|
Posted by Eeyore on July 2, 2008, 7:11 pm
Please log in for more thread options
Vaughn Simon wrote:
> >
> > Okay, don't containers leak eventually? Isn't there a continuing supply of
> > waste that exceeds the half life of the previous waste - making the storage
> > larger and larger?
>
> First of all, high level nuclear waste should be treated as valuable stuff
> and should be reprocessed.
Arguable perhaps. Preferably when the high level actinides have seriously lost
their
energy.
> This will stretch our fuel supply at the same time
> it reduces the Curies that we must pay to store.
>
> Second, you need to understand a simple fact of physics that the anti-nukes
> leave out when they try to sell nuclear waste as a "problem" . Highly
> radioactive nuclides tend to be those with a short half life. The best start
> for dealing with these is for them to be safeguarded on-site for a year or two
> while they decay. Less radioactive (usually less dangerous) waste tends to
have
> a longer half life. This is the stuff that we need to store under the
mountain,
> but it is less dangerous to transport and store. The anti-nukes love to use
the
> terms "highly radioactive" and "thousands of years" as if the two naturally
went
> together.
>
> > I mean, I'm sort of for nuclear power, but there are some serious negatives.
> > We've already had at least 1.5 melt downs in the world and each individual
> > plant is capable of causing the entire world a problem.
>
> Very quickly, I can think of 2 honest-to-goodness large-scale uncontained
> meltdowns, not 1.5. There are probably more. The entire world is not yet a
> nuclear wasteland.
>
> One happened in the UK (Windscale). You hear virtually nothing about it. It
> did not contaminate the entire world.
The Windscale fire. It wasn't even a nuclear power reactor but a 'pile' to make
plutonium in a rush to make the 'the bomb'. Nothing like that exists even any
more.
> The second happened in Russia. That accident is best described as a crime.
> That plant was a terrible design, and did not even have a containment building.
Shocking.
The new AREVA EPR design has an 8 foot re-inforced concrete containment building.
> Nothing of the sort would ever be allowed in the western world. Horrible as it
> was, it did not contaminate the entire world. In fact, you can now visit:
> www.tourkiev.com/chernobyl.php
You can indeed. Quite a few films are now coming out of Chernobyl. Further still,
older people who had lived there all their lives were eventually allowed to
return
into the area for their mental health. There have been no examples of huge
numbers
of excess deaths.
The Russian RBMK reactor was nothing more than a 'time bomb'. Nothing like it
would
ever pass Western nuclear inspection.
> TMI was not an uncontained event. Little or no radiation left the grounds.
> It did not even come close to contaminating the entire world.
The radiation released was to say the least 'virtually insignificant'.
Trouble is, that doesn't make good 'news'. So it got hyped up.
Gragam
| 
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML Sitemap