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On October 08 2010 18:32 Electric.Jesus wrote:
Fun fact: The company that is responsible for the disaster has limited liability. They will have to pay the exact sum of 35,000 Euro and that's it (according to yesterday's news that is about 0.1% of the actual monetary damage).
I happen to know a lot about this (connections in the police), the investigation is still in progress so noone knows the "exact sum". But hell there's tons of lolwat stuff in that company, you guys (and people in Hungary in general) don't know half of it...I sense a huge media shitstorm coming. The fun fact is that the company still haven't apologised at all, instead they say they have insurance (which can't be used in this case and wouldn't cover anything anyway)
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This is a huge disaster. Companies like this usally don't feel too much obligation to clean up after themselves either. From what I've read it seems the tries to lower the pH has been somewhat successful, atleast that's something.
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This is so sad 
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On October 08 2010 19:43 Simplistik wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2010 17:41 madnessman wrote:Ouch those pics look pretty bad. At least the materials in the sludge aren't super radioactive or poisonous. Fe2O3
Al2O3
SiO2
CaO
TiO2
Na2O Wait.. Isn't CaO unstable and caustic? Uh oh... Well, from a chemistry point of view none of this stuff is dangerous. Fe2O3 is merely rust. SiO2 is about as dangerous as sand. TiO2 is a common white pigment. CaO in water just turns into Ca2+ and OH-. Ca2+ is an essential human mineral. Na2O similarly dissociates in water to Na+ and OH-. So basically the most dangerous thing here is that the resulting sludge/solution would be quite alkaline. But once it hits the danube there's gonna be so much water that it won't significantly change the pH of the river. I've seen the media mention "heavy metals" all the time, but so far they have not specified which heavy metals they mean. The above list does not contain any. I really don't think this disaster is as big as the media coverage suggests. The gulf of mexico on the other hand...
Not sure how fast water flows in the Danube, but the initial point of access for all the chemicals can alter the pH considerably. Only after the spill runs downstream a bit will it be diluted enough to not cause a large change in pH.
Also, these compounds can leach quite easily into the soil and cause some pretty deep impacts on wildlife. While there aren't any toxic compounds in there, dumping massive amounts of anything into soil, whether it be as inert as silica, is going to disrupt wildlife considerably.
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oh wow. How are they going to clean this up? They obviously can't burn everything away =/
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Ahhh..... oh god that sucks.
Is industrial waste usually stored behind a giant dam? Are there just like huge lakes of it?
Ouch... best of luck to anyone affected by this disaster T_T;
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On October 09 2010 01:12 Haemonculus wrote:
Ahhh..... oh god that sucks.
Is industrial waste usually stored behind a giant dam? Are there just like huge lakes of it?
Ouch... best of luck to anyone affected by this disaster T_T;
Yeah pretty much. Large amounts of tailings are unavoidable in mining operations like this, where the primary product isnt even in the majority of the initial ore. There is nothing wrong with having a big tailing dam as long as the necessary safety and risk assessments are put into action. Unfortunately with something like this happening, Deepwater horizon etc it seems far to many engineers are cutting corners.
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On October 08 2010 19:43 Simplistik wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2010 17:41 madnessman wrote:Ouch those pics look pretty bad. At least the materials in the sludge aren't super radioactive or poisonous. Fe2O3
Al2O3
SiO2
CaO
TiO2
Na2O Wait.. Isn't CaO unstable and caustic? Uh oh... Well, from a chemistry point of view none of this stuff is dangerous. Fe2O3 is merely rust. SiO2 is about as dangerous as sand. TiO2 is a common white pigment. CaO in water just turns into Ca2+ and OH-. Ca2+ is an essential human mineral. Na2O similarly dissociates in water to Na+ and OH-. So basically the most dangerous thing here is that the resulting sludge/solution would be quite alkaline. But once it hits the danube there's gonna be so much water that it won't significantly change the pH of the river. I've seen the media mention "heavy metals" all the time, but so far they have not specified which heavy metals they mean. The above list does not contain any. I really don't think this disaster is as big as the media coverage suggests. The gulf of mexico on the other hand...
I'd like to reiterate what an earlier poster said (and what you would know had you read the article), the Ph of the sludge is 13... that's around bleach level. So, from a "chemistry" point of view this shit is very harmful.
More on-topic. How did the inspectors not see this coming?
Edit:
On October 09 2010 01:24 zoltanium wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2010 01:12 Haemonculus wrote:
Ahhh..... oh god that sucks.
Is industrial waste usually stored behind a giant dam? Are there just like huge lakes of it?
Ouch... best of luck to anyone affected by this disaster T_T; Yeah pretty much. Large amounts of tailings are unavoidable in mining operations like this, where the primary product isnt even in the majority of the initial ore. There is nothing wrong with having a big tailing dam as long as the necessary safety and risk assessments are put into action. Unfortunately with something like this happening, Deepwater horizon etc it seems far to many engineers are cutting corners.
I'd like to point out that it's a few engineers making the rest look bad.
Also, even with diluting animals in wildlife, especially fish, are very sensitive to Ph changes in their environment.
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On October 09 2010 01:59 Risen wrote:
More on-topic. How did the inspectors not see this coming?
they don't really know the sludge broke through the walls.
it's super massive and it shouldn't have broken down.
btw they will use cloric acid to neutralize the pH
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konadora
Singapore66153 Posts
wtf. why the hell can't they be more responsible? toughen law up, prevent stuff like this and BP oil spill from happening again. just shut those damn companies down or something
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seeing that and remembering what i heard yesterday about the romanian gas line network is actually pretty ... huge.
expect more of this to come from other, previously state owned companies from the former east block.
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whoa.. ph 13 is very harmful to a person.
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On October 09 2010 01:24 zoltanium wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2010 01:12 Haemonculus wrote:
Ahhh..... oh god that sucks.
Is industrial waste usually stored behind a giant dam? Are there just like huge lakes of it?
Ouch... best of luck to anyone affected by this disaster T_T; Yeah pretty much. Large amounts of tailings are unavoidable in mining operations like this, where the primary product isnt even in the majority of the initial ore. There is nothing wrong with having a big tailing dam as long as the necessary safety and risk assessments are put into action. Unfortunately with something like this happening, Deepwater horizon etc it seems far to many engineers are cutting corners.
It's not the engineers who cut the corners, it's their bosses. The engineers probably want to build the biggest, most bad ass tailings dam ever concieved, because that's what they're trained to do. Their bosses want a cheap dam to keep capital investments low and profits high, because that's what they're trained to do.
This is a travesty, and I wish that those responsible would have to foot the bill of their obscene mistake.
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What i don't understand is why people are okay with limited liability laws. When disasters like this happens it not only hurts the environment, but also damages personal property and damages the livelihood of those affected. Companies that allow this to happen should be 100% liable and if they can't pay, they should be liquidated and sold off to pay as much as possible. I have no sympathy for these companies.
Here is yet another example of how the free market could have lessened the chance of a disaster like this from happening. ANYWAYS... my condolences to the countries and people that will undoubtedly be effected by this.
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Holy cow that is a lot of shit that spilled out.
I am curious as to why the dam failed, maybe a creeper got to it?
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On October 09 2010 06:09 No_Roo wrote:
Holy cow that is a lot of shit that spilled out.
I am curious as to why the dam failed, maybe a creeper got to it?
rofl, that is exactly what happened.
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its not 'toxic' sludge...
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On October 09 2010 03:03 Jenbu wrote:
What i don't understand is why people are okay with limited liability laws. When disasters like this happens it not only hurts the environment, but also damages personal property and damages the livelihood of those affected. Companies that allow this to happen should be 100% liable and if they can't pay, they should be liquidated and sold off to pay as much as possible. I have no sympathy for these companies.
Here is yet another example of how the free market could have lessened the chance of a disaster like this from happening. ANYWAYS... my condolences to the countries and people that will undoubtedly be effected by this.
It's a tough call though. If thousands of people work for the company do they all deserve to lose their jobs just because a couple of their bosses were retarded?
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On October 09 2010 06:32 Apexplayer wrote:
its not 'toxic' sludge...
If they measured a pH of 13, then that is some highly toxic sludge.
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EPT
