this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago

It continued into a stream where it didn't touch natural areas.

What a bizarre double-think sentence.

"It's beyond the environment. There's nothing out there! All there is sea, and birds, and fish. And 20,000 tons of crude oil. And a fire. And the front of the ship that fell off. But there's nothing else out there. It's a complete void!"

[–] [email protected] 159 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (5 children)

The headline saying “gallons” doesn’t really imply “550 gallons“ which was the actual amount. That’s a lot of pollution.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You know those giant white plastic cube storage tanks that hold 1000L? They dumped the equivalent of two of those full of toxic waste.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I wouldn't go so far as to call it toxic waste but fuck anyone pouring industrial chemicals into a storm drain. That's embarrassing for such a wealthy company.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago

Well, 12 gallons, contaminating 500 that they pumped out.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago

Tesla out here trying to kill the Toons from ToonTown!

[–] [email protected] 96 points 3 days ago (3 children)

The liquid, which the Palo Alto Fire Department has deemed to be a nonhazardous mixture of borax, lye (also called sodium hydroxide) and green dye, spilled out of the Tesla office at 1501 Page Mill Road onto Hanover Street.

[–] [email protected] 194 points 3 days ago (1 children)

“Storage of sodium hydroxide requires a City permit, which Tesla had not obtained.”

[–] [email protected] 87 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Elon does not care about laws and it's been shown over and over that he doesn't have to.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

When the penalty is a fine, it isn't a penalty to the rich.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

"Cost of doing business."

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 days ago

He obviously does, he's not storing it anymore after spilling it out now is he?

[–] [email protected] 60 points 3 days ago (1 children)

How is lye nonhazardous? Can't it cause serious chemical burns? Maybe it's just in low enough concentration that that's not a concern.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 3 days ago (2 children)

You don't want concentrated lye, but diluted lye is safe enough to make soap. My question, and I'm not the only one asking in this thread, is- is a mixture of borax and lye a good coolant for a supercomputer?

I guess you could argue that the green is so they would recognize a coolant leak...

[–] [email protected] 51 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Borax is used for flushing large coolant systems. The green dye is probably to find leaks or identify when the flush has cleared out any residual coolant.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Ah, that makes more sense then.

But lye as well?

Edit: never mind, that discussion says also lye.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

They use this mixture at my work as well. Flushing out large sub freezing cooling systems. We don't dump it out on the street though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

If it's anything like the places I work, they specifically tell you to be very careful about what you wash away.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago

The lye concentration used to make soap is rather nasty if it gets on your skin and you don't deal with it immediately. Source: I've made a lot of soap from scratch.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Okay, now I have more "why" questions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Water cooling for a set of computers. Additives prevent bacteria growth.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 3 days ago (3 children)

The liquid, which the Palo Alto Fire Department has deemed to be a nonhazardous mixture of borax, lye (also called sodium hydroxide) and green dye,

One of the workers told Hedblom that the liquid was a coolant. That’s also what the fire department told the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, which wrote in its Oct. 18 spill report that the liquid was “used for the chiller system to cool the Tesla Artificial Intelligence Supercomputer.”

“The Palo Alto Fire Department recovered approximately 550 gallons of the mixture from the storm drain,” the report said. “The incident occurred while Tesla personnel were draining the system.”

That's quite a liquid-cooled computer that they've got going on.

[–] jballs 19 points 3 days ago

The article mentions that they said the initial spill was 12 gallons but then mixed with water in the drain, which is where the 550 gallon number comes from. That's coming from Tesla, so it might be them trying to downplay the incident, so take it with a grain of salt. But it does seem to make more sense than a single computer needing 550 gallons of coolant.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago

That’s quite a liquid-cooled computer that they’ve got going on.

Well... it's air-cooled now.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

I suspect it was the entire building's chiller in which that really isn't that much. When you consider the run of pipes depending on where the outdoor tower is.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 days ago

“The Palo Alto Fire Department recovered approximately 550 gallons of the mixture from the storm drain,” the report said. “The incident occurred while Tesla personnel were draining the system.”

Put Lonnie in jail, ffs.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

"Because at this point, why the hell not"

—Elon Musk, probably

[–] [email protected] 30 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Elon probably told them to dump the coolant in the street because he thought it would be a very funny joke. And probably also told them to put the green dye in first.

Sounds like the sort of thing he would think is hilariously funny.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Is lye a common thing for people to use as coolant? I’m not saying it’s not, I’ve just never heard of it.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 days ago (10 children)

Borax and lye are both cleaning agents.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

mildly concentrated sodium hydroxide solutions would corrode the living fuck out of aluminum pretty quickly (https://www.calpaclab.com/aluminum-chemical-compatibility-chart/), especially when hot and circulating, so no

could have been a kind of additive maybe? but then it won't be a lot of it. borax forms a gel or at least high viscosity solution when mixed with glycols so both can't be used at the same time as a coolant

Dye might be fluorescein, it fluoresces under UV (duh) could be useful in checking what's this thing

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (2 children)

It kind of sounds like they told some junior exec to come up with a quick excuse because whatever they were actually doing was a lot worse.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

It's possible they didn't properly treat the liquid they were using as coolant and needed the lye and borax to remove scaling and that it actually wasn't the coolant itself. That would also explain not having the proper permits for storing the chemicals if they were just being used for cleaning. Though wouldn't be surprised if they were then just going to dump it down the drain anyway...

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago

Musk spewing bile, as usual.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

This is why you dont liquid cool your stuff without proper maintenance

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

𝙇𝙖𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙡𝙤𝙪𝙙 𝙗𝙧𝙪𝙝... 𝙈𝙪𝙨𝙠 𝙢𝙖𝙙𝙚 𝙖𝙣 𝙚𝙭𝙖𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨𝙣'𝙩 𝙜𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙗𝙖𝙩𝙨 𝙚𝙮𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 „𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙥𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙘𝙡𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚“

[–] prettybunnys 1 points 2 days ago

I keep reading this and can’t figure out exactly what it means.

Am you broke me?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)
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