----- Original Message ----- From: "Deborah Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 5:58 PM Subject: Re: Scouted: Nuclear waste court woes
> <Dan wrote> > > I've looked up the total risk, and after 200 years > > it approaches that of > > the ore that was originally mined. After a million > > years, the risk of > > radiation damage should be far less than that > > incurred by spending the night with someone. > > (System's still slow) > > Ah - my recall may have been thousands of years to > reach "background radiation level" rather than that of > the *ore* (this still isn't the site I recall, which > had hard data rather than prose): > http://www.nea.fr/html/rwm/reports/1995/geodisp/geological-disposal.html > "...Through a system of multiple containment barriers, > this strategy would isolate the wastes from the > biosphere for extremely long periods of time, ensure > that residual radioactive substances reaching the > biosphere after many thousands of years would be at > concentrations insignificant compared for example with > the natural background of radioactivity, and render > the risk from inadvertent human intrusion acceptably > small..." But, look at how rigorous the criterion is: insignificant compared to natural backround radiation. The spice section at Krogers has a radiation level that fails this test by a big margin, one part of it will have radiation far above background. If one of those death of all human stories is true, it will remain far above background for billions of years. Yet, we take things from here and eat it. > Second problem: how can we insure that no humans enter > a hazardous site even a thousand years from now, let > alone a million? Sigh, it is very frustrating that someone as bright and reasonable as you will have such an unfair criterion for nuclear power. We have something that will be a moderate risk in a few hundred years. It is locked up. If civilization continues, its hard to believe that the nature of the waste disposal site will not be understood in 200 years. If it doesn't its unlikely that someone will break in. If they do, maybe a few people would die; maybe not. But, if civilization fails, billions would die. Why have nuclear power held to this standard when there are zillions of other things that are less important that would also fail this criterion without anyone worrying about it. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
