Alt fuels was Re: [AT] Gasoline $

[Henry Miller]

On Wednesday 10 August 2005 06:40 pm, ken knierim wrote:

> True, uranium comes from the ground and it's radioactive. When the fuel
> is spent, seems to me there's a lot less radioactivity. But... what
> about the stuff that's made in the reactor? Plutonium comes to mind, and
> that is a rather toxic substance, whether or not it's radioactive. I'm
> sure there are lots of ways of controlling things like this and I'm not
> an expert, but there seems to be some disagreement with what to do with
> the stuff.

Tell you what, you take a given amount of caffeine, and I'll take an equal 
amount of plutonium.    The media likes to scare you about how bad plutonium 
is, but the truth is different.   You need to treat it with care, but it is 
less poisonous than Caffeine (as in your morning cup of coffee).   It is an 
alpha emitter, so the radiation isn't strong enough to get through your skin.

True you can make bombs from plutonium.   However anyone who can build a bomb 
will have no problem making plutonium, so that is a silly worry.   (The 
engineering to make a bomb is much harder than the engineering to make 
plutonium)

As for the waste from a reactor:   It is recyclable.  Forget about putting it 
in some 10000 year storage, you can recycle it for more power than you got 
from it to begin with.

> The operators of the plants have to be vigilant so we don't have an
> accident. Don't get me wrong, I think nuclear power is a great thing.
> It's not a do-all and end-all, but if we keep the dollars here, it's
> even better.

The worse case accident from any reasonable reactor is Three Mile Island.  
Outside the fence there was no effect, and the effect on those inside the 
fence is just above the statistical noise from normal background radiation 
you get sitting on your tractor in the middle of a field.

Of course stupid designs like Chernobyl have much worse worse cases.  That is 
why nobody else builds them.   (Even the Russians didn't build them for long)  
At that they had to intentionally shut down all the safeties to get anything 
to happen.   There are plenty of other industrial accidents that could be 
much worse if they tried to make something worse.