----- Original Message -----
Sent: 18 janvier, 2005 16:01
Subject: [Winona] RE: Atomic energy
[Winona Online Democracy]
Is the idea of
exploding nuclear waste underwater in the ocean (and then being diluted)
really being considered, as Mel Rennels suggest?
...........
----- Response
-----
I don't know if he was being
serious, or just 'yanking the interviewer's chain', but I recall the late
Edward Teller (who, along
with Stanislaw Ulan, invented what became the most widely
adopted
method for constructing "H"
bombs) claiming that nuclear waste could be mixed with asphalt
and used for ice free parking
lots. The reasoning was that people would be only be
exposed
briefly while the cars
wouldn't be harmed by the more lengthy exposure.
Exploding waste casks four
miles under the ocean surface sounds equally wacky, but I think
that sea water contains quite
a bit of natural uranium but it is uniformly diluted though out the
total amount of sea water on
earth. What the effect would be before the waste material was
completely dispersed would be the issue if, in
fact, the total amount of radiation wasn't excessive
in the
end.
Trying to keep an open
mind,
John N.
Finn
