Today I learned of the existence of "organic, wheat-based cat litter"
Sounds like grape nuts
That is the most horrible and accurate comment I've read so far today lol
When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
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Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#12It's not the litter, it's the typo. It was not sufficient to just write "inorganic". Given the seriousness of possible consequences, some redundancy should have been added. E.g. "inorganic mineral-based kitty litter can be used; organic kitty litter is not acceptable". A few more words would have prevented an actual nuclear incident.
so you're saying this was really an unclear incident?
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#13I'm submitting this based on the current top item "North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names" [0]. This accident was traced to a manager transcribing "inorganic absorbent" as "an organic absorbent". A more serious example of the need to have competent people with domain knowledge in the room and empowered when documents are written. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46492161
Not just when documents are written, but also when the practices they describe are implemented. You don't need to know a lot of chemistry to realize that mixing organics with nitric acid is a bad idea. Why did none of the technicians doing the work say "hold on, this doesn't seem right"?
My guess, they were afraid to ruffle the feathers of their higher-ups. Yes, that's moronic, but this is the world we can find ourselves in IF the bosses are egotistical kingdom makers.
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#14"Wrong Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe" As an owner of a particularly opinionated Orange Cat, I can relate.
Why is it always the oranges? My orange is also very picky!
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#15Today I learned of the existence of "organic, wheat-based cat litter"
Organic cat litters have the advantage the results can be composted.
They have the disadvantage that they don't control odor well, and when composted smell even worse. So don't try to compost them at home.
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#16It's not the litter, it's the typo. It was not sufficient to just write "inorganic". Given the seriousness of possible consequences, some redundancy should have been added. E.g. "inorganic mineral-based kitty litter can be used; organic kitty litter is not acceptable". A few more words would have prevented an actual nuclear incident.
From the link:
In May 2012, Los Alamos published a white paper titled “Amount of Zeolite Required to Meet the Constraints Established by the EMRTC Report RF 10-13: Application of LANL Evaporator Nitrate Salts.” In other words, “How much kitty litter should be added to radioactive waste?” The answer was about 1.2 to 1, inorganic zeolite clay to nitrate salt waste, by volume.
That guidance was then translated into the actual procedures that technicians would use to repackage the waste in gloveboxes at Los Alamos. But something got lost in translation. As far as investigators could determine, here’s what happened: In a meeting in May 2012, the manager responsible for glovebox operations took personal notes about this switch in materials. Those notes were sent in an email and eventually incorporated into the written procedures:
“Ensure an organic absorbent is added to the waste material at a minimum of 1.5 absorbent to 1 part waste ratio.”
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#17Today I learned of the existence of "organic, wheat-based cat litter"
Organic cat litters have the advantage the results can be composted. They have the disadvantage that they don't control odor well, and when composted smell even worse. So don't try to compost them at home.
Try Smart Cat. It's grass-based, not wheat-based. It controls odor far better than clay-based cat litter.
Only problem I've had with it was when my dog decided that it smelled good enough to eat. Of course, it pulled all the moisture out of the dog's mouth and left it with a stuck-on clump that it couldn't get rid of.
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#18Not really a catastrophe, more like “problem”.
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#19I did a sort of internship at Los Alamos which involved building some drones. A year or two later I got a call from my advisor there, out of the blue asking me if I had anything immediately available that could do recon underground effectively. I didn't really, so I declined. I asked what they needed it for and he said it would be easier if I got the info from the news. That was kinda terrifying ... turned out to be this incident.
Internship started as this thing: https://youtu.be/hq03MsP1MPI?si=lVpDMLqRN4nfwMiA really great experience.
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#20I'm submitting this based on the current top item "North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names" [0]. This accident was traced to a manager transcribing "inorganic absorbent" as "an organic absorbent". A more serious example of the need to have competent people with domain knowledge in the room and empowered when documents are written. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46492161
Thanks for highlighting that, I missed that in the video and was wondering why "anorganic" should be something different than "inorganic" (in my native German it's "anorganisch").
But still, I'm a bit alarmed that a trained nuclear technician would simply follow these instructions and mix organic material with acid without having any second thoughts about it...