivity!" should just cause a shrug.

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

#230

Post by concordDance »

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote: post #196
gdmt wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A chest X ray is about 0.1 mSv.

A chest X ray doesn't get inhaled, to provide a constant 0.1 mSv internally for the next 15 years or up to 24,000 years.

That's smaller than the difference between nearby towns far from nuclear power plants. Its not something even worth the mental space to think about when deciding where to move to.

A very slightly worse school will likely have a much bigger effect on your kids life expectancy.

Post reply on HN