Pinboard (jm)
https://pinboard.in/u:jm/public/
recent bookmarks from jmNever Give Artificial Intelligence the Nuclear Codes2023-05-15T20:58:58+00:00
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/06/ai-warfare-nuclear-weapons-strike/673780/
jmAny country that inserts AI into its [nuclear] command and control will motivate others to follow suit, if only to maintain a credible deterrent. Michael Klare, a peace-and-world-security-studies professor at Hampshire College, has warned that if multiple countries automate launch decisions, there could be a “flash war” analogous to a Wall Street “flash crash.” Imagine that an American AI misinterprets acoustic surveillance of submarines in the South China Sea as movements presaging a nuclear attack. Its counterstrike preparations would be noticed by China’s own AI, which would actually begin to ready its launch platforms, setting off a series of escalations that would culminate in a major nuclear exchange.
]]>ai command-and-control nuclear-war nuclear flash-warhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:133492d4c088/Nowhere to hide: How a nuclear war would kill you — and almost everyone else2022-10-25T14:24:43+00:00
https://thebulletin.org/2022/10/nowhere-to-hide-how-a-nuclear-war-would-kill-you-and-almost-everyone-else/
jmnuclear-war grim-meathook-future nuclear war lets-not famine climate nuclear-winterhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:8efbf0e71073/US Soldiers Expose Nuclear Weapons Secrets Via Flashcard Apps2021-05-28T15:53:11+00:00
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2021/05/28/us-soldiers-expose-nuclear-weapons-secrets-via-flashcard-apps/
jmFor US soldiers tasked with the custody of nuclear weapons in Europe, the stakes are high. Security protocols are lengthy, detailed and need to be known by heart. To simplify this process, some service members have been using publicly visible flashcard learning apps — inadvertently revealing a multitude of sensitive security protocols about US nuclear weapons and the bases at which they are stored. [...]
the flashcards studied by soldiers tasked with guarding these devices reveal not just the bases, but even identify the exact shelters with “hot” vaults that likely contain nuclear weapons.
They also detail intricate security details and protocols such as the positions of cameras, the frequency of patrols around the vaults, secret duress words that signal when a guard is being threatened and the unique identifiers that a restricted area badge needs to have.
omgwtf!]]>army dystopia nuclear nukes privacy flashcards apps security weaponshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:49cce505e1ff/Rocky Flats2020-12-17T10:42:24+00:00
https://twitter.com/ademrudin/status/1339404811364515840
jm
'They made plutonium "pits" for nuclear bombs, either from new plutonium sources or reprocess parts of old bombs, from 1957 until 1988.
In 1988, the EPA investigated the site, shrieked in horror, and shut the place down. the DOE stuck their fingers in their ears and went LA LA LA DON'T WANNA DEAL WITH IT for about five years afterward, but finally started cleanup in '94.
Among the tasks: cleaning 13 "infinity rooms" - areas so radioactive that plant instruments went off the scale, and were just sealed in place. One had been welded shut and abandoned as far back as '72. One had been piled full of contaminated equipment and filled with concrete.
US Gov: your task is finding the 1,100 pounds of plutonium that somehow became lost in ductwork, drums and industrial gloveboxes. The amount of missing plutonium at Rocky Flats is enough to build 150 Nagasaki strength bombs.
"Occasionally you'd feel a drip on your head and you'd be contaminated with plutonium nitrate," DeMaiori said."'
]]>infinity-rooms horror military-industrial-complex us-politics nuclear nuclear-weapons plutonium environment history bombs epa doehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:91ef28279e70/The Center for Land Use Interpretation2020-06-29T12:31:40+00:00
http://clui.org/section/perpetual-architecture-uranium-disposal-cells-america
jmMore than 30 uranium disposal cells have been constructed over the last 25 years, primarily to contain radioactive contamination from decommissioned uranium mills and processing sites. They are time capsules, of sorts, designed to take their toxic contents, undisturbed, as far into the future as possible.
Uranium disposal cells are unusual constructions because they are built to last far beyond the lives of most engineered structures, to isolate their radioactive contents from the environment for hundreds of years. They are generally low geometric mounds, sometimes as high as a hundred feet tall, covering a few acres or as much as a half mile, and composed of layers of engineered soil and gravels designed to shed rainwater and limit erosion. [...] The contents are not considered high-level radioactive waste, like spent fuel from nuclear reactors. That material has yet to find a permanent home. What these cells contain is radioactive tailings from uranium processing sites, as well as the demolished buildings and apparatus from the mills themselves. The amount of radioactivity in these cells varies, but is generally considered harmful to people if exposure takes place over sustained periods. Most of the radiation comes from uranium 238, which has a half life of 4.47 billion years, nearly the age of the earth itself.
]]>nuclear uranium history waste toxic-waste radioactivity u-238 radioactive structures land-usehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:601adace7f75/Button it. | Present&Correct2020-05-27T13:47:21+00:00
http://blog.presentandcorrect.com/27986-2
jmsoviet control nuclear design history power dashboards control-panels buttons lights beepinghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:e3da3b082e18/The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on nuclear power plant risks2020-03-05T10:34:50+00:00
https://thebulletin.org/2020/02/the-us-government-insurance-scheme-for-nuclear-power-plant-accidents-no-longer-makes-sense/
jmThe Japan Center for Economic Research, a source sympathetic to nuclear power, recently put the long-term costs of the 2011 Fukushima accident as about $750 billion. [...]
The main public risk of nuclear power plants comes from rare but devastating nuclear accidents. Because data on such accidents is sparse, the probability of their occurrence has to be calculated on the basis of a model, rather than obtained from experience. Moreover, the extent of an accident and its monetary consequences are postulated on the basis of models that are limited by analysts’ imagination. Who would have imagined, for example, that the Fukushima accident would involve several reactors? Or that Japan would subsequently shut down all its other nuclear power plants?]]>fukushima nuclear nukes power risks danger probability insurance nuclear-power reactorshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:cbdecda4acb6/Coal Ash Is More Radioactive Than Nuclear Waste - Scientific American2019-08-01T10:49:40+00:00
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/
jmAt issue is coal's content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal that they aren't a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels.
Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shadow"—the area within a half- to one-mile (0.8- to 1.6-kilometer) radius of a coal plant's smokestacks—might then ingest small amounts of radiation. Fly ash is also disposed of in landfills and abandoned mines and quarries, posing a potential risk to people living around those areas.
(via Jamie McCarthy)]]>via:jamiemccarthy coal environment nuclear pollution fly-ash coal-ash safety healthhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:79320a779c55/The Woolsey fire started at the contaminated Santa Susana Field Laboratory2019-02-28T23:54:11+00:00
https://thebulletin.org/2019/02/a-failure-of-governmental-candor-the-fire-at-the-contaminated-santa-susana-field-laboratory/
jmhealth santa-susana-field-laboratory nuclear fast-breeders atomic-energy meltdowns history toxic-waste california woolsey-fire wildfireshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:83a71ab1826f/The likely user interface which led to Hawaii's false-alarm incoming-ballistic-missile alert on Saturday 2018-01-132018-01-15T11:07:00+00:00
https://twitter.com/supersat/status/952612571122630659
jmtesting ux user-interfaces fail eas hawaii false-alarms alerts nuclear early-warning human-errorhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:a4d8ff23c728/Kodak Had a Secret Nuclear Reactor Loaded With Enriched Uranium Hidden In a Basement2016-05-13T15:09:19+00:00
http://gizmodo.com/5909961/kodak-had-a-secret-weapons-grade-nuclear-reactor-hidden-in-a-basement
jmKodak's purpose for the reactor wasn't sinister: they used it to check materials for impurities as well as neutron radiography testing. The reactor, a Californium Neutron Flux multiplier (CFX) was acquired in 1974 and loaded with three and a half pounds of enriched uranium plates placed around a californium-252 core. The reactor was installed in a closely guarded, two-foot-thick concrete walled underground bunker in the company's headquarters, where it was fed tests using a pneumatic system. According to the company, no employees were ever in contact with the reactor. Apparently, it was operated by atomic fairies and unicorns.
]]>kodak nuclear safety non-proliferation scary rochester reactorshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:d18363139d64/Reddit comments from a nuclear-power expert2015-08-11T10:01:17+00:00
https://www.reddit.com/user/Hiddencamper
jmvia:maciej nuclear-power nuclear atomic power energy safety procedures operations history chernobyl scramhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:d914bef034f0/"A Review Of Criticality Accidents, 2000 Revision"2015-08-10T22:30:48+00:00
http://permalink.lanl.gov/object/tr?what=info:lanl-repo/lareport/LA-13638
jmcriticality nuclear safety atomic lanl post-mortems postmortems fissionhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:e738461263f8/Photographs of Sellafield nuclear plant prompt fears over radioactive risk2014-10-30T14:58:19+00:00
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/29/sellafield-nuclear-radioactive-risk-storage-ponds-fears
jmPreviously unseen pictures of two storage ponds containing hundreds of highly radioactive fuel rods at the Sellafield nuclear plant show cracked concrete, seagulls bathing in the water and weeds growing around derelict machinery. But a spokesman for owners Sellafield Ltd said the 60-year-old ponds will not be cleaned up for decades, despite concern that they are in a dangerous state and could cause a large release of radioactive material if they are allowed to deteriorate further.
“The concrete is in dreadful condition, degraded and fractured, and if the ponds drain, the Magnox fuel will ignite and that would lead to a massive release of radioactive material,” nuclear safety expert John Large told the Ecologist magazine. “I am very disturbed at the run-down condition of the structures and support services. In my opinion there is a significant risk that the system could fail.
]]>energy environment nuclear uk sellafield magnox seagulls time long-nowhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:c30ea26fa198/Extract from 1973 HM Treasury document concerning post-nuclear-attack responses2013-08-02T10:25:14+00:00
http://twitpic.com/c1wgll
jm
[Contingency] ...(d) a total nuclear attack employing high power missiles which would destroy all but a small percentage of the UK population and almost all physical assets or civilised life. [...] As for (d), the money policy would of course be absurdly unrealistic for the few surviving administrators and politicians as they struggled to organise food and shelter for the tiny bands of surviving able-bodied and the probably larger number of sick and dying. Most of the other departments contingency planning might also be irrelevant in such a situation. Within a fairly short time the survivors would evacuate the UK and try to find some sort of life in less-effected countries (southern Ireland?).
Hey, at least they were considering these scenarios. (via Charlie Stross)]]>nuclear attack contingency government monetary policy uk ireland history 1960s via:cstross insane fallouthttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:727db48c7804/Scram2012-06-21T09:25:18+00:00
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scram
jmscram nuclear reactor history etymology words shutdown emergency wikipedia 1942 science acronymshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:393b19925761/Corium2011-03-15T13:45:55+00:00
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corium_(nuclear_reactor)
jmcorium nuclear-power disasters nuclear radioactive wikipedia meltdownhttps://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:37db1310615f/Nuclear energy: Inside the black box2011-03-12T22:46:51+00:00
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/12/nuclear-energy-insid.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29
jmnuclear-power meltdown disasters japan fukushima power electricity nuclearhttps://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:fd74b0408b59/