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Florida state of emergency with millions of gallons of “radioactive wastewater”

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Re: Florida state of emergency with millions of gallons of “radioactive wastewater”

#121

Post by jonnycomputer »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #85
mc32 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

X is enabled by Y does not preclude X being enabled by Z. That's only when its an if and only if, but that isn't the case here. Capitalism and Soviet Communism are neither the only alternative social structures, nor some kind of logical negations of each other. tl;dr would be: logical fallacy!

>If it’s enabled by capitalism, how do we explain Chernobyl

I don't know why I'm being treated like this for posting an obvious truth. Both capitalism and communism have both been root causes for environmental disasters. The question posed is not some clever rebuttal to blaming capitalism, but a simple mistake of reasoning. I guess I'm sorry to have been the one to point it out.

Re: Florida state of emergency with millions of gallons of “radioactive wastewater”

#122

Post by xyzzy21 »

The actual "radioactivity" is due to nature uranium and thorium in the original phosphate rock.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphogypsum

There are NUMEROUS places in the US that have similar or larger NATURAL concentrations of these. Pick any places in the Western US from So Cal to NV to UT to NM back to AZ!!

Naturally NO WHERE in the article or any other references do they give actual numbers (e.g. Sv/hour) for the radioactivity. That actually matters a metric shxt-ton for assessing the actual risk. Without that it's nothing more than a boogie that appears after yelling "radiation".

Re: Florida state of emergency with millions of gallons of “radioactive wastewater”

#123

Post by etc-hosts »

xyzzy21 wrote: post #122

The actual "radioactivity" is due to nature uranium and thorium in the original phosphate rock. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphogypsum There are NUMEROUS places in the US that have similar or larger NATURAL concentrations of these. Pick any places in the Western US from So Cal to NV to UT to NM back to AZ!! Naturally NO WHERE in the article or any other references do they give actual numbers (e.g. Sv/hour) for t…

This giant phosphogypsum stack is not naturally occuring.

Re: Florida state of emergency with millions of gallons of “radioactive wastewater”

#124

Post by freeopinion »

dunce2021 wrote: post #108
freeopinion wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll just put this out there: Let's say a company spends 50 years building up acid ponds or radioactive tailings or what have you. Then new management comes on board and is appalled and tries to start cleaning things up, but realizes they are falling farther behind, so they divert more and more resources to cleaning up. And it drives the company into the ground because the cleanup now costs more money than the compan…

Yes, capitalism is very gay that way

This is not a failing of capitalism. It is a failing of regulation. It is the regulation that discourages management from shutting down the harmful action. To escape punishment, they find another job somewhere else and leave the next victim holding the bag.

Because of the regulation, not even environmental activists are willing to take over because the axe falls on them.

So the idea is appealing, and is as good as any opening of the conversation. But then we see the complications and have to be a little sharper in the iteration of the regulation conversation. And the next iteration has some problems, too.

Pretty soon, people complain that we've made it so expensive to close a mine that nobody can afford to open one. And perhaps that's just the truth. Or perhaps we can be clever enough to force the costs lower than the benefits without compromising the future.

If we manage that, it will still probably make mining much much less appealing to the robber barons of today. It might make mining or industry or what have you so much less lucrative that the big money players might as well open a hot dog stand for the same margins.

That's capitalism.

Re: Florida state of emergency with millions of gallons of “radioactive wastewater”

#125

Post by freeopinion »

dunce2021 wrote: post #108
freeopinion wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll just put this out there: Let's say a company spends 50 years building up acid ponds or radioactive tailings or what have you. Then new management comes on board and is appalled and tries to start cleaning things up, but realizes they are falling farther behind, so they divert more and more resources to cleaning up. And it drives the company into the ground because the cleanup now costs more money than the compan…

Yes, capitalism is very gay that way

If it means anything to you, your expression is offensive to a lot of people. If you only meant to offend capitalists, you might want to reword that.

Re: Florida state of emergency with millions of gallons of “radioactive wastewater”

#126

Post by stillbourne »

There is only one way to fix this problem folks. Privatize the EPA, deregulate wastewater storage, and use the money saved to give the rich a tax cut. The rich will then trickle down into the reservoirs to save us from these problems.

Re: Florida state of emergency with millions of gallons of “radioactive wastewater”

#127

Post by koheripbal »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #40
mc32 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

They didn't say that capitalism caused the problems, they said that capitalism allowed the shirking of responsibility.

...which is also wrong. Because if you read the article, the insurance company footed the bill for the cleanup.

Re: Florida state of emergency with millions of gallons of “radioactive wastewater”

#128

Post by koheripbal »

voisin wrote: post #55
BobbyJo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think people conflate 'capitalism' and 'insufficient regulation'. Capitalism is a framework that requires regulation, even more so than communism or socialism, since the regulations are what defines how the markets work.

I think “insufficient regulation” is an almost necessary byproduct of capitalism. The search for profits leads to regulatory capture in every capitalist society I am aware of. I think this is because it is easier and cheaper to do things like lobby and have a revolving door with regulators and private industry than it is to actually compete with others. Competition is hard.

This is like saying that using hammers leads to eye injuries because people taking shortcuts don't wear their safety goggles.

Regulations are the safety goggles of society. The hammer is not to blame.

Re: Florida state of emergency with millions of gallons of “radioactive wastewater”

#129

Post by IAmEveryone »

iudqnolq wrote: post #13
IAmEveryone wrote: post #5

Quotes for the ages: "The water meets water quality standards for marine waters with the exception of pH, total phosphorus, total nitrogen and total ammonia nitrogen," "Marine water" itself will kill with three or four easy gulps, but I guess this wastewater is going into the ocean? It still sounds a bit too much like "yellow, except for the color, which is blue". Plus I'd expect any industrial wastewater to have lot…

I like the color quote. What's it a reference to? I got no hits on google.

All mine.

Re: Florida state of emergency with millions of gallons of “radioactive wastewater”

#130

Post by throwaway0a5e »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #12

So, how radioactiove exactly it is ? I suppose it's the very bad kind of radioactive too, since water can easily be ingested ?

Covered in TFA, not radioactive enough to be radioactive in anything other than a technical sense. It's still nasty though because it's basically the leftover concentrate from an industrial process.
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