On 21/02/2021 22:40, Tim Streater wrote:
On 19 Feb 2021 at 12:59:55 GMT, T i m wrote:

Except reactors 'built to generate electricity' *have* gone wrong or
been broken and have spewed very long living pollution across the
world.

A certain amount of radioactive material has been spread, and that only by one
reactor. If it has a short half life, then it's already gone, years ago,
decayed to safer stuff. If it has a long half life, it's not that dangerous
anyway. Potassium-40, for example, causes 4300 radioactive decays in your body
every second.

You overlook that there is significant radioactive material all around us,
even more so in places like Dartmoor. You also overlook that life has been
dealing with radiation since the beginning of life on Earth, and has developed
mechanisms to mitigate the effects of it.

There are 4 billion tonnes of radioactive uranium in the sea. Even more
in the earths crust

Radio carbon and potassium are everywhere.
At my school we had a Geiger counter, The physics master switched it on.
'why is it clicking?' 'There is natural radiation everywhere'. We played
with it for a bit. Some people seemed to be slightly more radioactive
than others.,

Then the physics master unlocked a box and carefully lifted out two lead
pots put them on the bench and told us to gather round. He used tongs to
lift out one silvery disk and put it on the bench. The Geiger counter
perked up a bit. He took another silvery disk out of the other pot, the
Geiger counter got a bit more interested. He slowly and very carefully
slid one disk towards the other, stopping about 1/8" apart. The Geiger
counter went mad.

"I think that will do" he said. "That was a chain reaction, and those
disks were uranium , somewhat enriched with U235"

"What would have happened if they had touched sir?" "We would all have
been in the Royal Free" he said "And I would have been sacked".

They don't do physics like that any more.

Its a shame no one makes cheap Geiger counters on smart phones. Once
people realised how radioactive the world is compared to a nuclear power
station, they would clamour for nuclear power. I guess that's why no one
has put one in a phone. Project Fear needs its bogeymen to keep you
believing in windmills....


--
You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a
kind word alone.

Al Capone