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Organic Cat Litter May Have Caused Nuclear Waste Accident
mdsolar (1045926) writes in with a story about how important buying the right kind of kitty litter can be. "In February, a 55-gallon drum of radioactive waste burst open inside America's only nuclear dump, in New Mexico. Now investigators believe the cause may have been a pet store purchase gone bad. 'It was the wrong kitty litter,' says James Conca, a geochemist in Richland, Wash., who has spent decades in the nuclear waste business. It turns out there's more to cat litter than you think. It can soak up urine, but it's just as good at absorbing radioactive material. 'It actually works well both in the home litter box as well as the radiochemistry laboratory,' says Conca, who is not directly involved in the current investigation. Cat litter has been used for years to dispose of nuclear waste. Dump it into a drum of sludge and it will stabilize volatile radioactive chemicals. The litter prevents it from reacting with the environment. And this is what contractors at Los Alamos National Laboratory were doing as they packed Cold War-era waste for shipment to the dump. But at some point, they decided to make a switch, from clay to organic. 'Now that might sound nice, you're trying to be green and all that, but the organic kitty litters are organic,' says Conca. Organic litter is made of plant material, which is full of chemical compounds that can react with the nuclear waste. 'They actually are just fuel, and so they're the wrong thing to add,' he says. Investigators now believe the litter and waste caused the drum to slowly heat up 'sort of like a slow burn charcoal briquette instead of an actual bomb.' After it arrived at the dump, it burst."
It should be noted that this waste is from cold war era defense programs, and not used commercial nuclear fuel which is much easier to handle and store. It should also be noted that although the writers make every effort to call the WIPP a "dump" in order to conjure up images of a simple landfill, it is actually an underground geological (saltbed) monitored storage facility created for storage of radioactive waste.
Unlike chemical from many industries that are dumped in many places with much less control, this is an example of quick recognition and response to a problem. Cold war nuclear waste comes in all kinds of nasty liquid, solid, and semi-solid forms and will continue to bring challenges as the slow cleanup slog continues.
Of course, this slashdot submission is one of an ongoing number of agenda driven submissions that intends to obfuscate the challenges of cold ware era defense program neglect with commercial nuclear power. Fortunately, most slashdot readers pick up on the obvious.
You still have a bad cert, Slashdot. What's going on?
Heard it on the radio a couple of days ago.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Don't go green.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
It is absolutely an agenda submission. It even looks to me like it's trying to be critical of the organic movement. I'll reserve my opinion of that kind of thing, but in this case, "organic" means what it actually means, not the hippie non-term it has become. I'd rather they say it was because they switched from clay-based to plant-based kitty litter. The risks of this should have been obvious to someone working with radioactive disposal.
"Stupid hippie crap."
Jet fuel would be a hydrocarbon. Organic kitty litter would be essentially cellulose, a carbohydrate.
Both are fuels, in that they will combust when heated, unlike clay.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Replace the kitty litter with 81 packs of Pop-Rocks and enjoy the show.
fear monger over reacts to single incident to kill an entire industry, good going I have lost a little respect for your cause moron
The dumbass who wrote "jet fuel" is you.
The word "jet" does not appear in the summary nor does it appear in the article. Nobody else is referring to kitty litter as jet fuel. Just you.
It's worse than two kinds of concrete.
It's like approving concrete originally, then switching to bamboo fiber mash. Yes, someone should have known better, as they're not even close to the same thing.
Lol. Totally right. Don't know how I saw Jet Fuel.
...dem radioactive urine-packin' kittehz.
Yeah Kittehz!
http://24.media.tumblr.com/ab9...
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Nice to think that these contracts go to the lowest bidder. I wonder why they went organic as it makes no sense any way you look at it. From a money standpoint it's more expensive. From a practical standpoint it doesn't work as good. It's almost so stupid as to seem like sabotage. If it was the other way around it would make sense as contractors are always looking for a way to shave costs.
"They actually are just fuel"
Probably from right there. The story of a bag of Kitty Litter actually being jet fuel would be much more entertaining than this one.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Organic cat litters are really just jet fuel?
No, just fuel. Minus the jet. Try putting your reading glasses on. Or whatever.
The stupid is strong with this one.
Oh, the irony.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Strangely, I saw it too. I had to read it again.
Thanks. I am a big fan of the OODA loop. I failed the observation portion in this one, though.
Just because a material has a everyday name, it doesn't mean that the original specification didn't have a chemical/mechanical/biological/radiological/whatever reason for specifying it.
If all the material property requirements were met with a commonly available product that didn't require an expensive supply chain, then that's great.
HOWEVER...
I suspect that originally somewhere in the nuclear disposal system, a group identified the need, a solution was found and a materiel was specified. Along the line or through the years, the REASON for that specification was lost to the end of the purchasing chain and the poor sod who orders the stuff was given a directive to "buy sustainably" and substituted the new material without being aware of the original intent.
That person probably wasn't even been aware of the use of the material - they may have though it was used in the kennels for the guard dogs. It's a nuclear material disposal site. Need to know is important. (1) The suppler wouldn't have known, either.
There's lots of complaints of expensive procedures and materials(2), but this is a perfect example of the need for a formal supply chain system with provable provenance. You may BUY a commonly available kitty litter to fulfill the order, but what arrives in the sacks will have to match the specification sheet.
1. Yes, this is irony. The accident may have been prevented if the purchasing officer knew what it was for. Then again, maybe not.
2. Ferrous hammers are a bad idea around strong magnetic fields. If you're in a lab with a MRI or similar and lots of delicate equipment, a hammer to undo the dog on a vacuum chamber had better be a very special hammer. The kind that you can buy today for less than a hundred bucks, but in the 60's had to be engineered from scratch. Thank someone else's R&D for the fact you can buy a (nearly) chemically inert, non-ferrous, non-sparking hammer for a pittance.
I have this chilling image of the waste packaging contractor dealing with a minor logistical mishap by just sending a couple of trucks over to Valu-Mart to buy whatever cat litter they had on the shelf and come back so they could get this week's barrels packed and shipped on time...
As you say, there isn't any systemic incentive to make the change, and nobody would approve it if it were formally submitted as a change proposal; so some sort of improvising using off-the-shelf litter that was incorrectly labelled (or just purchased by somebody who didn't know the salient details of why certain litters but not others were acceptable) seems like the most plausible thing I can imagine, though 'improvising' isn't really a virtue in this context.
Not to mention, it wasn't the kitty litter that caused this.
Newsflash: If you work with nuclear waste, don't go around changing the recipes without asking your boss!
This is unrelated to "nuclear energy" and was for bombs.
Learn to love Alaska
The nuclear accident is now known by the operation handle: Katpiss Evergreen
I saw it too. I had to read it a few times.
Learn to love Alaska
I would ask you to explain what you meant by that post, but I think not. Nobody was hurt by this incident, nothing was contaminated; the spill (if there was one) was contained and cleaned up.
It's okay, Bartles. Just need a quick check for dyslexia and allow for it in the future.
He's not a moron, jet has a minor reading disability.
You should learn the difference between cold war waste and the spent fuel produce from commercial nuclear power plants. They are very different. Spent nuclear fuel from power plants is actually quite easy to handle, particularly compared to the mess of wastes that the government produced for weapons up to and during the cold war era and completely neglected once they no longer had use for them.
First off, this is from the weapons program, not power. Also, not all waste is created equal. Drums are only used for low level stuff - think lab coats, glassware, tools, etc. that at some point might have come into contact with radioactive stuff and so can have trace residue on it. This is *NOT* spent fuel. If you had cared to read the original articles, you'd know that the incident was the first in this facility's 15 year history, wasn't their fault, was extremely small, was immediately contained and rootcaused so that corrective measures could be taken. From where I'm standing, this is a good example of safety working as intended. Unlike your average coal ash spill.
Redundancy* is sometimes used for emphasis.
Do you further emphasis as to why I included that asterisk?
I would ask you to explain what you meant by that post, but I think not.
Where did it go wrong for you? Jesus fuck or Coca-Cola douche?
Nobody was hurt by this incident, nothing was contaminated; the spill (if there was one) was contained and cleaned up.
It seems clear on the order of crystal to anyone not poverty-stricken enough to pay attention that a Coca-Cola douche would release more malevolent material to the environment than this incident.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Don't take my word for it, look at who submitted this article, as well as a string of negative nuclear related headlines going back quite some time, for long stretches almost on a daily basis. You'll find its good ole mdsolar. So yes, I'll remind the community of it, because some folks don't really pay attention. I guess that includes yourself.
Your autocorrect eyes aren't too far off. One common way to make small rockets is sugar as fuel. The sugar is mixed with your choice compound that provides the oxygen.
Let that organic material sit around for a while and airborne yeast will turn some of it into dragster fuel - ethanol.
All causes have some idiot followers who jump on the bandwagon without any intellectual thought.
Really? I think I'll define "give dkf lots of money for doing nothing much, so he can spend it on beer and pizza and the other good things in life" as a cause and see how effective that is! Contact me for detailed instructions on how to remit payments.
(I know, it probably won't bring in much, but it also takes so little effort I might as well try.)
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
I'll just mention this, never, ever snort Pop-Rocks.
Must have been reasonably hot if it charred the organic matter it was mixed with, and burst the 55 gal drum...
Though I suppose the 'sludge' could have been something along the lines of sulfuric acid (with requisite trace amounts of radioactive bits in it).. that would cook anything organic in there. Of course you'd think they'd be smart enough to neutralize things like that before binning them... Maybe not.
Sent from my PDP-11
Have gnu, will travel.
I don't drive the content toward anything on this site. I do have my opinions, and I am very up front about them.
Anything I 'discredit' is done without relation to the submitter, his credibility, or lack thereof. I speak to the content of the article and the subject matter. I did not dismiss anything in this article. In the past I have shown how some of the articles submitted by the same person are misleading or dead wrong and many points, and directly from sources that are not credible. This article isn't one of those, but it was one of many written on this event, but one of the few to repetitively use the term "dump".
If you read the comments, these headlines breed confusion. Many people associate this type of waste with nuclear power fuel waste, and its a very different animal. Its a clarification that is perfectly reasonable for someone to make.
So, be specific. What truth don't I like that I am discrediting? Or did you just throw out that accusation with nothing to back it up? I certainly backed up mine.
The "organics" did not react with the "nuclear" part of the "nuclear waste", they reacted with the 1% acid that was still in the solution.
A pure chemical reaction.
(Made complicated/ugly by the combustion products carrying away small amounts of nuclear waste, for sure.)
Somebody obviously didn't get the obvious, or at least didn't draw the obvious conclusions from it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It's difficult to pin this plan on the Republicans when none of the Republicans in the House voted for it.....
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
one is researched and proven since the 1940's the other is a bunch of dumb fuck teenagers spreading bullshit on the internet
so whats your better plan for a highly absorbent material that congeils toxic waste so it doesnt wash out to your water?
The litter prevents it from reacting with the environment. And
Seriously?
In other news, Slashdot editors are so shit, we put "And" after a FULLSTOP!
Go Slashdot, fuck everyone who went to English lessons and get paid for it in the process!
Epic.
It's okay, Bartles. Just need a quick check for dyslexia and allow for it in the future.
He's not a moron, jet has a minor reading disability.
I applaud what you did there.
(and would have modded you +1, Funny, if I hadn't already made a previous comment in this thread)
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Not sure any of you numpties get it! Making a *change* to a 'product' that mixes with radioactive material should never ever happen. This is basic process engineering 101. How the F can anyone make a change to a known working procedures that identifies, material type right down to the chemical content with a 'store purchase'.
This is a complete failure of basic engineering validation. People should be in jail for gross incompetence or negligence.
It is not an Ad Hominem falacy to point out that the person in question posts many negative nuclear related articles.
From your own quote:
"An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person"[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument."
It would be ad-hom to say "ignore this because mdsolar has bad morals". It is not ad-hom to say "beware, mdsolar is obsessed with nuclear energy".
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Beginning over 30 years ago, activities involving separating americium (Am) from old weapons materials generated a moderate amount of transuranic waste contaminated with americium (Am), plutonium, uranium and minor amounts of other radionuclides, and containing various metal-nitrate salts (strong oxidizers), such as (Mg,Ca)(NO3)2 with minor amounts of Fe, Na and K. When dewatered, these hot evaporator bottoms were poured onto a tray, vacuum dried, flashed crystallized, rinsed with cold water and put in bags, where they sat for 30 years.
[...snip...]
It was recommended sometime later that inorganic kitty litter made from silicate minerals be added as a sorbent (widely used in radiochemistry as well as the home litter box), but also to dissipate heat and generally mitigate auto-oxidation reactions of the kind we think occurred in these drums in WIPP. Anhydrous citric acid (a reducer) was used to bring the pH down if over-adjusted.
For reasons perhaps related to good intentions, or merely related to dust generation, the inorganic kitty litter was replaced by organic wheat-based litter early on in the process. There were a few other components of not much import in the drums, but additional organic components just added more fuel.
Some decisions regarding these additives are vague and not attributable to a real chemist.
So it seems it was a case of a well meaning idiot making stupid decisions.
Claiming that kitty litter caused this is rather like say the Tacoma Bridge collapse was caused by Wind.
The failure in both cases was Human error!
So, if we get too many of these "containers" together, and they burst/explode, will we have a Nuclear Rocket Motor?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
(apologies to Space: 1999)
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