Wildfire Threatens Los Alamos Labs 134
1sockchuck writes "A fast-moving wildfire has closed the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), a Department of Energy facility responsible for weapons design and a vast array of research, as well as two of the world's top supercomputers. Lab officials said all radioactive and hazardous material had been accounted for and protected."
Adds an anonymous reader: "I live near LANL and apparently they have begun to evacuate the whole town. Here is some information I've received through an email chain: 'Our main concern is that the Las Conchas fire is about 3 1/2 miles from Area G, the dumpsite that has been in operation since the late 1950s/early 1960s. There are 20,000 to 30,000 55-gallons drums of plutonium contaminated waste (containing solvents, chemicals and toxic materials) sitting in fabric tents above ground. These drums are destined for WIPP. ... We understand that LANL has been working since late last night to build a fire line in Water Canyon, between the fire and Area G. ... Over the last 26 hours the fire has grown from 0 acres to about 45,000 acres – about the size of the Cerro Grande fire in 2000."
The Black Hole (Score:3, Interesting)
Quick! Move all the old junk in "The Black Hole" to a safe location:
http://www.blackholesurplus.com/ [blackholesurplus.com]
Sheldon
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What an awesome store. Shit like this the only reason I can see for living in the US. So much awesome military surplus stuff. All we get here in Australia are sweaters, shirts and pants.
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I worked in Los Alamos a couple years ago and made it a point to get out to the black hole. I was *very* disappointed that they were sold out of Geiger counters, but I did manage to get a machete other small stuff on the cheap.
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GIFY.
There, FTYF (sic)...
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You don't know where Los Alamos is?
So you don't know where the world's first atomic bomb was developed and built. You need to work on that. Or learn to Google.
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"You need to work on that. Or learn to Google."
Thanks, I just did.
http://www.google.lu/search?q=%22Los+Alamos%22+stolen [google.lu]
Security must be awesome there.
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Whoa, slow down there maestro. There's a NEW Mexico?
...again (Score:3)
It's not the first time, it won't be the last.
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Nice troll. Bit obvious though...
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well, actually, there's many many documented cases of firefighters starting fires.
and just as many if not more cases of cigarette butts starting fires - it's no coincidence that so many grass fires start right next to roads. some people are just so callous they should be locked away and the key carelessly forgotten about.
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(holy shit, you really owe it to yourself to GIS fire tornado [google.com] that's ten kinds of awesome. Sadly, adding lightning to the query doesn't improve things much.)
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-- Michael Crichton, Andromeda Strain
atoms (Score:2, Flamebait)
more scary atoms news?
would this seriously have made the front page on /. prior to the Japanese Tsunami?
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Yeah, if there's a real risk the the Los Almamos Lab then it should be here.
Re:atoms (Score:4, Insightful)
More info (Score:3, Informative)
There is a fire very close to Los Alamos National Laboratory. They have begun to evacuate the whole town. Here is some info from someone on the ground: Our main concern is that the Las Conchas fire is about 3 1/2 miles from Area G, the dumpsite that has been in operation since the late 1950s/early 1960s. There are 20,000 to 30,000 55-gallons drums of plutonium contaminated waste (containing solvents, chemicals and toxic materials) sitting in fabric tents above ground. These drums are destined for WIPP. We understand that LANL has been working since late last night to build a fire line in Water Canyon, between the fire and Area G. Over the last 26 hours the fire has grown from 0 acres to about 45,000 acres – about the size of the Cerro Grande fire in 2000.
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so would you consider Yucca Mountain a good or bad idea?
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so would you consider Yucca Mountain a good or bad idea?
Hush you. Don't you know that anything that helps the nuclear industry in any way, shape or form is automatically Evil(trademark, patent pending)? :)
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yes, Good as it presents a single place to monitor/guard(if you think it really needs it), bad because of the distance some of the waste will have to travel out in the open on public roads, where it could spill out on an interstate highway.
Really what is the issue with storing it on site in 300 ton casks? It's not really going anywhere, and anyone with the ability to steal it is likely well funded enough that they could get it anyways.
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Spill out on an interstate highway? Have you seen the youtube video where they tested the containers they ship this shit in? Hint, it involved being hit square on the side by a locomotive going 60 miles per hour, and there was no damage to the container.
I'd link it, but the proxy here disallows YouTube.
The point: they aren't shipping this stuff in a 1/4 inch thick stainless steel milk tanker. They actually built specialized equipment and defined procedures way back when they started planning Yucca Mount
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In fact, here's a lot more information about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_nuclear_fuel_shipping_cask [wikipedia.org]
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Over the last 26 hours the fire has grown from 0 acres to about 45,000 acres
At this rate, the entire US will be on fire in about 145 years [xkcd.com].
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Make no mistake: continue abusing the planet and the planet will strike back. Hard.
Do you anthropomorphize everything, or just the Earth? Even with global warming and all of it's worst predicted effects, my life expectancy and quality of life are likely to be better than those of my Gaia-worshiping Greek analogue, who was probably a subsistence farmer.
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Are you so unschooled that you do not understand that Personification [uky.edu] is a fine rhetorical device and has been in use for thousands of years? Even by those who do not worship Gaia?
The point being that you can only push the ecosystem so far before its degradation starts having an adverse effect on you. But then, I'm sure that you are intelligent enough to understand this. Because, otherwise, your opening salvo would be an ad hominem attack on the OP, attempting to paint him as irrational, something that I do
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The point being that you can only push the ecosystem so far before its degradation starts having an adverse effect on you.
Yeah, but that's just plain old "we're using up all of our resources", not some act of a vindictive earth-deity. You can make it seem more profound by using symbolism and any other literary device, but it's pretty straightforward.
I understand that you believe that your currently impressive quality of life depends, in many ways, on continued assaults upon the Earth's ecosystem
Again, words like "assault"... you can say you are being literary again, but that word has meaning and immediately polarizes the discussion. We are part of the ecosystem. We can change it but we can't "assault" it. Even if we somehow wiped all multi-celled life off of the surface o
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By the way, if you still think he's being rhetorical, read his other comment in this thread [slashdot.org].
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It's as if Mother Gaia is giving us arrogant humans a lesson about overreaching our abilities. :) Maybe we need to dismantle all nuclear power, and just learn to live with less electricity in general. Think about the first word: reduce, reuse, recycle. Make no mistake: continue abusing the planet and the planet will strike back. Hard.
Someone's been getting stoned and watching Captain Planet again...
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Was I the only one rooting for the polluters on that show? I think it was the whiny little "heart" punk that did it for me, every week I just hoped one of the bad guys would bury that little twerp in toxic waste or plutonium or something.
I was pretty annoyed by the way that faceless evil corporations are polluting the world while everyone else is trying to clean it up, when the reality is that the pollution exists because of the rampant consumerism that people love so much (myself included).
"It's not me, it's the other end of the supply chain"
as for TFA, what's the odds this waste can blow up? I'm not talking nuclear China syndrome kinda blow up, but I'm betting plenty of those chemicals are also flammable. Radioactive smoke and chemical fires don't sound too good. So anybody know if what they stored there is at risk of going boom?
It doesn't have to go boom to be really, really bad. Just poof!
Inhaled plutonium has a habit of causing lung cancers, plutonium laced ash settling on food crops or preparation surfaces can cause gut ca
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I was pretty annoyed by the way that faceless evil corporations are polluting the world while everyone else is trying to clean it up, when the reality is that the pollution exists because of the rampant consumerism that people love so much (myself included).
"It's not me, it's the other end of the supply chain"
Don't forget also that they weren't just polluting while everyone else was trying to clean it up, they were polluting almost purely because they were evil. They weren't producing pollution as a byproduct. It was their product and they were just looking for the most evil way to dump it. I'm half surprised they didn't have the evil corporations fill puppies with the pollution and then stuff them down dolphin throats while kicking kittens.
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with enough energy polution becomes a non problem as we will just directly make the energy into stuff without waste. get to work on that cold fusion reactor.
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I remember watching one episode and gave up. They were way too stupidly over the top. The "lesson" on the show I saw was not to use offroad vehicles in the oh so fragile desert. They had a kid on a dirt bike initially, but then there was some villain types driving these big smoke spewing vehicle all over the place for... some reason, I guess. WTF? Did they have coal fired boilers or something?
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Go ahead and live your life worshiping the earth, no one is stopping you. For the rest of us, it makes a lot more sense to continue to increase our standard of living.
I can guarantee you that all the natural disasters that happened this year put together has a much smaller
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I mean, who -doesn't- want to die from easily treatable infections, live their lives in darkness and generally live like we did in the 1700s.
Wow! Way to use a false dichotomy! Nice bit of black and white thinking! I am impressed with your stunning rhetorical skills and wish to subscribe to your newsletter! How about putting 2% of our resources towards cleaning things up? I'm pretty sure that this would not cause us to "live like we did in the 1700s". After that, we're just arguing about the percentage - w
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Yeah, we should go back to basics. We don't need all the power-using machinery to provide our modern conveniences. Why look at the ancient Greeks! They lived a lot like we do today (*), without even inventing a practical steam engine, and not for lack of knowledge, either. They just didn't need to, what with all the slaves and all..
*as long as you weren't a slave. And owned land. And slaves....
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so? all they did was use some humans as machines. just skip the step where they eat food and you get a machine. hmm seems like the same thing to me.
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Nature does not care about you or me. Your benefactors are our fellow wo/man. They are the ones that saw that you survived your birth, they are the ones who fill your belly every day. They are the ones who build that excellent shelters we
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You try it first and we'll watch how you go.
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Oh yeah? Well, your mother's so fat, her belt size is Equator!
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You first. Reduce your usage of evil electricity by turning your computer off, and not turning it back on again.
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This post is not Flamebait, it's Informative. We need to become more eco-friendly, yes, but the GP has apparently learned about nature from a Disney cartoon. Nature is not fish jumping onto your hook and you eating fruit off of trees in some Garden of Eden arrangement. Nature is you trying to keep horrifying parasites from infesting your digestive system and flesh while hunting creatures and gathering food, all while trying to avoid much more able predators who will slaughter the shit out of you.
Also while
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The planet has living things -on- it. It is not a living thing -itself-.
You're right, the planet is not a living thing like an animal, rather it is a complex system. And in the same way that you can easily fuck up an entire eco-system by artificially introducing (for instance) a predator with no competition, so it is possible that the Earth will cease to function as a system capable of supporting human life ue to human interventions. And I really don't care if the cockroaches survive.
I Live in New Mexico (Score:5, Informative)
The fire danger has never been higher. Some places make it against the law to even smoke outside. Over the past month there have been days when we've been inundated with smoke from the wildfires in Arizona. It is hot, dry, and windy.
You would think that selling and setting off fireworks would also be illegal this year (it is usually allowed for a week before and after July 4th, but this hasn't stopped people from lauching fireworks whenever they want to) yet there are huge tents in the parking lots of all the grocery stores selling fireworks. The reason is that in New Mexico there is a state law that makes it illegal for communities to ban the sale and use of fireworks. Instead of working to fix this crazy law, the governor asked New Mexicans to "exercise caution and restraint when it comes to using fireworks."
Is this a great state or what?
Re:I Live in New Mexico (Score:4, Informative)
I too, live in New Mexico. Most people I've talked to don't realize how dry it is right now. It has been over 9 months since some parts of the state, like Silver City, have had rain. We are supposed to be in the rainy season right now, but instead we are in the worst drought since the dustbowl. I went camping last weekend and I saw 3 different fires all on my way back to town. It regularly snows ash, and sometimes the city is so covered in smoke it looks like thick fog. The air quality gets so low that you can't go outside. Normally that wouldn't be an issue, but around here, most people have swamp coolers, these devices that cool the outside air via evaporation and pump it inside. It's a really cheap way of cooling your house, but it doesn't filter the air well, so it doesn't really change anything. I regularly feel like I'm not getting enough oxygen. Its a really scary feeling..
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If New Mexico is anything like Los Angeles, fire season starts when there's not been any significant rain for 90 days. By this time, the brush must be like a tinderbox waiting for a spark. I hope you get some rain, RSN.
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The air quality gets so low that you can't go outside
Is this the cause for which ...
Some places make it against the law to even smoke outside.
?
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I've lived in Los Alamos (and many other parts of NM). I hope Los Alamos makes it through this okay, but it's looking worse and worse.
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Another NMer.
New Mexico, like much of the sun belt (especially Texas) needs water badly. We can only hope for the seasonal rains to kick in, but precipitation has been pretty crazy in the United States recently. If only there was a way to siphon water out of the Midwest flood plains...
As for fireworks, I can only hope that the people buying them are merely stocking up for a more opportune time. I certainly hope people think twice before burning our state down.
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the governor asked New Mexicans to "exercise caution and restraint when it comes to using fireworks."
And just how many pot smokers do you think he has in prison?
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Is this a great state or what?
6 times smaller than the neighbouring Texas.
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People who brag about Texas being so big should well consider that if Alaska were divided in two, Texas would be the THIRD biggest state.
Which will make the comparison of the "greatness" of New Mexico even more unfavourable.
BTW, "bragging" about the size of Texas - far from my mind - I'm not even living in US.
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Thanks, I'll be here all week
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You would think that selling and setting off fireworks would also be illegal this year
Banning the use of fireworks would be the worst idea imaginable. The real problem we have is brush fires starting in remote areas. Banning fireworks == people going to remote areas to try to use them without being caught.
If you're a local, you should be well aware that the fireworks laws we do have are popularly ignored anyway.
A better idea would be a public information campaign. A lot of people here who are inclined to
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There is just no way that the dumbed-down, "safe" fireworks allowed to be sold here are going to start a fire in the average neighborhood. And I guess you never thought about standing by with a fire extinguisher when you set some off (I do).
If everyone acted responsibly in all situations then there would be little need for laws. OTOH, if the irresponsible actions of a few threaten to destroy an entire community then ISTM that those actions should be banned.
The problem is exacerbated by something like the Dunning Kruger_effect [wikipedia.org] where people who are not responsible don't realize they are not responsible. If children see many "responsible" adults setting off "safe" fireworks in a safe manner some of those children will set off unsafe firework
It's going to be bad (Score:3, Informative)
Back in the good old days... (Score:3)
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Ok, that's hilarious.
You win.
Videos of the fire here.... (Score:2)
More details (Score:2)
The lab was closed today and will be again tomorrow, and the townsite started voluntary evacuations last night. It turned into a mandatory evacuation this afternoon.
Luckily, I have some friends to stay with in Santa Fe.
Nothing to worry about (Score:2, Funny)
They set fires every once in a while to smoke out Chinese spies.
So what you're saying is... (Score:2)
Oh geee. (Score:2)
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ANOTHER potential disaster threatening a facility with major nuclear equipment ? oh my.
Show some respect. There's a town full of people around LANL whose lives are being threatened.
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And that isn't a valid concern?
There's probably a lot more radioactive material at LANL than Fukushima, with a lot less containment.
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Haha. No. (At point 2)
Fukushima has six reactor cores worth of nuclear material (25000 kg of Uranium per core - example is specifically the 1 GW Westinghouse AP1000 reactor), plus the spent fuel. The weapons program testing stuff has largely been moved to Nevada deserts, from what I've heard. It's not the good ole days of putting two hemispheres of HEU (on the order of several inches diameter) together and counting neutrons... there's minimal material of note in Los Alamos. (That's why we have the super c
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They still make nuclear weapons at LANL. They have plutonium facilities there. There's more radioactive waste material there than just about anywhere else in the world. So, you're wrong, and STFU.
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LANL says you're wrong.
http://www.lanl.gov/science/weapons_journal/index.shtml [lanl.gov]
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There's a difference between 'make' and 'design'; that's why they have supercomputers for 'testing' in massive physics simulations. Care to provide specific, relevant not-out-of-context quotes from the PDFs in the list you linked to?
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Show some respect. There's a town full of people around LANL whose lives are being threatened.
Show some respect. People lived in the western states for ten thousand years and simply moved their seminomadic existence every time there was a fire. In California in particular they burned their homes down every year to touch off yearly brush fires that would clear the undergrowth and leave the forests standing. Living where those people live in the homes those people live in is fucking stupid and they deserve neither sympathy nor respect. (I'm in a rental right now in the same situation, but I signed the
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Amen!
Aside from the issue of "hazardous factories" I agree with your TIC statement; I believe that factories and individuals alike should be responsible for their emissions in essentially every way including overall zero emissions balance, and limits on allowable detectable levels. Otherwise, people should either not live in places which are guaranteed to go through cyclical destruction, or they should be prepared for the fallout, both literal and figurative. I looked at moving to Panama but all the interesting
Bless our firefighters! (Score:2)
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does it worry anyone else (Score:2)
That the "radioactive and hazardous material" had to be accounted for and protected? Shouldn't the statement have read that such materials, as always, were secure?
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No. Even if the material hasn't been moved in 50 years and inventory taken yesterday, they've still got to recheck everything before a fire 'blows through'.
It takes one slack-jawed yokel making the assumption "safe yesterday, safe today" for a serious disaster to turn worse, much worse.
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*Stuff the US government doesn't want fal
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Yeah, I'm talking about the phrasing. Of course they have to double-check, but their release sounds more like they fixed major problems.
House burned down (Score:2)
Camp May destroyed (Score:2)
Forget all the nuke sensationalism. LANL had a big wakeup call about a decade ago, concrete doesn't so easily burn, and it's unlikely anything really terrible that the "reporters" want to talk about, is going to happen. It would take a transgovernment level of incompetence; something humanity hasn't seen yet.
OTOH, adios Pajarito. I was there three and a half weeks ago, and when I checked the fire maps last night .. Camp May is totally inside the fire perimeter now. It's been an annual tradition for us t
I think that it's not so bad. (Score:1)