Intelligent Absorbent Removes Radioactive Material 107
Zothecula writes "Nuclear power plants are located close to sources of water, which is used as a coolant to handle the waste heat discharged by the plants. This means that water contaminated with radioactive material is often one of the problems to arise after a nuclear disaster. Researchers at Australia's Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have now developed what they say is a world-first intelligent absorbent that is capable of removing radioactive material from large amounts of contaminated water, resulting in clean water and concentrated waste that can be stored more efficiently."
Unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a case of too little, too late. I have zero trust in the nuclear industry because no matter how urgent, present, demanding, and obvious the need to make double-extra super-safe reactors presents itself to the manufacturers of these facilities, they seem hell-bent on cutting corners and cheaping out on the front-end, to disastrous consequences (insert whatever link to "Japanese Reactor Meltdown / Chernobyl / Three Mile Island" you want here) which in retrospect were the result of shoddy workmanship, sloppy maintenance, wilfully stupid cost-cutting and just general all-around stupid douchebaggery of the kind you get when you give too much power and responsibility unto the hands of those fatally unprepared for the responsibility part.
While zombie-like steps continue to be made towards legitimizing this super-expensive but also unbelievably fraught with peril method of boiling fucking water the public's opinion on nuclear power seems to have solidified somewhere around the spectrum of "Holy Fucking Shit Those Things Are Massively Unsafe" and thank God and the FSM for it. There seems to be no amount of regulation or incentive that can persuade private or public nuclear power plant operators to actually operate safely, and none of that would even matter one damn bit if Mother Nature brought on sufficient catastrophe.
Can we please be done with nuclear energy? Yesterday? Solar, geothermal and wind are all coming rapidly into their own, already cost less than traditional non-renewables (especially if we take away Big Oil/Gas/Nuclear's free rides and subisdies) and it looks like about 30 years down the road give or take we could be living with a distributed power grid that takes inputs from every single solar roof/windmill/vent in the country.
Proof positive that this cultural shift in the trust of big, unaccountable institutions to manage such dangerous materials is the ever-burned-into-our-brains image of Homer Dumbass Simpson, nuclear power plant worker who routinely blows up his plant with his fumbling incompetence. THAT is what most of America and the world think of when we think "nuclear power plant."
Re:Unfortunately (Score:2, Insightful)
Nuclear is safer, by far, than any other power source
Yet tens of thousands of people from Fukushima are unable to return to their homes. The problem with nuclear power is that when it goes wrong it tends to go very wrong. The economic and human cost of nuclear power failures can be huge. 80,000 people have been displaced as a result of the Fukushima meltdowns: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2011/s3343819.htm [abc.net.au]