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Before people start criticizing nuclear power. This story is about the Hanford Site. This is where they exclusively made plutonium for bombs, starting from the

by erentz 9y ago

Before people start criticizing nuclear power. This story is about the Hanford Site. This is where they exclusively made plutonium for bombs, starting from the Manhatten Project. It’s a very complex situation with waste all over the site for a number of reasons, some of them really bad (aka management incompetence, government outsourcing of responsibility, etc), some of them sort of understandable (hey Joe, it’s 1945, we don’t know much about this shit but it can’t possibly hurt anyone if we bury over there in this vast wasteland. Don’t worry we’ll remember where it is... doesn’t). Tours of the Hanford site are available to US citizens. Highly recommend people also go to the Manahatten Project “B Reactor” out there which is available to everyone.

pasbesoin 9y ago
My primary concern with nuclear power is the human element. For which we have a long and well-demonstrated history of limitations that don't match corresponding requirements. In other words, we are creating something human history -- as well as contemporary events -- demonstrate we do not have an enduring ability to manage. As they say, we can't put the genie back in the bottle. But we can perhaps do something to limit scope, particularly where alternatives are developing that are safer and, sliding down the development cost graph, more cost-effective. P.S. I'll add that, until we can manufacture elements (more fully), I prefer to keep these limited resource available for potential future use, when we have acceptable alternatives -- for me, now, meaning solar, wind, hydro (all forms of solar energy, essentially). Who knows what need we might have of them, in the future? What if really going to space requires them in significant quantity, but we burned them all up on street lighting and casinos? ;-) (Wouldn't it be ironic if further sources were in space, but we didn't have enough to get there?)
- StreamBright 9y ago
  Well we could manage to make flights safe I think we can make nuclear energy safe. The biggest problem is that just -like security- safety is against profits or if non-profit cases it is bigger cost.
  - elago 9y ago
    The site of every airplane crash doesn't become an inhabitable danger lasting for multiple lifetimes.
    - lostlogin 9y ago
      Some try - here in NZ the foam used by emergency crews at airports has been found to be toxic (ages ago) but kept being used, poisoning large areas. The issue came to light for some people as their farm animals started suffering a range of strange ailments and dying. https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/350886/firefighting-foam-investigations-spread-to-auckland https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/350886/firefighting-...
    - pdeuchler 9y ago
      Neither do nuclear power plant meltdowns. Fukushima is habitable, Chernobyl is habitable. Most of the concerns around nuclear waste are almost entirely limited to military use. Storing spent fuel rods is a generally solved problem. Most nuclear waste when generating energy can be re-used in other contexts as well... military use creates the nasty by-products that can't be reused.
      - rapnie 9y ago
        Could you explain what you mean by habitable? Is that in that you can walk around with relative safety in certain places, or that you can safely live their again?
        TeMPOraL 9y ago
        I'd guess the latter. The way half-life works, the stuff that's dangerous to you as you walk around quickly decays and stops being dangerous. The problem is with long half-life (and thus low-radioactivity) elements that sit on the trees, get mixed with soil, and thus eventually end up in ground water and local food chain. You might be able to walk around a disaster site safely in relatively short time after the event, but I wouldn't try growing anything there.
coldtea 9y ago
>Before people start criticizing nuclear power. This story is about the Hanford Site. Anything that went wrong with the Hanford Site can go wrong with any nuclear power factory. It's the profit and human error factors... Not sure how many techno-naive pro nuclear factory people know that in the real world (as opposed to the fantasy world where technology is all that matters), nuclear waste is giving to MAFIA owned companies to dispose, which then save money by just dumping it in the ocean... Not joking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_%27Ndrangheta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_%27... https://gizmodo.com/the-mob-is-secretly-dumping-nuclear-waste-across-italy-1513190243 https://gizmodo.com/the-mob-is-secretly-dumping-nuclear-wast... and that's the tip of the iceberg... Even worse in the developing world...
nasredin 9y ago
>Tours of the Hanford site are available to US citizens. Quick look at their website says it's not available to the general public. Only government officials, students, etc.
- whatisunseen 9y ago
  Open to the general public, but slots are very limited, currently full for 2018. https://www.hanford.gov/c.cfm/publicTours https://www.hanford.gov/c.cfm/publicTours
  - hirsin 9y ago
    To confirm - I did such a trip this summer. It was really incredible, would recommend it to anyone interested in walking right up to the face of the reactor.
specialist 9y ago
For comparison, please provide a list of nuclear power success stories.

by erentz 9y ago

pasbesoin 9y ago

My primary concern with nuclear power is the human element. For which we have a long and well-demonstrated history of limitations that don't match corresponding requirements. In other words, we are creating something human history -- as well as contemporary events -- demonstrate we do not have an enduring ability to manage. As they say, we can't put the genie back in the bottle. But we can perhaps do something to limit scope, particularly where alternatives are developing that are safer and, sliding down the development cost graph, more cost-effective. P.S. I'll add that, until we can manufacture elements (more fully), I prefer to keep these limited resource available for potential future use, when we have acceptable alternatives -- for me, now, meaning solar, wind, hydro (all forms of solar energy, essentially). Who knows what need we might have of them, in the future? What if really going to space requires them in significant quantity, but we burned them all up on street lighting and casinos? ;-) (Wouldn't it be ironic if further sources were in space, but we didn't have enough to get there?)

StreamBright 9y ago
Well we could manage to make flights safe I think we can make nuclear energy safe. The biggest problem is that just -like security- safety is against profits or if non-profit cases it is bigger cost.
- elago 9y ago
  The site of every airplane crash doesn't become an inhabitable danger lasting for multiple lifetimes.
  - lostlogin 9y ago
    Some try - here in NZ the foam used by emergency crews at airports has been found to be toxic (ages ago) but kept being used, poisoning large areas. The issue came to light for some people as their farm animals started suffering a range of strange ailments and dying. https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/350886/firefighting-foam-investigations-spread-to-auckland https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/350886/firefighting-...
  - pdeuchler 9y ago
    Neither do nuclear power plant meltdowns. Fukushima is habitable, Chernobyl is habitable. Most of the concerns around nuclear waste are almost entirely limited to military use. Storing spent fuel rods is a generally solved problem. Most nuclear waste when generating energy can be re-used in other contexts as well... military use creates the nasty by-products that can't be reused.
    - rapnie 9y ago
      Could you explain what you mean by habitable? Is that in that you can walk around with relative safety in certain places, or that you can safely live their again?
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        I'd guess the latter. The way half-life works, the stuff that's dangerous to you as you walk around quickly decays and stops being dangerous. The problem is with long half-life (and thus low-radioactivity) elements that sit on the trees, get mixed with soil, and thus eventually end up in ground water and local food chain. You might be able to walk around a disaster site safely in relatively short time after the event, but I wouldn't try growing anything there.

coldtea 9y ago

>Before people start criticizing nuclear power. This story is about the Hanford Site. Anything that went wrong with the Hanford Site can go wrong with any nuclear power factory. It's the profit and human error factors... Not sure how many techno-naive pro nuclear factory people know that in the real world (as opposed to the fantasy world where technology is all that matters), nuclear waste is giving to MAFIA owned companies to dispose, which then save money by just dumping it in the ocean... Not joking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_%27Ndrangheta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_%27... https://gizmodo.com/the-mob-is-secretly-dumping-nuclear-waste-across-italy-1513190243 https://gizmodo.com/the-mob-is-secretly-dumping-nuclear-wast... and that's the tip of the iceberg... Even worse in the developing world...

nasredin 9y ago

>Tours of the Hanford site are available to US citizens. Quick look at their website says it's not available to the general public. Only government officials, students, etc.

whatisunseen 9y ago
Open to the general public, but slots are very limited, currently full for 2018. https://www.hanford.gov/c.cfm/publicTours https://www.hanford.gov/c.cfm/publicTours
- hirsin 9y ago
  To confirm - I did such a trip this summer. It was really incredible, would recommend it to anyone interested in walking right up to the face of the reactor.

specialist 9y ago

For comparison, please provide a list of nuclear power success stories.