On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:10:53AM -0400, Apptech wrote:
> >>  That makes me feel BETTER about a possible nuclear
> >> accident? I guess I
> >>  wasn't paying attention...
> 
> > Point being that we are running risks all the time, and
> > having
> > accidents at a level that would make headline news if they
> > were
> > "nuclear accidents", but since it was "just" a gas tanker
> > or such,
> > somehow it's no big deal.
> 

[Snip to get to the point.]

> Nuclear has the nasty ionising radiation effect which I
> mentioned yesterday and which was noted as a given but not
> addressed.

The radiation is addressed in the engineering of the plant. Nuclear plants
are designed to keep radiation contained even in the event of catastrophic
accidents (earthquakes, plane crashes) and have multiple failsafes in place
to prevent radiation releases.

The point is that you get to a point where you've done all that you can
reasonably do to be safe, and then you live with the residual risk.

My point is that the risk of nuclear accident has been shown so far to be
exceedingly small. In the entire history of US commercial nuclear power
generation, there has not been even a single death that I'm aware of that
has been directly related to radiation exposure.

> It's pervasive enough that it can sneak up on you
> in impossibly small doses such that eg the (largely
> childhood) cancer clusters at Sellafield can't possibly have
> been caused by radiation / nucleotides / ... so are
> stunningly and stupidly rejected by science as 'just
> something that happened" when it is obvious to ALL others
> that the methodology and measurement has holes in it and
> that death and mutation stalks the land invisibly - albeit
> at a very very very small scale. As long as science is going
> to be used as a club to prove white black and black white
> then you are not going to sell yer nuclear cocktails to the
> great unwashed. And even if it's not you will probably have
> a hard time doing so :-).

And that's my frustration. It's all perception. People would rather pump
millions of tons of CO2 and have documented coal mining deaths than to
switch to something that has been proven so far to have minimal
environmental impact and can power our human endeavors cheaply for years to
come. It's just like folks with irrational fears of flying. Sure plane
crashes happen. But the number of deaths per passenger mile flying is so
small as compared to the others, it's not even funny. But folks who
wouldn't step foot on a plane happily jump right in their cars and zip all
over the place.

But money may finally be the deciding factor. When gas gets to $8 USD and
stays there, folks will reconsider alternatives including nuclear.


> While one is working on levelling the playing field one may
> wish to deal with eg DU used in weaponry but sourced from
> nuclear waste so that it contains subtly different trace
> level radio isotope mixes. Quite why people decided to cost
> and corner cut to get rid of their waste profitably this way
> who can tell?

If you use thorium as your base fuel, you don't get usable plutonium for
weapons.

BAJ
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