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25 comments on Nuclear Britain

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LevinK on March 12, 2006 - 3:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
OK, I figured out that to be factually correct I have to account for strontium-90 being 200 times more radioactive than C-14. This makes it that you already have 7,525,000 million atoms of strontium-90 equivelent in your body only from the C-14. The actual value of naturaly accuring radioactive isotops  in everyone of us would be much higher.
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biffvernon on March 12, 2006 - 5:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Reality rather than wishful thinking:
http://archive.greenpeace.org/mayak/
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biffvernon on March 12, 2006 - 5:22pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
But if you don't want the Greenpeace view you could take it from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
"Some of the radioactive elements in spent fuel have short half-lives (for example, iodine-131 has an 8-day half-life) and therefore their radioactivity decreases rapidly. However, many of the radioactive elements in spent fuel have long half-lives. For example, plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years, and plutonium-240 has a half-life of 6,800 years. Because it contains these long half-lived radioactive elements, spent fuel must be isolated and controlled for thousands of years."
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/brochures/br0216/r2/index.html#how_hazardous_hl w
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LevinK on March 12, 2006 - 5:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
That's why more technologically "advanced" nations like Russia are separating long-lived transuranic elements and are reusing them as nuclear fuel.

Don't get me wrong - the nuclear waste problem is not to be underestimated. But it is largely technically solvable and in many countries is successfully solved. The reason it is not solved sufficiently in western countries is just one - NIMBYSM - and your attitude shows exactly that. For example there are billions accumulated for that storage in Yucca Mountain and still the problem is protracted because some people don't have other purpose in life than denying everything and everywhere.

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LevinK on March 12, 2006 - 5:32pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"Reality" and "Greenpeace" are grossly incompatible words.

And digging out Russian stories dating from Stalin's time is a bright proof for that. Where are the same stories for USA, France, England, Germany? They also store nuclear waste, and much larger amounts BTW. Or you feel nostalgic for early Soviet's Russia? I don't.

So, where are the mutating children, where are the terrorists making dirty bombs and enriching plutonium in their basements? Where?  

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25 comments on Nuclear Britain

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