OT ALERT: Gone on a rant as usual... WAS: Re: [TheForge] Hellooooooo!

[Demon Buddha]

Steve Smith wrote:
> There's also a question of competence. A screw up with a nuclear plant 
> makes a much larger mess than other energy sources. We have several 
> historical examples, which I realize plants will be designed to avoid. 
> What kind of problems don't we know about yet?

	Failsafes are all well and good, but some things cannot be fail-safed. 
  Remember when that Titan II blew in its silo in the 80s?  Gomer 
dropped a wrench down the tube and became history shortly thereafter. 
The warheads went several miles this way and that, but didn't go off, 
naturally.  But the silo still went kerblooey and things could have been 
different.

And Steve makes the better point: problems with nuclear materials have 
far greater consequences than do others when disaster strikes, and they 
cannot be readily contained.  Last I heard (15 years ago), the Chernobyl 
pile had burned its way through three sub levels, god only knows how 
much super-hard concrete, and lodged in the aquifer beneath, out of 
reach.  But the water keeping it cool is going SOMEWHERE, and I'm sure 
people are probably drinking it as well.  That disaster spread for 
thousands of miles across to europe.  Cancer is rampant in many of the 
places, especially that of the thyroid.   And the great ex-soviet and 
other geniuses are now planning to build a concrete tomb around it.  But 
the area is still so hot they have to build it a mile or so away, put it 
on wheels, and roll it into place.  And that will be good for 100 years 
or less.  Then what? Such genius... I think I'm overwhelmed.

And what of our own ticking timebombs at places like Hanford and 
Savannah River?  They are far worse than the American public is lead to 
believe, yet we don't seem to be hearing a whole lot about them on the 
nightly news, which is kept abundantly occupied with our president's 
masturbatory fantasies in both Iraq and here at home.  Let's all 
PUHRAYUZ JAYZUS, salute the flag, kick out the Mexicans, and kill all 
the A-rabs, but let us not even think about any other things because 
they aren't really there.  OK.  RIGHTY-0.  OVER AND OUT.

I'd rather sit in front of a wood fire and read by candle light, doing 
without so many modern conveniences, than condemn the future to this 
sort of poisoning.  I just don't think it is right to drag others into 
my mess and I don't trust people nearly enough to believe that such 
disasters will not happen.  What do you tell those who get the short end 
of the stick; accidents will happen?  Oops?  *WE* decided that you were 
an acceptable loss?  Taking such risks with the lives of others whose 
assent you have not even asked for is about as atrocious an act as any I 
can think of.  It is not even an iota better than anything we 
collectively tend to whine about regarding the acts of people such as 
Stalin.  And we do it for what?  The illusion of progress?  For cheap 
convenience?  For ego?  So we can pop out as many copies of ourselves as 
we feel entitled to?  Sheet.