the current process seems to be specifiy whatever you want from whatever manufacturer you want it from regardless of the cost. And we will order three or four of them. Just a waste at Site 300 alone, keeps a multiple amount of recycling companies in business, scrapping stainless steel, brass and copper there are cabinets full of parts at Site 300, for various projects, that will never be used. Either they were ordered in haste, to have enough on hand only for project to be canceled. Or they were just continuously ordered by people thinking that they were still needed. As an example, a small box made by Pomona electronics. Approximately 2 in long with a BNC connector on each end, commonly they will have cable Equalization circuits built inside. I have personally seen a box that contains over 500 of these Parts enclosures unused. Yet more were ordered because these were "old and used flat blade instead of Phillips screws" each enclosure list price Which is less than the government pays, is $65 each.
When a simple 12 volt bench power supply was needed to test a strip of LED lights (from Amazon), The power supply chosen cost $2,800. Would provide 0 to 80 volts at up to 5 amps. With full computer remote control, positive and negative dual Supply rails with double ground isolation.I understand that there's a time and place where new appointment has to be acquired, due to the fact that technology Marches On, however it seems that at LLNL new equipment has to be ordered on an hourly basis. Companies such as McMaster Carr Have made Rich by the fact that they spend $15 for one 5/8 Amber coated rust resistant Bolt.
On average 6 or more 20 yard debris boxes will leave LOL headed for recyclers. Containing tons of brass and stainless steel. Not to mention dozens more containing chassis, power supplies, random test equipment. Now some is sold at auction through govdeals.com. but it's not even 1% of the equipment absorbed into that laboratory. When we're tired we'll make it to auction.
Rather than make it available to Public Schools and colleges, or for that matter why not have a building that sells Surplus parts and equipment, to the General Public . With the understanding that the lab does not guarantee whether or not the part is fit for your application is. Site 200 Insight 300 are the true definition of government waste.
2 comments:
Look sure it might be wasteful but NIF just make energy free everyone.
We had recycle to the public / schools programs in the past. And they were terminated.
Items were placed in the salvage list and items were available to the public to be purchased, I think the interval was once a month. The problem here was the suspicion that some people were putting things on the salvage pile that were perfectly good and that person was hoping to purchase it and that was the person's motive to putting things out for salvage. In the interests of precluding that behavior, the salvage yard sells were stopped.
We did provide used computers to the schools. We'd yank the hard disks to preclude any information being released to the public. We'd also pull the battery that maintained any passwords in the chips. The schools balked because the cost of putting in a hard disk and software made the items far less attractive. And after the Wen Ho Lee debacle the fear that there might be some sensitive data hiding in the chips somewhere even after the battery was pulled caused the donation of those items to cease.
Someone can pipe in and discuss how items can be put onto a GAO list so other government agencies can obtain them, so it is not a total waste. As for items going to the general public, that ship has sailed and it won't be coming back.
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