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Plutonium is Forever

cringely.com

71–80 of 100 posts

Re: Plutonium is Forever

#71
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether you measure by hour or by mile air travel is still comparatively safe (1/4th as many fatalities per hour and 1/60th as many fatalities per mile, compared to automobiles).

this is a testament to safety measures in aviation, not to some inherent safety of air travel. inherently, 99.9% of people will die if plane was to collide with another plane or ground. That number is inherently much lower for car collisions. so if we talk about nuclear safety, yes it is very safe compared to some other energy sources. But it also so much more dangerous when nuclear accidents happen than anything els…

"But it also so much more dangerous when nuclear accidents happen than anything else."

This is a facile assumption but it's almost certainly false. The Banqiao dam disaster killed 25,000 people directly, and destroyed 6 million buildings (it caused 145,000 further deaths due to famine). Such a disaster far outstrips even Chernobyl, which was about as maximally bad as any nuclear reactor accident can be (runaway fission reaction generating massive amounts of radionuclides; no worthwhile reactor containment structures; the reactor core melting down, catching on fire, and spewing huge amounts of radiation into the wind).

Re: Plutonium is Forever

#72
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is a testament to safety measures in aviation, not to some inherent safety of air travel. inherently, 99.9% of people will die if plane was to collide with another plane or ground. That number is inherently much lower for car collisions. so if we talk about nuclear safety, yes it is very safe compared to some other energy sources. But it also so much more dangerous when nuclear accidents happen than anything els…

"But it also so much more dangerous when nuclear accidents happen than anything else." This is a facile assumption but it's almost certainly false. The Banqiao dam disaster killed 25,000 people directly, and destroyed 6 million buildings (it caused 145,000 further deaths due to famine). Such a disaster far outstrips even Chernobyl, which was about as maximally bad as any nuclear reactor accident can be (runaway fissi…

now please factor in duration and affected area and population into account when talking about severity of nuclear accidents, the same way you factored in hours and miles when you wrote about aviation safety.

Re: Plutonium is Forever

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems more like an oversight of Wikipedia. If Plutonium isn't chemically toxic, that would make it pretty much the only heavy metal (besides gold) that isn't.

Recent research with one of the least radioactive isotopes of plutonium (plutonium-242, which has a half-life of 376,000 years) indicates that plutonium in the body may contribute to the development of tumors. In general, however, plutonium isotopic mixtures that are commonly encountered in the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear weapons programs, or thermoelectric generator applications exhibit much higher radiological toxi…

This abstract: http://www.rrjournal.org/doi/abs/10.2307/3578993

(albeit a bit hard to read if you don't parse TeX) seems to say that of 144 beagle dogs who inhaled plutonium oxide, 93 died of bone tumors, 46 of lung tumors and 2 of liver tumors. Although I can't figure out from the abstract what the dose was.

Re: Plutonium is Forever

#74
The comment about people who wished that they had written books, in opposition to wishing to actually write one, resonates with me.

"But it’s like those people I meet on airplanes who find out what I do for a living and tell me they would really like to write a book: what they mean is that they would like tohave written a book."

Re: Plutonium is Forever

#75

This disaster has caused me to revisit my concerns regarding nuclear energy. # One of the most challenging technologies ever developed, is under the control of politicians and bankers. A recipe in itself for technical disaster. # Public concerns, under this regime, end up being counter-productive. "No new nukes" means extending the life of the oldest, most vulnerable technology. # Human society has demonstrated no st…

Sigh, its not 'one of the most challenging technologies' its actually rather simple which is why it was developed in the 1940's, a 'challenging' technology would be genetically engineered life forms, only recently managed [1]. Not only are synthetic life forms more technologically challenging, if they escape from the lab the planet is designed to provide them with an environment that allows them to replace all existi…

Actually, if you ingest mercury (the metal), it's not that bad for you. Basically goes right through. It's mercury vapor and various compounds that are dangerous. The ABC article doesn't have enough info to identify what's really in the coal ash.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16973445

Re: Plutonium is Forever

#76
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whether you measure by hour or by mile air travel is still comparatively safe The problem with that measure is that air accidents don't correlate with either hours or miles, but with takeoffs and landings. The comparable incident for cars is probably intersections. Yes, each plane trip involves only one takeoff and landing while each car trip usually involves multiple intersections, but that just means that simple…

What's important for humans is whether spending time in an airplane or in a car is more dangerous and whether choosing to use an airplane or a car for a trip is more dangerous. In either case the airplane is safer than the car.

Most car crashes occur near the home, at distances that make air travel impractical. Who drives to the airport to fly 3 miles? Comparing "car miles driven on trips" to air miles would be more enlightening.

Re: Plutonium is Forever

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually worries me. When I know something about the topic, I find his writing awful and full of problems and obviously dumb. Then, in another area where I know nothing, it seems decent. Is this because it is actually similarly dumb in this other area also, and I just don't know enough to spot it?

Didn't you post this same commentary already? Anyway I agree with you, get my +1; Sry, I mean".".

Nope, I post rarely. And I scanned the comments for something similar that I could just upvote instead. If it's here, I missed it.

Re: Plutonium is Forever

#78
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... It is simply not possible to dismantle a nuclear reactor that close after shutdown -- the power produced by radioactive decay heat right after shutdown is in the order of 10MW, and the core is incredibly hot for weeks. If they had done everything as well as they possibly could, they would not be any closer to dismantling the plants than they are today. The best course would have been to maintain cooling so that n…

Germany?

Because if Germany makes fewer nuclear plants, they'll make more coal plants.

Re: Plutonium is Forever

#79
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... It is simply not possible to dismantle a nuclear reactor that close after shutdown -- the power produced by radioactive decay heat right after shutdown is in the order of 10MW, and the core is incredibly hot for weeks. If they had done everything as well as they possibly could, they would not be any closer to dismantling the plants than they are today. The best course would have been to maintain cooling so that n…

Germany?

They've temporarily shut off all their nuclear plants constructed before 1980. They need to get power from somewhere, and nuclear power has the lowest number of deaths per terawatt-hour of any currently-viable competing energy source.

Coal pollutes the atmosphere and kills miners (among other things). Natural gas has an unpleasant tendency to explode during handling, and is considerably more expensive than coal. And so on.

Re: Plutonium is Forever

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh, its not 'one of the most challenging technologies' its actually rather simple which is why it was developed in the 1940's, a 'challenging' technology would be genetically engineered life forms, only recently managed [1]. Not only are synthetic life forms more technologically challenging, if they escape from the lab the planet is designed to provide them with an environment that allows them to replace all existi…

Actually, if you ingest mercury (the metal), it's not that bad for you. Basically goes right through. It's mercury vapor and various compounds that are dangerous. The ABC article doesn't have enough info to identify what's really in the coal ash. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16973445

FWIW I believe I've located the primary source for most of the ABC News coverage [1]. Its embedded in a scare mongering (I mean public awareness there) site which does not appear to be affiliated with ABC News. [2]

Under full disclosure rules I must share that I am not a chemist.

[1] http://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/coal-ash.pdf

[2] http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/42476.html

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