Why all the failures to natural disasters?

to

down

to

there

civilized

You don't think that it might be hard to find a jurisdiction that would accept all that caesium-137? What political entity to you belong to? It would probably take 30 half-lives before it was safe to handle, and that's a thousand years or so. "Relatively short", I don't think.

Be nice. It's not your sentence, it's mine, and I like it that way.

In the grand scheme of things, even Chernobyl was a fairly minor event, whereas nuking nuke plants would make vast areas into lethal desert for a long, long time. Life can survive a lot, and I think it's irresponsible not to think out the consequences of our actions simply because we won't be around to see them.

There, there, you're getting all upset. I don't like to think about the dangers of nuclear war either, but not discussing them won't make them go away. On-site storage of spent fuel makes nuclear war much, much worse, and that doesn't just apply to a full nuclear exchange with Russia or China. One 20-kt bomb on Indian Point (about 10 miles from where I live) would very likely make NYC uninhabitable for a long time--whereas Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been rebuilt.

The amount of residual radioactivity from fission products makes it very unlikely that a terrorist organization could get hold of plutonium from spent fuel, unless they were willing to wait, say, ten thousand years. Once it's reprocessed, and you have plutonium being transported around the world, that very useful safeguard is lost. That's the issue with mixed oxide fuel.

I don't think transportation is such a big issue. Given the energy density of nuclear fuel, you could ship one pellet at a time in a truckload of lead bricks, and still come out way ahead.

I'm not against reprocessing per se, but in the last forty years we've learned a few things about the politics of it all.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal
ElectroOptical Innovations
55 Orchard Rd
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058

email: hobbs (atsign) electrooptical (period) net
http://electrooptical.net

I responded to your proposition but my answer did'n appear. Why?

nk that it

chanism,

too stupid to

e issues of

e safe and

esponse

rs it seems

at are in

crashing down

build the

nnate right to

afe and there

is post and

and civilized

for a while

ome of the

actors,

are

ods to

well.

uered

uel

in

o

ith

28&...

The political ramifications of North Korea letting off it's sole nuclear warhead next to a nuclear reactor wouldn't look anything like the end of civilisation as we know it (or as the North Koreans would like to have known it).

Most of the powers that have more nuclear weapons have rather more to lose.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

The older folk in Japan certainly knew about tsunami risk. Their entire coastline is dotted with carved stone markers, some dating back

600 years, recording locations of severe tsunami damage in the past. The nuclear power plants are located in known danger zones. It is not possible to hold off a tsunami with a wall- it is tantamount to holding back the ocean, the wave height will increase to whatever level necessary to relieve the enormous momentum behind it- the best that can done is to divert it and/or build on higher ground, either natural or manmade. The Japanese know all about this.

I was referring to the height of the seawall, not the tsunami.

--
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not 
tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth

In sci.math J. Clarke wrote: ...

...

The question was related to deaths due to the existence of a nuclear vs some other kind of power plant.

You can die "because" of "radiation" due to indirect causation. If someone downs too many iodine pills and dies, e.g.

--
If your ideas are any good you'll have to ram them down people's throats. 
  -- Howard Aiken

hat it

ism,

stupid to

sues of

fe and

nse

t seems

re in

shing down

ld the

e right to

and there

ost and

civilized

a while

of the

rs,

to

.

ed

l n e

At least you don't expect big quakes. There is more than 80% chances of 8.0 or bigger quake hitting San OnoFre within my life time. It could contaminate the whole Los Area of S.CA. Economic loses will be felt all over the US. I don't care about my life, but it's criminal against my kids and yours, if we just ignore the facts.

Rail guns are silly. A rocket, or even a cannon, works a lot better.

John

ery

or

d the

sk

afaik germany have had nuclear waste in an old saltmine since the 70s but it has started leaking contaminated water

how about some of the places that have been used for nuclear testing, they must be contaminated no go zones anyway?

-Lasse

it

pid to

of

nd

ems

n

g down

he

ght to

there

and

lized

ile

he

it's a bit difficult to move the spend fuel rods off site if you can only move them with a robot, while keeping them under water to keep then cooled and contain the radiation. I'm sure they move them after a few years

-Lasse

t it

m,

tupid to

es of

and

e

seems

in

ing down

the

right to

d there

t and

vilized

while

the

,

San OnoFre is next to Marine Camp Pendleton (17 coastal miles, 125,000 acres). They have all the equipments and man powers to move and secure it, if only temporary. Even on the other side of I-5 is safer (20 feet higher). It is absolutely stupid to store nuclear materials at sea level. As they found out (and should have known), you can't use sea water to cool nuclear reactors anyway.

| > The tsunami put boats, cars and a house on top of three storey | > buildings. It was 40 feet high, not 12 feet. | | I was referring to the height of the seawall, not the tsunami. | And then you snipped references to images showing the height of the seawall. Now only the foundations remain. Fukushima had NO defences to cope with this sort of thing.

l's

orribly

t?)

Once the sea water went over the top. The seawall was holding the flood water inside the reactors, even after the tsunami was gone.

that it

mechanism,

too stupid to

issues of

safe and

response

it seems

are in

crashing down

build the

innate right to

and there

post and

civilized

a while

of the

reactors,

That assumes that nobody starts retaliating against the wrong enemy. But why would North Korea do that and how would they get their weapon to Europe?

You won't be able to say that humans didn't predict the abnormally rapid warming on a global scale.

You can predict anything you choose. Anyone can do that, having your lame prediction come to reality, is another matter alltogether.

Chow

No cannon has ever existed that could launch anything into the sun, or even into orbit. Rockets can but the effort is hugely expensive. Some sort of electromagnetic launcher, if it can deliver the required velocity, would be far cheaper to run.

Once the sea water went over the top. The seawall was holding the flood water inside the reactors, even after the tsunami was gone. ================================================ The evidence is available on Google Earth, you only need to look. The tsunami didn't go "over the top", it pushed the sea wall out of the way like a locomotive meeting a car on a rail crossing.

I was pointing out that the seawall would have coped with lesser tsunamis, but the situation was too great for it to have withstood. No one has the resources to cope with a 40-ft tsunami--not even the Dutch.

--
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not 
tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth