Outstanding!
Posted on 01/26/2006 10:59:55 PM PST by neverdem
Can't wait to see the Seattle Dumb-as-a-Post-Intelligencer editorial on this.
What would the environazis rather want? Radiation waste poisoning the environment for thousands of years or a constant source of relatively cheap and clean energy?
I think the author of this piece left out a "little" something...
Edwin Lyman of the *Nuclear Control Institute
Physicist Edwin Lyman and the Union of Concerned Scientists say the nuclear industry should be regulated more like the airline industry, because even though the risk of catastrophe is low, the consequences are so dire that everyone takes it seriously.
* The Nuclear Control Institute, founded in 1981, is a research and advocacy center for preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. Non-profit and non-partisan, NCI is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization supported by philanthropic foundations and individuals.
http://www.nci.org/index.htm
It's from AP...sheesh...Isn't that expected?
Jimmy Carter was, and continues to be, an idiot who thinks he knows better that anybody else, including nature, and nature's creator, God.
Outstanding!
Whatever hampers the success and prosperity of the USA. The environment is a vehicle for them, not a true concern.
The "Union of Communist Scientists" opposes this, just like they opposed missile defence, and every other technology benneficial to the US.
The environazis would prefer we were dead and they, the few, the enlightened, were living in harmony ( cue la-la song from Bambi) with nature.
Fantasy has become a darker delusion there, imo.
I've always had a problem with the Left's concerns about the Yucca storage facility. They act as if technology stands still. Their refrain is "what if somebody digs this up 10,000 years from now-people could get killed-Oh my".
Hell, in 10,000 years they may be trying to dig it up for use in fusion reactors for all we know.
My great Grandmother in law read about the Wright Brother's first flight and now we have 747's and the Space Shuttle.
And the pace of technological change will continue, unless some Islamofacist takes us back to the third century.
And talking about the great religon that is Islam, I'm still waiting for my Achmed computer, or a "Mohamed Inside" chip.
Rant off.
Geesh.
Sure, the climate there is dry (now) and that may not pose a problem, but climate changes.
Where I sit at this moment was inundated by continental glaciers over a kilometer thick, in the past 10,000 years. Similar changes, doubtless occurred elsewhere.
It is unlikely that the area will remain desert for the next 10,000 years, and groundwater leaching of the waste remains a possibility, and a potenitally serious liability for future generations.
That said, I am not anti-nuke, and the more of this material that is reprocessed and used, the less ends up in the hill (and stored in pools on reactor/power plant sites, which may be far worse than the mountain).
Waste disposal remains one of the key problems for nuclear power's engineers to overcome. When I was in grad school, no one in the world had a viable long-term solution. Yucca may be, then again, it may not.
Only now we add the problem of needing to guard high level waste, on site and in transit, because it is the raw material for a 'dirty bomb'.
| What would the environazis rather want? |
| Something to bitch about. |
Valid points all, Mr.Joe. My thought is that sufficient encasements exit (and are curently planned for use in Yucca) to alleviate these concerns. I've seen documentaries ( Discovery channel, I think ) that indicate the containers have survived a collision with a locomotive without breach.
This would appear to be suffcient for at least several generations.
Worst case, Yucca would like the proving grounds in Nevada.
Which is OK in today's climate.
A couple of thousand years from now, if the roof leaks, so to speak, and the area gets significant rainfall, those hot containers might corrode away. I wouldn't want to be drinking from a well near that...
Not thinking this as an alarmist, but a responsible individual, and as a geologist.
The whole question could be rendered moot by anything from a pandemic to an impact to the Second Coming in that time frame, anyway.
Some of those isotopes are nasty stuff, though.
When I worked down that way, (on oil rigs), every now and then you'd see a blur of bird or something in the edge of the headlights while driving at night. We used to joke about "just another critter from the test site.."
Mr. Joe,
What I'm thinking is that a thousand years from now, who knows what technology will exist?
According to the Leftists, global warming will make us extinct anyway.
I respect your opinion as a Geologist, as I spent time on Offshore rigs as a Field Engineer for Schlumberger in a (seemingly) previous life, working closely (as you might imagine) with Geologists.
Smart dudes, most with Phd's.
Amazing knowledge of history, among other things.
I think it is relevant that I was leaving the oil patch there were ex-Slob guys making fortunes opening previously capped wells due to advances in-you guessed it-well production technologies
I will respectfully defer to your opinion, as my expertise is Mechanical Engineering.
Mike
I figure we'll either be spread out in the solar system at a minimum, or back to knapping flint to go hunt dinner--it could go either way.
Leftists have trouble adapting to change, and problems living with things they can't control, so maybe they will be the ones who will be (philosophically) extinct should global warming persist, whatever the cause may be (I personally think it is a natural cycle which humans have no significant impact on.)
Most of the Schlumberger hands I have met are pretty sharp guys. Why'd you quit? (I have stayed "feet dry" my whole career, intentionally,--especially after I was informed there was no fishing allowed from the rigs. That shot it for me right there.)
I know what you are saying about technology, too. I have been working horizontal wells in the Williston Basin since 1990, (I started in '79) and things have really changed.
Bravo!!!
About time!
"I've always had a problem with the Left's concerns about the Yucca storage facility. They act as if technology stands still. Their refrain is "what if somebody digs this up 10,000 years from now-people could get killed-Oh my". Hell, in 10,000 years they may be trying to dig it up for use in fusion reactors for all we know. "
Yeah ... and never mind that in 1,000 years (let alone 10,000 yrs) 99.999% of the radioactivity will be long *GONE* and the radiation level would be lower than in natural uranium deposit.
The Bush plan is spot on ... nuclear 'waste' is actually just spent fuel that has about 95% of its latent energy left. If recycling is good for paper, plastic and coke cans, why not for nuclear fuel?
one real simple solution to nuclear used fuel (aka 'waste') is really simple:
1) Let the stuff cool off for 50 years
2) Take out the trans-uranic elements and reuse them as fuel
This alone reduces the amount of actual nuclear waste by a factor of 20 to 60.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.