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Almost every household has some horrible chemicals hiding in it somewhere, usually cleaning supplies or maybe pesticides. But if you use them safely and appropriately, and store them properly, there is nothing to worry about. Anything can be dangerous if you're an idiot about it. Knowledge is good.
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Feb 17, 2016 17:27
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xthetenth posted:I'm fond of calling chemicals things like only justified by extreme usefulness and only safe because of extreme oversight. Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide!
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Feb 17, 2016 17:28
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This bugs me far more than it should because isn't the 'correct' chemical name for water Hydrogen Hydroxide?
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Feb 17, 2016 18:27
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The correct chemical name for water, is water. IUPAC also recognizes oxidane for some reason.
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Feb 17, 2016 18:36
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GenericOverusedName posted:Almost every household has some horrible chemicals hiding in it somewhere, usually cleaning supplies or maybe pesticides. But if you use them safely and appropriately, and store them properly, there is nothing to worry about. Anything can be dangerous if you're an idiot about it. Knowledge is good. acetone, hydrogen peroxide, and a strong acid (like hcl). congrats you have the same technical know-how as the 2015 paris hostage bombers. TATP is some scary loving stuff, it's equal parts easy to make, easy to accidentally detonate, and impossible to detect because it doesn't have nitrogen.
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Feb 17, 2016 18:44
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Segmentation Fox posted:This bugs me far more than it should because isn't the 'correct' chemical name for water Hydrogen Hydroxide? quote:Using chemical nomenclature, various names for water are in common use within the scientific community. Some such names include hydrogen oxide, as well as an alkali name of hydrogen hydroxide, and several acid names such as hydric acid, hydroxic acid, hydroxyl acid, and hydroxilic acid.
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Feb 17, 2016 18:46
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But didn't you know that DHMO has pH of 7.0? That's higher than any other acid!
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Feb 17, 2016 18:55
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Lamprey Cannon posted:But didn't you know that DHMO has pH of 7.0? That's higher than any other acid! There's a facebook page called "Dihydrogen Monoxide Awareness" that went around tricking various chapters of March Against Monsanto into posting memes exactly like this, and it was good. Their final count was something like 14 chapters on board with these. 
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Feb 17, 2016 20:01
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Speaking of trucks, I once passed a whole row of trucks that looked a bit weird. They were carrying these relatively small tanks, as if half of the surface of the chassis was left unused. When I saw what it said on the tanks, understanding dawned. Uranium hexafluoride.
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Feb 17, 2016 23:19
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Jeez I didnt notice the CSB had a new video. Its about West, Texas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdDuHxwD5R4
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Feb 17, 2016 23:37
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Carbon dioxide posted:Speaking of trucks, I once passed a whole row of trucks that looked a bit weird. They were carrying these relatively small tanks, as if half of the surface of the chassis was left unused. You could not pay me enough to drive those trucks. 
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Feb 17, 2016 23:42
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Bertrand Hustle posted:You could not pay me enough to drive those trucks. Those containers are unbelievably strong. They're probably stronger than most common tanker trucks, most of which carry chemicals that could also kill the gently caress out of you.
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Feb 17, 2016 23:44
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A White Guy posted:Those containers are unbelievably strong. They're probably stronger than most common tanker trucks, most of which carry chemicals that could also kill the gently caress out of you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu1YFshFuI4
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Feb 17, 2016 23:49
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Don't they test those canisters by hitting them with actual, non-metaphorical trains? As in they put the canister on an unused piece of railway, get an old train that's been retired, and smash that sucker into the canister. The train ends up scrap and the canisters are barely scratched. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mHtOW-OBO4 Ah yes there we go e:fb, don't care
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Feb 17, 2016 23:50
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E: same video for the third time is slight overkill.
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Feb 17, 2016 23:54
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Fuel casks are slightly different. Fuel casks are meant to prevent uranium dioxide from turning into a dirty bomb by getting hit by a train or RPG. Uranium hexafluoride cylinders are of pretty beefy construction innately cause they run, if I remember right, something like 15-30 torr vacuums because UF6 gas is piped in hot and left to deposit to room temperature solid. But they are also made to withstand getting hit by a train, partly because of the worry that the uranium would become motive, but mostly because it reacts with ambient humidity to create HF. In the old days I guess mechanics used to swap clogged valves on full cylinders without dressing out because you have just about enough time to hotswap a new valve in before it started belching HF clouds. The NRC wasn't a huge fan and put requirements in place to stop clogging valves in the first place. "[Not including a processing incident and 2 other cylinder accidents], ten depleted UF6 cylinders containing solid UF6 in storage have been breached over the past 45 years."
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Feb 18, 2016 00:16
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I don't think UF6 is being transported in the nuclear fuel casks. At that point in its life cycle, it's been depleted of the radioactive isotopes, and is "just" a highly reactive, toxic chemical. It does have its own standardized steel container, though.  Each one holds about 14 tons of UF6, and the US has a LOT of them laying around.  Some of them have been laying around a long time, and aren't in very good condition any more.  But again, the danger isn't that they'll start leaking radioactive uranium products, just HF, and some other fluorine and uranium products. Uranium is still a toxic heavy metal, so its not exactly friendly in the forms that would be released from that containers. edit: beaten while looking for pics.
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Feb 18, 2016 00:37
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jetz0r posted:I don't think UF6 is being transported in the nuclear fuel casks. At that point in its life cycle, it's been depleted of the radioactive isotopes, and is "just" a highly reactive, toxic chemical. These pictures, especially the last one, make me extremely uncomfortable.
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Feb 18, 2016 00:50
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Rust isn't necessarily bad, unless its the bad rust, and non-destructive testing has gotten pretty good at figuring out when its bad rust. I think the NRCs gotten a little aggressive about cylinder polish exactly for the reason of people calling them asking what the gently caress was with the rusty cylinder that said its got the crazy stuff inside.
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Feb 18, 2016 00:57
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SynthOrange posted:Jeez I didnt notice the CSB had a new video. Its about West, Texas. Bloody hell, all the largest explosive accidents (not involving actual munitions or explosives) have been due to ammonium nitrate and there were still no proper inspections or guidelines as recently as a few years ago. That sounds terminally stupid and again shows the common trend to underestimate the danger of something familiar (and in other cases overestimate the danger of something which sounds odd and unfamiliar).
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Feb 18, 2016 01:23
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The CGI's pretty nice now tho. 
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Feb 19, 2016 02:42
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Carbon dioxide posted:Speaking of trucks, I once passed a whole row of trucks that looked a bit weird. They were carrying these relatively small tanks, as if half of the surface of the chassis was left unused. Wikipedia posted:During nuclear reprocessing, uranium is reacted with chlorine trifluoride  zedprime posted:the worry that the uranium would become motive, but mostly because it reacts with ambient humidity to create HF. 
Woolie Wool has a new favorite as of 04:38 on Feb 19, 2016 |
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Feb 19, 2016 04:32
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Nurdrage just put up a video on the ur-poison, Sodium Cyanide. The safety warning is particularly emphatic this time around. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz7i11XC9wk
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Feb 19, 2016 05:03
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Know what's some crazy poo poo? Neptunium.
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Feb 19, 2016 05:09
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OMFG PTSD LOL PBUH posted:Know what's some crazy poo poo? Einsteinium is even more nuts. It's like all those cartoons where stuff like uranium and plutonium glows, except this stuff actually does it in real life.  Seriously, it produces like 1000 watts of heat per gram, it's so radioactive.
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Feb 19, 2016 06:24
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Is that Cherenkov radiation?
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Feb 19, 2016 06:26
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Enourmo posted:Is that Cherenkov radiation? I don't think so- it might be ionized-air glow, but its entirely possible that its submerged in water. The picture makes it hard to tell. Unfortunately, I can only seem to find three images of the actual thing on Google- one of which is einsteinium iodide (which glows red), this image, and a black-and-white one.
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Feb 19, 2016 06:38
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Enourmo posted:Is that Cherenkov radiation? I believe it is, created when alpha particles hit the quartz vial.
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Feb 19, 2016 07:23
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I posted this in the obsolete and failed thread, but I realized it might fit this one as well.Collateral Damage posted:Apparently this was a thing in the early 1900s.
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Feb 19, 2016 10:18
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zedprime posted:Rust isn't necessarily bad, unless its the bad rust, and non-destructive testing has gotten pretty good at figuring out when its bad rust. It's not really the rust, more that the cylinders are being stored outside and just stacked on top of each other like that. I prefer my toxic waste stored deep below the ground in a location where it can't contaminate groundwater in the worst case scenario, thank you very much.
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Feb 19, 2016 14:14
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Enourmo posted:Is that Cherenkov radiation? I'd hope so for the camera dude's sake. Washington St (gently caress a coug) has a 1MW training reactor in an open pool. You can see right down into the reactor. If you really wanted to you could jump in. It's pretty drat cool.
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Feb 19, 2016 14:36
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Kwyndig posted:It's not really the rust, more that the cylinders are being stored outside and just stacked on top of each other like that. I prefer my toxic waste stored deep below the ground in a location where it can't contaminate groundwater in the worst case scenario, thank you very much.
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Feb 19, 2016 14:52
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DemeaninDemon posted:I'd hope so for the camera dude's sake. There are people who go scuba diving in reactor vessels as part of doing routine maintenance on them. That's probably one of the more  jobs I can think of.
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Feb 19, 2016 15:01
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Icon Of Sin posted:There are people who go scuba diving in reactor vessels as part of doing routine maintenance on them. That's probably one of the more Relevant as it also applies to active reactors, more or less: http://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
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Feb 20, 2016 01:32
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The coolest thing about the TRIGA reactor is that it was designed to be able to be turned on with the transient rods in place. Let me back up and explain. So you've got your reactor, right? It's a thick bundle of rods about 30 inches long 30 feet down at at the bottom of a crystal clear pool of water. Some are fuel rods, some are control rods. During startup you add neutron source rods. TRIGA fuel is fat, maybe 1" or so in diameter, with 4 rods per bundle, maybe 20-25 per core. You've got 3 different moderators around the core - control rods, shim rods (thin blades) and the transient rod. The control rods are what moderate the output and are attached via electromagnets to motorized stops which move them up and down. If power is ever lost they immediately detach, drop down and scram (shut down) the reactor. The shim blades do the same thing but are for fine control, they can't shut down the reactor so they're just permanently attached. The transient rods also moderate output and have a similar safety measure as the control rods only instead of electromagnets they're pushed against the stop by gas pressure. If gas pressure was lost (gas leak, valves opened), the transient rod would fall back into the core and also scram the reactor. To start the reactor, you put a neutron source next to the core (radium+beryllium or plutonium+beryllium) and start moving the control rod stops out (lift them up) then at some point you remove the neutron source as the chain reaction gets going. But the reactor's really versatile, so let's say you "forget" to turn on gas to the transient rod, light the reactor up to full power and THEN blow the stop out of the core with gas. Well, you get what's called a pulse "shot". It makes the reactor "prompt supercritical", a brief output of about 1000x normal operating energy, there's a huge Dr. Manhattan style blue flash, all sorts of alarms go off, and all the rods drop into the core. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orNP1wMmPK4 Bhodi has a new favorite as of 06:13 on Feb 20, 2016 |
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Feb 20, 2016 06:03
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That's pretty loving cool. It looks like they do that every now and then. It's not too hard on the equipment/core is it?
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Feb 20, 2016 08:46
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Icon Of Sin posted:There are people who go scuba diving in reactor vessels as part of doing routine maintenance on them. That's probably one of the more That’s actually one of the safer jobs a professional diver can do. Cleaning the plant’s cold‐water intake in the local lake or river is way more dangerous. There are currents, visibility can be bad, and there isn’t as much oversight. I recall this PopSci article from a few years ago as being good.
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Feb 20, 2016 10:42
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TheDon01 posted:That's pretty loving cool. The reactor is most certainly designed for it. Penn State University's research reactor, little dinky thing, can pulse up to several megawatts, from a normal operating output of like 100W. I got to see it in person and it was super cool. https://youtu.be/6I3JKYdGWTE
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Feb 20, 2016 13:58
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TRIGAs don't need control rods to shut them down, the pulse isn't because a control rod drops in. It's because the fuel has a huge negative temperature coefficient. If you pull the control rod and make the reactor go supercritical, as it heats up the mean free path for a neutron increases and each neutron becomes more likely to escape without causing additional fissions, and pretty quickly you reach a point where the chain reaction can't be sustained. The pulse is the reactor shutting itself off, not the control rod dropping in. The control rod goes in to prevent it from going critical again once it cools off sufficiently.
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Feb 20, 2016 19:32
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I wish our universities got to play with their own nuclear reactors.
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Feb 20, 2016 21:27
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