Re: Tilting At Windmills

From: fumblus (fumblus_at_nospamYahoo.com)
Date: 11/29/04 

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 18:58:18 +1100

Dez Akin wrote:
> eunometic@yahoo.com.au (Eunometic) wrote in message news:<e935396a.0411232103.36559df7@posting.google.com>...
>
>>Yucca Mountains would not be required but for the absence of
>>reprocessing and/or transmulation burn up of wastes in only slightly
>>more advanced reactors. Both developments have been curtailed by
>>political issues rather than serious economic or technical ones.
>
>
> Quite right, but even without advanced reactors (molten salt) Yucca is
> not required. All this waste can be stored on site for decades in
> large concrete casks. Human civilization isn't going anywhere. Its not
> as if the waste management problem has to be dealt with as if humanity
> is leaving the earth sometime in the next twenty years and intends to
> preserve it as a park.

Imagine if ancient Egypt had generated a large amount of toxic and
mutagenic waste product that had to be stored securely for a hundred
millennia. What if ancient Rome did? Imagine being the ancestor of
people from a civilisation who left you a legacy of waste that is
absolutely no use to you, and that you simply *must* continue to
maintain, expensively, for a time frame that might as well be forever.

Imagine trying to justify to people 100, 1000, 10000 years from now why
*they* must continue to expend real resources to pay for *your*
squanderous energy consumption.

It's the pinnacle of arrogance to offload your short-term problem
solving into the distant future. What's more, "human civilization" will
be nothing like it is now in just 1000 years. How do you convey the
message "don't touch this crap, and if you know what's good for you make
sure noone else does either" to people who won't even speak your language?

Mark

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Tilting At Windmills
    ... > Yucca Mountains would not be required but for the absence of ... > reprocessing and/or transmulation burn up of wastes in only slightly ... but even without advanced reactors Yucca is ... as if the waste management problem has to be dealt with as if humanity ...
    (sci.energy)
  • Re: Tilting At Windmills
    ... Human civilization isn't going anywhere. ... >> as if the waste management problem has to be dealt with as if humanity ... If handled properly waste recycling and transmutation 'burn up' of ... Of course it is possible to focus on the tiny amount of residual ...
    (sci.energy)