On 8/30/06, Mike Hord wrote: > > > As James said a while back (and I'm paraphrasing), "just take the waste > back > > to the mining site, and spread it thin". Nuclear waste is less > radioactive > > in the long term, than uranium ore. > > There are a couple of flaws with that reasoning: > 1. If it were less radioactive, it would have a longer halflife than raw > uranium. It doesn't. Shorter halflife=>faster breakdown=>more > radiation. It's a fuzzy picture, but given that 100% of the atoms must decay over time, wether they break down all in the next week, or over the next milinneum, the same amount of total radiation is released. I'm not sure which is really better. The decay products vary, and an alpha emitter on your ceiling (smoke detector) is harmless, but one inhaled or ingested is pretty likely to give you cancer. It seems a good idea to me to capture some of that wasted heat energy from the radioactive wastes. Right now we just keep it cool as best we can by pouring water over it so it doesn't get hot enough to catch fire. Why not run a few big Stirling engines? Even capturing 10% of that waste heat is more than we do now. Nuclear-waste powered Stirling engines? :) -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist