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Nobody is going to die from radiation poisoning off the 10,000-year water unless they ingest it, and the hot stuff will be too cool in a couple hundred years at
by vonmoltke 10y ago
Nobody is going to die from radiation poisoning off the 10,000-year water unless they ingest it, and the hot stuff will be too cool in a couple hundred years at most.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoThe entire premise is that this waste is going to be toxic for 10,000 years. So we're not allowed to posit 'cool in a couple hundred years'.
- vonmoltke 10y ago"Toxic for 10,000 years" does not mean "get radiation exposure for standing next to unshielded waste", not does "cool" mean "non-toxic". The ionizing radiation danger of materials is inversely proportional to their half-life. Stuff that requires inches of lead generally has half-lives in the years or tens of years. Stuff with half-lives in the thousands of years can generally be "shielded" by a thick glass jar.
- dsfyu404ed 10y agoThis, if something's emitting a lot of energy it won't be doing so for long.