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U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

washingtonpost.com

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Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#41

Post by gnode »

_bxg1 wrote: post #24
momerath wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the belief those in power most want you to hold on to. Elections are a cruel joke. Build guillotines.

And replace elections with what? Democracy is the only system that has ever served any kind of majority of the population. Ours may be in rough shape right now, but burning it all down instead of fixing it helps no one.

> Democracy is the only system that has ever served any kind of majority of the population.

I disagree. Sortition / demarchy, which is the selection of officials randomly from the population (much like a grand jury), has been used throughout history, and is a strong contender. It's exponents tend to state diversity of representation, anti-corruption, and the minimisation of factionalism as advantages.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#42

Post by ccffph »

Krasnol wrote: post #34
ccffph wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very worrying to see comments like this become more and more common on HN. Yes, I will take the waste. If it's in the containers we've developed specifically for this purpose, yes. It beats the current situation in the US where everyone stores waste on site because politicians can't decide where to put it because of people like you. Modern waste, with proper precautions, is safe for long term disposal and storag…

> world-nuclear.org There is nothing more sad out there than linking to a homepage the nuclear lobby uses to drive this artificial nuclear hype we've seen here in the last months.

The page is run by the UN. Who, in your opinion, would be a more reputable source?

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#43

Post by colordrops »

I hear things like "we should go full nuclear, modern nuclear reactors are safe" all the time, yet this ignores externalities, unknown unknowns, human incompetence, and the unexpected. Who would expect the ocean to rise over your nuclear waste dome? Have people suggesting this forgotten the allegory of the unsinkable ship the Titanic? Entropy always wins in the end.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#44

Post by secfirstmd »

colordrops wrote: post #43

I hear things like "we should go full nuclear, modern nuclear reactors are safe" all the time, yet this ignores externalities, unknown unknowns, human incompetence, and the unexpected. Who would expect the ocean to rise over your nuclear waste dome? Have people suggesting this forgotten the allegory of the unsinkable ship the Titanic? Entropy always wins in the end.

Also the costs of disassembly are insane, hidden and have proven to multiply once underway by many many times.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#45

Post by Dduuggrr »

colordrops wrote: post #43

I hear things like "we should go full nuclear, modern nuclear reactors are safe" all the time, yet this ignores externalities, unknown unknowns, human incompetence, and the unexpected. Who would expect the ocean to rise over your nuclear waste dome? Have people suggesting this forgotten the allegory of the unsinkable ship the Titanic? Entropy always wins in the end.

That's true. They used same words before... But after Chernobyl and Fukushima... How they can expect we believe them?

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#46

Post by ben509 »

addicted wrote: post #37
acct1771 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell people around you to stop implicitly trusting centralized power.

Who goes around implicitly trusting central power. In any aspect of their lives. I can literally think of no one I know who wouldn’t respond to me telling them “hey you should stop implicitly trusting central power” by asking what drugs I’m on if I think they implicitly trust central power. I guess this straw man is necessary to create so some can beat it down, but as far as I can tell such people don’t actually exis…

> Who goes around implicitly trusting central power. In any aspect of their lives.

It's required for the government to provide a "social safety net" and more broadly for the Progressive vision of society. That includes Progressive-era reforms in education and retirement, as well as Progressive inspired reforms in healthcare and welfare, esp. the Great Society.

These reforms are predicated on the notion of a government agency collecting statistical data and reviewing comments from the public to determine policy that provides baseline services and acts as a buffer to economic variance.

Note also "implicit" trust. Trust is transitive: you might trust in some service the government provides without necessarily understanding that the service relies on some centralized power. Thus you might not explicitly trust a central authority, but because you rely on the services it provides you may be implicitly trusting it.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#47

Post by yongjik »

colordrops wrote: post #43

I hear things like "we should go full nuclear, modern nuclear reactors are safe" all the time, yet this ignores externalities, unknown unknowns, human incompetence, and the unexpected. Who would expect the ocean to rise over your nuclear waste dome? Have people suggesting this forgotten the allegory of the unsinkable ship the Titanic? Entropy always wins in the end.

Ironically, if we did go full nuclear, the oceans probably wouldn't have risen, saving us from a cracking nuclear dome and an untold number of other hassles.

Sure, nuclear power is not 100% safe, but its "worst case" pales in comparison to fossil fuel's "guaranteed outcome by 2100."

I'm OK with building, say, solar instead of nuclear. I'm definitely NOT OK with keeping fossil fuel where nuclear is available, while paying a lip service saying "Oh don't worry, in 30 years maybe we will switch to renewables."

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#48

Post by erentz »

sailfast wrote: post #36
erentz wrote: post #12

The US needs to go in and clean up this mess and should feel very obligated to move quickly on this, but is hasn’t. See also this article from 2015 [1] and folks may enjoy this video for the visuals of it [2]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/runit-dome-pac... [2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=autMHvj3exA

That would be a nice thing to do, but per the article in 1983 the Marshall Islands traded US liability for nuclear issues as part of their move to self-government. That is not to say that some Federal-level support is not warranted like other Superfund sites, but that it may not be the total and complete responsibility of the US Federal government to resolve the issue, as agreed to legally by both parties.

Shivetya up thread posted a PDF report that's quite an interesting read, so it's not being totally ignored by the US gov.

I agree they signed an agreement, still I'd expect us to do the clean up, agreement aside, we made the mess, have what's needed to fix it. The Marshall Islander's are a poor nation that could not afford to fix this without assistance. It's the neighborly thing to do.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#49

Post by gtirloni »

Dduuggrr wrote: post #45
colordrops wrote: post #43

I hear things like "we should go full nuclear, modern nuclear reactors are safe" all the time, yet this ignores externalities, unknown unknowns, human incompetence, and the unexpected. Who would expect the ocean to rise over your nuclear waste dome? Have people suggesting this forgotten the allegory of the unsinkable ship the Titanic? Entropy always wins in the end.

That's true. They used same words before... But after Chernobyl and Fukushima... How they can expect we believe them?

This is not a matter of faith in some group of people ("them"). What's your point? That the whole nuclear industry, full of scientists and engineers can't be trusted with their studies?

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#50

Post by Someone »

Shivetya wrote: post #13

PDF of report done in 2013 [1] which basically says and leaks will rapidly dilute. The key to remember is the lagoon and surrounding areas are already far more polluted than what this dome may leak. Besides, if ever want a real scare go look at the maps for all the chemical munitions dumped in our oceans that we know about [2] - does not include normal munitions and such. So while it is a problem it is not the real p…

News from a few weeks ago https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/02/first-world-war-...:

”Deadly mustard gas has leaked from a First World War underwater “weapons cemetery” in the North Sea, close to the Belgian coast”

Those were trace amounts, so there is not much immediate danger, but things can get worse.

And for normal munitions, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_in_the_Battle_of_Messi... probably lists a few of the scariest (a few 10,000+ kg stashes of explosives buried in Belgium since World War One. One of them exploded in 1955 after a lightning strike, showing that they were still dangerous after fortie-is years; a few others still buried somewhere)

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