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From: howard@metheus.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Nuclear Fusion
Message-ID: <167@metheus.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Sep-83 22:57:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: metheus.167
Posted: Thu Sep 29 22:57:54 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Oct-83 18:50:52 EDT
References: houxz.518
Lines: 72

A recent posting was obnoxious AND wrong enough to make me want to respond.

	"I really wish people would not spout off on subjects about
	which they know nothing."
Me too.

	[in fusion] "there is no waste, at least none that was any trouble."
	"No radioactive materials are produced by the process
	that are not contained."
Wrong.  All present and proposed fusion devices release both tritium, which
can be contained by chemical means but usually is not, and helium-3, which
cannot be contained by chemical means.

	"As for the waste problem with fisson[sic].  This problem has been
	solved many times and the solutions have been known for years.  The
	problems are pure and simply POLITICS and FEAR."
	"There is absolutely no problem disposing of nuclear
	wastes safely."
I've heard the claim before that the nuclear waste disposal problem is solved.
But no one making that claim has ever been able to describe a solution that I
haven't been able to shoot down in minutes.  Are you claiming that the problems
are solved AND that there are no such problems?  Or are you claiming that the
problems of POLITICS and FEAR have been solved many times and the solutions
have been known for years? :-)  I seem to recall General Electric spending
about $250,000,000 on their Midwest Fuel Recovery Plant, which was intended
to recycle nuclear fuel.  I don't believe MFRP ever actually recycled anything.
But I digress.  Let me mention just ONE objection that I have, that of
terrorists having access to nuclear wastes.  Many nuclear wastes are active for
several tens of thousands of years.  Anyone who believes that such wastes can
be safely stored for that length of time are very naive about history, politics,
sociology, military science, and technology, to name a few areas.  ANY storage
scheme that we can dream up now MUST be able to defend against the wiles of
terrorists using the technology of 5,000+ years in the future!  I suggest
that no such storage scheme exists, even in theory.  If you wonder why I say
MUST, consider that a cupful of plutonium, finely enough divided, could cause
cancer with probability > .9 in EVERY MEMBER OF THE HUMAN RACE.  It's use on a
major city would render it uninhabitable for quite some time.  For a country
which has only been in existence for 200 or so years to think it can safely
manage a nuclear waste site for thousands of years is a childish fantasy.

	"What makes this fear of nuclear waste so absurd is that there is
	no noise whatsoever about waste from other forms of energy.  The
	worst offender is coal.  The products of coal mining, milling,
	and use are among the most toxic substances known to man.  And
	there has been little done about disposing of these wastes safely.
	One day's production of coal waste products is far more toxic than
	all the nuclear wastes produced to date.  These wastes are then
	just buried or left sitting in slag heaps."
I am pretty much in complete agreement with you on the evils of coal, but you
can't be serious about "no noise whatsoever"!  You failed to mention one of the
worst by-products of coal burning, namely acid rain.  A specially hard problem
politically because the effects are geographically distant from the offenders,
and it is VERY hard to "prove" that a particular coal plant had anything to do
with a particular fall of sulfuric acid.  Choosing between coal and nuclear, I
might in many cases choose nuclear myself, but that doesn't exonerate nuclear.
You seem to imply that it does.  It is sad but true, however, that an average
coal plant releases much more radioactivity into the environment than an
average nuclear plant of the same capacity.  The NRC is not allowed to regulate
radioactive output from coal plants, otherwise ALL coal plants might have to
shut down.

	"If you can figure out and implement a way to dispose of those
	wastes as cleanly and safely as has already been done for nuclear
	wastes, then and only then will I entertain your comments about
	nuclear waste."
Sort of like saying we shouldn't prosecute any rapists as long as there's a
murderer who isn't behind bars?

Public or private flames cheerfully received, and maybe even answered.

	Howard A. Landman
	ogcvax!metheus!howard