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From: sandersr@ecn-pc.UUCP (Robert C Sanders)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.sci
Subject: Re: life of nuke wastes
Message-ID: <559@ecn-pc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 12-Jul-86 02:02:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecn-pc.559
Posted: Sat Jul 12 02:02:49 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Jul-86 02:57:42 EDT
References: <1970@brl-smoke.ARPA> <320@rtech.UUCP> <2064@brl-smoke.ARPA> <627@mhuxr.UUCP>
Reply-To: sandersr@ecn-pc.UUCP (Robert C Sanders)
Organization: Electrical Engineering Department , Purdue University
Lines: 45
Xref: watmath net.politics:17304 net.sci:1221

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From: mvs@meccts.UUCP (Michael V. Stein)
In article <515@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes:
>That depends on what type of waste you are talking about:  spent
>fuel, high-level waste (generated by reprocessing), transuranic waste
>(from reprocessing and plutonium use in nuclear weapons fabrication),
>low-level waste (from all sorts of industrial and "defense"
>activities), uranium mill tailings, or naturally occurring or
>accelerator-produced radioactive material.  Each of these contains
>different mixes of isotopes with various half-lives; e.g.,
>strontium-90 has a half-life of around 30 years, while that of
>incredibly toxic plutonium is 24,000 years.  

Most low level wastes can be traced to hospitals.  Somehow I wouldn't
put nuclear medicine in the catagory of "defense."  
Aside from that, as you have shown the advantage of nuclear 
wastes over other forms of industrial wastes are two fold.  
First, the truely dangerous wastes form only a very small percentage 
of the total wastes.  (While Strontium-90 is hazardous,
used hospital gloves are not nearly so dangerous.)  Secondly, the
dangerous wastes are also the ones with a very short half-life.  For
this reason, they are only a serious health threat for a relatively
short period of time.

Heh.  I notice you put the words "incredibly toxic" before the word
plutonium.  I am assuming then that you place those same words before
all compounds that are more dangerous.  This list would include
radium, triarsenic oxide, mercury(?), botulin toxin etc etc.
Or do you reserve that nice phrase "incredibly toxic" just for
plutonium?

-- 
Michael V. Stein
Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation - Technical Services

UUCP	ihnp4!dicome!meccts!mvs

-- 
Continuing Engineering Education Telecommunications
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Let's make like a BSD process, and go FORK-OFF !!	-- bob
(and "make" a few children while we're at it ...)