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Radioactive Boar On the Rise In Germany
Germans who go out in the woods today are sure of a big surprise, radioactive boars. A portion of the wild boar population in Germany was irradiated after the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, and the boars are thriving. In the last two years government payments to compensate hunters for radioactive boar have quadrupled. From the article: "According to the Environment Ministry in Berlin, almost €425,000 ($555,000) was paid out to hunters in 2009 in compensation for wild boar meat that was too contaminated by radiation to be sold for consumption. That total is more than four times higher than compensation payments made in 2007." I think the Germans are overlooking just how much money there is to be made from regenerating bacon.
Here's something that will really baffle your puny American mind:
http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/livestock/scotland%E2%80%99s-chernobyl-sheep-no-longer-radioactive/32935.article
And, yes, such an animal exists. They are called "boar."
(see also "sheep" in the UK, which have the same issue with Chernobyl fallout, and "reindeer" in certain Nordic regions, not to mention carnivores in a lot of places)
Lichen (aka. reindeer chow), fungi (loved by boar) and certain other plants (probably including the grasses or some other plant that sheep eat a lot of) are apparently great radioactivity concentrators.
Fortunately, C137 has a half life of about 30 years, not tens of thousands, so in a few hundred years the radioactivity remaining in most animals should be low enough that this isn't a problem any more. As long as we keep building reactors safely and running them to standards such that they don't blow up, we'll only glow when it's REALLY dark.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
IMHO nuclear power requires a kind of long-term thinking that is utterly alien to modern politicians and industry managers.
Case in point: Back in the 1980s there was a political decision to develop an old salt mine (Gorleben) into a long term storage for highly radioactive waste. But today it seems that the major reasons for that decision were
A) Gorleben was close to the Border to East Germany
B) The people there would be grateful for any jobs and would keep voting for the conservative parties forever
Geology seems not to have influenced the decision very much, which is a pity as a similar testing facility (Schacht Asse) developed great problems.
Only a few decades later, those criteria seem irrelevant today, and yet the stuff will be dangerous for thousands of years.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."