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NIF shifts priorities

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By scooby
http://www.kqed.org/news/story/2013/05/01/120178/after_failed_attempts_at_nuclear_fusion_nif_shifts_priorities?category=bay+area LLNL, the employees, and the management are finally paying for their sins of the past. Even just hitting the alpha heating milestone would have been a victory, washing away all of those sins. Failure due to confirmation bias and self-delusion. Too bad.

Comments

Anonymous said…
NIF and Moses will still get the Nobel prize even if some other lab gets ignition first. Their work is built on the shoulders of giants, including those of Ed Moses.
5/06/2013 12:48 AM
Anonymous said…
Tri-valley cares has the right position on NIF. NIF is only standing on one remaining leg (stockpile stewardship) because the other two have been knocked out (the two being ignition and LIFE). This means that they need to justify their existence by doing plutonium experiments on NIF. They know that this is fraught with difficulties and show stoppers. The currently have to use microscopic samples and it is going to fail via questionable interpretation of raw data or confirmation bias or whatever. Should the community therefore feel safe? Not at all. LLNL will try to design macroscopic sample experiments to try to get around the problems. Now what will you have? Alot of plutonium spattered and thinly coating the entire inner surface of the chamber. This chamber that eventually will end up in the Altamont land fill. Pu oxidizes rapidly and the dust will get blown into the Central Valley putting the Nation's food supply at risk. LLNL has no business doing these types of experiments near densely populated urban areas anyways. It was a mistake to build it in the first place, and keeping it going will incur even more risk to the public.
5/06/2013 3:14 AM
Anonymous said…
Plutonium used by the national lab routinely ends up at Altamont. If the radiation level is low enough (long lived isotopes) then who cares if the lab dumps it into the landfill. Telecommunications satellites get more radiation exposure than what you get from the low levels of radioactivity. LANL even sends radiation home with its employees. Therefore it MUST be safe!
5/06/2013 8:47 AM
Anonymous said…
I have been re-reading many of the blog threads going way back to August, and it ceases to amaze me how much of the anonymously posted content still holds. Many of it is very well written.

While you can clearly see the shifting message on the part of LLNL management posting anonymously, the nay-sayer comments and arguments still all resolutely hold.

The debates in these threads are so good (though really one-sided, the NIF supporters really have an uphill battle), I have made sure to keep pdf records of these for myself and others. Many (not all) of these threads are stand-alone works worthy of being passed around unedited to my colleagues in academia and the private sector.

5/06/2013 9:40 AM
Anonymous said…
*it never ceases to amaze me

sorry missed my own edit
5/06/2013 9:41 AM
Anonymous said…
Sending radioactive waste home or to the landfill is what we call "community giving." Sharing with the community. In fact programs such as "adopt an isotope" can be implemented where lab employees simply circumvent radiation release controls in order to share the effects of radiation with their loved ones. In the baby's formula... Shared with other pre-schoolers, even be shared to unborn embryos by ingesting some food laden with your adoptive isotope. Why let New Mexico sharr all thel radioactive material? Why not expand the program to California? Radioactive dust particle embedded in your romaine lettuce? Lucky you!
5/06/2013 3:23 PM
Anonymous said…
Attention Blogger #1...Ed Moses is NO giant....
5/06/2013 6:14 PM
Anonymous said…
That chamber won't end up in a land-fill. The metal is too valuable. It'll end up in recycling. Maybe you're next can of coke, or your next frying pan will be contaminated with radiation. You would have to also deal with contaminated optics, debris shields, the building itself (assuming that they can get the beast to generate appreciable neutrons).
5/07/2013 11:16 AM
Anonymous said…
When radiation finds its way home from LANL... Some classes of scenarios are far more plausible than you care to admit. Why the heck would they have plutonium experiments in an urban setting anyways? That is what you would call stupidity.
5/07/2013 1:04 PM
Anonymous said…
Plutonium experiments on NIF. NNSA is entertaining the stupidity of this idea? WTF
5/07/2013 1:07 PM
Anonymous said…
LLNL management doesn't want the community to know anything about such ideas. Congress needs to nip this one in the bud. Prevent NNSA and LLNL from performing plutonium experiments on NIF.
5/07/2013 1:19 PM
Anonymous said…
The LLNL manager posting anonymously wants to let you and the local community know that it's bad only if it's intentional. All accidental releases (even due to negligence or poor oversight) are all OKAY!!!! Plutonium in the baby's milk! Okay if it was accidental!
5/07/2013 1:35 PM
Anonymous said…
All plausible except for the neutrons. NIF is not going to produce appreciable neutrons. They would have to get ignition to get an appreciable production of neutrons.
5/07/2013 1:45 PM
Anonymous said…
LLNL and the whole lineup of review committees who signed off on all the plans, could not manage technical risks, instead playing the bait-and-switch. There is no reason to think that they will be able to manage operational risk when it comes to the handling of radioactive waste material. How about all the times when lab researchers dumped waste chemicals down the drains (illegal, by the way!). Want to know why the cost of doing such work is so high at the labs? It's because NNSA has to obey the law to try to prevent these types of incidents. Heavy-handed oversight is required considering the huge population surrounding it as it's neighbor. Want less oversight, in an environment of shrinking budgets? Then plutonium experiments on NIF isn't a good idea. You're only putting the neighboring population at risk. Stick to computer simulations. No one gets hurt (except the tax-payer) when the lab royally screws up.
5/07/2013 3:52 PM
Anonymous said…
I heard about these. One involving silver compound solutions? Supposedly they killed off the bacteria population that is there for breaking down organic matter in the waste treatment plant. Or atleast that's what I heard. There must be some record of these incidents. Anyone have links to the cases and penalties?
5/07/2013 4:24 PM
Anonymous said…
We need to take more seriously the argument behind the LLNL manager anonymously posting. The silver solution release into the waste water infrastructure could not have happened because doing so is illegal and easily detected. Therefore, the incident must have never happened, or that it is unlikely to have ever happened.
5/07/2013 4:38 PM
Anonymous said…
waste material contaminated with low levels of radioactivity accidentally ending up in the wrong place? absolutely plausible.
5/07/2013 4:40 PM
Anonymous said…
The post referring to "stupidity" and "disingenuousness" of the notion that radioactive material may end up in the recycling value chain should not have been removed. The counter to that post is a very important point about the reasons and justification for regulation, heavy-handed oversight and the high cost of doing lab business.
5/08/2013 10:09 AM
Anonymous said…
Also there was groundwater contamination from Tritium some time ago.
5/08/2013 2:05 PM
Anonymous said…
Beryllium exposure by employees. That's a nasty one. Health effects are horrific.
5/08/2013 2:06 PM
Anonymous said…
Let's see if we can mention every possible horrible scenario, no matter how unlikely or innocuous (e.g., Tritium in groundwater). One result will be to turn this entire thread into a joke (already halfway there). Typical.
5/08/2013 3:26 PM
Anonymous said…
Oh these aren't hypothetical scenarios. They are lab historical.
5/08/2013 4:07 PM
Anonymous said…
Lab management takes very lightly such incidents as is indicated by the previous lab manager posting anonymously.
5/08/2013 4:10 PM
Anonymous said…
Innocuous? I would like to see lab management take a drink of tritium tainted water. Or feed tritium tainted milk to their children. Lets see how innocuous that is.
5/08/2013 4:34 PM
Anonymous said…
Innocuous? I would like to see lab management take a drink of tritium tainted water. Or feed tritium tainted milk to their children. Lets see how innocuous that is.

May 8, 2013 at 4:34 PM

I notice you don't post any evidence of harm. 18 day biological half-life. No proven health effects with any imaginable dose from ground water. Get a clue and stop being frightened by everything you hear. Know what the WWII-era treatment for tritium uptake was? Lots of beer (to enhance excretion rates).
5/08/2013 7:23 PM
Anonymous said…
Urban myth, just like ignition with NIF.
5/08/2013 7:58 PM
Anonymous said…
Urban myth, just like ignition with NIF.

May 8, 2013 at 7:58 PM

Nope, Absolutely true. I have read the many 1940's memos from the LANL health director to the cognizant managers with just that content. Sometimes "urban myths" are true, especially when they obviously aren't "urban." Get a clue about history.
5/08/2013 9:03 PM
Anonymous said…
http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/tritiumbasicinfo.pdf

The historical anecdotes are old.

Keep telling the community that there are no health effects.
5/09/2013 3:03 AM
Anonymous said…
http://www.cerrie.org/committee_papers/INFO_11-C.doc‎

http://www.trivalleycares.org/MaryliaTritiumLLNL06.pdf
5/09/2013 5:19 AM
Anonymous said…
Your "history" is completely bogus. You were stupid enough to believe the story they fed you about how safe tritium is. Think, all these decades you believed a lie. How sad and pathetic.
5/09/2013 5:22 AM
Anonymous said…
This guy in denial is definitely not LLNL management. LLNL doesn't deny that these accidents happened nor does it try to cover it up or downplay the potential adverse effects. Regardless of what you think about them, they are not THAT stupid or ignorant. Probably the denier is just a washed up former employee or subcontractor with a right wing Anne Coulter fetish going against what he perceives as some twisted liberal conspiracy. Maybe he is not even associated with LLNL or the other NNSA labs. Just some "patriot" out to hunt down "commie sympathizers" including liberals, socialists, libertarians, centrists, vegetarians, vegans, atheists, agnostics, environmentalists, Government employees, fuel efficiency proponents, scientists, toll collectors, and other assorted sordid wasteoids.
5/09/2013 10:23 AM
Anonymous said…
The absolute worst are the ovo-lacto vegetarians. True commie fascists they are. They rank just below mass murderers.
5/09/2013 10:31 AM
Anonymous said…

Hey a lot of those mass murderers are ok, after all they use guns!
5/09/2013 7:01 PM
Anonymous said…
Yeah, well only criminals have guns in California. Illegal for law-abiding people to have them.
5/10/2013 10:12 PM
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