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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Safety of nuclear submarines -- wastes
Message-ID: <1681@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Sep-85 12:21:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.1681
Posted: Tue Sep 17 12:21:46 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Sep-85 13:20:25 EDT
References: <1386@utcsri.UUCP> <5952@utzoo.UUCP> <820@water.UUCP> <793@lsuc.UUCP> <5960@utzoo.UUCP> <2182@mnetor.UUCP>
Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE)
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 35
Summary: 


>    The real problem with nuclear reacors on subs is the same problem
>as with nuclear reactors on land; *waste materials*!  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!  They will be around, and still be deadly, long after
>Canada, the US, and the USSR are long forgotten.
>-- 
>Cheers,      Fred Williams,

You may state it, but that doesn't make it true.  Chemical carcinogens
and mutagens damage humanity in the same way as do radioactive wastes
(not by the same mechanism), but unlike radioactive wastes, they don't
decay away very fast.  They, too, will be around long after our countries
and our power industries are long forgotten.  High-grade radioactive wastes
don't remain high-grade for too many centuries, although they do
remain dangerous.  However, they are concentrated in places that can
be marked as dangerous, whereas the wastes of carbon-burning plants
are distributed for everyone to enjoy :-(.

If you think about the worst possible accident, also, carbon-burning
power plants are more dangerous than nuclear reactors.  It is *possible*
for a terrorist to blow up a nuclear plant with an atomic bomb, and thus
render many thousands of square miles uninhabitable.  It is *possible*
that burning enough carbon might cause a runaway greenhouse effect,
rendering ALL life on earth impossible.

Both the expected hazard and the maximum hazard are greater for fossil
fuels than for nuclear power.
-- 

Martin Taylor
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