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"That part is an oxymoron because radioactive waste decays." Its a hazard until the waste decays. If the waste takes a long time to decay then its a long-term
by andyjohnson0 11y ago
"That part is an oxymoron because radioactive waste decays."
Its a hazard until the waste decays. If the waste takes a long time to decay then its a long-term hazard. Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24k years, for example. Other transuranic isotopes have half-lives measured in hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of years.
I agree with you about industrial waste, though.
- mikeash 11y agoWhy does nobody get worked up about unknown civilizations 10,000 years in the future stumbling across a chemical waste dump and getting killed by it? It's very odd that all the emphasis is on nuclear, when nuclear waste dumps will be a tiny fraction of the hazards created by current civilization.
- slgeorge 11y agoI'm sure your Mother told you 'two wrongs don't make a right' as a child though.
- mikeash 11y agoAnd? If one guy steals a hat, and another guy murders the storekeeper, it's reasonable to ask why people are more upset about the hat than the murder, and that does not in any way justify the hat.