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“system must regularly be cleaned with ... acid solution that costs $400,000 per use.” I realise the government/military procurement process can result in high

“system must regularly be cleaned with ... acid solution that costs $400,000 per use.” I realise the government/military procurement process can result in higher costs than the private sector would pay, but that is beyond ridiculous.

trelliscoded 7y ago
Guess how much shipping is to the middle of the ocean. Go on, guess.
- hejdirk 7y ago
  Surely you can stock on the thing.
  - zdkl 7y ago
    And store it where? Dry volume is at a premium, just look at the compactness of living quarters to get an idea how little room there is to spare.
  - thawaway1837 7y ago
    Why in the world would you stock it and use up valuable space, and fuel on carrying it around the world? Also, it surely cannot be a good idea to keep massive amounts of acid around for non essential purposes.
    - ulfw 7y ago
      How is it non-essential if that's the only way to get the toilets going?
      - vikramkr 7y ago
        Its non essential if you can get it shipped there easily in a resupply
- gambiting 7y ago
  Surely no one sends a warship "just" with their shipment of toilet acid, an aircraft carrier will be getting resupplies regularly anyway. So either the resupply run is insanely expensive and $400k is just a part of it, or someone is being dishonest and uses a cost of a single run as the cost of the clean.
  - hwillis 7y ago
    The DoD will not hesitate for a second to call in contractors if they aren't confident in their crew. I'm sure they did so in this case. Even though you're just flying a few guys (say a few acid guys, maybe an engineer who knows the toilets, just in case) out for a day or two, that's stupidly expensive. Not even just the cost of putting them on a plane or helicopter- even though you may only be paying for a few hundred man hours, you need to pay a lot to pull those guys out of whatever they were doing. 4,700 people shitting in buckets is kind of an emergency in the middle of the ocean, unfortunately. The navy is notorious for its sleep deprivation and tight schedules. Seemingly small disruptions and timewasters can lead to major problems and mistakes.
mysterydip 7y ago
It probably qualifies as hazmat, which has a whole slew of special handling and storage requirements and raises the cost.
HenryKissinger 7y ago
Well, which private sector organization fields 1,000+ feet ships housing thousands of people, besides cruise lines? I don't know how much a flushing of the entire wastewater system on a ship like the Oasis of the Seas costs, but it's probably not as low as $1,000.
Carpetsmoker 7y ago
My guess would be that this figure also includes costs for downtime and the like, but that's just a guess. Would be interested to see a more detailed breakdown of the $400k.
- catalogia 7y ago
  How would you measure the cost of downtime for a toilet system? Number of people in the infirmary with constipation?
  - Carpetsmoker 7y ago
    I would imagine that repairing it would mean it'll be out of commission for a few hours up to a few days, for example by waiting until the repair techs arrive or whatnot, interrupting regular operations. Depending on how the costs are counted, even just a few hours can quickly catch up if you add all the personal costs of the sailors on the ship etc. It's the same with things like outages, an outage lasting a day may "cost" $1 million, but what's actually meant is that you missed $1 million in profits for the day, not that you had to pay $1 million. If operating a carrier costs $400k/day then you could say then fixing something for a day "costs" $400k, but that's kind of a simplistic way of putting it.
onetimemanytime 7y ago
Try $400 a gallon off gas--after paying the enemy (the Taliban) to allow the shipment though. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/63407-400gallon-gas-another-cost-of-war-in-afghanistan- https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/63407-400gallon-... My guess is that the liquid is toxic and also might have to be processed after.
- HenryKissinger 7y ago
  Article from 2009. They now use long haul truck convoys through Russia and Central Asia to avoid this problem.
  - justin66 7y ago
    What is their fully burdened cost of fuel today? It seems like it would still be tremendously expensive.
Waterluvian 7y ago
I think it's less insane when instead of perceiving it as flushing a building's plumming, you're flushing a town of 6000's plumming.
- hwillis 7y ago
  4,656 to 4,758 crewmen, at $391 million average annual.
hwillis 7y ago
If you read the GAO report[1], most of the costs are due to commercial outsourcing- either outright failures on the part of private contractors, like the unreliable automated systems, plane arrestors, and other misc. equipment and services, or on the part of the DOD making assumptions about those equipment and services (like one notable instance in several classes where the navy assumed that commercial equipment would not require service or repair for the life of the ship). These high costs occur when contractors have the government by the balls, because... that's what markets are for. The gov will pay $10,000 to replace a bulkhead (toilet cover), because well, toilets need to be covered on an airplane. $10,000 is just what it costs for someone to pick up the phone. 1: https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/705463.pdf https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/705463.pdf

trelliscoded 7y ago

Guess how much shipping is to the middle of the ocean. Go on, guess.

hejdirk 7y ago
Surely you can stock on the thing.
- zdkl 7y ago
  And store it where? Dry volume is at a premium, just look at the compactness of living quarters to get an idea how little room there is to spare.
- thawaway1837 7y ago
  Why in the world would you stock it and use up valuable space, and fuel on carrying it around the world? Also, it surely cannot be a good idea to keep massive amounts of acid around for non essential purposes.
  - ulfw 7y ago
    How is it non-essential if that's the only way to get the toilets going?
    - vikramkr 7y ago
      Its non essential if you can get it shipped there easily in a resupply
gambiting 7y ago
Surely no one sends a warship "just" with their shipment of toilet acid, an aircraft carrier will be getting resupplies regularly anyway. So either the resupply run is insanely expensive and $400k is just a part of it, or someone is being dishonest and uses a cost of a single run as the cost of the clean.
- hwillis 7y ago
  The DoD will not hesitate for a second to call in contractors if they aren't confident in their crew. I'm sure they did so in this case. Even though you're just flying a few guys (say a few acid guys, maybe an engineer who knows the toilets, just in case) out for a day or two, that's stupidly expensive. Not even just the cost of putting them on a plane or helicopter- even though you may only be paying for a few hundred man hours, you need to pay a lot to pull those guys out of whatever they were doing. 4,700 people shitting in buckets is kind of an emergency in the middle of the ocean, unfortunately. The navy is notorious for its sleep deprivation and tight schedules. Seemingly small disruptions and timewasters can lead to major problems and mistakes.

mysterydip 7y ago

It probably qualifies as hazmat, which has a whole slew of special handling and storage requirements and raises the cost.

HenryKissinger 7y ago

Well, which private sector organization fields 1,000+ feet ships housing thousands of people, besides cruise lines? I don't know how much a flushing of the entire wastewater system on a ship like the Oasis of the Seas costs, but it's probably not as low as $1,000.

Carpetsmoker 7y ago

My guess would be that this figure also includes costs for downtime and the like, but that's just a guess. Would be interested to see a more detailed breakdown of the $400k.

catalogia 7y ago
How would you measure the cost of downtime for a toilet system? Number of people in the infirmary with constipation?
- Carpetsmoker 7y ago
  I would imagine that repairing it would mean it'll be out of commission for a few hours up to a few days, for example by waiting until the repair techs arrive or whatnot, interrupting regular operations. Depending on how the costs are counted, even just a few hours can quickly catch up if you add all the personal costs of the sailors on the ship etc. It's the same with things like outages, an outage lasting a day may "cost" $1 million, but what's actually meant is that you missed $1 million in profits for the day, not that you had to pay $1 million. If operating a carrier costs $400k/day then you could say then fixing something for a day "costs" $400k, but that's kind of a simplistic way of putting it.

onetimemanytime 7y ago

Try $400 a gallon off gas--after paying the enemy (the Taliban) to allow the shipment though. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/63407-400gallon-gas-another-cost-of-war-in-afghanistan- https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/63407-400gallon-... My guess is that the liquid is toxic and also might have to be processed after.

HenryKissinger 7y ago
Article from 2009. They now use long haul truck convoys through Russia and Central Asia to avoid this problem.
- justin66 7y ago
  What is their fully burdened cost of fuel today? It seems like it would still be tremendously expensive.

Waterluvian 7y ago

I think it's less insane when instead of perceiving it as flushing a building's plumming, you're flushing a town of 6000's plumming.

hwillis 7y ago
4,656 to 4,758 crewmen, at $391 million average annual.

hwillis 7y ago

If you read the GAO report[1], most of the costs are due to commercial outsourcing- either outright failures on the part of private contractors, like the unreliable automated systems, plane arrestors, and other misc. equipment and services, or on the part of the DOD making assumptions about those equipment and services (like one notable instance in several classes where the navy assumed that commercial equipment would not require service or repair for the life of the ship). These high costs occur when contractors have the government by the balls, because... that's what markets are for. The gov will pay $10,000 to replace a bulkhead (toilet cover), because well, toilets need to be covered on an airplane. $10,000 is just what it costs for someone to pick up the phone. 1: https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/705463.pdf https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/705463.pdf