Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: can.politics Subject: Re: A naval presence in the arctic Message-ID: <5965@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Mon, 16-Sep-85 14:23:06 EDT Article-I.D.: utzoo.5965 Posted: Mon Sep 16 14:23:06 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 16-Sep-85 14:23:06 EDT References: <1386@utcsri.UUCP> <5952@utzoo.UUCP> <820@water.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 60 > ... I doubt that the [US Navy nuclear-reactor] training > and quality control are better. You're letting your biases show, Fred. The general air of mismanagement and bungling of the US military is not universal. The Navy nuclear program is one of the few areas that *are* well run. They train their technicians much more thoroughly than commercial reactor technicians, and are extremely fussy about quality control on reactor systems, even when said fussiness shows up in the price tag. > I rather expect that standard land > based nuclear power plants have quality assurance programs second to > none and the training should be tops. In a word, it ain't so. Commercial power plants, by and large, spend as little on operator training and quality assurance as they can -- they're in business to make a profit, dontcha know? :-[ The Three Mile Island incident would not have been one-tenth as serious if the stupid operators had simply kept their hands off and let the automatic machinery do its job! > ... I don't believe > that products from coal burning power plants are more dangerous. If > I am wrong on this count, then I can at least state that they will > not remain that dangerous for thousands of years. High grade radio- > active wastes do! ... The arsenic compounds and other chemical toxins in stack-scrubber sludge are composed of stable elements; they will be around *forever*!!! The decay of high-grade reactor wastes is a feature, not a bug. As to how dangerous the various compounds are, this depends on the details of the comparison, but that stack-scrubber stuff is *nasty*; you don't want it buried anywhere near where you get your water from. The overriding fact of waste disposal, though, is that the quantities involved are enormously different: reactor wastes come by the ton, stack-scrubber sludge comes by the thousands of tons. It is far easier to give a few tons of radioactive waste special treatment than it is to give thousands of tons of toxic sludge special treatment. Almost any comment you can make about reactor wastes is worse for coal-power wastes, once you factor in the difference in quantity. > We could drop mines that respond to the accoustical, (and other), > properties of nuclear subs. Then all we do is warn people to keep out. > The system is automatic & self policing. If the sub goes through, it > get blown up. This is effective and *cheap*! "Drop" mines? Much of the area we are talking about has year-round ice. For that matter, except in relatively deep areas, the ice generally scrapes the bottom on occasion (this is a very serious concern for underwater oil and gas pipelines, by the way). This means that the mines may get moved at random. This is especially bad news when international waters are nearby, because mining international waters except in wartime is a big no-no, practically an act of war. And don't forget that mines, while individually cheap, have to be deployed in horrendous numbers to deny a large area to the opposition. They don't last forever, either. And let us not forget the cynical military comment that "nobody ever got promoted for commanding a mine". This is not a trival issue when we have to work with real people and real organizations. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry