Re: King Tut's Nukes (back by popular demand)

From: Karl Johanson (karljohanson_at_shaw.ca)
Date: 08/10/04 

Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 01:56:30 GMT

"wmbjk" used some nuclear energy to post:

> >Let it sit in pools of water for 10 years or more. Leave it clad in zirc
> >alloy, or vitrify it, whichever you prefer. Put it in multilined
containers,
> >in solid rock, packed in with bentonite clay. It doesn't hurt anyone
fresh,
> >sitting in pools of water on the surface (neither did the 4,000 pounds of
.
> >Or, leave it in the pools of water on the surface, then reprocess it,
reuse
> >it, restore it in pools of water, then bury it as above. (All the while,
> >ignore comparable or higher population effective doses of radiation, per
> >watt hour' for coal, oil, natural gas, biomass or geothermal (and higher
> >population effective doses, per watt hour saved, from many 'negawatts'
> >programs).
> >
> >The possible problem: In 10,000 years or so, maybe, there just might be
> >enough leakage from the site to boost the nearby groundwater to a minute
> >fraction of the radiation in the water currently emitted by geothermal
power
> >plants already. Gosh. Ground water already contains natural radioactive
> >isotopes (some has quite a bit), and people with high levels of
> >radioactivity in their groundwater don't have increased cancers.

> That's your idea of the problems and solutions? I'll summarize what
> you just wrote -

I have a more radical suggestion. Why don't you read it again & think about
it?

>"There aren't any problems except for a potentially
> tiny one in 10,000 years". Sounds like the usual dismissive renewkable
> Usenet claptrap to me.
>
> Let me help you - *a few* of the fundamental problems with Yucca are -
>
> 1. That it's being imposed on people who don't want it, which is
> guaranteed to bog down the process and increase the cost.

Nevada was given some pretty good perks for being the site of the
repository. Why not suggest offering to give them back? It will help your
argument.

> 2. It costs more than will ever be collected from the ratepayers under
> the current system.

I'm sure ways can be found to increase the costs massively (let's test the
ground water every 100th of a second and make them wash the containers with
bottled spring water from artesian wells in Mooseport). Or, do it at
reasonable costs & maybe there's some money left over for a spare nuclear
desalinator for the third world & a few million ceramic cookstoves (for
reducing biomass energy use & emissions) & solar stills.

> 3. In their 50-50 world, congress can earn more support yakking about
> gay marriage etc. than it can authorizing massive spending on a
> project they've already successfully dodged for decades.

Dodged, leaving the material above ground in pools of water where... it
hasn't hurt anyone. The issue of the estimated 2.5 million people dying per
year from biomass energy emissions every year, is being pretty well dodged
as well. (That's more deaths every minute, than the toll at the recent steam
turbine accident in Japan.)

> As for solutions, the one thing they never have been and never will be
> is *easy*.

> 1. Any successful approach, assuming it's to be used as a model for
> additional facilities, will have to begin with consensus and
> compensation.

Ah............. Now I see where you're coming from.

You don't think the 'compensation' Nevada has gotten already, is enough (you
may even think that there hasn't been any at all). I bet you don't care 2
yonts about spent nuclear fuel, you just hope for a bigger gravy train to
flow that direction. Well, good negotiating tactic. Let me know how it turns
out. (Possibly with more perks for Nevada, Yucca staying empty, save for
tourists trips down the tunnels, reprocessing of spent fuel & Canada being
paid to put the final spent fuel in the Shield.)

>The bury-it-and-forget-it idea is probably too difficult
> to get any host to agree to.

And who suggested "bury-it-and-forget-it"?

>Given the animosity generated by the
> attempt to force a political solution on Nevada,

No, I think you nailed it above. This isn't about being miffed for being
'forced' on anything, it's about a perception of insufficient compensation.

>my guess is that any
> further effort there, even with a fresh approach, would be bogged down
> one way or another for further decades.
On-site accessible storage
> would generate smaller and more numerous battles,

There already is on site storage...

>but have the
> advantage of forcing ratepayers to face a grow-up or do-without
> choice, which might jolt them into reality. Or it might not... after
> forty years of being told that they can have their cake and eat it
> too, no one should be surprised that ratepayers have come to believe
> what they've been spoon fed.

Boy, you just love to chuck crap don't you. Now every nuclear energy rate
payer is naive. Anyone else you want to insult? Why not do everyone at once
& have done with it?

> 2. On-site or off, buried or accessible, reprocessed or not, waste
> costs are going to be much higher than advertised.

Especially if the radiation emission standards are increased from 'above the
standards for other types of energy, per watt hour', to 'even further above
the standards for other types of energy, per watt hour'

>The fund
> contributions need to rise to the level that will produce a practical
> solution, with assurances that the cash will end up where intended.

Well, if they spend all the money doing the samo studies at Yucca over and
over, instead of getting started of repositorying the spent fuel, it is
possible the money will run out.

> And renewkables need to quit pretending that there's a cheap way out.
> All that's accomplished so far is encourage unrealistic attitudes and
> stalling.
>
> 3. Political action is generally a reflection of public attitude.

It's a reflection of several influences, including the attitude of the
public.

Karl Johanson

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