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What you're probably thinking of is the statistic that a pound of plutonium oxide would cause cancer in 2 million people. A more detailed look into the matter
by dotnet00 3y ago
What you're probably thinking of is the statistic that a pound of plutonium oxide would cause cancer in 2 million people.
A more detailed look into the matter shows that even that is very likely overblown: http://spiff.rit.edu/richmond/answers/llnl.html http://spiff.rit.edu/richmond/answers/llnl.html
You simply couldn't possibly spread it enough with enough density to be both inhalable and common enough to measurably increase cancer risk.
While I agree that just putting it in the ground is the superior solution, my point is that fears of putting nuclear material on modern American rockets are very exaggerated.
- mcv 3y agoIt's entirely possible it's overblown, but I'm pretty sure we're talking about larger amounts than that if we're using this to get rid of our nuclear waste. But even apart from the launch risk, shooting stuff into space is not cheap, and shooting stuff into the sun is a lot more expensive than that. To justify that, it has to be not only safer, but also cheaper than putting it underground. The only real advantage I see to shooting it into the sun is that if our civilisation ever collapses and nobody can read anymore, there's less risk of the people then running into our waste in the sun than finding it buried.