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Los Alamos Lab: We're OK, You're OK
The fires which have been burning as a result of what was intended to be a controlled burn hit Los Alamos, site of the renowned National Laboratory, especially hard. Some have questioned the safety of the lab after this trauma; In addition to being the research site for the first atomic bomb, Los Alamos has remained an important lab for top-secret technology. It's also the site of the nation's 'only active plutonium facility.' According to an AP story, the lab thought that letting reporters tour the facility was the best way to defuse fears that the fires had brought a risk to public health. Hope they're right.
43 Square Mile lab? This is crazy. 2 hour tour for a 43 mile lab and they're not hiding anything.. right.
Here's a way to get rid of those pesky reporters.....
Just kidding.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
Wow, with a fire hitting a place with PLUTONIUM, I'm afraid that I'll get killed by some RADIATION! How will I know?!? Oh wait... I'll get out my own GEIGER COUNTER! It clicked! AAAH! RADIATION! I'M GONNA DIE!!!
Seriously people, let's try to avoid the "it's radioactive and it's so bad" FUD today.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
"This is an attempt to show you we are not hiding anything,'' said Gene Habiger, director of security and emergency response for the Department of Energy. ''If anyone thinks the government, the Department of Energy, can suppress the truth, they're wrong."
'Scuse me for being paranoid, but this does not set my mind at ease.
These burns, controlled or otherwise, are stupid and incredibly stupid. If you got to clear stuff out, hack and slash or bulldozers are the ways to go.
At least my way doesn't threaten nuclear facilities.
When the pack animals stampede, it's time to soak the ground with blood to save the world. We fight, we die, we break our cursed bonds.
Chris 'coldacid' Charabaruk Meldstar Entertainment
At least get the name right timothy. It's called Los Alamos.
I heard Microsoft had secret headquarters in Los Alamos.
Actually, I just took a class in Nuclear Engineering, we concentrated a lot on the public's fear of nuclear facilities. The public is completely ill-informed when it comes to anything nuclear. People fear that waste will get spread around-the waste is stored in steel containers that can survive a train hitting them plus being doused in jet fuel and lit on fire (I saw a film of it.) Everyone always talks about Three Mile Island happening again: The radiation released to the public from TMI was less than the radiation the public got from their houses on that day. I think the government needs to develop a program to educate people on exactly how safe nuclear power is-France is 80% powered by it, but we haven't built a plant in 10 years because the public is ignorant.
Colin Winters
The cake is a pie
Well, the tour seems like a reasonable first step. The detractor though at the end of the article has a good point as well.
/..
It would be nice if the officials at the lab could reveal some technical information about the fire and the dangers that it posed so that third-party experts could review it and hopefully allay public fears.
BTW, glad to see this on
"Hey... don't be mean." --Buckaroo Banzai
if it did hit the lab.. the entire southwest could glow in the dark :-)
*Not a Sermon, Just a Thought
*/
Here in Canada, we've just recently found out that Chinese organized crime syndicates (Triads) have been infiltrating our military and nuclear power plants for over a decade, and smuggling top secret information back to China.
I would not be surprised if the same thing is happening in the USA.
When the pack animals stampede, it's time to soak the ground with blood to save the world. We fight, we die, we break our cursed bonds.
Chris 'coldacid' Charabaruk Meldstar Entertainment
Y'know, the first thing I thought when I heard that there were fires near/at Los Alamos was that the public would think there was going to be a nuclear catastrophe. Why? People hear "radiation", "plutonium", or "nuclear physics" and freak. And why is that? Because the media tends to blow things completely out of proportion.
Questions always asked by the media in this story included, "Will there be release of radiation?" Anybody with two brain cells to rub together would instantly realize that the people who designed the Los Alamos labs were smart. They designed the place in case of emergencies. They designed the place so that radiation wouldn't escape except under the absolute worse conditions. Does anybody actually think that a simple brush fire would get through all the protective matters? Does anybody actually -think- before asking questions like that?
This loss or even the mere existance of the fire may scare away some of these reaserchers and thus cause a loss of results from the lab, and a lower moral. Something im sure the US government does not want.
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Who cares about the plutonium and other radionuclides, what I want to know is was Neale Smith's office hurt? :)
For those who don't know who Neale Smith is, he wrote Xftp and Xdir...
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
</I> !
As a former employee of Los Alamos, I would like to point out the lab is LOS ALAMOS (not Las - as stated repeatedly in the story intro). I don't mind typos, especially in user comments. However, the story intros should at least be minimally proofread.
Or am I out of the loop and Las is the new hip way to talk about the lab?
Eagerly awaiting (-1: offtopic).
Having once worked at a National Lab (PNNL, operated by Battelle) I can say that if LANL is anything like where I worked, they're not lying. Nuclear material is handled very carefully and a forest fire is the least of their worries.
There are other issues with the Natl labs (namely, national security) that aren't all that great - but I don't think fire is going to be a problem.
(yes, I was certified as a level 1 rad worker, and no it wasn't my main focus - I was a computer tech who had to go into rad zones from time to time. if you think an old Quadra 605 is slow now, it feels ten times as slow when you're surrounded by geiger counters and have a quota as to how long you would be allowed to stay there)
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
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It's only two columns away from uranium on the periodic table, and remember: they use depleted uranium in tank-killing rounds partially because it burns very nicely.
I'm probably thinking along these lines because I just got my Wag the Dog and X-Files DVDs today. Anyway, were they trying to hide something with this fire? Is there anything worth hiding? If so, from Whom?
Can we say "Government Coverup?"
"This is an attempt to show you we are not hiding anything," said Gene Habiger, director of security and emergency response for the Department of Energy. "If anyone thinks the government, the Department of Energy, can suppress the truth, they're wrong."
Press members were then given instructions on how to properly seal their BioHazard suits and what to do if the Radiation badge turned red.
Hammer of Truth
...Which is not to say LANL was probably in any danger, but your comment hit a particular nail right on the head.
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
A material, element 115, the only available physical proof for the existance of aliens, is stored in Los Alamos. More info
If that's what you were taught, I suggest you go out and hurt your educators for misinforming you. Also, our Atomic Energy Control Board is working on a nuclear generator running on plutonium...
Canada is actually a pretty cool place. Shootings in high schools aren't very common (unlike in the USA), we have a stable economy, and our prime minister doesn't have sex with his intern. So there.
When the pack animals stampede, it's time to soak the ground with blood to save the world. We fight, we die, we break our cursed bonds.
Chris 'coldacid' Charabaruk Meldstar Entertainment
Thirty-six foot tall news anchorman reports Los Alamos A-O-K after touring the facility late Thursday night. "The power was still out, but my skin had a healthy green glow which helped me see my way around."
If you check out this DOE site http://www.em.doe.gov/bemr96/lanl.html you will find an extensive listing of the many cleanups they have going under way at Los Gatos.
Things that come to mind are:
Plants tend to metabolize the hazardous materials in the soil. These plants are now being converted into smoke.
The contaminated soil that is now being dried out by the fire, and dust being swept up into the air.
Casually checking out the page link given I come up with these goodies [there is LOTS more]:
Apparently alot of testing was also open air, especially in the early days, before they knew better, or cared much (take your pick).
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Fortunately, all the top secret stuff was burnt to a crisp before the reporters got there.
long hours and not enuf sleep
sorry
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
It's good to see the government working with such efficiency. If everything is nice and safe, as we all hope, then the press can relay the information very quickly.
On the other hand, if something terrible did happen, then this tactic will kill off the press. Thus, no one will ever know that the terrible something happened.
Nice and neat.
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Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
Remember, this is a predominantly male forum. True, the correct spelling is "Los Alamos", but the Alamos boys are a homely lot, and don't do much for readership.
Their sisters however, "Las Alamitas", are a fine looking bunch of Latino-Amercan babes. My guess is that's what was originally typed and the spell checker kicked "Alamitas" in favor of "Alamos", but left the "Las" untouched.
Viva Las Alamitas del Labrotorios Nationale!
You're just pissed because I used words too large for your vocabulary :-) I'll remember to tone it down for the ACs out there next time
Spyky
There probably is a hazard to human health at Los Alamos. This is where they did all the original testing for the Bomb, and actually well beyond it into modern times. They wisened up about the dangers of radiation and -slowly- started to handle nuclear materials 'responsibly'(as in with some caution instead of wreckless abandon).
There are likely places all over the southwest where nuclear testing was done that are still hot. They did a lot of above ground stuff in New Mexico. I'm also betting there is a lot of stuff that they haven't/never will disclose.
And remember that the US Military is one of the worst polluters around. Chesapeake Bay pollution has strong roots in things dumped/burned/buried at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Let's not even start talking about the contaminated places at Fort McClellan Alabama, home of the Army Chemical Corps.
In space, no one can hear you moo.
The CANDU reactor, the primary form of nuclear power, is widespread in Canada. It is quite efficient, and runs on unrefined Uranium (as the refining process is often quite expensive/dangerous, as was seen in Tokyo). It is quite safe, as it is physically incapable of operating without coolant, so it shuts down instead of overheating. It also produces weapons grade plutonium as its primary byproduct. There's the problem. See what technology they'd like?
It is quite true that it was a really, really big brush fire. And a catastrophic one. It was a terrible thing, and I feel for the people who lost their homes to the blaze.
But in terms of the laboratory, it was still "just" a brush fire. That lab was probably built to itself withstand a nuclear assault. A brush fire, no matter how big it is, is not going to do very much to it.
I would not be surprised if the same thing is happening in the USA.
The Chinese are taking over the Canadians, but the Canadian Imperialists are taking over the us!
Reporters don't want to trek through 43 square miles, and plus most of the stuff is classified beyond requiring a press pass. If you were a reporter, would you want a 15 hour tour through a bunch of (to you) science geeks' offices just to see what could have been shown to you in 2 hours, or for that matter 30 minutes? Plus, if there was an accident, it would have been in a classified section (the nuclear research/test sites/reactors & stuff are all classified to prevent sabotage from visitors/terrorists), so the reporters wouldn't have seen it even if they had walked for three days straight.
I thought most of the current labs in Los Alamos were underground and thus relatively immune to surface fires.
Anyone reading who know the site first hand?
no sig.
How dangerous low levels of radiation are to public health is somewhat open to question. It is well known that uranium miners have a high risk of cancer. But in studies of homes with radon we have so far been unable to show a similar correlation. (In fact, the largest study indicated anticorrelation, which is quiet weird)
Anyway the real advantage of breeder reactors is not that we throw away less fuel, but that by reusing it we don't need to mine nearly as much uranium, and the refining process is so very much easier. OTOH, there is the disadvantage that we end up with more plutonium, which is chemically very very toxic. But a few kilogrammes of the stuff does go a long way, so I think breeder reactors are the way to go.
This whole thing proves that whoever decided to do this should get their proctologist to find their head. You just don't start a fire near a place with a radioactive history, let alone let it get out of control...
-You're wearing...A bag? I have misplaced my pants.
43 acres and a 2 hour tour. Sounds like Gilligan's Island to me. (Sung to Gilligan's Island theme): Well just sit right back and you'll hear a tale. A tale of fateful fire. That was started by some Interior guys who weren't all to wise. The weather was mighty dry, the bushes sure burned hot. If not for the courage of the firefighters, the plutonium would be lost.
Romanes eunt domus? People called Romanes, they go the 'ouse? It says Romans go home. No it doesn't. What's Latin fo
If something goes wrong at the labs, everyone dies, and then your concerns for their safety and mental stability don't count for very much.
It's right that the top priority for now is the lab's integrity. Get the people out of immediate danger. Then worry about the rest.
As it was, the lab's presence was only coincidental. The fire could have happened anywhere. The lab itself had nothing to do with the fires except that it happened to be sitting in their path. However, it does pose a potential threat to the safety of the city; now that the fires are out it is the biggest potential threat. Therefore, it's much better that this threat is taken care of. There will be time to care for the people when the lab's integrity is assured. Your concern is admirable, but it doesn't do any good if they all die because something went wrong in the lab.
As big as this fire was, it still did not clear out all the debris lying on the forest floor. New Mexico's forests have been protected for the last 150 years and its only recently that fires have been allowed to burn.
Its only recently that forest managers realized that forest fires are a somewhat regular occurence neccesary to clean out the debris and allow trees to be properly spaced by killing off weaker trees. If you take a look at tree rings from a really old tree you can see a regular pattern of fire and then this big gap when our forest service actively fought forest fires.
Unfortunately, we cant just get rid of the debris overnight, so regular, perhaps even aggressive, controlled burning is necessary. The debris left behind from 150 years of fire control may prove to be a big problem if we continue to have record hot summers(due to global warming, but that's another story).
The Albuquerque Journal is a great reference for donations, BTW, as the entire city of Los Alamos had to be evacuated, about 500 homes were destroyed(out of a population of 11,000) so there are many people are in need.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Yes, it is, and it was a major producer of the U.S. plutonium stockpile. Hanford is in Eastern Washington, which isn't terribly close to Microsoft (5 - 6 hour drive). It IS close to the Columbia river, and they have leaked radioactive material into there in the past.
Nuclear power IS risky, and there is no long term solution to waste disposal (yet). Fast breeder reactors, and breeder/burners are one potential solution. But there is great paranoia about diversion of Pu-239 to terrorists. A fast breeder (in a nutshell) can produce Pu-239 (fissionable) from U-238 (waste).
A burner is a little different. This is used to deliberately break large isotopes into smaller ones with shorter half lifes. The U.S. Congress has cancelled most funding for advanced reactor programs, although the DOE's Argonne National Lab still does some research.
Considering some of the half-lifes of certain isotopes (Pu-239 has a half life of 24,000 years or so), just burying it seems to be a ridiculous proposition. I'd much rather see funding put into burner programs which can take care of this waste in a more responsible fashion.
Just my $.02
SEAL
You know why it takes 6 months to shut down a reactor, don't you? It's like a Linux box. There's a ton of critical stuff running, doing critical stuff, and if you just turn it off, you've most likely screwed something or somebody up.
Nope, actually it takes that long because they want the highly active (short half lifed) isotopes to cool off for a while. The half life of the average byproduct is something like what, 45 minutes? The shorter ones are only a few milli-seconds and there are others which have half lives of millions of years. If the hotter isotopes are allowed to decay, then the material being removed from the plant is only a few % as dangerous as it was the second the reactor was stopped.
When you just flip off a nuclear power plant, you'll be lucky if half of the country survives.
Dead wrong here. You turn off a nuclear reactor, and the water runs out of the reaction chamber, the reaction stops, and everything is safe, but distances must be kept.
And only if you're in a big place, like America or Russia. Ukraine is _still_ suffering from the disaster that happened what, more than a quarter century ago? Nuclear power is far to dangerous and expensive to the minor benefits that it allows.
You need to read more about the chernobyl distaster and what was learned from it. It was learned that it is indeed evil to use a breeder reactor because they can NOT be stopped like a light. A typical reactor as used in this country can be. Drain the water and wow, it stopped. Very quickly.
Its sad to know that someone gets screwed up everytime the power goes out and my computer gets shut off. I better buy an UPS quicklike.
Spring is here. Don't believe me, look outside!
Don't get me wrong - my personal view is that nuclear power's risks far outweigh the benefits, with a few limited exceptions. I mentioned burners as one possible way to help reduce the amount of waste that has ALREADY been produced. I don't think we should continue running such reactors for the long run, however.
Also keep in mind that a half-life is exactly that: the time it takes for half of the unstable nuclei to decay. It doesn't just "go away". Also, many isotopes decay into other isotopes that are still radioactive. Thus, a burner should have two goals:
- output of isotopes with much smaller half-lives than the original.
- output of isotopes which decay into non-radioactive material.
Best regards,
SEAL
Go read my second link up above, and tell me with a straight face that US nuclear power plants have never killed anyone.
SEAL
Well, at least no one accused foreigners this time around of causing the scare at the Lab. It's a start. lol
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JavaScript tutorials scripts
Everyone talks about how safe and clean nuclear power is except for the waste. What you forget is that mining and refining the fuels for the reactor create a lot of polution and waste. The nuclear advocates always seem to neglect mentioning this.
http://overwhelmed.org
They're liars, vandel's and thieves. They're willing to make our children starve to avoid contaminating the 'purity of nature' that is the world's farm.
I want nothing to do with them. Personally, just as they claimed that it was 'just' to lawn-mow those crops, I think it's just to burn down their headquarters.
heh -- I hope bob reads this.
Spring is here. Don't believe me, look outside!
This sounds almost religious. You claim that those who have studied it have been 'brainwashed' by the heathens. You claim that the [religious] public can never be wrong. Yes, it is right to burn heathens at the stake. It couldn't be that we're ill-informed; It must be THEIR fault.
How many times has the public been wrong on some religious craze.. From power lines cause cancer (300 million spent, on a rumor), to breast implants (billions in lawsuits, and no evidence), to expelling students for wearing smelly aftershave. (Yes, this happened a couple of weeks ago.) These are such critical dangers that we must be protected from. The public can't be wrong in protecting us from smelly aftershave!
Here's a clue: EVERYTHING is dangerous. It's just a matter of degree.. Burning coal for electicity puts more radioactivity into the air than nuclear power does. Oil tankers can run aground. Refineries can blow up. Flying cross-country once a week give you the equivalent radiation of 10 whole-body X-rays a year.
You can't religiously claim that forbidding the use of fire is right, just because it could accidently burn down your neighborhood.
Nuclear energy is just another kind of fire, the fire of the burning atom trying to turn itself into iron.
I don't think the above poster was trolling. I completely disagree with everything he's saying and believe he's wrong.
But I wouldn't moderate him down for having a radically different opinion from mine.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Sure, it's risky. What isn't? What you need to do to make that into a useful statement is to quantify the risk, and compare it to other power generation activities.
Coal mining cuts short the lives of thousands of miners. There are thousands of natural gas explosions every year, yet we have it piped into our houses. Air pollution from fossil fuel burning plants are responsible for the death of over ten thousand people in the US per year. Hydroelectric dams are very dangerous to construct, and occasionally they burst. Furthermore, the risk of global warming due primarily to fossil fuel burning is a tremendously large one for the future.
The primary reason that nuclear power isn't successful in America is its cost.
It's Los Alamos. Not Las Alamos.
Los is masculine, while Las is feminine. Alamos is a masculine noun. (You can tell because it ends in "o".)
The fact of the matter is that these nuke sites are run by/administerd by people. People who are the same people that I work with. People who care/don't care - People who work towards perfection/slack - People in charge/empowered.
People make mistakes...
Do you trust all people based upon a high school/college film? I don't.
And I would be proud to consider myself a part of that dumbass collection of ditch-diggers known as the public.
No, I mean steam explosion. They removed too many control rods for a test, which allowed the reactor to got so hot that it the water surrounding it turned to steam and exploded. Since there was no containment vessel, the explosion threw fuel everywhere and made a big radioactive mess. Check this page http://www.uilondon.org/cherntim.htm to see a breakdown of the events. The explosion is described at the very end.
this kind of reminds me of a program on discovery channel the other day. They were talking about the problems with nuclear power, and they showed a little cartoon from japan where a friendly little isotope talked about how missunderstood he was and that he really wasn't all that dangerous, basically it said that if a few micrograms of plutonium were spilled into the harbour it wouldn't have any effect at all... but the funniest part was when it said that if you were to drink a glass of water with some plutonium in it 'most' of it would simply pass right through your body...as if this is ok. a few days after the cartoon aired a reporter asked the minster of energy if he could possibly demonstrate by drinking a galss of plutonium laced water...strangely he declined.
Even if these things are safe, what about the fact that they are MORE EXPENSIVE TO RUN than traditional power plants like coal and oil?
Also what about the fact that uranium is a non-renewable resource, just like oil and coal.
Nuclear power is a sideways-step in technology, not an evolution.
We need less-expensive (free even!) non-polluting energy sources that don't give the people that run them permanent orange afros after 20 years of being near it.
Solar, lightning collection systems, wind and thermo-electric are technologies that spring to mind...
Hey, how about an open-source power company!
All over the state, there are radiation monitors used to track leaks. So far, they are not reporting any change from the "norm". But, what is the norm ? They've already dropped one bomb there. :)
The Federal Government should pay the damages to the citizens. Believe it or not, this is not yet something they've agreed to do.
Then, because federal government money is yours and mine, everyone in the administration should be fired, and the entire department should be dismantled and rebuilt with congressional oversight. It should be tightly supervised for the next decade or so.
None of this will happen, and the people who've lost their houses will be told 'tough shit'. They will be lucky to get the cost of their homes back. Insurance companies will be left holding the bag. They will be forced to raise rates, and the people who should have paid for this disaster in the first place will end up paying for it anyway, while the Government gets off scot-free.
Of course, I hope I'm wrong.
Los Alamos is just a very spooky place. You really can't see much of it at all. Before you ever get to the city of Los Alamos, you have to drive thru this maze of small mesa's, and there are lab buildings up on the top of them. This goes on for many many many miles. It went on so long I actually got bored of them. I don't see how these buildings are in theat.. the mesa's were taller than most of the trees below.
But, the real spooky thing that I saw was on the road to the Bandelier park that started all of this mess. Halfway between the labs that I saw and the park was this stretch of road. On one side of this road was a nice green lush forest. On the other side of the road was a dead forest. Not one thing was living on that other side as far as I could see. It wasn't burned up, it was just dead.. grass still in place, but dead. A sign posted on the fence on either side of the road claimed this was property of the labs.
What if this was what they wanted to destroy? The Bandelier park is a very popular attraction and if enough people started to talk about the death zone, Los Alamos might have wanted to take care of that blemish.
So they've got a massive fire that forces them to evacuate the town or be burned to death, and they're worried about radiation that might slightly increase their risk for cancer if it were uncontained, despite every precaution.
Yes, the fire isn't dangerous at all, it's that magical radiation. Yip. Mmmm hmmmm.
I swear, sometimes people deserve global warming.
[...] the migration of VC from PVC is essentially zero. It is bad to manufacture though.
So, let me get this straight. Greenpeace hates PVC because its bad to manufacture, so they tell everyone its poisonous to wear.
Greenpeace hates leather because it comes from dead cattle.
Greenpeace (presumably) hates rubber, because its a petroleum product.
Damn! You've just about eliminated everything my dominatrix wears. Whats a guy with a kinky fetish or two to do in a brave new green world where we can't eat meat or wear PVC?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Like everyone else who worked at the labs.. I wasnt worried about the Nuclear fuel.. I was more worried about the chemicals that were spilled in the 50's and 60's because they werent thought dangerous. Heck there is a whole canyon that is off limits because it had been used for it.. probably burnt like a tinderbox too :/.
My favorite memories of the lab was watching the
Lab security with their 50 caliber mounted broncos
escorting nuclear rods from the processing plant. They were to be used in case of terrorist attack (the less showy stuff was the Anti Tank weapons they had in other vehicles).
I heard that once a stupid bank robber tried to rob the LA National Bank and walked out to find about enough fire power to level a small town aimed at him. They had to give a shower before they put in the cell.
Anyway it was a very pretty town. I miss it and hope that the people there and Espanola (the working town at the bottom of the hill) can rebuild.
Smooge
-- SJS smooge at smoogespace dot com
this is blatantly false. For CANDU reactors, in the event of a loss of coolant, the normal cooling water would be lost from the main cooling system but core melting would normally be prevented by the action of the emergency core cooling systems. However, if the ECCS failed to act, melting of metallic components of the core and eventually of the uranium oxide fuel itself would probably occur. If the reactor fails to shut down or the decay heat removal systems fail, the core would melt a.k.a chernobyl. american reactors and CANDU reactors have very similar probabilities of failure (1 in 10000 per year).
That's only partly right. The Earth gets hit by large gamma burst every couple of months or so. Sure the van allen belts provide shielding but some still gets through. You're getting hit by high energy muons from cosmic showers all the time.
Gamma rays are somewhat nasty but they aren't that bad. I've worked with several gamma sources like Co57, Co60, Cs137, P37 (122KeV - ~1.3MeV) as well as a Pu238/Be neutron howitizer and personally I worry more about the neutrons than the gammas. Alphas and betas are usually stopped by thin layers of clothing or even your skin. As long as they stay outside your body you're fine. If they get inside then you have pronblems. Gammas will usually compton scatter and leave without many interactions so they aren't that bad. Neutrons will probably plow through your molecules and dump most/all their energy since there are so many hydrogens within your body.
Btw, I done some experiments on cross sections of gamma rays of various energies and a 122 KeV gamma has something like a 50% chance of getting through 32cm(~16 inches) of aluminum and a 30% chance of getting through 32cm of iron. This is just low energy gammas, several radioactive decays will provide gammas with 10 or more times the energy. So unless your brick house has a thick lining of steel (~1-2m) or lead (~.5m), you aren't getting any protection fromt the walls.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
The mesas should provide a natural fire line. I wonder what will happen to all the canyon wildlife being driven by the fire? The labs may end up being the new home for an armadillo or two.
Actually, drug use isn't popular and isn't as widespread as in your stinking hole of a country. Plus, if you saw some of the girls in the high schools in my area, you'd get a hardon that wouldn't go away until a year after you died.
When the pack animals stampede, it's time to soak the ground with blood to save the world. We fight, we die, we break our cursed bonds.
Chris 'coldacid' Charabaruk Meldstar Entertainment
I mentioned the Triads, which are pretty much the Chinese Mafia. Not all Chinese people are in the Triads, actually, few are. But these organized crime syndicates are filled with spies who are smuggling information back to China.
I don't have any links, as where I read this information was in a newspaper called The Toronto Sun. And I am not racist at all. I have many friends who are not WASP.
All you have done is post flamebait. Go back to your cave, troll.
When the pack animals stampede, it's time to soak the ground with blood to save the world. We fight, we die, we break our cursed bonds.
Chris 'coldacid' Charabaruk Meldstar Entertainment
Well gee Wilbur, you think we should protect this here nucular facility we're buildin?
Nah, what could happen, this is the middle of nowhere New Mexeeco.
This is how idiots in this country believe nuke sites are created. What a shock they expect to get cancer from it. What was it, like 0.1% of women who got implants got connective tissue disorder? Who cares that 0.1% of women in the general population get it, in those cases, it was the implants fault!!
Is that why they say that neutron bombs are so nasty? Because neutrons are so bad?
Ironic, aint it?
Or we could just regulate coal ash like we would nuclear waste containing 200ppm uranium. Of course, we can't have that, it might make nuclear power economically viable.
Coal has uranium impurities that average around 1ppm, when burned, the ash remaining is about 1% of the mass, and almost all of the uranium remains in the ash (the fly ash, which is (mostly) caught in the filters in the smokestacks). For more information, read ths article on Coal Combustion
Besides, all the locals here that know anything about that labs are dying laughing. There was never any danger to any nuclear materials. The bunkers that they are in are far underground and in completely fireproof caverns with fire buffers around them. To top it off, the bunkers are built to withstand a direct hit from a 747. If you'd like some more info on the fires though, check out our local news coverage at www.abqjournal.com or www.kobtv.com.
kwsNI
Quick, someone set a fire in Groom Lake. Maybe the government will allow reporters to tour the facility, to alleve public fears that the fire killed off those cute little aliens. :)
raunchola (at) hushmail (dot) com
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The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
Considering the popularity of Slashdot, you'd think the authors should know at least a little bit about proper journalism. Come on guys, have some respect for your readers, for crying out loud. When you make mistakes, 'fess up. Give credit where credit is due. Don't make your readers with better grammar than you look like idiots.
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Yeah, it should also be noted that the operators at Chernobyl were running the reactor at over 110% of spec 'to see what would happen'... they held it there too long, and the safetys couldn't bring it back. Normally, plants don't run near peak capacity, and are much less dangerous... human error strikes again (both on the design, and operation...) Definitely a lesson learned. A costly one, though...
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
I mentioned the Triads, which are pretty much the Chinese Mafia. Not all Chinese people are in the Triads, actually, few are. But these organized crime syndicates are filled with spies who are smuggling information back to China.
That's strange, I always thought that the PRC was cracking down on the Triads since they create most of the problems facing the gov't (some drug-trafficking, trafficking of people into "indentured servitude", organized crime...). Of course, I wouldn't be surprised at this turn in events, considering that the Italian Mafia supposedly worked with our US gov't on various occasions.
I don't have any links, as where I read this information was in a newspaper called The Toronto Sun.
Well, most of us American's don't get or don't bother to read/hear about Canadian newscasts.
And I am not racist at all. I have many friends who are not WASP.
I haven't read the parent post, but I'd like to know why being White Anglo-Saxon and Protestant has to do with racism? Anyway, according to the textbook my old high school used for American History, that acromyn was historically reserved for the ruling elite in the US (Presidents, most or many Congressmen, etc.) and not really those who happen to "fit the profile", though that's probably changing nowadays. For example, Pres. John F. Kennedy was Catholic (Irish-American, too). I have plenty of friends who do "fit the profile" but I surely don't go around calling them that and they have never expressed anything I would consider racist. But then again, my situation may be completely different than yours. Btw, trolls live under bridges, not in caves.
Ok, here is the SOP for labs that do weapons reserch.
All lab work done with radio active materials are done in labs located in undergroud or above ground bunkers. These bunkers are rated on how well they could take bombing or missle attacks. These attacks could be from nukes or non-nucular weapons. Now several direct hits from a nuke would most likely take out most of the bunkers, but I am sure some would be rated to still survive.
The thought that some people think a simple forest fire, will at best burn down a soild harden concreate bunker made me LOL and fall on my butt!
(Yea we just store the nukes out in the shed in the back, wanna see?)
The main reasons for the bunkers,is because of the cold war and the threat of terrorism.
Nothing makes the powers that be piss their pants more; then the thought of some nukes or fissionable materials in the hands of terrorist.
Thats about all I can say about it, with out having the Feds surrounding my house!
TeTalon
You are either a part of the problem, or a part of the solution.
It's up to you to chose, so which are you!
TeTalon
You are either a part of the problem, or a part of the solution, which are you.
Some trolls live in caves. When was the last time you played D&D? (=
When the pack animals stampede, it's time to soak the ground with blood to save the world. We fight, we die, we break our cursed bonds.
Chris 'coldacid' Charabaruk Meldstar Entertainment
I posted the article. The spelling mistake was mine.
/. readers, it's been difficult to get to the site, to post or to correct stories. By the time this posted, I was unable to get to the site for some time afterward, and another /. author made the change, which I appreciated.
For me, like for most
If there were a substantive change (we learn the story was fraudulent, or that really the lab in question was JPL, or that really it's the only alien technology lab in the country, not plutonium site), there would be ample and cited correction. You've probably seen this both in other stories and in the new recurring nightmare Slashback.
Does "proper journalism" dictate including a dislcaimer that the mistake was fixed? While nothing would be wrong with such a note (esp, like I said, for an error of fact, or perhaps for a spelling error which would actually cause confusion), I invite you to ask the New York Times or your local daily whether they would print an explicit correction pointing out that they had removed an extra space in a story, or added a space where an extra one was accidentally omitted, or in the case of an errant letter in one word. Newspapers routinely update stories, and so do wire services. If you want those all posted to the front page, it'd often be more of a change log than a useful story!
I sent notes of thanks to the two readers who kindly sent me e-mail pointing out the error. I apologize for any problems the correction caused readers who had pointed out the error and whose comments no longer apply.
Sincerely,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Wednesday afternoon, after "The Hill" was given the evacuation order, I had thirteen evacuees in my home in White Rock. They left for Albuquerque later that evening. I assured them that White Rock was safe, but they thought otherwise. You can imagine my surprise when the evacuation order came about 00:35 Thursday morning. We spent about 30 minutes packing up two vehicles, and then we were stuck for the next four hours in a massive traffic jam as 7,000 residents and 7,000 recent evacuees tried to get out on the one safe lane out of town. It was rather frightening when the birds started singing in the middle of the night, as the approaching fire simulated an early dawn.
Thanks to all the people who contributed to the Red Cross. And many, many thanks to the heroic efforts of the Fire crews who saved both White Rock and the major part of Los Alamos. Without their efforts, it would have been much, much worse.
Some quotes:
"World reserves of uranium are more than adequate to satisfy reactor requirements to well beyond 2020."
That's not very reassuring. Fortunately, after stretching it by allowing higher prices for the mining of uranium, the following is stated:
"Given the relatively low impact of the uranium cost on nuclear power economics, the ultimate potential supply base is comparable to those of other energy commodities, in excess of 100 years. "
That sounds about the same as what I said.
Ok, your post was full of misinformation but that statement was by far the most obviously wrong
How about explaining why it is "obviously" wrong? Can you give a reference to a study that claims that there is enough uranium for 200 years, 300 years, etc.?
Futhermore, what is the rest of the "misinformation"?
MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.
Strip mining prevents forest fires! *grin*
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
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On a similar point when Chernobyl 'sprung a leak' I was at university at Aberdeen (in Scotland). Some high ups in one of the departments decided to take one of their geiger counters outside the department and check the radiation levels (being built of granite the background in Aberdeen is about 4x UK norm).
When they got out they switched on the detector and the needle nailed itself to the top of the meter. It was not until they were back inside (a transition that occurred very quickly indeed) that they noticed they had not a Geiger-Muller tube (for detecting radioactive particles) in the detector but a scintillation detector which counts very weak light pulses. History does not record exactly how stupid they felt.
Gamma Testing - Where testing is extended to the full user community (AKA Shipping the Program)
What are they concerned about? That the ruins will get ruined?
bp
Hanford;
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I have been there - they have a *VERY* impressive IBM supercomputer for running simulations of groundwater seepage of leaking waste. They have become the world renowned experts on handling nuclear spillage. In fact, a guy I worked with routinely flies to Russia to help in the management of the continuing Chernobyl situation (they need to build a new sarcophagus because if the old one collapses, it was hastily built, it could send clouds of radioactive dust up into the atmosphere).
In Hanford, it's not only leaking into the groundwater, and the river, but recently there were also news articles about ant colonies, going into the ground, and spreading radiation outside the controlled perimeter. Since the ants didn't mutate into giant ants, I think we're alright. .
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.