3 ms·
To a pretty good first approximation, everything is radioactive to some degree. Mother's milk. "Organic" vegetables. Air. Any random rock you pick up. Glacier
by Turing_Machine 4y ago
To a pretty good first approximation, everything is radioactive to some degree.
Mother's milk. "Organic" vegetables. Air. Any random rock you pick up. Glacier water that's been frozen for 100,000 years. All slightly radioactive.
"Everything that COULD be radioactive" is not a useful metric.
- bayesian_horse 4y agoThere is a difference between mother's milk and concrete/steel that has been activated by neutrons in a reactor core.
- nevinera 4y agoSure is! And he's pointing out that understanding what that _difference is_ is pretty important. "everything that COULD be radioactive or contaminated" is a worthless and meaningless phrase, and in fact represents a _worthless and meaningless idea_. Describing what constitutes a meaningful and worrisome amount of radiation is fundamentally critical to the topic, and pretending there's some kind of 'just to be safe' level of assumption we can make is silly.
- bayesian_horse 4y agoThere are pretty good regulations around what could be radioactive or contaminated in relation to a reactor core. Mother's milk is certainly not mentioned. I'm writing Hacker News comments. I don't care to specify with verbose and overly anal details exactly what is included and excluded in such statements. Luckily, scientists and regulators don't agree with your opinion how ridiculous the risks are. If stuff comes close to a reactor, it has to be tested for contamination. And overall, there is a lot more waste which needs special disposal, than just the fuel.