Global Warming News

[charlz]

If the sign was made from engraved solid gold so it would be legible 5,000 years from now, I don't see the problem

What is the deal with Yucca Mtn? Just dead in the water?
Dave.

Actually the concern wasn't if the sign would be legible but if anyone would still speak the language. They were trying to figure out what symbols to use so that someone 10,000 years from now would know it as a dangerous place.

Currently 'unfunded' I believe, not totally dead.

 

[EddieWalker]

Jack Cafferty on CNN has been really surprising me lately. He went so far as to talk about the global cooling trend!!!

Jack Cafferty Tosses Idea That Earth Could Actually Be Cooling | NewsBusters.org

Shocking.

Eddie

 

[Ken45101]

Actually the concern wasn't if the sign would be legible but if anyone would still speak the language. They were trying to figure out what symbols to use so that someone 10,000 years from now would know it as a dangerous place.

<shaking head> Why can't we just let future generations replace the sign as language evolves? Why do we waste money worrying about the language 10,000 years from now? By then their science will probably be reprocessing the mountain! They will have better technology then, they won't be cavemen. Geesh,we have such idiots, sigh.

Ken

 

[aczlan]

Actually the concern wasn't if the sign would be legible but if anyone would still speak the language. They were trying to figure out what symbols to use so that someone 10,000 years from now would know it as a dangerous place.
Currently 'unfunded' I believe, not totally dead.

As I understand it, if we were to reprocess the fuel before "dumping it in a hole in the ground" we could get more usable fuel out of it (plutonium-239) and the "waste" would have a half life of 40 years. It would cost more to do, but I think that it would be easier to find someplace to store something for 40 years than 10,000 years.

See : Nuclear reprocessing for more info.

Aaron Z

 

[IH3444]

10,000 year sign.

 

[20 20]

The only problem with burying stuff is that it DOES come back to bite us in the butt, sometime. What seems to be safe today turns out to cause cancer/reproduction problems /disease's of tomorrow . We may be able to do things in a safe matter, BUT{BIG BUT} will money let that happen. Don't forget we live in a world where money talks, no matter how something looks on the blue prints, it is the pocket that'll be talking!!!!

 

[dmccarty]

I've always wondered why France can make this technology work for them, and we don't. I've been lead to believe that they generate 70-80% of their electricity this way, and have nuclear plants in some of their major cities. I need to read futher about this. Reprocessing fuel reduces the amount of waste which needs to be stored, almost indefinetly. Shame Yucca mountain storage has been defunded.

My understanding about the success of the French Nuke program was because they standardized on their plants. They have a limited number of plant sizes. I think it was three, small, medium and large, if you will. So they had commonality of parts, design and operation. What I have read is that a US plant operator is licensed, if that is the right word, to run a given reactor. They are very likely NOT licensed to run the reactor right next to "theirs" because it will be different.

US Nuke plants are custom built one offs. Which of course costs more money to design, get approved, build and run. And Nukes are so expensive due to the required safety systems required for the reactors that are being used.

The pebble bed reactors look like they would be MUCH safer, supposedly melt down is impossible, and much cheaper to build and run. I read a proposal to put one in Alaska somewhere. Their biggest operational expense was going to be security. In this case this is a smaller reactor to provide power for a small town in the middle of now where.

Pebble Bed Reactors aka PBRs, , no it is not a beer in this case, Pebble bed reactor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Later,
Dan

 

[Pilot]

Here goes my radical side on nuclear waste:

Consider all the technological advances that have occurred during your lifetime. Who among you had a personal computer at home or internet access even 30 years ago? Who among you predicted the PC? Cell phones? Air bags in cars to save your life? GPS? As I said in an earlier post, my wife's grandmother was born in horse & buggy days and lived to watch people walk on the moon. Although our time horizon seems to be day to day, the rate of change is actually amazing.

So, how long do we really need to store nuclear waste? Until it breaks down on it's own to become safe? Maybe not.

Why not have a little faith in the future? Put is somewhere where it will be safe for a few hundred years. In a hundred years from now, if they haven't found a way to make it safe virtually overnight by some sort of processing, by then they will know much better than we do about the geology and technology for storing waste in a safe manner for the long term. And if they haven't solved the problem by then, they will only need to render it safe for another few hundred years.

OK, I have my asbestos suit on, flame away!

 

[Ken45101]

Here goes my radical side on nuclear waste:

So, how long do we really need to store nuclear waste? Until it breaks down on it's own to become safe? Maybe not.

Why not have a little faith in the future? Put is somewhere where it will be safe for a few hundred years.

I partly agree with you. However, these are all political decisions and "long term" to a politician is the next election

There have been too many short term decisions made with zero regard for the medium or long term results.

50 or 100 years from now, they will still be moving it from one leaking site to another leaking site.

Our government's decisions about handling nuclear waste in the past has been abysmal (Handord, Fernald, etc.) I don't have any greater trust their current decisions.

You are right. We need intelligent decisions. Unfortunately, we cannot expect honest, intelligent decisions from our politicians or bureaucrats.

Ken
I want "none of the above" as an option on the ballot

 

[IH3444]

YouTube - Armageddon :No Nukes No Nukes