Re: Nuclear Power - the only answer.



septicdoodledandy@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> Deirdre wrote:
>
> > Right, now I understand...you're not afraid of
> > the radiation emitted from a material, you're
> > scared of the material itself. Gee, that makes
> > _perfect_ sense.
>
> I honestly think something must not be functioning correctly inside
> your head.

Aye? Now you're qualified to determine that?
You're the wonder of the modern age.

> 24,000 years from now half of the plutonium 239 buried at Chernobyl
> will still be there. Will still be deadly.

So what? 24,000 years from now _all_ of the
cadminum, arsenic and chemical nasties will still
be in the waste dumps...assuming, of course,
they haven't leached into the watershed. Does
that somehow make you happier?

> > So? Are you planning on having a picnic there?
> > Have you any idea how much contaminated land
> > there is in the UK? Of course there's a waste
> > problem...there's a waste or pollution issue with
> > _every_ power generation scheme, why are you
> > so blind to that fact? Is black lung or silicosis a
> > better way to die? Are you of the impression
> > there's no waste connected to any other type
> > of power?
>
> No and where did I utter such a thing? Is it okay to accutely poison
> small portions of the planet versus more generally poisoning the entire
> planet? These are value judgments. I don't see one as any more
> attractive than the other. The USA alone has literally thousands of
> superfund sights. Is any of it acceptable?

"Sites"...no one sightsees at any of them. And
so what if the US has Superfund sites? Every
place does, at least they've identified the ruddy
things which is more than most places can say.
Do you know how much of your life is dependent
on "Superfund sites" to be? Every refinery will
become one...every chemical plant...every place
that manufactured _anything_ prior to the rel-
atively recent awareness of contaminated land
is a potential Superfund site.

Shall they all stop doing business? Do you want
them to shut their doors and change your life-
style? Are you unable to accept the fact that
humans leave waste in their wake and always
have?

> Can a cadmium mess be cleaned up in fewer than 24,000 years, Deirdre?

Sure...mind you it's both a carcinogen and a
teratogen, so if you don't die of cancer the
next few generations might have flippers for
arms, but what does it matter if it meets your
standards for cleanliness? And, of course,
even cleaned up it has to be put _somewhere_,
but don't let little details like where it's to go
trouble you...is it okay with you if we use your
back garden?

> > Geothermal is high in sulphur, ammonia, methane
> > and carbon dioxide...but what's a few greenhouse
> > gases as long as they don't glow in the dark? The
> > sludge produced is laden with chlorides, mercury,
> > arsenic, nickel and vanadium...none of which are
> > friendly customers. Where's it going to go? What
> > sort of cancer would you like to die from?
>
> There are no free rides and I never said there were. You are claiming
> the risk is minimal but to me, any risk of vast portions of the land
> becoming uninhabitable for centuries is too great a risk.

You don't _know_ the risks...you're assuming
you do and you're assuming that a nuclear waste
site is somehow more dangerous than a chemical
one...because it has radiation. They are _all_ dan-
gerous and at least the nuclear ones have the ad-
vantage of being centralised. You don't even _know_
where the chemicals ones are.

> > Nuclear power plants do not emit the combustion by-
> > products of carbon, nitrogen and sulphur oxides, they
> > do not contribute to Global Warming (assuming it's a
> > correct model). What waste they produce is the most
> > compact of any power generation scheme...but every-
> > one knows the devastation a nuclear bomb can cause,
> > therefore all nuclear entities are equally devastating
> > and all radiation is dangerous. Nothing will ever change
> > with the technology of nuclear power, no discoveries
> > for dealing with the waste will ever be made, no one
> > is looking at the problem and no one cares...it will never
> > improve. Is that what you believe?
>
> I do know that more money is being spent finding out about nuclear
> power 'solutions' than is being spent to find out about other forms of
> energy because politicians and governments are just as lazy as anybody
> else in the end. The waste is compact and several orders of magnitude
> more deadly.

I have an alpha emitter in a flask in one hand and a
flask of arsenic in the other. I spill them both (I'm
having a clumsy day) on myself. Which one kills me?

> Care to read about what happens to a country when something bad happens
> with nuclear power plants? Here's a Guardian article about the
> Chernobyl tragedy you love to minimise.
>
> http://century.guardian.co.uk/1990-1999/Story/0,6051,112665,00.html

I don't rely on newspapers for my information,
so sorry your mileage varies.

> It looks like no place for a picnic for the next few centuries. To me,
> this is the potential real cost of the of risk putting in loads of
> nuclear power plants. It will only take one accident to see them all
> shut down again. Every one of them. Each plant costing billions of
> pounds.

To assume the Russians are the poster children for
nuclear safety is your first mistake. These are the
folks who topedoed their own genetic research. To
assume modern plants use the antiquated and flawed
design of Chernobyl is your second one. To assume
that modelling programmes are _fact_ and not pro-
jection is your third. Shall I go on or would you like
to stop now and explain how you're comparing apples
to oranges and getting lemons?

Deirdre
.

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