Re: Nuclear waste

On Mon, 01 May 2006 15:01:33 +0100, sidthedid <spam@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Cynic wrote:
On Sun, 30 Apr 2006 05:10:01 +0100, sidthedid <spam@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

As I said, an infitisimal proportion of the World's population.

So just keep on building them then until we have enough people affected
that it's time to stop? Why not stop now before the damage is done?

Because the better we get at building them, the safer they become so
the chance of another incident is infintisimal.

So I was able to specify a generator that was suitable for my needs,
but the designer of a nuclear generator was completely unable to carry
out such a task correctly?

I should not think that the power requirements of *only* the cooling
system is particularly enormous.

I'm sure the facts and figures are available somewhere, and if not at
the one I saw, in subsequent ones at least I concede it quite likely
they would have backup power that was adequate. The human element is
where things go wrong. People skipping procedures, getting lazy, taking
shortcuts. That cannot be designed for in any case.

Yes it can. Plenty of ways to check and backup human operators in
tdy's computer world, especially in a predictable, controlled
environment.

I was thinking of a study rather than anecdotal evidence. I could
tell you about a curious study that showed that there was a 400%
difference in the cancer rate of people living on the prevalent
downwind section of a coal-0fired power station compared with those in
the surrounding areas. Though the total numbers were such that it is
not statistically significant.

I'm not arguing the benefits of coal fired power stations, or that coal
is a clean fuel (although depending on carbon content how dirty it is
varies). If you want links to studies showing increased leukemia and/or
types of cancers in vicinity or plants i'm sure there are some, and i'm
sure you can provide me with BNFL studies that argue the opposite. They
spend a lot of time and money trying to refute any studies that produce
results they don't like.

Quite. Results where the figures are borderline for statistical
relevance are not at all persuasive.

No, but it will be possible to *understand* our language. And the
fact that there is nuclear waste buried at a particular place is
unlikely to get forgotten unless there were to be a mamouth disaster
that wipes out everyone in a large geographical area.

But long before 210000 years, I am certain that a better way to deal
with the waste will be found. Probably by extracting more useful
energy from it.

The second law of thermodynamics... more useful energy will not be
extracted from waste, its a case of diminishing returns.

Waste is in the eye of the beholder. I remember when the slagheaps
around Johannesburg were being dug up because improved processes meant
that more gold could be extracted from the "waste". The fact that the
waste is radioactive mean that it is capable of providing energy -
just that we have no method today of doing so economically.

"The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that "in all energy exchanges,
if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the
state will always be less than that of the initial state." This is also
commonly referred to as entropy. "

I know - which means only that the waste has less energy than when it
started off as fuel - *not* that t contains negligible energy.

My point was that in such a long time from now, our civilisation may
not, and most likely will not, exist. Language will be changed, wars
will have been fought, droughts, floods, who knows. Assuming it will be
possible to understand our language for people in a time period longer
than we have even had language is a big ask. What written records will
last that time also, on what kind of media?

Plenty of things will last. Heck, we have written records from
thousands of years ago, and technology has come a *long* way since
then.

And if we wipe each other out in a huge nuclear war, the danger
presented by a few parcels of buried nuclear waste will be irrelevant.

--
Cynic

.

Relevant Pages

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