Then why not make the areas where polar bears live off-limits to humans?
Because then the bears breed and expand their population, which expands their territory and suddenly the bears are threatening our enclaves again.
I believe that the limit is something around a hundred bears a year. That's why you get the rich 'big game hunters' as they're the only ones who can afford the resulting high fees.
If an animal species is being driven to extintcion due to habitat encroachment by humans, then it's only reasonable that humans stay off that species' natural habitat.
They're not endangered, though their population density is tiny. And their 'natural' habitat is anywhere there's food, minus areas where more warm climate adapted bears take the territory.
IMHO, a polar bear is justified in killing a human because it's in his nature, but a human is supposed to be "rational", which means, logical reasoning should prevail over his instinct to kill.
We haven't wiped out the Polar Bears entirely, nor that many other large species recently in the northern hemisphere. I'd tend to say we are controlling it, and death/predation is both part of nature and man.
Here in the UK, the standard way for the police to get a person's DNA is to wipe the inside of their mouth with a cotton wool swab
Not a bad method. But that goes back to whoever was supposed to be doing it not having the materials needed.
even though I'm under the impression that most Americans dislike what their 'elected representatives' are doing as much as I do
I hope that we get some viable candidates next election. Of course, my main objection to Bush is his spendthrift nature, though the ignoring of the constitution is rapidly getting there.
My DNA has been collected and filed for my job(military). It's original purpose was solely to be used to identify my remains if that became necessary. Then a few years later they used the repository to try to identify a couple rapists. Sliding slope? You bet.
There's now states that encourage parents to 'register' their kids, promising that it would help if the child is kidnapped/disappears. Thing is, they have no intention of getting rid of the records after 18 years or so.
California has expanded DNA from a select list of felonies to all felonies.
It's happening, and becoming more popular as DNA testing/typing gets cheaper.
Without guns it becomes a lot harder to kill people from such a distance And alot easier for the dedicated criminals to do it close up. Besides, if I was of a criminal mind I could assemble guns fairly easily in my apartment. It's not like the technology isn't over 500 years old.
A gun allows a citizen to project just as much force as a criminal can project, despite differences in size, fitness, and physical skill. Police can't be everywhere, the citizen has to defend him or herself until they can arrive. There are various ways this can be done, but a gun is a powerful option. In countries that have managed to suppress gun availability, there are major issues with gangs wandering around with knives&clubs. Being in a group and younger/meaner than law abiding citizens, they're capable of enforcing their wishes unless/until the police arrive.
Get rid of guns. You can't get rid of all guns. England has proven this. They remain in the hands of the government and criminals. Governments were the number one killer of their citizens in the 20th century. For that matter in the states, states and locations with the laxest gun control laws tend to have the lowest crime. Wierd, huh?
The NRA proves how guns are not needed; they get what they want through the political system using debate and influence...
Yeah, funny that, an association of gun owners not using violence to get their way.
Now, DNA samples aren't necessarily a bad thing(Uncle Sam has mine, required for my work). It's been used to pretty much eliminate the 'unknown soldier', where we have a body that's in our uniform, but we don't know who it is. It can also be a usefull tool for solving crime, but all it does is show that it was your blood/skin/hair/semen, and it was found in a incriminating location. Especially for acquaintance crime, it's not a slam-dunk solution. It's like fingerprints. If the guy lives there, you shouldn't be supprised to find his prints there.
But the question comes up, just how similar can DNA be? We already have a little problem when it comes to identical twins, who have the same genetic fingerprint, and we're at the point that a sophisticated lab could culture more cells in order to commit a frame job. We're reaching the point where we might even have to worry about clones commiting crimes in another 30 years.
Then they came after the babies/children, for their 'protection' (we're about here now) Then they came after those who committed misdemeanors Then they came for those who committed traffic accidents Then they came for the men, to identify rapists and absentee fathers Then they came for any workers, to ensure that the proper taxes were paid... Then they required it for health insurance, then health care.
but there are alternatives (pyrethroids, for example)
Having read several articles about this very topic, it's been mentioned that none of the alternatives are either as effective as DDT, or, just as important for poor african nations, as inexpensive and easy to produce. The whole 'sticking around' thing is very usefull for mosquito suppression.
Nobody's supporting the wide-area spraying that went on in the US before the ban, where some states seemed determined to hit every square foot. They're talking about directed application like on occuppied building's doorways that use small amounts, the preventive effects last for a long time, and doesn't really get into the ecosphere.
Well, with the switch from MTBE to ethanol for california, it's undergoing a fairly large price spike, which will in turn spur production of more ethanol facilities, and even more importantly research into more efficient production. Something that might take ten years at 100,000/year might become available in only a year or two when you're dumping 1M/year into research.*
Cato's usually pretty insightful for economics, so maybe they're simply trying to be conservative. I don't think Ethanol will ever be a universal replacement for gasoline, but it can be a major contributer to that solution. Even then, I don't think that once the switch starts that usage levels will stabilize for at least a decade.
*I don't assume that development costs a fixed amount, and can't necessarily be hurried efficiently with more money.
In rural areas in the midwest, the mechanics in the nearest town will only look at american made vehicles.
Hasn't been true for a while, and I live in ND.
Why can't the US car industry build an all-wheel drive car? They're too focused on building gas-guzzling SUVs.
I've been bemoaning this fact for years. Subaru seems the perfect option, though if anybody competed against them, I might be able to get one cheaper. I want a fuel efficient, economical vehicle, thus am pretty much stuck with a car. I would like some more storage space, and I have no need to compensate for anything, so my ideal car is a hatchback with AWD. Why AWD? Because I'm in snow country and have gotten stuck a few times with my current vehicle, though never so seriously that I needed a tow.
$5 a gallon won't make a difference when people will spend $8 a gallon for bottled water. A 20 bottle of water on my school campus costs $1.25. How 'bout $12.80 a gallon for coffee, (two bucks for a venti brewed at Starbucks.)
Yeah, but cheap people like me won't pay $8 for a gallon of water without great need.
Also, do you go through 10-20 gallons of $1.25 20 ounce water bottles a week? You're paying for convienence. I refill a.5L bottle I got a while back.
As for Cato, they're usually pretty good, but I think they're using some pretty pessemistic numbers for their quotes '7 barrels for 8 barrels of ethanol'. Like others have said, ethanol isn't the only product from those 7 barrels, and new technology is in the pipelines to create even more ethanol from a given amount of biomass.
Huh, you'd think that, given volume purchasing, he'd be able to arrange a deal to get the cars without the engine, saving a significant amount of money, both in purchase cost and labor for yanking the unused gas motor out.
I think it's clear that people will start to use less fuel, but reasonably will take several years until the market rationalizes itself.
I agree, it'll happen gradually, but take at least 20 years before traditional gasoline only cars will be considered 'rare'.
People have started making movements with gasoline in the $2.50-$3.00 range. The SUV market has weakened considerably. I've heard reports of people parking the SUV, of not driving long distances and reducing the number of trips they make, buying mopeds and electric vehicles that are like hopped-up golf carts.
We'd be stupid to assume that significant amounts of people are going to: A: mod their car to use an alternate fuel B: Purchase a different vehicle any faster than they normally would
I think the average is something like 4-5 years for the average person to keep a car. It then spends another 10-15(unless it gets wrecked) in the used car market.
But when they do purchase, fuel economy will be much more in the forefront than previously. It'll be a much stronger selling feature, as will alternate fuels.
Personally, I have a year of payments on my car left. There are currently no options right now to replace my 30mpg car with a higher mpg average that would make economic sense for me. So I just take the bite of gas prices, make my payments and wait. I hope to keep the car for another 4-5 years, which would save me enough money to practically buy a new car with cash, making a higher up-front investment for future savings on fuel economical. There are people both ahead and behind me. Some just bought their car, some just wrecked it or decided to trade it in. I'm holding out for it to make economic sense for me. Personally, I think that a good choice would be a hybrid diesel, or at least capable of buring E85. I'd also like it to be 'pluggable', capable of being charged by line power, giving it the capability of all-electric operation for short trips.
Agreed. This is why I thought 'What's the use?' when they said that they were going to replace the sodas in many schools with water*, fruit juice, and lowfat milks
If a kid's liquid intake is unaffected, he's going to get more calories from the majority of options. Only skim has fewer, while 1% is virtually the same. Heaven forbid they offer chocolate milk(1%/157). The only immediate benefit that I can see is that juices have more vitamens.
I'd suggest leaving the diets in there. I drink alot of water, but I like having flavor. I hope they include diet lemonade.
*ok, it's good, but is it any better than the free stuff from the water fountain?
I apologize for the comment about the native american language. If it's fairly common in the local area, include it. Blame the thought on my public school education.
The only concern I'd have remaining is that the written form of it is very recent, according to this site
But there is an exemption to this. Trespass can only be charged when the person on the property has had ample notice that he or she isn't welcome there. Trespass can be pressed if you break in, go through or around a sign that says 'no tresspassers', into a private house, etc... When you operate a public storefront, permission is assumed for the entire public during your business hours.
For a store to kick people out during business hours, the people have to be formally notified that they're no longer welcome, whether this be by verbal or written notice is up to the owner or his representative(the manager or employees).
If you withdraw your permission, the person you're kicking out is still allowed to collect his or her possessions and leave in an orderly fashion (IE not running, but not lingering).
Sorry, the 24,000 year quote came from a nearby underground nuclear detonation test point, and the plaque stolen read 'this site will remain...'. Obviously not that dangerous...
Yeah, but then it's called a 'dictatorship' or possibly 'monarchy' if it's hereditary, 'oligarchy', etc...
One of the reasons that I'm not an anarchist;), but consider myself a moderate libertarian. I have no problems with having a moderate police force, military, etc... I just think that government has gotten too big and needs to be shrunk.
It's entirely possible that you would have. It's a risk Best Buy took, possibly kicking out potential paying customers. Of course, it sounds like the manager in question was A: panicked, and B: stupid/ignorant/not thinking. So it's hard to say.
Would it be possible to refine the waste in a couple of thousand years?:). I figure I could start a company now, buy it all and store it, then sell a shitload of uranium to the iranians or jihadis or whoever else needs it in only a few lifetimes (assuming good cloning tech to harvest some new organs as I need them...)
Try 90%+ recyclable, depending upon the reactor you took it out of and what you're looking to put it into. Also, no need to wait a thosand years, 40-60 seems to be enough. The problem you run into is that it's so radioactive when it first comes out of the reactor that handling it safely is difficult. So you move it just enough to place it into a containment pool. After spending a decade or two in that, it's something like 1% as radioactive as when it came out. Some point after that, you stick it in a cask to free up your pool, as it's now not generating enough heat to need active cooling/monitoring. After 20-40 years in that, you crack the cask and recycle the now relativly cool materials without the need for extreme radiation measures.
Not really. From what I'm getting, you'd only have a few hundred deaths, worst case, if they dig up the stufff and make jewelry out of it a few thousand years from now.
Knowing ancient Victorian customs, they'd be killing themselves one way or another. Mercury Enemas aren't too healthy either.
I use Victorian because I don't remember any other societies that were capable of reacing the waste, and stupid/ignorant enough to play with it.
Ever hear of prospecting? If we ever collapse, records lost, languages changed, etc... On the way back up they'll be looking everywhere for resources, just like us. In doing that, they're likely to eventually survey the region. They'll detect unusual formations if they're at all advanced beyond the 'dig a shaft and hope' stage.
You can only hope that, like you said, if they're advanced enough to dig down a thousand feet, they're also advanced enough to know about radioactivity(and pay it mind). For that matter, if they're digging 1kf shafts, there's plenty of places that they can encounter natural radiation that's nearly as dangerous, radon for one big example.
If you're advanced enough mathematically to understand them, which 'Mad Max' types are often not. You don't need to know what prime numbers are to dig or drill.
We're talking about a warning system that hopefully would be understood by everyone from the Native Americans to the Mongol hordes, to Victorian adventurers over a span of 10,000 years.
Unfortuantely, history shows us that looters just think that warning = hidden treasure.
I think that a better solution would be putting the effort towards making sure we don't fall in the first place. Even if we do, the worst damage that's likely to happen is a town gets poisoned. Maybe some of the upper crust from handling or making jewelry out of the stuff. Then again, the upper crust tended to do things like dose themselves with mercury and have bloodletting done, so I don't think it'd make a huge difference anyways, if they fall that far back.
Do we really care about the grave-robbers and such? If we're trying to protect against the future equivalent, I'll note that most grave robbers were illiterate and did unmeasurable harm to archeology with their destruction. They'd note our warnings, however many languages we put them in, about as much as the historical ones paid to the egyptian writtings.
For that matter, I can see scientists not leaving well enough alone and digging in there to find out what the horrible hazard is.
Personally, I think that it's sad that we're this worried about the stuff and harming 'future generations'. Besides, most high-level waste is very recyclable, and what remains would be 'safe' radioactive wise within a thousand years. Warnings written in English, Spanish, Chinese(same written language, remember?), Japanese, Arabic, and Latin should be fairly easy to translate for longer than that. I'd throw Hebrew in there as it's seemed to survive well over time. Heck, we might just be making the Rosetta Stone of the future! On the other hand, Navajo? Isn't that pretty close to a dead language already?
For that matter, if we bury it right, by the time anybody has the skills/technology to dig a half mile down into the earth they should be technologically advanced enough to know most of the hazards.
Finally: A third plaque was pried off, perhaps as a souvenir. According to earlier visitors, it read, in plain English, "This site will remain dangerous for 24,000 years."
This makes me think, but at what level of dangerous? Hiroshima and Nagasaki were rebuilt and are inhabited today. Would a society at a victorian technological level even have the average lifespan to notice minor radiation poisoning?
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Then why not make the areas where polar bears live off-limits to humans?
Because then the bears breed and expand their population, which expands their territory and suddenly the bears are threatening our enclaves again.
I believe that the limit is something around a hundred bears a year. That's why you get the rich 'big game hunters' as they're the only ones who can afford the resulting high fees.
If an animal species is being driven to extintcion due to habitat encroachment by humans, then it's only reasonable that humans stay off that species' natural habitat.
They're not endangered, though their population density is tiny. And their 'natural' habitat is anywhere there's food, minus areas where more warm climate adapted bears take the territory.
IMHO, a polar bear is justified in killing a human because it's in his nature, but a human is supposed to be "rational", which means, logical reasoning should prevail over his instinct to kill.
We haven't wiped out the Polar Bears entirely, nor that many other large species recently in the northern hemisphere. I'd tend to say we are controlling it, and death/predation is both part of nature and man.
Here in the UK, the standard way for the police to get a person's DNA is to wipe the inside of their mouth with a cotton wool swab
Not a bad method. But that goes back to whoever was supposed to be doing it not having the materials needed.
even though I'm under the impression that most Americans dislike what their 'elected representatives' are doing as much as I do
I hope that we get some viable candidates next election. Of course, my main objection to Bush is his spendthrift nature, though the ignoring of the constitution is rapidly getting there.
My DNA has been collected and filed for my job(military). It's original purpose was solely to be used to identify my remains if that became necessary. Then a few years later they used the repository to try to identify a couple rapists. Sliding slope? You bet.
There's now states that encourage parents to 'register' their kids, promising that it would help if the child is kidnapped/disappears. Thing is, they have no intention of getting rid of the records after 18 years or so.
California has expanded DNA from a select list of felonies to all felonies.
It's happening, and becoming more popular as DNA testing/typing gets cheaper.
Call me crazy, but didn't people have a short enough expected life span back then that, on average, it wouldn't be a problem?
;)
Hmmm... Then again, could our thing about not going outside without clothing be a remnent of the last reversal?
But with DNA, you may have simply walked by a crime scene coincidentally, DNA samples sloughing naturally from your body as you go.
Even being in contact with one of the people involved with the crime, whether victim or perpetrator, can be enough.
Sampling molesters, rapists, and other violent criminals I can understand. But a computer hacker?
Without guns it becomes a lot harder to kill people from such a distance
And alot easier for the dedicated criminals to do it close up. Besides, if I was of a criminal mind I could assemble guns fairly easily in my apartment. It's not like the technology isn't over 500 years old.
A gun allows a citizen to project just as much force as a criminal can project, despite differences in size, fitness, and physical skill. Police can't be everywhere, the citizen has to defend him or herself until they can arrive. There are various ways this can be done, but a gun is a powerful option. In countries that have managed to suppress gun availability, there are major issues with gangs wandering around with knives&clubs. Being in a group and younger/meaner than law abiding citizens, they're capable of enforcing their wishes unless/until the police arrive.
Get rid of guns.
You can't get rid of all guns. England has proven this. They remain in the hands of the government and criminals. Governments were the number one killer of their citizens in the 20th century. For that matter in the states, states and locations with the laxest gun control laws tend to have the lowest crime. Wierd, huh?
The NRA proves how guns are not needed; they get what they want through the political system using debate and influence...
Yeah, funny that, an association of gun owners not using violence to get their way.
Now, DNA samples aren't necessarily a bad thing(Uncle Sam has mine, required for my work). It's been used to pretty much eliminate the 'unknown soldier', where we have a body that's in our uniform, but we don't know who it is. It can also be a usefull tool for solving crime, but all it does is show that it was your blood/skin/hair/semen, and it was found in a incriminating location. Especially for acquaintance crime, it's not a slam-dunk solution. It's like fingerprints. If the guy lives there, you shouldn't be supprised to find his prints there.
But the question comes up, just how similar can DNA be? We already have a little problem when it comes to identical twins, who have the same genetic fingerprint, and we're at the point that a sophisticated lab could culture more cells in order to commit a frame job. We're reaching the point where we might even have to worry about clones commiting crimes in another 30 years.
both of which he brought in, both of which were refused
I don't know about you, but I'd refuse any sample the convict brought in himself. How do you know it's his hair and clippings?
Then, they also probably lacked the materials and equipement for taking & preserving anything other than a blood sample.
For those that can't see it...
Then they came after the babies/children, for their 'protection'
(we're about here now)
Then they came after those who committed misdemeanors
Then they came for those who committed traffic accidents
Then they came for the men, to identify rapists and absentee fathers
Then they came for any workers, to ensure that the proper taxes were paid...
Then they required it for health insurance, then health care.
but there are alternatives (pyrethroids, for example)
Having read several articles about this very topic, it's been mentioned that none of the alternatives are either as effective as DDT, or, just as important for poor african nations, as inexpensive and easy to produce. The whole 'sticking around' thing is very usefull for mosquito suppression.
Nobody's supporting the wide-area spraying that went on in the US before the ban, where some states seemed determined to hit every square foot. They're talking about directed application like on occuppied building's doorways that use small amounts, the preventive effects last for a long time, and doesn't really get into the ecosphere.
Well, with the switch from MTBE to ethanol for california, it's undergoing a fairly large price spike, which will in turn spur production of more ethanol facilities, and even more importantly research into more efficient production. Something that might take ten years at 100,000/year might become available in only a year or two when you're dumping 1M/year into research.*
Cato's usually pretty insightful for economics, so maybe they're simply trying to be conservative. I don't think Ethanol will ever be a universal replacement for gasoline, but it can be a major contributer to that solution. Even then, I don't think that once the switch starts that usage levels will stabilize for at least a decade.
*I don't assume that development costs a fixed amount, and can't necessarily be hurried efficiently with more money.
In rural areas in the midwest, the mechanics in the nearest town will only look at american made vehicles.
Hasn't been true for a while, and I live in ND.
Why can't the US car industry build an all-wheel drive car? They're too focused on building gas-guzzling SUVs.
I've been bemoaning this fact for years. Subaru seems the perfect option, though if anybody competed against them, I might be able to get one cheaper. I want a fuel efficient, economical vehicle, thus am pretty much stuck with a car. I would like some more storage space, and I have no need to compensate for anything, so my ideal car is a hatchback with AWD. Why AWD? Because I'm in snow country and have gotten stuck a few times with my current vehicle, though never so seriously that I needed a tow.
$5 a gallon won't make a difference when people will spend $8 a gallon for bottled water. A 20 bottle of water on my school campus costs $1.25. How 'bout $12.80 a gallon for coffee, (two bucks for a venti brewed at Starbucks.)
.5L bottle I got a while back.
Yeah, but cheap people like me won't pay $8 for a gallon of water without great need.
Also, do you go through 10-20 gallons of $1.25 20 ounce water bottles a week? You're paying for convienence. I refill a
As for Cato, they're usually pretty good, but I think they're using some pretty pessemistic numbers for their quotes '7 barrels for 8 barrels of ethanol'. Like others have said, ethanol isn't the only product from those 7 barrels, and new technology is in the pipelines to create even more ethanol from a given amount of biomass.
Huh, you'd think that, given volume purchasing, he'd be able to arrange a deal to get the cars without the engine, saving a significant amount of money, both in purchase cost and labor for yanking the unused gas motor out.
I think it's clear that people will start to use less fuel, but reasonably will take several years until the market rationalizes itself.
I agree, it'll happen gradually, but take at least 20 years before traditional gasoline only cars will be considered 'rare'.
People have started making movements with gasoline in the $2.50-$3.00 range. The SUV market has weakened considerably. I've heard reports of people parking the SUV, of not driving long distances and reducing the number of trips they make, buying mopeds and electric vehicles that are like hopped-up golf carts.
We'd be stupid to assume that significant amounts of people are going to:
A: mod their car to use an alternate fuel
B: Purchase a different vehicle any faster than they normally would
I think the average is something like 4-5 years for the average person to keep a car. It then spends another 10-15(unless it gets wrecked) in the used car market.
But when they do purchase, fuel economy will be much more in the forefront than previously. It'll be a much stronger selling feature, as will alternate fuels.
Personally, I have a year of payments on my car left. There are currently no options right now to replace my 30mpg car with a higher mpg average that would make economic sense for me. So I just take the bite of gas prices, make my payments and wait. I hope to keep the car for another 4-5 years, which would save me enough money to practically buy a new car with cash, making a higher up-front investment for future savings on fuel economical. There are people both ahead and behind me. Some just bought their car, some just wrecked it or decided to trade it in. I'm holding out for it to make economic sense for me. Personally, I think that a good choice would be a hybrid diesel, or at least capable of buring E85. I'd also like it to be 'pluggable', capable of being charged by line power, giving it the capability of all-electric operation for short trips.
fruit punches have almost (sometimes more!)
Agreed. This is why I thought 'What's the use?' when they said that they were going to replace the sodas in many schools with water*, fruit juice, and lowfat milks
Examples:
Orange Juice: 110 cal, 1 cup(8fl oz)
Apple Juice: 120
Lemonade: 131
Skim Milk: 90
1/2%/whole Milk: 104/121/149
Coke: 105 for 1 cup.
If a kid's liquid intake is unaffected, he's going to get more calories from the majority of options. Only skim has fewer, while 1% is virtually the same. Heaven forbid they offer chocolate milk(1%/157). The only immediate benefit that I can see is that juices have more vitamens.
I'd suggest leaving the diets in there. I drink alot of water, but I like having flavor. I hope they include diet lemonade.
*ok, it's good, but is it any better than the free stuff from the water fountain?
I apologize for the comment about the native american language. If it's fairly common in the local area, include it. Blame the thought on my public school education.
The only concern I'd have remaining is that the written form of it is very recent, according to this site
But there is an exemption to this. Trespass can only be charged when the person on the property has had ample notice that he or she isn't welcome there. Trespass can be pressed if you break in, go through or around a sign that says 'no tresspassers', into a private house, etc... When you operate a public storefront, permission is assumed for the entire public during your business hours.
For a store to kick people out during business hours, the people have to be formally notified that they're no longer welcome, whether this be by verbal or written notice is up to the owner or his representative(the manager or employees).
If you withdraw your permission, the person you're kicking out is still allowed to collect his or her possessions and leave in an orderly fashion (IE not running, but not lingering).
Sorry, the 24,000 year quote came from a nearby underground nuclear detonation test point, and the plaque stolen read 'this site will remain...'. Obviously not that dangerous...
Yeah, but then it's called a 'dictatorship' or possibly 'monarchy' if it's hereditary, 'oligarchy', etc...
;), but consider myself a moderate libertarian. I have no problems with having a moderate police force, military, etc... I just think that government has gotten too big and needs to be shrunk.
One of the reasons that I'm not an anarchist
It's entirely possible that you would have. It's a risk Best Buy took, possibly kicking out potential paying customers. Of course, it sounds like the manager in question was A: panicked, and B: stupid/ignorant/not thinking. So it's hard to say.
Would it be possible to refine the waste in a couple of thousand years? :). I figure I could start a company now, buy it all and store it, then sell a shitload of uranium to the iranians or jihadis or whoever else needs it in only a few lifetimes (assuming good cloning tech to harvest some new organs as I need them...)
Try 90%+ recyclable, depending upon the reactor you took it out of and what you're looking to put it into. Also, no need to wait a thosand years, 40-60 seems to be enough. The problem you run into is that it's so radioactive when it first comes out of the reactor that handling it safely is difficult. So you move it just enough to place it into a containment pool. After spending a decade or two in that, it's something like 1% as radioactive as when it came out. Some point after that, you stick it in a cask to free up your pool, as it's now not generating enough heat to need active cooling/monitoring. After 20-40 years in that, you crack the cask and recycle the now relativly cool materials without the need for extreme radiation measures.
At least, that's what Bush is looking at doing.
Not really. From what I'm getting, you'd only have a few hundred deaths, worst case, if they dig up the stufff and make jewelry out of it a few thousand years from now.
Knowing ancient Victorian customs, they'd be killing themselves one way or another. Mercury Enemas aren't too healthy either.
I use Victorian because I don't remember any other societies that were capable of reacing the waste, and stupid/ignorant enough to play with it.
Ever hear of prospecting? If we ever collapse, records lost, languages changed, etc... On the way back up they'll be looking everywhere for resources, just like us. In doing that, they're likely to eventually survey the region. They'll detect unusual formations if they're at all advanced beyond the 'dig a shaft and hope' stage.
You can only hope that, like you said, if they're advanced enough to dig down a thousand feet, they're also advanced enough to know about radioactivity(and pay it mind). For that matter, if they're digging 1kf shafts, there's plenty of places that they can encounter natural radiation that's nearly as dangerous, radon for one big example.
If you're advanced enough mathematically to understand them, which 'Mad Max' types are often not. You don't need to know what prime numbers are to dig or drill.
We're talking about a warning system that hopefully would be understood by everyone from the Native Americans to the Mongol hordes, to Victorian adventurers over a span of 10,000 years.
Unfortuantely, history shows us that looters just think that warning = hidden treasure.
I think that a better solution would be putting the effort towards making sure we don't fall in the first place. Even if we do, the worst damage that's likely to happen is a town gets poisoned. Maybe some of the upper crust from handling or making jewelry out of the stuff. Then again, the upper crust tended to do things like dose themselves with mercury and have bloodletting done, so I don't think it'd make a huge difference anyways, if they fall that far back.
Do we really care about the grave-robbers and such? If we're trying to protect against the future equivalent, I'll note that most grave robbers were illiterate and did unmeasurable harm to archeology with their destruction. They'd note our warnings, however many languages we put them in, about as much as the historical ones paid to the egyptian writtings.
For that matter, I can see scientists not leaving well enough alone and digging in there to find out what the horrible hazard is.
Personally, I think that it's sad that we're this worried about the stuff and harming 'future generations'. Besides, most high-level waste is very recyclable, and what remains would be 'safe' radioactive wise within a thousand years. Warnings written in English, Spanish, Chinese(same written language, remember?), Japanese, Arabic, and Latin should be fairly easy to translate for longer than that. I'd throw Hebrew in there as it's seemed to survive well over time. Heck, we might just be making the Rosetta Stone of the future! On the other hand, Navajo? Isn't that pretty close to a dead language already?
For that matter, if we bury it right, by the time anybody has the skills/technology to dig a half mile down into the earth they should be technologically advanced enough to know most of the hazards.
Finally:
A third plaque was pried off, perhaps as a souvenir. According to earlier visitors, it read, in plain English, "This site will remain dangerous for 24,000 years."
This makes me think, but at what level of dangerous? Hiroshima and Nagasaki were rebuilt and are inhabited today. Would a society at a victorian technological level even have the average lifespan to notice minor radiation poisoning?