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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Safety of nuclear submarines -- wastes
Message-ID: <5981@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Sep-85 13:18:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5981
Posted: Wed Sep 18 13:18:13 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Sep-85 13:18:13 EDT
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Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 25

> However, there are radioactive wastes that will still be deadly
> 100,000 years from now. That is quite a few centuries.

Note that the proper standard of comparison here is not "is the stuff
dangerous?" but "is it more dangerous than natural uranium ore?".  There
are vast amounts of uranium ore around; anything with a danger level less
than that is not a significant *addition* to the natural danger level.

One possible reason for differences on how long the stuff is dangerous is
the question of whether plutonium is extracted for use as fuel, or left
in the wastes and hence thrown away.  Plutonium is a significant factor in
radioactivity on the 100kyr scale, although it's relatively unimportant
on the 100yr scale.

> ... But it is
> definate that if the nuclear waste that we've tucked away already
> were to leak and become evenly distributed around the earth, that
> all the higher life forms would perish, and that includes us!

And if all the energy in one atom bomb were carefully distributed in the
right places, that would suffice to destroy all higher life forms too.
But we were discussing realistic situations, not grossly contrived ones.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry