Apptech wrote:
>> So far we don't have /any/ experience with long
>> term storage of anything.
>>     
>
> But, to agree with you, in case it's not evident :-), 
> examination of things that are very old shows how very very 
> very hard the battle is.
>
>   
>> Heck, we already /know/ that most things we
>> create don't last longer than a few years. How many here 
>> have seriously
>> (professionally) designed something to last a century? I 
>> don't see any
>> hands.
>>     
>
> Nor I.
> BUT I have looked at what it takes, and also looked at aged 
> things with the specific aim of seeing what we are up 
> against.
> Gravestones make interesting indicators of what weather can 
> do.
> Many newer ones are 'gone" in under 50 years or even much 
> under.
> At 100 years the best are getting tired.
> At 200 years the best are marginal.
> At 300-400 years you are stuggling to find anything 
> readable.
> On 700+ year old buildings inscriptions may not be totally 
> gone but are largely so.
> On some 2000 year old buildings you can see the inscriptions 
> passingly well. That usually tells you something about the 
> people in between - not the original designers.
>
> Lest you think that we with our so vastly better technology 
> can do oh so vastly better, work out how much larger 
> oh-so-vast needs to be to do things well enough.
>
>
>   
>> ... plenty of precedence that we /won't/ be able to avoid 
>> many of the tempting
>> shortcuts that may make the difference between stuff going 
>> haywire after
>> we're dead and going haywire a few generations later.
>>     
>
> You set the goalposts far too high.
> When people fake welding inspection certificates for valves 
> in nuclear power plant cooling systems. And when the systems 
> in place, or not in place make it possible to do so, then 
> the odds of the barrels all even getting to the repository 
> intact are only so so.
>
>   
>> I'm not saying that I know whether one or the other is 
>> more dangerous. But
>> you say you do, and that what you say is based on facts. I 
>> just don't see
>> the facts WRT long term.
>>     
>
> Long ago people vitirifed nuclear waste in "barrels".
> Routine measurements subsequently showed that radiation 
> levels at the surface were far higher than they were 
> expected to be.
> Investigation showed that there were 'bugs' (microbes 
> whatever) living in the waste and happily mining it and 
> bringing whatever to the surface. And they probably had 
> really interesting children to boot!
>
> Murphy spits on your best precautions.
> What can go wrong will go wrong.
> What can't go wrong will go wrong anyway.
>
> Certainty that we have done enough or can do enough is 
> always fatal, for almost all values of always, given enough 
> time. And time is something we have more than an average 
> amount of in this case.
>
> This is not to say that we may as well all give up trying 
> and huddle in the corner inspecting the pattern onm the 
> wallpaper. But it should always be kept open as an 
> attractive fallback option :-).
>
> An engineer needs to KNOW that for large and complex 
> projects it is almost impossible to design the overall 
> project and not have it go through a vast number of 
> revisions throughout its construction and operating life. 
> The trouble here is that for most of the operating life "we" 
> won't be around to provide corrective feedback. "But what" 
> you may ask "can go wrong with a passive store in a 
> geologically sound location far below the ground?". The 
> answer is "I don't know and you don't know BUT the answer is 
> 'we don't know' and not 'nothing'".
> Sound alarmist and excessively cautious?
> Why not?
> It is.
>
> But it also may be right.
> And may not in any given case.
> Which case is this one :-) ?
>
>
>
>         Russell
>
>   
We so rarely see eye to eye, Russell... but this is one of the clearest 
explanations
I've ever seen in print.   er... ever consider running for President?


--Bob A
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist