Obama giving go ahead for Georgia nuke

[--Pete]

Hi,

Well, Plutonium is highly toxic, but not in it's pure form and not because of radioactivity. Plutonium Oxide is one of the most lethal poisons in existance. If you get even a small amount in your system, you will die, quite painfully I might add. A few mg of Plutonium Oxide is all that is needed to kill even the healthiest of individuals.

Well, this discusses this in some detail. It would appear that plutonium oxide is one fifth as lethal as cyanide if ingested, but five times as lethal if inhaled as a fine powder. Even inhaled, it takes "about 20 milligrams of plutonium dust of optimal size would be necessary to cause death within roughly a month from pulmonary fibrosis or pulmonary edema." Compare that with botulism where the quantities needed are in nanograms. Indeed, plutonium oxide is more in the range of nicotine.

Yes, it is toxic. No, it is nowhere near the toxicity that was assigned to it at Los Alamos in the early 1940's. And it is nowhere near the scare levels that the alarmists would have us believe.

--Pete

[eppie]

This is more to expand on what Pete is saying.

Western style reactors are nigh impossible to meltdown now, in most designs it takes an act of sabotage to cause the meltdown due to so many passive design safety measures. One design I know of uses natural bouyancy to have the normal coolant water flow over the reacotr with a borated water in a trouph pool below. If the coolant starts to boil off, the borated water then flows upwards and over the reactor shutting it down without operator involvment. There are other designs even more elegant that this.

Here in Sweden they have to shut down reactors a few times per year, because of 'issues'.

The funny thing is that some of the rabid environmentalists don't realize that some of the power options they push have very detrimental effects on the environment. Wind power tends to kill large numbers of migrant birds,

Southern europeans tend to kill a large number of migrant birds.....the kinds that we in the north try to protect.

hydro tends to cause issues with fish stocks

Fishing and polution causes issues with fish stocks. We don't have that issue in the baltic at least because you are not supposed to eat to much of it (radioactive and heavy metal polution)

and removal of habitats for some animals, geothermal can't be done on large scales except in very specific areas and it lowers the water pressure of the area over time, tidal can only be done on a coastal area with significant altitudual changes of the coast line (works on the west coast of the US, not so well on the east), and solar isn't that effected on large scale either (typically a solar plant to supply a city will end up taking up twice the size of the city to supply everyone with power).

If you look at all the pros and cons, Nuclear really is the best choice for large scale power production.

I cannnot say I am 100% against nuclear, but I think we can do so much better. I mean if we would have spend all the money that was paid to bail out the banks last year on production of windturbines and solar-pannels we would have covered a significant amount of our energy need. And as a bonus we would have jobs for many, many people.

[eppie]

Hi,

The same holds true for many of the materials in radioactive waste. The most toxic materials known are almost all naturally occurring bio-toxins. You're safer around plutonium than you are around preserves put up by a beginner. Botulism is the "1000's of times more lethal".

--Pete

it also only takes one photon from the sun to give you skin cancer and kill you. (if only we knew which one)

[kandrathe]

I agree with the rest of your statement, but this bit is just a common misconception.

I actually wasn't thinking of plutonium... More the short half life (>5 years & < 30 years), high alpha emitting isotopes (e.g. Cesium137, Stontium90), most sites let the spent fuel chill for some number of years to ensure the most dangerous isotopes have become spent. The most active stuff has half-life in the < 10 days.

[Lissa]

I actually wasn't thinking of plutonium... More the short half life (>5 years & < 30 years), high alpha emitting isotopes (e.g. Cesium137, Stontium90), most sites let the spent fuel chill for some number of years to ensure the most dangerous isotopes have become spent. The most active stuff has half-life in the < 10 days.

Ummmm...most fission fragments are Beta emitters, Gamma emitters, or Neutron emitters. There are very few Alpha emitters below Lead (Pb). Cesium and Strontium both emit high energy betas, but, so long as they don't get internalized, are relatively harmless external to the body.

And the reason for the cooling off period is two fold, to allow the short lived isotopes to decay away while getting read of excess residule heat (nuclear waste makes a great space heater... :whistling:).

And as to most active, it doesn't even exist before the "waste" is removed from the reactor as it takes several weeks for the fuel removal/addition to take place. Typically the reactor is shutdown for a 3 month period (usually when electricty is least needed for three months) and for the first month and half, the fuel is cooling in the reactor itself, this means that any waste with a 7 day or lower half life is gone by the time the waste is removed.

[Lissa]

[quote name='eppie' date='Feb 16 2010, 04:48 AM' post='177747']
Here in Sweden they have to shut down reactors a few times per year, because of 'issues'.[/quote]

Sweden? I thought you were in the Netherlands. Anyway...

Issues can be anything from a short lived spike (a non-event) to a work slipping on a wet floor.

As an anecdote, in the US, if there is an explosion at a coal fire power plant where several works die, it ends up buried 7 to 8 pages back in the newspaper. At a nuclear plant, a turbine shaking itself apart with no injuries (uncommon, but does happen at any type of power plant) is front page news.

Southern europeans tend to kill a large number of migrant birds.....the kinds that we in the north try to protect.[/quote

Trust me, wind turbines have destroyed whole flocks of birds that happened to use a migrant route. For most wind turbines, they can produce a foul wind for fowl.

[quote]Fishing and polution causes issues with fish stocks. We don't have that issue in the baltic at least because you are not supposed to eat to much of it (radioactive and heavy metal polution)

Here in the US, we have large numbers of migrating fish that travel from their birth streams to the oceans and then back to mate and die (see Salmon). On the Columbia River of Washington state, after the Aswell Dam, the Salmon cannot travel further up to their ancestoral streams deep into northeastern Washington. Now the Salmon run up the Methow and Okanogan rivers instead of going deeper up the Columbia. After the Chief Joseph dam, the ecology of eastern Washington state has changed greatly due to the loss of the Salmon run there.

I cannnot say I am 100% against nuclear, but I think we can do so much better. I mean if we would have spend all the money that was paid to bail out the banks last year on production of windturbines and solar-pannels we would have covered a significant amount of our energy need. And as a bonus we would have jobs for many, many people.

Again, Solar takes too much room on a large scale. Solar works very well for a single house, but when you are trying to also power industry, it doesn't function as well. Wind, as I noted, has other problems. And let's face it, the fuel that goes into a reactor was radioactive when it came out of the ground, so putting the waste back shouldn't be an issue, so long as it's reprocessed (cause we do have the technology to immobilize and contain the waste for 1000 years without issue).

[eppie]

And let's face it, the fuel that goes into a reactor was radioactive when it came out of the ground, so putting the waste back shouldn't be an issue, so long as it's reprocessed (cause we do have the technology to immobilize and contain the waste for 1000 years without issue).

I like this statement. Though a bit simplified, it is indeed true.

The technology to store for a thousand years without issue I don't agree with. Last thing I read about this in Nature said storage media deteriorate very quickly. I mean look at Chernobyl....they have to pour concrete over it now and then.....the radioactivity just destroys everything (so also glasses and other inorganics)

[Lissa]

I like this statement. Though a bit simplified, it is indeed true.

The technology to store for a thousand years without issue I don't agree with. Last thing I read about this in Nature said storage media deteriorate very quickly. I mean look at Chernobyl....they have to pour concrete over it now and then.....the radioactivity just destroys everything (so also glasses and other inorganics)

Vitrification does not deteriorate quickly. Vitrified waste will stay contained for thousands of years with no danger to anyone, except those in the immediate vicinity due to neutron and gamma emitters.

[--Pete]

Hi,

The technology to store for a thousand years without issue I don't agree with. Last thing I read about this in Nature said storage media deteriorate very quickly. I mean look at Chernobyl....they have to pour concrete over it now and then.....the radioactivity just destroys everything (so also glasses and other inorganics)

Three different cases. Chernobyl is a mixture of items that came together during the accident. It's properties are poorly understood, even its composition is based on guesswork. The attempt to contain it are hardly a 'storage' solution.

Second is unprocessed reactor nuclear waste. This is a problem because of the quantity, the radioactivity, and the chemical properties. A good argument can (and has) been made that the danger is more in the transportation than in the storage. Mines in salt deposits in geologically stable areas should be quite adequate to store the waste for much longer than it will take for its activity to drop to near background levels.

Reprocessed nuclear fuel greatly reduces the quantity of waste. It also takes out a lot of the long half life materials since those are the recovered fuel. What is left is more managable.

Again, the scare mongers and anti-nuke fanatics confound the issue by mixing dissimilar cases. They do not mention the self containment of the 'fuel' from the naturally occurring nuclear reactor which has been contained for about two billion years. Yes, that too is tangential to the discussion, but does not get thrown in because "it's been there a long time and hasn't caused any problems" doesn't fit their desire for negative propaganda.

--Pete

[kandrathe]

Ummmm...most fission fragments are Beta emitters, Gamma emitters, or Neutron emitters. There are very few Alpha emitters below Lead (Pb). Cesium and Strontium both emit high energy betas, but, so long as they don't get internalized, are relatively harmless external to the body.

Yeah, I was thinking all the particles, and writing alpha...

And the reason for the cooling off period is two fold, to allow the short lived isotopes to decay away while getting read of excess residual heat (nuclear waste makes a great space heater... :whistling:).

So, in the right environment we would be able to capture the excess heat during the cooling period as well.

And as to most active, it doesn't even exist before the "waste" is removed from the reactor as it takes several weeks for the fuel removal/addition to take place. Typically the reactor is shutdown for a 3 month period (usually when electricty is least needed for three months) and for the first month and half, the fuel is cooling in the reactor itself, this means that any waste with a 7 day or lower half life is gone by the time the waste is removed.

:nod: I figured as much.

[Occhidiangela]

I think this is kinda neat. President Obama has the grapes to tell the further left sector of his party to bugger off.

Score one for President O, this is a step forward. (It's also a nice way to shower jobs on Georgia, which is as good a place as any to get some people to work).

It's a pity W didn't have the same sense with the further right sector of his party or stem cell research might have been a bit further along.

[Vandiablo]

I wonder what the tree huggers will do?

Well, since you asked so sincerely and politely, I'll tell you what we did.

We continued our dorm* party with the wood nymphs, indulging in our favorite activities. For instance, did you know that if you get a juniper nymph tipsy, you can get gin in a very interesting way?

Anyway, many of us greeted the news somewhat happily. A nuclear plant is less damaging to trees than a coal plant, or even a "clean" (bah!) coal plant. Have you seen what they're doing to West Virginia?

Sure some of us still are thinking of the 1970's when they think of nuclear plants, but you have diehards in every group.

We didn't waste a lot of time on the issue during Midwinter. We spent more time discussing how to annoy arrogant christians**.

-Vanfir Ginlicker

*Dormancy. The deciduous families are really out of it this time of year. The evergreen families celebrate Midwinter -- they really don't care for heavy snow.

**Yep, small "c" because no one, even him, is more supernatural than Mother Earth. (Except for Granny Multiverse, but that's another verse...)

(by the way, I wish people would stop referring to Midsummer activities as "blood orgies". It's not blood, it's Red Raspberries, which are only in season one or two weeks a year. Yes, they have special qualities. Yes, it's worth spending hours in the brambles to get them.)

[Occhidiangela]

Well, since you asked so sincerely and politely, I'll tell you what we did.

We continued our dorm* party with the wood nymphs, indulging in our favorite activities. For instance, did you know that if you get a juniper nymph tipsy, you can get gin in a very interesting way?

Anyway, many of us greeted the news somewhat happily. A nuclear plant is less damaging to trees than a coal plant, or even a "clean" (bah!) coal plant. Have you seen what they're doing to West Virginia?

Sure some of us still are thinking of the 1970's when they think of nuclear plants, but you have diehards in every group.

We didn't waste a lot of time on the issue during Midwinter. We spent more time discussing how to annoy arrogant christians**.

-Vanfir Ginlicker

*Dormancy. The deciduous families are really out of it this time of year. The evergreen families celebrate Midwinter -- they really don't care for heavy snow.

**Yep, small "c" because no one, even him, is more supernatural than Mother Earth. (Except for Granny Multiverse, but that's another verse...)

(by the way, I wish people would stop referring to Midsummer activities as "blood orgies". It's not blood, it's Red Raspberries, which are only in season one or two weeks a year. Yes, they have special qualities. Yes, it's worth spending hours in the brambles to get them.)

How long to take the splinters out of your Johnson? Did the raspberry juice burn in the open cuts?

[Vandiablo]

How long to take the splinters out of your Johnson? Did the raspberry juice burn in the open cuts?

What - my Magic Johnson or my LBJ?

Besides, no splinters, if you stick* with the citrus nymphs or the rubber tree nymphs.

-Vanfir G.

*that's a play on woods

[Occhidiangela]

What - my Magic Johnson or my LBJ?

Maybe your Tiger's Wood ...

[Vandiablo]

splinters

grrr, the real problem is, days later, finding the STD* ... stupid fungus ... takes forever to get rid of

-V

*Sap-Transmitted Disease