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> Not sure whether it can be argued if it is really a better alternative. I suppose that when you watch your children die from climate change, then you will kn
by onlydeadheroes 7y ago
> Not sure whether it can be argued if it is really a better alternative.
I suppose that when you watch your children die from climate change, then you will know.
- Brometheus 7y ago… or radioactivity.
- scrollaway 7y agoThat's not how it works. The waste has to be dealt with, but its not immediately harmful to the general population. Its a problem that has to be addressed in the long term, but climate change is a problem that has to be addressed in the short term. And by the short term I mean the past. In other words, radioactive waste isn't a "your children" problem, it's several generations removed if a solution hasn't been found by then. Climate change is indeed a "your children" problem, if you're old enough to die in the next couple of decades. Otherwise it's a You problem.
- arkitaip 7y agoSo basically, let's just offload the nuclear waste problem to future generations. That's exactly the same line of thinking that caused climate change.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoOut of all the problems we're offloading to future generation, this is by far one of the smallest. It's a tiny amount of tightly controlled substance that can be reprocessed further to reduce both its volume and half-life - we know how, just this stupid FUD doesn't let us build the actual reactors to do that.
- scrollaway 7y agoI'm not denying it's offloading a problem, but it's not the same scale of problem and the resolution needed is on a far longer time scale as well. You simply can't compare a worldwide, global, catastrophic change in climate, causing millions to die, species to go instinct, and trillions of dollars in damages to... this. What exactly is your reasoning in making them equal?
- realusername 7y agoYou can safely store radioactive waste but there's no method of storage for the CO2 we put in the air, that's the big difference.
- merb 7y agocan you name any? btw. putting it somewhere and forgetting about it is definitiv not an option.
- realusername 7y agoYou can use part of it as fuel, it's just does not economically make sense to do so right now. And what's wrong with storing it exactly?
- TeMPOraL 7y agoPut it in a sealed container and drop it in an abandoned mine, or even a pool. Keep an armed detail protecting it from getting stolen. There, done. If you're talking about storing the waste long-term, on the order of "more than any country existed on the planet", then this is a problem only because the irrational fear of nuclear doesn't let us build reactors that could further reprocess the fuel. (And if civilization collapsed now, then all you have to do is to burn the paper maps on which the storage location is marked, and nobody will find the waste before it decays to background radiation levels. If we fuck up civilization now, then the few remaining survivors will be stuck for a couple thousand years with medieval-era technology on a thoroughly broken planet. It's extremely unlikely someone would stumble upon the ruins radioactive waste storage plant. The planet is very large, the amount of nuclear waste is ridiculously tiny.)
- Xylakant 7y ago> Put it in a sealed container and drop it in an abandoned mine, or even a pool. Keep an armed detail protecting it from getting stolen. There, done. Indeed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine
- 7y ago
- r00fus 7y agoYou mean the many times of radioactive material that’s aerosolized by coal burning? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...
- imtringued 7y agoWouldn't the parents die first?