----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Crystall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, July 02, 2001 1:31 PM
Subject: Re: Bill Moyers Reports: Earth on Edge
> On 2 Jul 2001, at 11:15, Dan Minette wrote:
>
> > I'll agree that firing the waste into the sun is not practical, and
> > should not be considered as a potential solution.
>
> Why not? We're talking about the less than 1% of the waste which
> be radioactive for thousands of years...
>
There are a few problems that I see.
First, which radioactive isotopes are you thinking about. I know of very
long lived ones, like uranium(>1 billion year half life), and middling lived
ones, like cesium (30 year half life IIRC), and maybe americium at 200
years. But, I don't know of any isotopes offhand that have half lives in
the thousands of years.
Second, the risk of the space plane crashing will be higher than the risk of
leakage from a salt mine.
Third the amount of reptatively redundant safety measures that can be
purchased with the cost of putting something into the sun is overwhelming.
Dan M.
