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Fire Closes in on Plutonium at Los Alamos National Laboratory
As I noted Tuesday, raging wildfires are threatening the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
As Reuters reported the same day:
The fire ... surrounds the lab complex and adjacent town of Los Alamos on three sides.
Today, Associated Press provides details on the size of the fire:
A
wildfire that is threatening the nation’s premier nuclear weapons
laboratory ... is poised to become the largest fire in state history.
The fire near Los Alamos has charred nearly 145 square miles, or 92,735 acres.
***
They’re bracing for winds that could gust up to 40 mph Thursday afternoon.
ABC quotes the lab's former top security official to give some perspective on the danger:
“It
contains approximately 20,000 barrels of nuclear waste,” former top
[Los Alamos National Lab] security official Glen Walp said. “It’s not
contained within a concrete, brick and mortar-type building, but rather
in a sort of fabric-type building that a fire could easily consume.
“Potential is high for a major calamity if the fire would reach these areas,” he added.
Yahoo News notes that the fire is getting close to the drums of plutonium:
[ T]he plant is reportedly home to 30,000 55-gallon drums of plutonium-contaminated waste. As of Thursday morning, the
flames were reportedly two miles away from this waste. “The concern is
that these drums will get so hot that they’ll burst,” says Joni
Arends, executive director of the Concerned Citizens for Nuclear
Safety, as quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle. There is also concern
that the fire could stir up nuclear-contaminated soil left over from
years of testing, sending the nuclear waste into the plumes of smoke
hovering over the area.
ABC reports today:
Along with what’s actually on lab property, there is concern about
what’s in the canyons that surround the sprawling complex. Nuclear
tests were performed in the canyons dating back to the 1940s; so-called
“legacy contaminations.”
“The trees have grown up during that
timeframe, and the soil can also be contaminated. If they get heated
and that stuff goes air borne, then we are concerned,” Rita Bates of
the New Mexico Environment Department said.
As Los Alamos lab expert Peter Stockton told Time:
[We just have to] hope to hell that the wind blows in the right direction.
To add insult to injury, lightning is forecast for the Los Alamos area.
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There's nothing quite as special as an engineer who is wrong.
CPNSCARLET, you fail to address the main concern, that radioactive materials have been dispersed around the site over decades and are now going to be lofted into the atmosphere in a fire plume.
I don't have a degree in engineering, but I have an MS in geophysics. Does that allow me to tell everyone with an engineering degree to shut up? Based on precedent, and how much engineers have completely fucked up the planet, I believe it does.
After all, didn't engineers design the Fukushima reactor site? I think they did.
I have a graduate degree in Ecosystem Biology, so it's my turn:
This is not an engineering problem, it is an environmental disaster. STFU.
Well, if you had a masters in tent biology then, maybe, I might pay attention to you.
I have an Animal Husbandry degree, so I got nothing to add here unless those earless varmits start showing up in New Mexico.
I'm not an engineer, but I play one on TV and I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once.
I have a wooden boatbuilding degree, so I can safely say we are up Shit Creek without a paddle!
I have a double PhD from the school of hard knocks.
So everyone should shut the fuck up. :)
Me? I'm smelf smart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAlBvxjApf4&feature=related
I have an MBA, and I think we should come up with ways to turn this into a profitable business plan.
Step 1: Multple unmitigated nuclear disasters;
Step 3: Profit!
There, I did the hard part for you. =]
AND increased efficiency by skipping step 2 entirely.
Brilliant. :)
Not as long as the situation stays in tents! ;-)
"We're past tense; we live in bungalows now."
Then why are spokesmen for Los Alamos reporting that some of the storage are under friggen "tents?"
so you're refuting this quote then?
please elaborate, oh and sbout your "STFU" comment...until you post a pic of your degree...
Freedom of speech-now for engineers only.
Babbling incoherently is not a protected form of speech.
I just thought of something. They are saying that there are trees around the lab that are so contaminated with radiation that the smoke coming off them would be a hazard.
O RLY. I bet they're wishing that little bit of trivia had never made it past the thought police.
Those bastards. Those radioactive trees must be part of a plot to sell us some big-gubmint carbon sequestration scheme!
</sarc>
All the radioactivity from nuclear activities has caused a gene mutation in the cells of central bankers leading to infla(ma)tion...aka cancer.
That is a cheery thought, huh?
For some additional info to scare the hell out of you and make you sick to your stomach at the same time, check out some of the stories on Hanford in WA and their "problem" with contaminated mice and rabbits [and the predators that eat them].
Here are links to WSJ articles on-point regarding Hanford and the level of contamination:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576019280235026892.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704720804576009810690106194.html
I worked there for short time reviewing accident/release reports to prepare a report llisting the spill/release and disposal sites for one of the main processing areas. Wow, I could not believe the stuff I read from the original files. Reports like "control room filed with radioactive dust, employes waited outside for all clear, then reuturned to work," "Radioative dust escaped from air vent, contamianted employe vehicles in parking lot, vehicles decontaminated or confiscated," 20,000 lites of PCE/TCE/CCL4 discharged to crib xx, then crib xy, then crib x1y (the liquids were highly contaminated and discharged to the underlying soil so the radionuclides would be retained in the soil column...for disposal). Teh ants, gophers and other burrowing animals dug into the soils beneath the cribs and brought the soil to the surface, the criters becoming contaminated themselves, the contamination moving up the food chain. The plant became contaminated, the soil washed away from the rain and dry soil blew away in strong winds, the plant material blew away.... When I would come back from field inspections I was scanned to make sure i did not step in any radioactive rabbit or coyote crap. These released are only a potion of the contamination thats in the environment, there were several intentional massive releases of radioactivity as part of the governemnts studies of radioactive dispersal in the aatmosphere. Lots of farming out there, anyone ever monitor those crops? I think the risk is low now, but boy, back in the day when they released that staff out the smoke stack on purpose........
Downwinders, amrkn citizens used as test subjects for the military industrial scientists. . . apparently ongoing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downwinders
I've seen a few good documentaries about this over the years - given all that's being acted out by govt. in the present, nothing surprises me now. . .
(great post, thanks)
The word for today is 'exabecquerels'.
Strange that they use pellet guns instead of a .22 rifle. I guess they don't want to risk disturbing any soil?
In other news of government prowess:
Supporters of big and Bigger government must be very conflicted today.
Either that or totally clueless about the true nature of government.
On the one hand, we have one government bureaucracy, the NRC, that we are
told is competent and qualified enough to be given oversight on regulating
the design and operation of all nuclear power plants.
On the other hand, we have another government bureaucracy, the Corps of
Engineers, that we are told is competent and qualified enough to be given
oversight on building and regulating mammoth water impoundments of the
upstream Missouri river.
The later bureaucracy has found it necessary to mitigate the consequences of
its own Missouri River water management policy by releasing enough water to
cause massive flooding. It is doing this in order to prevent overtopping of
at least one of its four dams. In the process it has endangered two nuclear
power plants.
We are assured by the former bureaucracy that all is well with those flooded
plants.
Somehow, I am not reassured by dueling government competence. Am I being
just being silly?
Los Alamos is a nuclear weapons facility not a commercial nuclear power facility. As such, it is overseen (?) and regulated by the Dept of Energy (DoE) not the NRC. Having worked in commercial nuclear power for 30 plus years believe me when I say the way DoE runs/oversees a facility scares the crap out of the NRC.
don't forget about FEMA, they're lurking out there somehwere, waiting to take over
How much you wanna bet that FEMA won't come anywhere near Ft. Calhoun or Los Alamos?
Seems that lately they have a habit of "coming to the resuce" only after all the real shit has already stopped flying.
Whereas before FEMA seemed to be prepositioned in some quite remarkable coincidences.
Just sayin'
And.......this is how cradle to grave socialism begins to crumble under it's own bloat
Isn't this how all the zombie flicks start?
It ends badly for you in the Zombie Apocalypse Burnt...
Here's my proof.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42DM_OcX1Gc
Burnt Reynolds wrote "Isn't this how all the zombie flicks start?"
FTW!
Burnt Reynolds
"Isn't this how all the zombie flicks start?"
Naw. Only Return of the Living Dead and Biozombie.
Night of the Living Dead was a meteorites and Night of the Comet was, uh, a comet.
Day of the Triffids was meteorites. All those people blinded by the light show were easy pickings for the damn big plants.
Okay now I'm scared.
You can get an 870 for $300 and a samuri sword for about 89.99 at budk
Sabibaby
Screw that, just the Combat Steel Kwan Dao. Big heavy fucker will crush heads well after that sword snapped and the ammo has run out.
Needs a bit of room though.
Sabibaby
Screw that, just the Combat Steel Kwan Dao. Big heavy fucker will crush heads well after that sword snapped and the ammo has run out.
Needs a bit of room though.
Not sure I'm qualified to handle one of those! Nothing like a big stick with a giant knife on the end!
Hey, I read "High School of the Dead". I know some shit.
Where do I get my harem of young bay-otches?
...as long as they aren't zom-bay-otches you should do okay.
Puts a slightly different spin on "gimme some head".
Where do I get my harem of young bay-otches?
and here I thought I was prepared... clearly the zombie apocalypse is going to take more planning on my part!
THEY'LL STAY THERE UNTILL THE LAST MAN STANDING!!
YEAH!!
Wait. Drums of Plutonium waste are so badly secured that a wild fire can reach them and blow them up?
This is bad fiction right? Cuz if we're storing radioactive wastes essentially in the clear, where anybody with a match can set a fire and walk up and help themselves, then I want to know why I have to take my shoes off at the air port.
"then I want to know why I have to take my shoes off at the air port."
Fox News ambushed me at the train station while the TSA was rousting everyone. I questioned whether or not the security at nuclear facilities warranted the extra attention and not people going to work on the train. Fox edited those comments out.