5 ms·

It appears that LANL is a safer workplace than average "Average workplace" probably isn't the appropriate comparison. Some industries (like construction) prob

by bumby 4y ago

It appears that LANL is a safer workplace than average "Average workplace" probably isn't the appropriate comparison. Some industries (like construction) probably wouldn't be a good comparison. By contrast, the article states LANL had more incidents than all other 23 DOE combined.

kragen 4y ago
Maybe they're all being counterproductively paranoid.
- bumby 4y ago
  I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic? I don’t think that claim can hold water in an area that 1) has the severity of this particular industry and 2) the org in question was written about because they have documented instances of very bad practices. If it’s not sarcasm, do you think the Pu risks are overblown?
  - kragen 4y ago
    It's not sarcastic. I do think the Pu risks are overblown, and I think the numbers I've posted in this thread back that up sufficiently that I don't see how anyone could disagree. Can you explain further?
    - bumby 4y ago
      Remember, in the US it is a codified right to have a safe workplace. Meaning, employers have a legal responsibility to ensure risks to employee health are properly mitigated. The article demonstrates a culture a LALN that doesn’t seem to do so, while the other DOE sites seem to do a better job.
      - kragen 4y ago
        I don't think that LANL or any other DoE site approaches the level of risk of steel mills, farms, garbage trucks, and as you pointed out, construction sites. If there are people willing to undertake such risks to life and limb to grow food or collect garbage, why not to produce nuclear fuel? Of course it is important that those risks are within their control, not imposed on them by mismanagement or lack of information.
        bumby 4y ago
        I don't disagree that, in general, the risk is lower than many other jobs. But that missed the point. It also doesn't mean it would be okay for teachers to have an unsafe work environment, as long as it's safer than a steel mill. Those comparisons are poor measures because it's about mitigating the risk to a reasonable level. In the context of the article, risking a criticality event is not a reasonable level. Whether or not anyone is willing to take on additional risk also misses the point. Suppose I find people who are willing to live on an aquifer that is polluted by industrial waste because it's cheap land. Does that fact make it okay for the factory in your local area to disregard EPA regulations? I say no, because you have a codified right to certain standards of clean water. It's the same with safe job sites. You'll be able to find people on construction sites willing to work unsafe conditions; that doesn't alleviate their employer from legal responsibility. What the article is demonstrating is the inability of LANL to implement the proper mitigations, whether those are engineered, administrative, or protective equipment.
        kragen 4y ago
        LANL has had three criticality accidents in 80 years, which have killed three people, two of them during WWII (after which things presumably improved) and the third in 01958. That's out of what is now 12000 people, which would lead you to expect about 40 deaths over that period of time, though presumably the workforce size has fluctuated over the years (but it was about 10000 by the end of 01946). I think that by any standard that's a reasonable level of risk. I don't hold with any of this "codified right" nonsense. What's right and wrong determines what the laws should be; the laws can't determine what's right and what's wrong. We have to determine what's right and what's wrong independently of the laws in order to figure out how they should be changed. Factories poisoning people was wrong before the EPA existed, is still wrong where the EPA doesn't have jurisdiction, and would still be wrong if the EPA allowed it.
- seventytwo 4y ago
  More nuclear nuclear accidents is exactly what we need to convince the public to use nuclear energy production…
  - kragen 4y ago
    I want to give people the information they need to construct the knowledge to make good choices, and the freedom to put those choices into practice. Convincing people to do things is very rarely useful in this context.

by bumby 4y ago

kragen 4y ago

Maybe they're all being counterproductively paranoid.

bumby 4y ago
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic? I don’t think that claim can hold water in an area that 1) has the severity of this particular industry and 2) the org in question was written about because they have documented instances of very bad practices. If it’s not sarcasm, do you think the Pu risks are overblown?
- kragen 4y ago
  It's not sarcastic. I do think the Pu risks are overblown, and I think the numbers I've posted in this thread back that up sufficiently that I don't see how anyone could disagree. Can you explain further?
  - bumby 4y ago
    Remember, in the US it is a codified right to have a safe workplace. Meaning, employers have a legal responsibility to ensure risks to employee health are properly mitigated. The article demonstrates a culture a LALN that doesn’t seem to do so, while the other DOE sites seem to do a better job.
    - kragen 4y ago
      I don't think that LANL or any other DoE site approaches the level of risk of steel mills, farms, garbage trucks, and as you pointed out, construction sites. If there are people willing to undertake such risks to life and limb to grow food or collect garbage, why not to produce nuclear fuel? Of course it is important that those risks are within their control, not imposed on them by mismanagement or lack of information.
      - bumby 4y ago
        I don't disagree that, in general, the risk is lower than many other jobs. But that missed the point. It also doesn't mean it would be okay for teachers to have an unsafe work environment, as long as it's safer than a steel mill. Those comparisons are poor measures because it's about mitigating the risk to a reasonable level. In the context of the article, risking a criticality event is not a reasonable level. Whether or not anyone is willing to take on additional risk also misses the point. Suppose I find people who are willing to live on an aquifer that is polluted by industrial waste because it's cheap land. Does that fact make it okay for the factory in your local area to disregard EPA regulations? I say no, because you have a codified right to certain standards of clean water. It's the same with safe job sites. You'll be able to find people on construction sites willing to work unsafe conditions; that doesn't alleviate their employer from legal responsibility. What the article is demonstrating is the inability of LANL to implement the proper mitigations, whether those are engineered, administrative, or protective equipment.
        kragen 4y ago
        LANL has had three criticality accidents in 80 years, which have killed three people, two of them during WWII (after which things presumably improved) and the third in 01958. That's out of what is now 12000 people, which would lead you to expect about 40 deaths over that period of time, though presumably the workforce size has fluctuated over the years (but it was about 10000 by the end of 01946). I think that by any standard that's a reasonable level of risk. I don't hold with any of this "codified right" nonsense. What's right and wrong determines what the laws should be; the laws can't determine what's right and what's wrong. We have to determine what's right and what's wrong independently of the laws in order to figure out how they should be changed. Factories poisoning people was wrong before the EPA existed, is still wrong where the EPA doesn't have jurisdiction, and would still be wrong if the EPA allowed it.
seventytwo 4y ago
More nuclear nuclear accidents is exactly what we need to convince the public to use nuclear energy production…
- kragen 4y ago
  I want to give people the information they need to construct the knowledge to make good choices, and the freedom to put those choices into practice. Convincing people to do things is very rarely useful in this context.