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When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
41–50 of 92 posts
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still find it terrifying that even robots couldn’t survive the Chernobyl hot zone.
They could, if they were specced correctly. Wasn't the story that they intentionally requested robots hardened against lower radiation level than required to not disclose the true extent of the catastrophe? So the German company that built them underspecced the shielding and so they died quickly.
> specced
Totally orthogonal, but you just reminded me of a pet peeve I have.
This word is correct, but I can't stand it.
I wish we spelled this "specked", even though that has a homonym.
Like trafficked, panicked, frolicking, etc.
"specced" makes my brain wince.
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
They could, if they were specced correctly. Wasn't the story that they intentionally requested robots hardened against lower radiation level than required to not disclose the true extent of the catastrophe? So the German company that built them underspecced the shielding and so they died quickly.
> specced Totally orthogonal, but you just reminded me of a pet peeve I have. This word is correct, but I can't stand it. I wish we spelled this "specked", even though that has a homonym. Like trafficked, panicked, frolicking, etc. "specced" makes my brain wince.
> Like trafficked, panicked, frolicking, etc.
Those aren't truncations of longer words though?
I'd write it as spec'ed but that's German grammar with ' as a truncation mark (signifying the omitted "ifi").
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#44https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge
Well, I knew what I meant.
I tried to commit documentation to our source repository; I was told to upload it to the documentation site instead.
The documentation site that we've used for one year, subsequent to the previous documentation site the we used for 3 years, subsequent to the previous documentation site that we used for 5 years.
Following the trend, by the end of this year we will migrate documentation every 5 minutes, degrading every time.
At least source code can be migrated with fidelity. (The main branch anyway)
Who me? Bitter and scarred not at all!
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#45Love this part
“It’s almost unbelievable that we entrust ourselves - squishy, sometimes hapless bags of water, meat, and bones - to navigate protocols of such profound complexity needed to safely take advantage of radioactive materials.”
Maybe it’s just me but I feel like that all the time, not specifically about radioactive stuff, but about other highly complex and regulated environments where a simple mistake can have catastrophic consequences. As an example, just look at how the aerospace industry operates, there are so many talented scientists and engineers working in every aspect and yet many incidents take place every year due to trivial human errors, from pilots misunderstanding something to technicians not tightening a bolt enough.
Of course it’s not like we can trust anything (anyone?) else other than other humans to do this stuff, but it blows my mind how easily we forget about it.
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#46More than just a typo:
>In July 2012, LANS issued Solution Package (SP) Report-72, Salt Waste (SP #72) (Revision 1) to address the processing steps for nitrate salt drums. This document concluded that the glovebox procedure must be revised or replaced to ensure that the final waste mixture meets or exceeds 1.2:1 kitty litter/zeolite:nitrate salt as specified by May 8, 2012, LANL-CO white paper.
>In response to SP #72, LANS prepared a major revision to the glovebox operations procedure. Section 10.6 was added to provide instructions for nitrate salt drum processing. Paragraph 10.6[3] stated “ensure an organic absorbent (Kitty Litter/Zeolite® absorbent) is added to the waste material at a minimum of 1.5 absorbent to 1 part waste ratio.” The Board concluded that specifying the use of “organic” absorbent and the omission of the word “clay” in the WCRRF glovebox procedure was not consistent with the direction provided in the white paper.
https://wipp.energy.gov/Special/AIB_WIPP%20Rad_Event%20Repor...
I remember at the time there was also some concern that the swap had taken place due to a green initiative to use renewable sources rather than something that was mined. there were no sources to back that up except the fact that the organic litter is a little over double the cost of clay litter.
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Or maybe just do as you are told and second guessing the procedure would lead to imposter syndrome
Or perhaps "when dealing with nuclear stuff, follow the procedure".
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#48I 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…
I still find it terrifying that even robots couldn’t survive the Chernobyl hot zone.
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Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#49Love this part “It’s almost unbelievable that we entrust ourselves - squishy, sometimes hapless bags of water, meat, and bones - to navigate protocols of such profound complexity needed to safely take advantage of radioactive materials.” Maybe it’s just me but I feel like that all the time, not specifically about radioactive stuff, but about other highly complex and regulated environments where a simple mistake can h…
If you map out everything you have to do in a single day, and then work out all the things that you have to avoid for it to not go wrong, it's kind of terrifying.
Robot designers and toddler-minders will know some of these.
We're so used to so many failsafes that the "bare minimum to operate" for many things is frighteningly simple (very early electric wiring, for example).
Re: When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
That's... a shocking level of lack of professionalism. I mean, as a software developer, when someone tells you to implement something, do you do it just based on the notes you took while your project manager discussed the task with you, or do you read the actual Jira ticket and use the information you (hopefully) find there? And we're (mostly) not writing software that handles nuclear waste...
Very often the notes contain a lot more information than the ticket. Tickets are often written by people who barely understand the problem.