Mark wrote:
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 11:58:29 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Weatherlawyer wrote:
....

I am not validating anything Tory BLiar has said about nuclear fuel.
The man is a maniac lickspittle and should be shot out of hand not
respected as a leader of men.
Agreed.

Seconded (although shooting is too good for him).

A recent programme on the TV showed that small doses of background
radiation seems to alleviate cancers in that the genes to fight them
seem to be initiated in people who live in regions with fairly high
natural radiation.

Work on the Chernobyl site seems to back this idea up. Less people were
known to have died directly from the disaster than are killed each week
on the roads in the UK.
A curious and interesting program, both in its timing, its content and
its general conclusion.

Yes. I was thinking the whole way through that it must be sponsored
by nulabour. I was worried that they referred to "Radiation" as if
"it" was all the same. There are at least three different types (If I
remember my A level Physics correctly ;-), all of which have different
effects.


You mean alpha, beta and gamma?

From memory at least one of those is stopped very easily by almost any
layer of anything.




If true, it propbaly means that there is no nuclear waste problem at all.

Low level waste could be dumped in landfills with no real problem.

Not necessarily true. See above.

I think you need to delve more into the science here.

For example, plutonium and uranium are as likely to be dangerous as
metals in themselves as radioactive emitters. They are also the items
that are = with americum - responsible for the long time delay problems.

Almost all other secondary products - iodine, caesium etc - decay within
20-30 years.

The largest amount of low level waste is simply contaminated clothing
etc containing not the actual fuel rods or products therefrom, but
simply material that has been irradiated and has some residual
radioactivity in it.

IF low level radiation exposure is relatively benign, this could simply
be buried for a while.


High level waste could be reprocessed and the materials used in
processing kept for a few years and dumped likewise.

[snip]

But until nuclear power design, cost and management and everything else
is openly discussed, the only way to maintain good safety specs is that
everyone responsible for building them should be forced to live the
rest of their lives near them until the reactor is long closed -when
their kin will be responsible for their oversight until the waste
denatures to safe levels..
Suits me. You can shove one in my back garden.

You must have a very large garden ;-)

Not really. I was being a little humorous.. But there isn't a huge
amount of waste tons wise from the power stations...



I can't see Tory BLiar pushing that one through under those
circumstances. But this is a democracy so who is going to stand for
that sort of protection?

The real effects of long term exposure to low level radiation are really
an unknown.

Definitely. It takes more than one "science" program to make me be
willing to be exposed to low level radiation.


But you always have been. We are all exposed to low level radiation all
the time. The earth itself is a huge nuclear reactor, and cosmic
radiation comes in all the time. Life has developed in this environment,
and it would be strange if it could not cope with it.


The one point that was made by the program, that is incontrovertibly
valid, is that no data for low continuous radiation exists, apart from
the ones cited.,

Namely that we know that above a certain threshold, cancer happens..we
know that at a normal background level, it doesn't. Bombs and normal
life give us those points on the graph.

Down low, the only data is from areas with naturally high background
levels, which show no extra cancer rates, or airline staff, who don't
either.

IIRC there is SOME evidence that RADON - an inhalable gas fund all over
dartmoor etc, has some correlation to lung cancer, but its buy no means
a sure thing.



[snip]

The biggest problem is that rational debate is hampered by emotional
response that compare nuclear power with nuclear weapons. Which is a
sane as comparing a domestic oil boiler with a fuel-air bomb..and would
see every bag of flour taken off the shelves as a 'dangerous explosive'
(ever made a flour bomb? Try it!)

Most debates are hampered by irrational arguments IMHO.


Do you think that this one can be allowed to remain that way?

Mark