"Gary Coffman" wrote in message
...
Lead isn't very interesting in this regard because the unstable isotopes
have such extremely short half lives...

Now, does this mean lead with extra neutrons, or lead having been transmuted
to bismuth?

In other words, any transmuted lead *very quickly* decays
(via beta decay) to ordinary stable lead.

By conservation of charge, a neutron splits into an electron and proton as I
recall. So you'd have bismuth with one less neutron than the lead before.
After that... it could drop an alpha to thallium (which I've never heard of
before), or um another neutron I suppose. Or some chunky gamma ray?

For the most part, this is nonsense political science, but to the extent
it isn't, simply stuffing this waste into the abandoned tunnels of the
original uranium mines would be sufficient disposal, since that natural
ore was *at least* as radioactive, and had been so for millions of years.
No need for an elaborately engineered thing like Yucca Mtn.

Except for the fact that now you have a whole bunch of other elements in it
that'll leech out and whatnot.

Which reminds me, could you take U235 or Pu239, fission the hell out of it
and chemically seperate the products into usefulness? Would they be too
radioactive to be useful? Would a few days/years/centuries/millenia clean
that up and retain the uh chemical usefulness?

Tim

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