WIPPED

[Speedster]

My play on the "Tru-Pack" container used to transport nuclear waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southern New Mexico.  The "latest" in high-tech design from the Department of Energy.

Backstory:

In the late 1980's the United States Department of Energy (DOE) was attempting to open WIPP, a $19,000,000,000 underground nuclear waste storage facility carved into the ancient salt beds some 2000 feet deep below Carlsbad, NM.  It was to permanently entomb (for 10,000 years) the highly radioactive plutonium trans-uranic waste from the production of atomic bombs.  They were planning to transport the stuff in rudimentary containers on public roads, with a high likelihood of catastrophic accidents.

I co-founded a "nuclear safety" (if there can be such a thing) organization called Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, or CCNS, which grew to thousands of supporters including government officials, Native American tribal leaders, businesses and concerned citizens. They are still active. We and other organizations held protests and demonstrations, testified before Congress, held hearings and filed lawsuits.  We finally prevailed in the highest courts, and forced the Department of Energy to hold SEIS, or Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, hearings in dozens of cities and state capitols, and covered by international media. The DOE was forced to entirely re-design the WIPP facility and especially the transportation modality for waste.

WIPP was guaranteed to be entirely safe, and there would never be any problems.  "Trust us, we're the Government".

WIPP opened in 1999.  Several weeks ago an accident happened, likely a collapse of one of the caverns, that apparently ruptured one or more containers.  The resulting radiation leak made it to the surface, exposing 13 or more above-ground workers to the deadly radiation.  WIPP is closed indefinitely as they try to determine how severe the leak is, what caused it, and what to do about it.  And frankly, how to even get to it!

Our many thousands of pages of expert and scientific testimony indicated this would happen.  But of course they did not listen to us.

SolidWorks, KeyShot and Photoshop.  Trying for an illustration style, so I did a "toon" with crisp lines, then dropped out the white and used only the lines as a layer above the beauty shot, with levels.

Fun, but scary...  "What-Ever".  Ancient pre-KeyShot Route 66 backplate, which is much of the "WIPP Trail".

Bill G

[TpwUK]

Crazy good Bill

Martin

[Ruckus]

LOL - at first seeing the images, anyway.
Great job, dripping with satire & who knows what else. 

Not quite so funny in reality. 

[thomasteger]

Love it. I remember the backplate well ;-)

[Josh3D]

The toon image has a great look to it Bill. Nice!

[feher]

Love it. I remember the backplate well ;-)

lol.....So do I
Nice work Bill !

[alp]

Really nice Bill !

[Speedster]

Thanks, guys.  I submitted the toon render to a newspaper in New Mexico, and the editor responded with confirmation for print as an Editorial page "cartoon".  Hope they print it!

Next week the WIPP management company hopes to send in a robot with sensors and a camera in an attempt to find out what happened, and what to do. 

My concept shows how we all perceived it back in 1988.  Here's what the Tru-Pack looks like today. 

Bill G