The headline saying “gallons” doesn’t really imply “550 gallons“ which was the actual amount. That’s a lot of pollution.
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
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You know those giant white plastic cube storage tanks that hold 1000L? They dumped the equivalent of two of those full of toxic waste.
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.
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Well, 12 gallons, contaminating 500 that they pumped out.
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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.
“Storage of sodium hydroxide requires a City permit, which Tesla had not obtained.”
Elon does not care about laws and it's been shown over and over that he doesn't have to.
When the penalty is a fine, it isn't a penalty to the rich.
"Cost of doing business."
He obviously does, he's not storing it anymore after spilling it out now is he?
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.
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...
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.
Ah, that makes more sense then.
But lye as well?
Edit: never mind, that discussion says also lye.
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.
If it's anything like the places I work, they specifically tell you to be very careful about what you wash away.
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.
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.
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.
That’s quite a liquid-cooled computer that they’ve got going on.
Well... it's air-cooled now.
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.
“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.
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!"
Tesla out here trying to kill the Toons from ToonTown!
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.
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.
Borax and lye are both cleaning agents.
That's what I thought, but Tesla is claiming that it was coolant.
They're cleaning agents individually; I can't speak to what they are when combined.
Looks like they are also a cleaning product when combined.
https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1992/10/04/lye-soap-recipes-and-warnings/
But of course that doesn't necessarily mean it can't also be used as a coolant.
From what I understand, neutrino detectors involve what is essentially a swimming pool full of dish soap.
That's why Teslas are expensive and shitty. They're diverting effort and funds to neutrino detection.
Lye and oil makes soap, not lye and borax. The key in all these recipes is lye and oils, not lye and borax for anyone who isn't going to click on the link and start mixing these chemicals. Lye can be real nasty if you don't know how to handle it. It's one of those chemicals where the safety precautions are there for a reason, not because it's normal practice.
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Presumably they were cleaning the coolant lines, same as flushing a vehicle radiator
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
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.
i have no idea what they were cooking but it's not coolant, unless temperature there never drops below 0C
I think @ChicoSuave above figured it out. It was used to flush the coolant.
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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Musk spewing bile, as usual.
"Because at this point, why the hell not"
—Elon Musk, probably
This is why you dont liquid cool your stuff without proper maintenance
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