The Lousiana oil rig failure...

Originally Posted by Bubblehead Nuke

Profits should ALWAYS take a second seat to safety.

How totally un-American!

[Seth8530]

-- and everyone on the subsim general topic decided to be nice to each other and admit transgressions lol, i think were making the moderators proud.



So i take it that this Rickover fella is sorta of a legend in his own discipline?

Oil spill flyover.

[CaptainHaplo]

Seth - Admiral Rickover is THE reason we still have nuclear subs. He, as the head of the Naval nuke power plant - in all ways - was the ultimate buck stops here person. He didn't accept anything but getting it right - every time. In fact, I think his standard of always being on a boat during its final test still is held by his successors. It was his name on the line - he wanted to see it with his own eyes that it was right every time. That attention to detail saved lives and has made him one of most respected non-wartime leaders in the navy - especially in the sub world. If it were not for him - nuclear subs might not exist today. He is called the father of the nuke sub for a reason.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Catfish

And you cannot recycle any steel ever used around a reactor, let alone the reactor material itself. Any metallic material being exposed to radiation, will become radioactive itself after a short time. Yes, also the gatling gun of the A-10 Warthog.

I would be very interested in seeing an authoritative citation for this.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Seth8530

Also most people consider it trolling to attack peoples grammar.

That should be people's grammar.

To be more grammatically correct, the sentence should be rewritten as: Also, most people would consider it trolling to attack the grammar of the writer.

[Bubblehead Nuke]

Rickover demanded that all decisions be based on FACTS, no assumptions are allowed. Ever.

You have to PROVE every presumption. You have to be in complete control. This was the reason that the nuclear power plants were 100% human controlled or supervised. Nothing more complex than a on/off switch was allowed to operate a componet on a reactor plant automatically. Even then, it could be overridden by a human who was monitoring what was going on.

There are stories abound about how he hired/fired people. In the shipyards he would INTENTIONALLY create a stressful & chaotic situation just to see how people handled stress. His visits on boats are legendary.

He did not care if you were an officer or enlisted. You were on HIS plant and you therefore had FULL authority to keep the plant safe. Thats right, a junior ENLISTED man could shut down the plant on his own initative.

Do I admire the man? No, I think he was a huge pain in the butt. I DO admire the teaching, ethics, and steadfastness the man had. Yes, I do. He would accept NOTHING less than 100% from anybody who ran one of his plants. If you did not make the cut, you were gone. This could happen at ANY time in your career. You HAD to be the best, now and always. Every time, day or night, good days or bad. Being awake for 3 days straight was not an excuse.

[Fr8monkey]

"And now for something completely different..."

Latest news on the oil rig. Seems to be icing up in the deep water.

[Catfish]

Hello Platapus,

Order to an army doctor
"Thou shalt right you're after-action report such that they do not reveal the health and environmental consequence of uranium munitions because they will become politically unacceptable. [That's] a direct order. "

The fact that DU is called depleted only means it is not dense and concentrated enough for a chain raction, but the radiation is still well above safety levels.

I am certainly sure the US army has a different view of things

When i mentioned the longtime effect of using DU, even on own troops someone answered something like " ... i'd rather be saved by a called-in A-10 and survive the day, and to hell what happens to me when i'm 40 .. rather have cancer then, than be dead now ..". That is, when he was near the receiving end of the "Avenger" gun, in the Kosovo.

edit: just found it:

" For a U.S. soldier facing a tank attack on the ground, an A-10 is a welcome sight, he said.
"Ask me whether I'd like to have an A-10 overhead with depleted uranium when tanks are going to kill me, or if I'd rather preserve the environment and have that pilot carry heavy explosives, and I'd say: I want them carrying depleted uranium," Wood said.

"I wouldn't say no, use the heavy explosives, because I'm worried about dying of cancer 30 years from now. I would risk the consequences of inhaling depleted uranium dust before I would consider facing tanks. Depleted uranium is wonderful stuff. It turns tanks into Swiss cheese."
However, radiation expert Rosalie Bertell said depleted uranium is highly toxic to humans. Bertell, president of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, called its use in Yugoslavia radiation and toxic chemical warfare that must be denounced. "

DU is used because it is heavy, burns hot, and penetrates heavy armour or some meters of soil. Tungsten as it is used by the german army is non-radioactive, but much more expensive.

http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2010...g-life-by.html

http://cid-126ff386f6322548.spaces.l...2548!229.entry

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...1/NEWS1003.dtl

http://cursor.org/stories/uranium.htm

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com...ll-500000/1214

http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/R...-DU21apr03.htm

I did not find the article on the vets, where they said that more than 30 percent of the staff that dealt with loading and maintaining the guns were suffering from cancer only 10 years after the Kosovo conflict. Will post it when i find it.

Thanks and greetings,
Catfish

[Platapus]

The health threat of Depleted Uranium is not very radioactive. The Alpha particles it emits are pretty harmless unless it can enter the body though a wound, lungs, or stomach. The most severe health threat from Depleted Uranium is Heavy Metal Poisoning (HMP). That will kill you way before any radioactive harm can come to you.

As Depleted Uranium decays, parts of it turn in to 234 Thorium and 24 days later turns in to 234 protactinium which are Beta emitters. 234PA has a half-life of about 6 hours.

The people who got cancer from handling DU got it from HMP and not Radioactivity. Not that it makes a great difference if you have cancer though.

Using DU in any applications where it can be burned or where dust can be produced is a bad thing.

DU should be used for shielding and for weights, but not in munitions.

DU can be some bad stuff, but it is its toxicity that is a primary concern, not its radioactivity.

[CaptainHaplo]

Now it looks like its a matter of the plug never being poured. Question is - why wasn't it?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/11...ig-blast-plug/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8676341.stm

Sex and drugs? "Culture of ethical failure", you can say that again.

First glimpse of gushing oil from Gulf of Mexico spill

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

Now it looks like its a matter of the plug never being poured. Question is - why wasn't it?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/11...ig-blast-plug/

I had heard that it was the pop off valve that failed. Had a hydraulic leak.

Still its the first big failure in what... 40 years? So yea lets panic and call for a halt on all offshore drilling. Which is exactly what Florida plans to do.

[Stealth Hunter]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Still its the first big failure in what... 40 years? So yea lets panic and call for a halt on all offshore drilling. Which is exactly what Florida plans to do.

The funny thing about oil spills of this caliber is that they're like nuclear reactor meltdowns. While rare, the consequences of just one incident are devastating. And that's on a limited number. If you start spamming wells and go mad drilling here and there, you're recklessly asking for another disaster in the middle of a currently ongoing disaster- nevermind the effects both the drilling and the leaking oil will/do have on the environment (especially the native organisms).