Low-Level Radiation May be Mutagenic 255
The Night Watchman writes: "According to article on BBC news, scientists have determined that low doses of radiation can indeed cause alterations in human DNA that are then passed down to future generations. Apparently there was an 'unexpectedly high increase' in genetic mutuations in children born in the area after the Chernobyl disaster." This may shake up the scientific community, which has relied on studies of Hiroshima survivors to evaluate the long-term consequences of radiation exposure.
Re:Internal? (Score:1)
Re:Stay alert! (Score:1)
(Paranoia ROCKS!)
Re:These are still pretty high doses of radiation. (Score:1)
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
Well, maybe it's not that simple, but I've always liked the idea of dismantling the worlds nuclear missiles for use in breeder reactors, turning the weapons of mass destruction into the power source of the future. It would be just like the early nuclear proponents said it would be!
Plus the handling procedures wouldn't be that much more complicated than the ones currently used to decomssion missiles.
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
Re:Low Level Radiation (Score:2)
I had two seperate regimens of radiation treatments over the course of 2 years.
And what about drugs like Vincristine or MP6 that mess around with the actual cell division and replication of the DNA while your on it?
Take Radiation and nasty chemicals at the same time and what does that do to a person?
Re:How small of a dose? (Score:2)
The danger you're talking about and the danger they're talking about are two different things.
You're talking about an external dose of radiation - energy. Most of which is stopped by your skin, or in the case of a nuclear engineer, most likely, their radiation suit.:)
In the case of these workers, they didn't have enough respirators and protective suits. Someone posted a link a few months ago of a site that was a tribute to these liquidators, a tragic story of human heroism. Men were sent into a highly radioactive part just to snap a photograph, and come back, and die from the high single dose.
But many others inhaled dust, got dust on their clothing, on their skin, dust got on their food, etc.
Smoke is in-effect, dust. Or soot, if you prefer. The Chernobyl disaster was a fire. A graphite fire. Lots of soot. Lots of radioactive dust. these elements, the nuclear fuel, decay byproducts, got converted into soot, or dust, inhaled, or otherwise ingested, and remained in the body. Some of that "radioactivity" will remain hot for thousands of years after the person dies and is buried in the ground. These particles lodge in tissues, and continue to emit radiation, to internal organs, unprotected by clothing, skin, filters, or lead underwear.
Most of this, as you say, results in cells causing cancer. But if any of it gets down into the gonads, affecting the gametes (the cells that produce sperm - see, I took High School Biology too!), then all the sperm that are produced after that point will contain mutations. Once the DNA is affected, all subsequent generations spawned off of that DNA is also affected.
One of the worst bits, and the thing responsible for bone cancer, is Strontium-90, which is chemically similar to Calcium. If it settles on grass, cows eat the grass, it binds into the milk chemically where Calcium would otherwise. Then the kids drink the milk, and here and there, in their bones, will be bonded Strontium-90 atoms where calcium would be otherwise. The adjacent bone matter will be radiated over a period of time, directly, by these Sr-90 atoms.
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
If done properly. . .
Nuclear power can be done safely, but you need to take extreme measures to ensure that incidents like chernobyl NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER happen. Of course, we're only human, and there's really no way to guarantee that. There are things like natural disasters, terrorism, and simple human error.
So if you enter into the "nuclear game", you must acknowledge at some point that there is a risk you are taking that a disaster can possibly occur. Accepting that it will not ever possible occur is a leap of misguided blind faith in "human ingenuity".
Once you accept that there is a risk, you now have to gauge how big of a risk, and when it comes down to it, it's a matter of money. How much money do you invest in engineering the plant - how many safety precautions do you take against earthquakes, or what have you. (remember the volcano that appeared suddenly out of nowhere in South America? one day, a flat field. 30 days later, a 1000-foot cinder cone). How many armed guards and how much security precautions against terrorism. And what does all of that cost? And how much can you sell the electricity for on the market? If you build a plant, you increase supply, lowering demand and the commodity's value. (which is why I don't believe that commodity economics ought to be applied to every little human need).
At some later point, mister power-company CEO has to decide whether it's a profitable venture, how much money must be spent beefing up the plant, and how much profit can be made selling the commodity.
So it's a balance: risk to the public that these accidents could occur, versus money in the CEO's golden-parachute fund. Hmmmmmm - which will it be?
Public safety?
New Lexus?
Hmmmmm? man, that's a tough choice.
This is why I am opposed to the use of nuclear power. The immediate effects of a disaster, and the unforseen future effects. These risks are not very patalable, no matter how much the engineers say it's safe. No matter what nifty new design they come up with. Virtually no risk, is still a risk. And this kind of risk is just plain unacceptable.
And before you go off telling me I'm a fan of coal-fired plants, I'm not. I don't think that we currently have a good answer for that one.
I'm not sure what the solution is to our growing power needs. Even Solar, Even Wind, have their drawbacks making them unpalatable. But ever more palatable than nuclear fission.
Maybe the answer is; the Matrix.
Re:Great, another strike against nuclear power (Score:2)
We're talking entire family lines affected for every future generation, by genetic mutations.
They're not talking about super-powers.
They're talking about, possibly higher risk of cancer, or being born without hands, or blind, or mental retardation, or haemophilia. For generation after generation, people will be born, live, and die, robbed of the possibility of having a normal life, being a huge burden on the social welfare system, and medical system. We don't have any freaking clue what this is going to cost humanity as a whole. What happens when two mutants breed?
People are being blinded by the carrot of "profitable power generation" and "cheap electricity" dangling in front of their faces. They don't see the quagmire they're being led into.
Re:Great, another strike against nuclear power (Score:2)
We finally know what the effects of short-term internal low level exposure can do.
What coal-fired plants cause is more of a long-term-internal-very-low-level of exposure. The amount that is released from coal-fired plants on a daily basis is probably not measurable. But a town existing downwind from one over a period of 20 years, how could it not be affected?
Re:BBC Coverage of Science is Useless (Score:2)
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
First, you used quotes on my phrase "extreme measures", but you misspelled "extream" twice. If you're going to use quotes, quote accurately. Don't try to make me look like a moron when it's YOU that can't spell.
Just because Chernobyl was a disaster waiting to happen doesn't mean that other plants, even the famed and VERY over budget Diablo Canyon plant in California, are 100% safe. I'm not saying Chernobyl is an example of how all nuclear power will be. I'm saying that it's a great example of a worst-case scenario. Such scenarios are likely going to be rare with "properly engineered" "modern design" reactor plants. But NOBODY can say that there is NO chance that this scenario could possibly happen again. It has nothing to do with the size of the chance. It's the size of the damage. Play with a rubber-band, you can snap your fingers pretty good. Play with a gun, and you could blow your brains out by accident. You're much more likely to snap your fingers with a rubber band, it doesn't have a safety. But even with a safety, locks, background checks, people still get their heads blown off by accident. Unfortunately, shooting a rubber band at a felon wont stop them, so guns ARE a necessary evil.
If we can gather electricity from sunshine, with a 0% chance that an accident will happen that will cause all of the decendents of the people unfortunate enough to have to leave near the plant to have damaged DNA, doesn't that make more sense than nuclear fission technology?
Why not?
Because solar COSTS more. Therefore, profit margins are narrower. It's not the preferred method of generation. It's not that it's not feasible. If we switched to a 100% solar generation technology TODAY - manufacture of solar panels would drop the cost down somewhat, down to a point where many more people would likely opt to put them on their own homes, instead of relying on central generation and distribution. That's obviously not a palatable strategy for the energy companies.
So we all basically decide that a certain amount of risk is "assessed" lower than the benefit of electricity being cheap. (and let's face it, versus solar, *reliable*). But the risk has been reduced to a number on a peice of paper, based on information from limited and/or flawed studies, which do not take into account ALL of the costs an accident could potentially raise (like the social and medical fallout from large groups of genetic mutations - for an unspecified number of future generations). In fact, there is no way to estimate that cost. So they guess.
You want your "risk assessment" based on that?
And the NRC, while it is a ferocious beast with long, sharp fangs, which has pretty much rendered nuclear energy not economically viable in the US, it all depends on the current political climate. As soon as that climate shifts to the right a tad, you'll see more conservative appointees, and regulations relaxing, and that ferocious beast rolls over on it's back to get it's tummy rubbed by PG&E. At that point it sure as hell DOES have a lot to do with a choice between a new Lexus versus Public Safety. There's nothing any whining environmentalist, or biting scientific study about the effects of low level radiation can do about that. It may not happen with this administration, but as soon as there is a REAL hiccup in petroleum supplies, you can bet your ass that the environment WILL change, and regulations WILL be relaxed, and people will be BEGGING for a nuclear plant to be built in their backyards, like, yesterday, fuck safety.
And finally, in my last paragraph, I TOLD you not to imply any comparison with coal-fired. I disfavor coal and nuclear equally. Neither are a good, viable, sustainable solution to our power problems. (Neither is conservation, unless that's linked with population control measures).
But you went ahead and said that I "should be more in favor of nuclear plants than coal plants".
you idiot.
Re:How small of a dose? (Score:2)
Is it not true that workers in the factories that produce and handle fuel, in some areas, wear lead-lined suits?
That's what I meant by "nuclear engineers" - obviously, I meant "technicians"
The article does talk about "low levels" - and what it should have stated (I guess it did, just not clearly enough) was "relatively low levels" - relative to a nuclear blast from an atom bomb.
Relative to living outside of a plant working inside a plant, very very high levels.
Re:Great, another strike against nuclear power (Score:2)
And the Titanic was "unsinkable".
*After* the accident, I'll explain it to you how it happened. But I'll tell you, it would likely be caused by a lapse in maintenance, or an unforseen fault in the design. Hindsight's a bitch at 20/20.
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
Then you call me an Environmentalist (and by association, a lunatic), and then you complain about the ad hominem.
I did not say that energy companies know how to make cheap solar panels. I said that with a wider production, they would become cheaper - implying that economies of scale would kick in. Maybe not cheap enough to make them "economically viable", but certainly cheaper than they are today. People who invested in solar panels for their homes would be insulated from the current commodity-market wackiness that raised electricity-generating costs by a factor of 10 in California this year.
They're not going to come up with a leasing plan because people can go to independent companies and buy the panels for themselves and live "off the grid" if they want.
I'm sorry that your "risk assessment" tells you that nuclear power is "safe enough". To me, if there's any chance, no matter how small, that a disaster of Chernobyl-proportions COULD happen (even though a "modern" plant has a much smaller chance than a Chernobyl-style plant), that's too big of a chance. The consequences, not the risk, are the factor here.
And wrt Greenpeace and the NRC: when money comes into play, the conservatives, and even moderate liberals, and probably even extreme liberals, will all gladly sign their souls away to PG&E to maintain their way of life. When the price of electricity is at the point where our very economy is threatened (and it's almost at that point now), you can bet that the bottom line is, money talks. Greenpeace is not as well-armed as the National Guard, if it comes to that.
Coal vs. Nuclear: I really really really hate Nuclear. If it makes you happy, I really, really, really, really hate coal. Strip mining and acid rain suck.
And I didn't quote you because, frankly, this discussion is too deeply buried for anybody else to give a crap about now.
We don't know if low levels of radiation is bad (Score:3)
From what I know, much of the knowledge about how radiation effects humans comes from studies of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during WWII. From these very high levels of radiation exposure, studies found that there was basically a linear relationship between the amount of radiation you received and the chance that you would get cancer. From this comes the "linear, no threashold" model of radiation exposure and the thought that all radiation, no matter how little, runs the risk of causing health problems. Most government regulations of radiation exposure is based on this linear, no threshold model.
There are other people who feel that the linear, no threshold model is seriously flawed when dealing with low levels of radiation. They point out that radiation is a natural part of world, and the amount of radiation you are exposed to varries widely depending on where you are. For example, people living in Denver get much more radiation than those living in San Francisco because of their higher elevation. Also, when life first started to evolve on earth, the background radiation levels were much higher than today. The basic claim is that the body can usually deal with low levels of radiation, and it is only when you pass a threashold and overload it, that you start seeing a linear increase in health problems.
Trying to determine if there is a threshold and how low levels of radiation really effect people is a hot area of study. Unfortunately, you can't ethically expose people to levels of radiation that might cause problems, so studies of Chernobyl survivers are of particular interest.
There is actually another group of people who think that low levels of radiation is good for you. These people believe in something called "radiation hormesis". These people are generally considered idiots and quacks by most other people who study radiation.
Re:Ways to use useful mutations - NOT (Score:2)
That in and of itself is not inherently evil, I think... your idea of simply encouraging people with real genetic problems to adopt instead of giving birth seems reasonable, at least on the surface.
But consider this: at some point, you have to write definitions. What defines a "demonstrably-problematic mutation-induced condition"? Is hereditary heart disease on the list? How about bad eyesight? Is it just things that we can't currently treat, and if so, is that really fair? After all, it took us a while to come up with eyeglasses, but we've pretty much got that problem effectively licked.
When you start governing fundamental biological functions (for instance, breeding), you'd better be very, very careful about people's rights. In fact, it's probably best to stay away from any laws that allow some to breed, but not others. (IMHO, a blanket law that limits the number of children a family can have is a different issue... that's a reasonable attempt by a nation to keep its population in check.)
I think it's also important to note that genetic problems are very often selected out socially. If a mutation causes a deformation, or causes obvious medical problems, quite often (for better or worse) the person bearing it simply will not find a willing mate.
We've done relatively well without skimming the gene pool... why start now?
Heinlein said this ages ago (Score:2)
Re:BBC Coverage of Science is Useless (Score:2)
BBC Anti-Nuclear FUD (Score:5)
Nowhere on the article are the actual doses quoted. People who cleaned up Chernobly are not or were not exposed to "low levels of radiation" or "low radation doses" by Western standards. They were fried.
In this country the legal annual dose limit is 30 mSv (30 millisieverts) with a much smaller percentage allowable internal dose. The actual dosage to the most exposed workers at the Sellafield reprocessing plant is in the 10-15 mSv range per year, lower than the 20+ mSv ailine cabine crew recieve.
I wish someone would post the actual doses here, whether external or internal, lifetime dose, dose rate, natural background etc.
The BBC loves to stir up the publics' fear of nuclear power and reinforces their ignorance with their own biased tabloid style journalism.
If you want to find out the facts about radiation doses, medical effects, and radiological protection, visit the NRPB website:
http://www.nrpb.gov.uk/
Rant mode off.
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
1. Chernobyl tells us as about as much about the safety of a modern nuclear plant as the ENIAC tells us about the capabilities of modern computers.
2. The results of Chernobyl were "catastophic" only because they were sudden. A large coal-fired plant kills a few hundred people per year, year after year, decade after decade. Nuclear plants kill zero people year after year, actually releasing less radiation than a coal plant. Three Mile Island was a "disaster", but actually saved thousands of lives compared to building equivalent capacity in coal-fired plants.
3. The problem of "what to do with the waste" is purely political. There are many solutions that put it out of harms way for thousands of years.
4. Nuclear power is not one of the most expensive ways to produce electricity. It has a high startup cost, which makes it politically unpalatable. Once in operation, it is one of the cheaper ways to generate electricity. And, of course, there is a practically unlimited supply of
fuel.
Re:Great, another strike against nuclear power (Score:2)
The Department of Energy should have followed the French model of nuclear powerplant construction, which meant standardizing on a single plant design; this drastically reduces costs and makes it easier in terms of operator training and determining safety issues.
As for the Chernobyl disaster, that was a disaster waiting to happen from the get-go. No containment dome, and no decent safety measures to minimize the possibility of an explosion and meltdown. Note that when Three Mile Island had its core meltdown just about all of its radioactivity was still safely confined inside the containment dome.
As for storing radioactive waste, there are places in Texas that are excellent for this purpose. Thanks to the petroleum industry, we have knowledge of extensive underground salt domes in geologically stable areas that are candidates for nuclear waste repositories. And salt is an excellent radioactivity absorber, too.
Re:Great, another strike against nuclear power (Score:2)
What really happened at Chernobyl was that in their stupidity they let the entire uranium/graphite pile overheat, and the result was a massive conventional explosion that blew off the roof of the building where the reactor was located. It also caused a massive fire that spewed out smoke loaded with radioactive uranium dust particles.
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
All Western nuclear powerplants use a very heavy containment dome design that is so strong that a Chernobyl-level explosion of the reactor rods would wouldn't even make a scratch on the structure of the dome. Even today's precision-guided munitions would barely crack the dome itself, as the Israelis found out when they attacked the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.
When Chernobyl exploded, if the reactor was inside a Western-style containment dome there would have been just about zero spewing of radioactive uranium dust. But it wasn't, and the explosion literally blew off the roof of the building where the reactor was located and started a major fire that spewed radioactive uranium dust for many kilometers around.
Re:Great, another strike against nuclear power (Score:5)
Re:mutation is probabalistic (Score:2)
This has the information content of "it's easier to kill yourself by drinking too much water than most doctors thought".
Unfortunately (Score:2)
What good is clean burning if you've got nothing to burn?
Too bad people (USians in particular) have such an irrational fear of anything nuclear...
C-X C-S
Re:Internal? (Score:2)
The article specifically talks about studies of people *working* on the cleanup at Cherynobyl, so you *might* assume that the "internal radiation" under discussion is the result of inhaling radioactive dust... *but* if you read the article and were actually paying atteniton, you'd realize that the closing quotes are not from the scientists who worked on this, but rather: "Richard Bramhall, of the Low Level Radiation Campaign" Which is to say, that the BBC (as is not unusual for news stories about nuclear power) chose to give the last word to an alarmist activist, who may or may not know all that much about what he's talking about.
Brief editorial: I like political activists. I'm glad they exist. But they are not great sources for accurate information, and traditionaly anti-nuke activists have been some of the worst.
Re:Fluorescent tubes dump more radiation than moni (Score:2)
Actually CRTs do give off gamma and xray radiation. Xray and radiation machines used to work (and some may still do) by accelerating electrons across a few KeV or MeVs of potential and then slamming them against a metal target. CRTs work by accelerating electrons across a few KeVs of potential and then slamming them against phosphors. The some of the energy becomes gamma or xray radiation depending on the energy of the electron. However the levels aren't very high and the lead in the glass blocks a bit of it.
Nuclear Power puts a lot of shit in the air too (Score:2)
Re:Nuclear waste a Problem? Thank Al Gore. (Score:2)
Having worked at a conventional power plant (fuel oil/gas turbine) run by the Air Force, I can attest to the fact that there's a significant amount of sensitive, if not secret, information at such a facility.
In fact, for security reasons, much of the infrastructure of such as plant is considered sensitive. You don't want terrorists to know which walls are load-bearing, or which conduits could control the turbines, etc.
bukra fil mish mish
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Monitor the Web, or Track your site!
Internal? (Score:4)
From the article: "There are several indications in the report that the real problem is internal radiation."
The article contrasts a hiroshima style massive external radiation burst vs. these Chernobyl defects which are from internal radiation. What does that mean? I thought all radiation was from an external source?
Breeder Reactors (Score:2)
Nuclear waste a Problem? Thank Al Gore. (Score:5)
What happened to both programs? The Clinton administration killed both of them, supposedly at Al Gore's insistence. I was asked to refute the VP's evidence. In one word, his reasoning was crap. Working prototypes of both reactors existed, they performed as advertised and were truly safe. But they were "nuclear" so Al Gore wanted them killed. Pure lip-service environmentalism. I was there, I performed the analysis, I reviewed the documentation.
Re:Great, another strike against nuclear power (Score:2)
So your telling me that 100,000 years of the waste being so toxic we have to store it in a big fuckin hole in the ground, is safer than anything we got? You better remove your CIA implant.
Yup, I'm saying that exact thing. Consider:
Coal-generated power releases both greenhouse gases *and* (as another poster pointed out) low level radioactive materials.
Hydroelectric dams lead to the release of large amounts of methane, again a greenhouse gas.
Gas & oil have the same problems: dirty emissions that aren't just problems for the greenhouse, but are also stinky.
Clean sources such as solar and wind powered generators just do not produce enough power to meet consumer demand.
More efficient vehicles and appliances will *still* not curb the global increase in demand for power. Remember, you have China and India who are both moving up, up, UP into the new technological era, and that's over 2 billion peoples that are going to want power sockets. That's something along the lines of 20 gigawatts of increased demand. *At best* increased efficiency of powered items will only lower this demand by 1 or 2 gigawatts.
We can either a) chose not to build more power plants and have the problems California is currently suffering through go global, or b) be smart about it. Nuclear seems the smart choice.
- Rev.Great, another strike against nuclear power (Score:3)
Personally, I'm still all for nuclear power. There just seems to be this weird yin/yang thing that governs the generation of power, and nuclear power seems to be the one that -- when done properly -- causes the least harm. Coal plants put massive quantities of shit into the air, windmills & solar arrays don't generate enough to be worthwhile, and hydroelectric dams a) dessimate vast sections of land, and b) let off crazy amounts of methane from decomposing vegetable matter.
So RAH for nuclear. It's cheap, lasts a long time, and apart and aside from the occasionally annoying meltdown, it's perfectly safe.
- Rev.
Re:Internal? (Score:3)
Re:Nuclear waste a Problem? Thank Al Gore. (Score:2)
Re:Nuclear waste a Problem? Thank Al Gore. (Score:2)
Like most businesses the nuclear plants are capitalists when they are making money and communist when they are losing it. They want to make profits from selling the electricity but don't want to pay for storage of their waste and want the taxpayers to foot the bill for that.
The store problem is very real and very political. the political situation can be solved very simply by simply storing the waste where the CEOs live. If they store the waste in the hamptons (or whatever high class neigborhood the CEOs live) then I don't think you'll see an outcry from the public at large. Simply bury the waste beneath the 18 hole golf course in the back yard and you wouln't hear a peep from the masses. No complaints and no costs to the taxpayer what could be more simple?
Re:Nuclear waste a Problem? Thank Al Gore. (Score:2)
Both George Bush and Dick Chaney are born again christians. As such they have two fundemental beliefs.
1) The earth was made for the consumption of man. God made all the animals and plants so that they could serve mankind. Nature has no value other then what benefit it can give to man.
2) There really is not a future to speak of. There is no need to conserve of preserve the earth because Jesus will come back. When he comes back he will kill and punish all people like me (a heathen) as well as all commies, fags, ragheads, kikes etc and will take all good christians like them to the promised land. The apocalypse is around the corner.
The idea of preserving nature is anthitetical to their religion. God said to use the animals and god said he will take care of them. They follow the will of God.
BTW. California used less energy this year then they did last year. How come they have less energy? Just exactly why is there a shortage this year when last year there was no problem? I'll give you a hint it has nothing to do with production.
Re:Nuclear waste a Problem? Thank Al Gore. (Score:2)
Re:Nuclear waste a Problem? Thank Al Gore. (Score:2)
Umm.. okay.. (Score:3)
On the bright (glowing?) side (Score:4)
Hmm. I seem to be letting my humor get excessively dark.
Heroes in a Half Shell (Score:3)
(Sorry... with all these X-Men references, I had to bring Donatello, Leonardo, Michaelangelo, and Raphael into it. Don't forget Splinter. Or Bebop and Rocksteady. Or any of the other mutants in the comics/cartoon.)
Few things terrified me... OT (Score:2)
Respect electricity, and you won't have problems:
1. Turn the power off at the breaker and the switch.
2. Before touching bare wires, test them with a voltmeter or other tester.
3. If you can do it (and especially when working around high voltage), place one hand in your pocket when working - don't let a path be across the heart.
4. If this isn't possible, and you are only working with low voltage, wear a pair of dishwashing gloves, one size smaller than normal (to still have good "feel").
Typically, if you do 1 and 2, you will be pretty safe. Do number 3 if you are paranoid, or working with high voltage projects (ie, Tesla coils and such). Do number 4 if you want to be perfectly safe (however, only do number 4 if you are _not_ working on high voltage projects - dishwasher gloves will not help).
Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
Re:Great, another strike against nuclear power (Score:2)
Why yes, conservation has worked wonderfully for California. That's why they're having rolling blackouts in May, before summer even gets started.
> If you're so gung-ho on nuclear power, you should build a power plant in your OWN backyard!!
Acutally, yes.
If I were in the market for a house, the first place I'd look is somewhere close to a proposed nuclear power plant site. Property values would be considerably depressed due to the irrational fears of people like you, and I could have several acres all to myself.
If the plant's construction were ultimately prevented, I could resell the land at a considerable profit as property values reflated. If construction went forward, I'd own a much nicer home (and more land) than I would otherwise have been able to afford, and would have received excellent value for my money.
If I already owned property at the time a site was announced, and the property was for my own use (rather than as an investment), I would still support construction of the plant, and I would continue to live there after the plant went operational.
Call me a YIMBY. Yes, in my backyard.
Nevada waste dump (Score:2)
I cannot speak for the others, but I am opposed to the proposed nuclear waste dump because I don't want other people's garbage. It is as simple as that - people should take care of their own garbage, and not just ship it somewhere else. Maybe then they would think a bit before creating the garbage in the first place (this goes for ALL garbage, nuclear or not).
As for nuclear power, I would welcome a few plants around here. Hell, we could sell power to California and reduce the tax dependence on gaming. There's plenty of room out here in the desert. There is even a nice salt flat just five miles down the road from me - build a plant there
if you want!
All I demand is that the plant be a MODERN design, not some shit death-trap like the Soviets built, or the obsolete ones mandated by our brain-dead Atomic Energy Commission...
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
We live on a radioactive planet, people! (Score:2)
So how bad was Chernobyl? (Score:2)
In you final paragraph you seem to say you're opposed to pretty much any existing means to generate energy. Fine. But that makes your view useless for the purpose of deciding how to actually produce electricity in the real world. "None of the above" is not an option.
Healthy radiation. (Score:2)
I may be a slight net gain, under some circumstances, for a well-nurished otherwise-healthy adult. But don't go out and get a daily X-ray in the hope I'm right. IANAMd B-) Just don't sweat it if you live in Denver, work in a granite building, or are an airline pilot.
(But if you were downwind of Hanford or Chernobyl when they had releases, especially if you were still inside your mother at the time, sweat it BIG time.)
I was always wondering why my father is so healthy. He is a Nagasaki survivor. I know a couple more people who are extremely healthy. I was wondering if they survived because they were extremely healthy or they were healthy because they survived.
Probably the former. There are other mechanisms that attempt to suppress or kill off cells with damaged DNA, or to abort foetuses that have too much DNA damage. But losing a bunch of cells is normally not optimal, even if you luck out and ALL the remainder are healthy.
One of the surprises of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is how thoroughly the radiation-exposed survivors recovered. (Of course they were sick as dogs while the damaged cells were dying off, essentially everybody who was pregnant aborted, and there is a higher incidence of cancer and other problems later. It's just that they was not anywhere near as much long-term health problems, or sterility, as were expected early on.)
Being atom-bombed is NOT a Good Thing.
My father told me that he has about a half of white blood cells of average. Could anyone explain this?
Probably lost a bunch of bone marrow stem cells and memory white cells (which recognized they'd been damaged and committed apoptosis - "programmed cell death", or had their surface antigens changed and were killed by their neighbors.)
The next question would be if I am a mutant...
We're all mutants. You just might have a couple more recent mutations than the rest of us. B-) If so I expect they'll get sorted out in a few generations. Figure that most of 'em were already sorted out, in the form of brothers and sisters who weren't born. B-(
Re:Healthy radiation. (Score:2)
Still here. (I generally check my recent posts page to see if anybody has replied.)
There also was a great concern if DNA damage would be inherited, or the children would have gentic problems that were not seen in parents. They even invented a word for those second generation survivors (Nisei==second generation).
But it seems that the concensus after 56 years is that the children were not more affected than their parents.
It looks like dominant mutations tend to get weeded out by spontaneous abortion during foetal development. (A plausible function for "ontology recapitulates phylology", the tendency of a foetus to go through stages corresponding to its evolutionary history, might be to give a test-run of the currently turned-off-in-adults genes to make sure they are still intact, "crashing" the foetus if not.)
Recessive mutations (i.e. non-functional proteins that you only need one good copy of) might have to wait until the broken gene gets paired up with itself, generations later. First occurrence would be in third generation if brother married sister. With normal restrictions on intermarriage it won't occur for quite a few generations (though they could also pair with differently-damaged versions of the same gene sooner). Expected result is the same: Most of the mutant genes will produce spontaneous abortions when paired up and get weeded out.
A little sad side of this whole nisei thing was that some second generations wanted to have the same benefit as the first generation survivors who get any medical treatment for free.
I can understand it. Fortunate that they don't seem to be having excessive health problems.
But I can also understand the issue on the government side. You have to stop somewhere.
I thought that my being relatively smarter might have something to do with it
Maybe it does. I seem to be relatively smarter, too, and I got a LOT of chest x-rays as a kid.
By the way, the first movie ``Godzilla'' reflected the Japanese' fear of atomic bombs. As you may all know, Godzilla was a mutant lizard.
Didn't the first Godzilla movie have the creature revived/hatched as a side-effect of nuclear bomb testing, and showing up acting really angry about it. (Sort of like the badger, which looks and acts like a weasel that had its head run over by a truck and is still mad about it. B-) )
But it's also bogus. (Score:3)
"These results indicate that low doses of radiation can induce multiple changes in human germline DNA."
... the germline cells are there, packed with chemicals that prevent mutations (antioxidants for instance). Most of this is to *prevent* mutations that occur through malicious chemicals. Radiation doesn't really work that way. It will just penetrate through and nock of some basepares from the DNA
However, most of the damage done by radiation is done by the creation of free radicals, which then damage the DNA by chemical reactions. So antioxidants are quite effective (though not perfect) at stopping radiation damage.
The antioxidants are "expensive" nutritionally, (and humans evolved with less nutrition than is available in developed countries). So there's a feedback process to adjust their levels to limit free radical damage to an acceptable level without draining sometimes-scarce resources useful elsewhere. The bulk of free radicals in a cell come from the mitochondria (the cell's own "power plants").
As evidenced by cancer rate vs. environmental radiation exposure, the location of the "thermostat" is such that if the cell is exposed to a CONTINUOUS, LOW LEVEL of ionizing radiation the free-radical scavenger production is increased so much that the net result is LESS mutation. Up to the point where free-radical scavenger production maxes out, continuous low-level ionizing radiation is actually a net gain. (The same is also true of certain free-radical producing chemicals - again with the continuous low-level caveat.)
The problem with Chernobyl is partly that the level was NOT low, but mostly because the level was not CONTINUOUS. A short-term exposure to a high level of radiation is NOT equivalent to the same amount of radiation spread over years for a number of reasons, and a very big one is that the damage takes place before the levels of protecting chemicals can be raised.
So finding damage to DNA in stem cells of people who were brought to Chernobyl to clean up, and thus suddenly exposed to a high rate of ionizing radiation for a short time, is no surprise, and has no bearing on the expected effect of long-term exposure to low levels of background radiation.
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
As far as waste, most reactors now store their waste locally. There's nothing wrong with that and it is completely safe. As far as the containment buildings on modern nuclear plants, you could actually fly a Boeing 747 into one and it would not crack the containment seal. Quite a bit different than Chernobyl, no? And as far as cost your wrong. Nuclear power is one of the cheapest sources of power available, if not the cheapest. I think the numbers are something like $3 per killowatt whereas natural gas is over $300 dollars per killowatt. That's right, over 100 times the cost of nuclear power. And unfortunately a heck of a lot of electricity is generated via natural gas in the USA. How barbaric! Burning gas to heat water to create steam to turn a turbine. Natural gas should be used to heat homes and cook nice fresh red meat, not create electricity.
And where do I get my information from? Why do I believe I know just a bit more than you do about nuclear power? Because my father served in the Navy for 23 years and towards the end worked as a special assistant to President Johnson doing things he can't tell us about
Stay alert! (Score:2)
Presently unregistered mutants are hereby ordered to report to the nearest terminal for Mutant Self-Incrimination, followed by arrest and execution by INTSEC.
The Computer is Your Friend.
Re:What they mean: (Score:3)
---
Re:Nuclear waste a Problem? Thank Al Gore. (Score:3)
Energy is civillization.
Energy is Progress.
More Energy is better than Less Energy.
Measuring civillization throughout history in terms of energy/person directly coorelates to the standard of living and social/scientific advances.
Fossil Fuels are a limited resource and they are the number one greenhouse gas contributer.
To produce CURRENT world energy requirements using biomass, 2/3rds of the land surface of the Earth would have to be a corn field.
To produce CURRENT world energy requirements using solar energy would require a solar panel with a surface area larger than the moon.
To produce CURRENT world energy requriements with windmills would require roughly 4/5ths of the land surface of the Earth.
So what is the answer. Nuclear.
Re:The Bush admin.? Pro-nuclear? (Score:2)
Take a Geiger Counter in an Airplane! /Science Ma (Score:4)
The only unexpected negative consequence was an unusually high rate of thyroid cancer in children, but this is not a true low-dose effect because the thyroid efficiently concentrates radioactive iodine. Fortunately, thyroid cancer is relatively benign and there have only been four deaths from it.
Furthermore, a closer reading of the latest scare study shows that those exposed were not in the low dose group! They were workers at the facility after the event - those who were involved in cleaning things up. There is lots of evidence that low dose radiation is not as dangerous, per milli-severt, as high dose radiation. The linear dose-response model that is used by environmental agencies shows way too high a risk at low levels. This results in ridiculously low level requirements on nuclear plants - levels which, btw, coal burning plants exceed every day!
A hypothesis on the nonlinearity of the dose response is that it DNA is self-repairing, it may take near-simultaneous hits on the same DNA to defeat that mechanism. Simple statistics shows that the odds of this, relative to radiation dosage, are far from linear.
Does anyone remember the extremely high numbers of excess deaths expected from Chernobyl? To date, it has killed fewer people than a medium sized commercial airliner crash - and Chernobyl was a worst-case meltdown. Almost all of the deaths were among workers immediately after the event who received very high doses.
Chernobyl was an uncontained reactor with a positive coefficient - loaded with graphite which burned once the temperatures got too high.
And finally, if you really are worried about radiation, take a geiger counter in an airplane. You will watch the background level climb dramatically as the aircraft climbs. When I did this, it went from 26 clicks per minute to many hundreds - and I live in a high-background area.
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
Yeah we can do solar, wind, etc... (Score:2)
Re:How small of a dose? (Score:2)
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
disclaimer:I do have a physics degree, and I worked for 4 months for AECL, who design and build the CANDU reactors, but I'm not a "nuclear physicist"
Nuclear power, if done properly, is very safe. The Chernobyl accident was a combination of bad reactor design, lack of operator training, and plain stupidity.
Background info: Nuclear reactions can do three things depending on their surroundings, what we call the moderator: they can die out, they can induce a chain reaction which is self perpetuating, or they can go critical and become a run-away reaction. Nuclear power obviously wants the self-sustaining chain reaction and uses a combination of moderating fliuds and coolants to achieve this.
The Russian reactors use graphite as the moderator. This is a really bad design choice because when there is insufficient coolant, you get a run-away reaction. Very bad.
The Chernobly-4 explosion occurred because, even though the reactors were known to be unstable with low power levels, the crew decided to test how long the turbines would continue to run in the event of a main power failure. This test was to run prior to a routing maintainence shutdown, but they took the automatic shutdown procedures off line, lost too much coolant, and the reaction went critical. Then they couldn't shut it down. Plain stupidity, combined with a bad design.
Contrast the CANDU reactor (there are other safe designs, but this is obviously the one I know most about). The moderation material in a CANDU reactor is heavy water. When you lose coolant with heavy water as a moderator, the reaction stops. Power failure, the reaction stops. With a heavy water design, there is no possibility of a critical reaction as there was with Chernobyl. And you can use the uranium straight from the mine, at natural concentrations, so there is less chemical processing involved and the fuel is a naturally occuring material.
It really is the safest and most environmentally freindly choice we have today for energy production. Wind and solar are the only ones that would be better, but our technology for these things right now is far too inefficient (I read somewhere last year that you would have to cover all of New York State with solar panels just to power New York City. Not practical yet I'm afraid). With a properly designed nuclear plant, you get no air pollution, ground pollution, no interference with wildlife habitats, etc. It is expensive, but you have to chose your evils, and I'd rather pay a little more for power and avoid the environmental nastys you get with hydro or coal.
BBC Coverage of Science is Useless (Score:4)
They don't give the damn exposure data. Why can't they just give a rough range of the exposure that the people in this study faced?
Executive Order (Score:3)
We need error-detecting and correcting DNA. Someone get on this.
Re:Internal? (Score:2)
not to worry...evolution will sort it out... (Score:2)
Re:Internal? (Score:2)
Rad-hard life (Score:2)
Re:Nuclear waste a Problem? Thank Al Gore. (Score:3)
Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:4)
It is true that Chernobyl was a humanitarian/environmental disaster of global proportions, however I feel that since that incident, nuclear power has been stereotyped as a devil energy souce.
First of all, Chernobyl was a very old (one of the first designs, if not the first "production" design) nuclear power plant of the soviet era. Today besides the stigma arround nuclear energy, many advances have been made to nuclear energy powerplants, and there are designs of powerplants today which produce reclyclable radioactive wastes.
Look at France. France produces, as far as I can remember (don't take my numbers for granted) 70% of its engery with nuclear power plants. Although their designs are much more modern than the Chernobyl design, they are not of the type that produce very little recyclable waste. I often feel that this is the case becasue research and development into nuclear energy power plants is avoided because of all the environmental PR hassle.
I would be very interested to hear from some Nuclear Physisists out here that could enlighten us a little further on nuclear power energy, and how safe it REALLY is. France doesn't have an energy problem, and I think this is largely due to its heavy use of nuclear power plants.
I can understand there must be a lot of pro-nuclear energy publicity coming out of the current Bush administration - since they probably feel that this is one of the ways to curb the energy problem in the US without creating too much polution from it.
Again, I would love to hear some hard facts from Nuclear Physisists about the dangers and advantages of the current or potential nuclear power plant designs.
These are still pretty high doses of radiation. (Score:5)
Enigma
Protect yourself (Score:3)
There is this very legit product [shieldworks.com] from ShieldWorks [shieldworks.com]. Check out their catalog [shieldworks.com]
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Other people may want to investigate protection for other body parts.
There is a business plan in here someplace folks.
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Re:Internal? (Score:2)
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
Does Chernobyl not tell you what is wrong with nuclear power? The risks of a disaster happening might indeed be very small, but the results are catastrophic. An explosion in the Ukraine meant that sheep in Wales became too radioactive to sell!
And of course its not just Chernobyl. There have been a large number of accidents. Chernobyl was just the worse is all. And still there is the problem of what to do with the waste. There have been massive protests in Germany recently over waste disposal. If you finally add to this that nuclear power is one of the most expensive ways of producing electricity you have to ask yourself why use it? France does, but only because they have no other way of producing the power.
Phil
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
I am not sure that I did neglect this. The consequences of failure are still potentially catastrophic. The risks might be lower in the case of newer plants, but the potentially catastrophic nature is still there.
"There are designs for nuclear powerplants that use the WASTE it produces"
This would be fast breeders right? Which pump around tons of radioactive liquid sodium as coolant. Be interesting if that hit the water table.
I am sure elementary physics tells you that you can only reuse fuel so many times before you have to get rid of it. And often there is waste involved in that reuse. Sellafield for instance (which is a big reprocessing plant) is responsible for making the Irish sea the most radioactive in the world.
"it produces an AWEFULL lot of energy, more than any coal or natural gas power plant "
This would depend on the size of the power plant no?
"France uses nuclear because it can't use anything else [...] if it had small coal or natural gas reserves, it could buy those from other countries".
This would increases the cost of the electricity produced by these means. Of course there is a second issue here. France would not need to import coal after all. It could just import electricity (and indeed it does, there is a big power line between France and the UK). Most countries like to produce their own power however for political reasons.
"The main reason why they use it is because its non-polluting and produces a lot of power."
This is not true. The French produced a lot of nuclear power plants many years ago. The same is true in the UK. Its cheaper to keep the plants running than it is to decommision them. They are still more expensive than every other form of power generation though. They are definately not non-polluting, although as a lot of the French reprocessing is done at Sellafield, a lot of the pollution is shipped abroad.
France uses a large amount of nuclear power. So does Japan. The reasons are not because its "non-polluting and produces a lot of power", but because of the peculiar economic situation of those countries.
Phil
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
Yes.
"As far as waste, most reactors now store their waste locally."
Until the storage runs out of course. You might want to look at the press coverage of recent events in Germany. I realise that this is outside of the US and thenfore irrelevant, but still.
"you could actually fly a Boeing 747 into one and it would not crack the containment seal."
They said this about the transport flasks. Then they ran an train into one as a public relations exercise. And yes it did indeed crack.
Nuclear power is one of the cheapest sources of power available, if not the cheapest.
"I think the numbers are something like $3 per killowatt whereas natural gas is over $300 dollars per killowatt. That's right, over 100 times the cost of nuclear power"
This is so patently absurd that I don't know why I am bothering to answer it. The last time I looked at the stats nuclear power was four or five times more expensive to produce than gas or coal. These stats are from the UK. Obviously it depends on the local factors. But not that much.
"Why do I believe I know just a bit more than you do about nuclear power?"
Ah. Argument by higher authority. Usually used in the absence of knowledge.
"Scare tactics don't work for people properly informed with knowledge. "
I don't believe I am using such tactics. Nuclear power has its uses. My argument is simple. Nuclear power has with it an associated risk of catastrophic failure. The results of this failure are greater than that which I think it is reasonable for society to bear. Okay?
Phil
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
Its actually very hard to make this judgement, given that our knowledge of the impact of low level radiation is relatively poor.
"actually releasing less radiation than a coal plant. "
Perhaps. Coal power plants are not the greatest example of a clean technology either, and I don't think that I suggested they were.
"The problem of "what to do with the waste" is purely political."
By which you mean that you do not agree with those people who suggest that this is a real problem. You are entitled to your opinion.
"There are many solutions that put it out of harms way for thousands of years. "
How do you know? Given that we have not been able to validate these methods for anything like that length, I tend to worry about this. Something like the "1 in 10 billion" risk assessments that nuclear industry comes out with.
"Nuclear power is not one of the most expensive ways to produce electricity. [...] Once in operation, it is one of the cheaper ways"
Its expensive to start, and very expensive to finish. The total cost is very high. We can only agree to differ about this cost but all of the stats that I have seen suggest that it is the most expensive form of the power generation. And this includes the stats from the nuclear industry.
"ENIAC tells us about the capabilities of modern computers. "
ENIAC told us many things about computers which are still true today. Its very easy to place faith in new technology. But new technology does not necessarily change the fundamental problems that exist with it. Nuclear power has some of those fundamental problems. So do other forms of power generation ("what happens when the oil runs out?" for instance). To deny these problems is non sensical to my mind.
Phil Phil
Re:What they mean: (Score:2)
I don't think that you gave any examples. What you said was to my mind confused, poorly worded, and most wrong. In some cases your statements (about "lifespan" for instance) were fairly meaningless. Some were wrong. Maybe you think that pointing out that two germline cells are often required to produce one organism is picky, but I consider it to be important.
"It is just an indication that you are not very clever "
I don't think it was an indication of very much, other than my willingness to use a cheap shot. As you ended your note with a cheap shot also I conclude that you likewise willing to use cheap shots.
Phil
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
Yes. And I am arguing that these figures are fairly suspect. They tend to be based on the an assessment of failures occuring that are known about. They do not cover the risk on unknown failures. In short they are fairly meaningless.
It differs from something like a computer system where you can give a uptime estimates on 99.999% for instance. You can test these things to failure, and form statistics based on actual usage. Clearly you can not do this with a nuclear power plant.
Phil
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
Your sources are impossible to verify, and therefore have very little bearing on the matter. I can only make judgements based on the quality of the argument that I see from you, and vice versa.
"I'm quite certain myself that a Chernobyl type event is not possible in the USA. "
I tend to duck when people say things are "not possible". Failure is always possible. A fast breeder reactor for instance uses tons of radioactive molten sodium. The risks if this hits the water table are clear. And there is always a risk.
"If we are not talking about a Chernobyl type event, and only the remote possibility of releasing small amounts of low-level radioactive material into the environment then I think it is a reasonable risk for society to bear."
If we are talking about releasing small amounts of low level radioactive material into the environment, then its hardly a remote possibility. We know for a fact that it happens, and does so regularly. Take a look at the safety record of Sellafield for instance, which has accidentally released radioactive material quite a few times. This is of course ignoring the radioactive material that it deliberately pumps into the Irish sea every day.
Yes I know that this is not the US, but rather the UK. I don't know about US reactors but I doubt that they are substantially better.
And of course my final point is that if catastrophic failure does occur it will be society that has to pick up the pieces, not those people who currently profit from the nuclear industry. Not a terribly fair deal really.
Phil
Re:Why so much paranoia towards nuclear power? (Score:2)
Actually this is country dependant. Most of my local power stations are gas powered.
"No, I mean that knowledgable people don't really worry about waste disposal anymore. "
Again I think this is incorrect. The furore in Germany recently shows this. One interesting statistic is that in the region they are trying to dump the waste 2/3 of the population have criminal convictions for trying to stop the process.
"We can demonstrate that potential disposal sites have not be breached with water for millions of years. "
Which says relatively little about the next millions years, particularly not after you have dug a big hole in the site.
"Quite untrue. It is far cheaper than photovoltaic, for example. "
Yes and it's also cheaper than powering your house from a bicycle dynamo. Photovoltaic cells are the most expensive form of solar power, so a relatively bad example.
"The "environmental" movement views a chronic shortage of power "
Large scale usage of power always has an impact on the environment. The agenda that the environmental movement has is ensuring that our children actual have a pleasant environment and do not have to swim to go down the shops. The power generation industries agenda is that we use more power for everything.
Phil
Re:Internal? (Score:4)
The two released very different sorts of radiation. For instance Cherynobl released significant amounts of astatine, which gets pumped into the thyroid and massively concentrated. Hiroshima was mostly heavy metal which will get onto the skin, but I don't think will get ingested.
It's always been known that different types of radiation have very different effects. I used to use P-32 a lot for instance. We used very low levels of radiation (compared to the levels physicists or engineers use for instance). But in our case we were using water soluble forms, which if ingested would be incorporated into your DNA. Not good.
Phil
Re:Internal? (Score:4)
Well heavy metal contamination will occur as dust. Indeed yes this sort of dust can be inhaled. Personally I would not call this "internal", in the sense that the inside of your lungs are er, outside your body if you see what I mean. But yes this sort of dust would be dangerous. You would expect to see increased levels of lung, throat, and perhaps stomach (from food) cancer.
"How about the air molecules? Oxygen? Nitrogen?"
Both of these elements exist as radioactive forms. Except under a few circumstances I suspect that they would not be dangerous (as air) because they would dilute very very quickly. Of course following an explosion if there were any radioactive Oxygen its likely to end up as water, or other oxides and these would be a different issue.
"Chernobyl was that the wind was going to carry radioactive particles to Western Europe and such, which doesn't seemed to have happened"
It did happen. Chernobyl (which is the the ukraine) resulted in sheep in Wales being declared unfit for human consumption (it rains a lot in Wales, at least on the hills, so this is where the dust came down).
Phil
Au contraire mes amis (Score:4)
Re:Great, another strike against nuclear power (Score:2)
The thing is, as they're trying to point out here, a single accident, not very-low exposure from, say, coal, can cause lasting changes in the gene pool.
--
Back in my lab days... (Score:3)
We use to work with radioactive iodine and phosphorus more often then I cared to, and had to wear the appropriate gear - including a radiation badges. One got left in the hood for some reason or other, and it was a little hotter than normal.
Anyhow, a week after one of the new grad students starts working with our group, one of my cohorts picks up a Geiger counter, adjusts the sensitivity, and says, "lets check to see if your thyroid is doing OK". With one hand he placed the badge near his neck and moved the GC close enough to make a delightful pops.... The look on his face was priceless. Oh... did we get into the doghouse for that one....
Anyhow, true low-level radiation is pretty safe. The cleanup crew at Chernobyl would not be dealing with levels I would call "low". Electricity scares the hell out of me, however. Few things terrified me as much as installing a new ceiling fan for my wife.
Re:Great, another strike against nuclear power (Score:2)
Re:Unfortunately (Score:2)
Given the design of some nuculear reactors the fear isn't unjustified. Outside the US, there are reactors whos fule could be converted into nuclear weapons.
Really though, it's an understanding issue. The media blows anything nuclear far out of proportion (not that it isn't a big deal, it's just not as bad as they make it seem. Same goes for any disaster.)
Finite supply goes for nucluear fule as well. It just last a hell of alot longer. (And some varities can be produced synthetically.)
It's mostly an education issues. Most people only know about nucluear power from headlines and weapons, and thus have a negitive impression.
I have the benifit of "education" from a nucluear engineer (former navy, now at a power plant) and just general curisoty. (The ability to recongize bias and form my own opinions helps.) Personally, I'd rather have a nucluear power plant in my back yard than a fossil fule based plant. Thing is, my back yard is far from ideal for either!
Power sources aren't good or bad. We have short term (ok, now damnit!) and long term power problems.
My intent with the posting was to provide a different insite to the one given. I thought it was interesting and the discussion could benifit from listening to it. Oh yeah, I forgot,
Re:Great, another strike against nuclear power (Score:3)
Actually, Clean Coal power plants are rather impressive. The coal is ground into a powder, mixed with water, then turned into a gas. Somewhere in the process sulfer, etc. are removed and made into sulfuric acid, which is sold. The result is your powerplant is also a small chemical plant. I only caught the last few minutes of the spot on NPR [npr.org], but it sounded interesting. Here is the segment [npr.org] from All Things Considered [npr.org] on Monday, May 07, 2001.
Ways to use useful mutations - NOT (Score:2)
Without them, we as a species wouldn't be here, of course. The problem is, we have derailed the mechanism by which members of the species with marginally adaptive or marginally maladaptive mutations are selected (or not). Children born with truly horrendous and fatal mutations do, indeed, still die off and that particular mutation vanishes, but for the borderline ones, we're increasingly encouraging and supporting reproduction by people who probably oughta keep their marginally-maladaptive mutations to themselves.
What do you think: would this report help start a dialogue that could return some sense to reproductive and fertility policies, particularly in Western countries and most specifically the US, encouraging people who have genetic diseases or demonstrably-problematic mutation-induced conditions not to reproduce, but to adopt instead?
Or, will it just make people paranoid about all sources of radiation, including that big thermonuclear furnace that flies across the sky every day, to where we just hide in caves (breathing radon, of course)?
Please pipe all comments which contain the terms "eugenics," "Mengele" and "Hitler" to good ole /dev/null... that's not what I'm talking about here. What I'm getting at is, if the mutagen is that pervasive, is there a way we can figure out to USE it for our own purposes instead of just getting hosed randomly by it?
Turtle
---------------------------------------
Nuclear is a problem word (Score:2)
"Nuclear" scares people. That's why MRIs (Magnetic Resonance Images) are called that, the original acronym was NMR, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. Doctors thought that would be too scary for patients and the public, so they dropped the "nuclear".
I thought that's why people like "feeder plants" but think nuclear power is going to kill them. (The word "reactor" is also taboo.)
I don't think many people think about things that scare them. They certainly don't study them or have an open mind.
Re:Nuclear waste a Problem? Thank Al Gore. (Score:2)
The problem with such reactors is that in order to achieve any sort of significant benefit (ie, move from experiment to practical power source), we need to move a lot of weapons-grade material-- or extremely toxic waste-- around the country.
The French (and us) experimented with breeder reactors that "burned" radioactive biproducts and Plutonium. Aside from the fact that those things are pretty unpleasant to have in any sort of refined form anywhere, the problem is that you have to refine the stuff, then ship it around (unless you have a very small number of power plans, each colocated with a super-secure refining plant.)
That creates dangers that simply don't exist today. While power plants could be made very secure, transports aren't nearly as safe. It's also important to point out that traditional nuclear plants don't need to be as secure, because "traditional" nuclear waste materials aren't quite as dangerous as the super-refined stuff that these plants would burn.
In any case, I'm no expert. I'd be happy if someone could correct all the mistakes I probably just made.
But hey, a little hyperbole at the expense of reason and accuracy never hurt an argument, right?
There seems to be a lot of hyperbole going around on both sides of this argument...
Re:Nuclear waste a Problem? Thank Al Gore. (Score:2)
Of course, you assume that we won't allow that new uranium might be found, or god forbid, better technology
Actually, you could provide plenty of fissile material if you went to breeder reactors. Only problem is, we'd be creating a plutonium economy (a pleasant idea) and shipping all sorts of nasty stuff all over the country. That's a place that even the French don't want to go (and they love nuclear power.)
Wind technology is developing rapidly. To write it off by citing the capacity of existing equipment is silliness. Same with solar. Create a market for the tech, and it will come.
Anyway, I have to go now-- I have to load another batch of punch cards into the mainframe.
What they mean: (Score:5)
"These results indicate that low doses of radiation can induce multiple changes in human germline DNA."
Mammals (including humans) have 'special' cells that have very low degradation in DNA. Normal cells are mutated all the time. This is not a problem as the DNA can take an enormous amount of mutations without changing its function (in fact, in a gene every third base can pretty much be changed at random without the gene product changing one bit). So, you don't want to make new organisms out of skin cells. Therefore the germline cells are there, packed with chemicals that prevent mutations (antioxidants for instance). Most of this is to *prevent* mutations that occur through malicious chemicals. Radiation doesn't really work that way. It will just penetrate through and nock of some basepares from the DNA. Remember: once a basepair is changed, the cell can never again figure out what the correct base was! Anyway, if you are exposed to a large amount of radiation, it can only be expected that the germline is effected as well.
How small of a dose? (Score:5)
Re:Fluorescent tubes dump more radiation than moni (Score:2)
Unless I've been misinformed, of course. I had always assumed that the term 'radiation', even though general, just throws the fear of God into people.
Re:Au contraire mes amis (Score:2)
A high dosage without "priming" will result in more mutation damage because there isn't enough repair enzyme available to do the work.
You can't "train" an enzyme to do anything -- they're not dogs!
Enzymes work on the premise of positive or negative feedback, based on concentration of enzyme and ligands (and other factors, like temperature, salt molarity, etc.).
Re:Low Level Radiation (Score:2)
Re:Internal? (Score:3)