A 3-5 megaton blast over the Atlantic wouldn't cause so much as a rough surf advisory in Key West. In comparison, the USA built a 45 megaton bomb and the USSR's fission-fusion-fission Tsar Bomba would have been 100+ megatons had they not taken the sensible precaution of replacing the final fission stage with inert lead. If a mere 5 megaton warhead could cause such worldwide devastation, I'm pretty sure someone would have mentioned it before now (and trust me, I've read just about every far-fetched doomsday scenario imaginable.)
As for the possibility of similar-sized asteroid impacting the ocean instead of exploding above it--well, the article only says that the asteroid is now thought to be "only a fraction as large as previously published estimates". That doesn't tell us anything. The Tunguska asteroid may or may not have been large enough to trigger a tsunami had it impacted an ocean instead of exploding over land. I'm going to assume that an impact will usually be less energetic (though perhaps more concentrated) than a heat-induced explosion, in which case no, the Tunguska asteroid never posed a significant threat to the world as a whole.
That said, the Tunguska explosion is still fascinating as hell. I know that there's a lot of very strong evidence pointing to the asteroid theory, but it's still fun to toy with conspiracy theories. The atomic bomb was first being conceived of, Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower was being tested (by some accounts, it was brought online the day before the explosion)... it's all absolute rubbish, to be frank, but it's very entertaining rubbish.
Well, I'm no Microsoft apologist (been an Ubuntu user since Hoary), but the phenomenon you describe could be due to the simple fact that you can buy a PC anywhere or even build your own from scratch. If you want a complete selection of Macs to choose from, though, there's really only one place to go--the Apple store.
Make no mistake, I believe that over the next 5-20 years Microsoft dominance will die by the collective hands of Apple, Linux and themselves, but it's going to be a slow process. Lock-in is a bitch, and it's not just about document formats--drivers are a bitch as well, and many important programs simply do not have decent OSS equivalents (or run in Wine without tons of tweaking.)
If it were a fair fight, I'd have to wager Microsoft on being the absolute victor; fortunately, it's not a fair fight. Apple is a small and nimble target, kept alive by specific, loyal market segments, while Linux is simply immortal.
As the tag says--"bullshit, it's a felony". When the fuck are we going to see everyone involved in this project DRAGGED AWAY IN HANDCUFFS? As I've said before, if a preteen was caught installing rootkits on thousands of computers without their owners' consent, he would certainly be dragged away in handcuffs even if he was just messing around, even if money wasn't involved at all.
If you care about freedom and justice in this country, don't sit around idly talking about class action lawsuits. Instead, find a copy of a rootkit'ed CD (buy it from eBay if you must), put it in the drive of your XP box to verify that it does its thing, then take it to your local law enforcement office (preferably FBI) and report the crime. If enough people do this, they just might take it seriously. They JUST MIGHT hold a multinational corporation to the same standards of justice as a preteen kid.
Doesn't matter how bad the edits were; the very fact that the government is wasting YOUR tax money paying a guy to make pro-USA government edits should get you "worked up over it." Just remember that at BEST it's a waste of taxpayer money.
Does Encyclopedia Brittanica have such disclaimers? Does the New York Times?
All media is prone to inaccuracies. In my experience, most news periodicals are chock full of misinformation (hell, the only time I ever appeared in print, it was a severe misquote.) Print encylopedias are better, but still contain a fair number of errors and even more omissions. If you discount the minority articles in Wikipedia that are OBVIOUSLY badly written/biased/whatever (it's usually immediately obvious), the remainder is MUCH more accurate than anything you'll read in a newspaper, read in an encyclopedia, or hear about on the evening news. As another poster noted, there have been studies done that confirm this--Wikipedia is more accurate than most print encyclopedias.
I applaud the spirit of your post, but I severely question singling out Wikipedia. IMO, they're much less guilty of this than most sources because people already KNOW the potential for misinformation (see: Stephen Colbert, etc.). People are much more gullible when it comes to the evening news, even though they're actually (in my experience, anyway) much less accurate... ESPECIALLY if you count important omissions against them.
It does hurt my head. I can't understand why someone inevitably brings up this erroneous comparison.
The difference is, 2000 wasn't marketed towards the home user. Non-business users didn't receive it preinstalled (and that's how the vast majority of consumers get their copy of Windows. After OEM and piracy, the number of home users who buy the full retain version is vanishingly small.) Upgrading from 98SE or ME to XP was a HUGE difference for most people. Going from XP to Vista is a considerably more under-whelming experience.
Many business users, on the other hand, have stuck with Windows 2000. In fact, I've NEVER seen XP running in a business environment. I'm sure it's out there in places, but most business seem to have realized the lack of value in moving to XP. The same thing is happening now on the home front (though probably not as bad, since consumers are generally much more easily wowed with glitter), with the lackluster improvement Vista was over XP.
We have life. Any significantly advanced civilization is going to have an interest in genetic engineering--the idea of a planet chock-full of many trillions of species to harvest and analyze is going to be pretty damn tempting. And, as other people have pointed out, there's the matter of our climate, liquid water oceans, and atmosphere. So far, astronomers haven't discovered any other planets that look as remotely livable as the Earth.
Why would a forewarning of their savage, pagan ways (plus, as someone else mentioned, the fact that many nations--e.g. the Aztecs--had a lot of gold) make the Europeans more friendlier when they arrived?
For one thing, Earth-like planets may be pretty unusual--in fact, the current scientific opinion is were are EXTREMELY unusual. Assuming the aliens have a similar fundamental carbon structure (yes, there are other possibilities but by far it looks like DNA is the best way to go for storing genetic information), Earth would probably look pretty damn tempting. Not the minerals so much as the magnetosphere, atmosphere and the ecosystem that keeps replenishing the atmosphere--not only is it probably a nice home away from home, but there are also billions of interesting life forms to study and harvest for scientific and biological (e.g. genetic engineering) purposes.
Yes, but who's disputing the creation of X-rays? You stated that a CRT will be "beaming beta radiation" "directly into your eyes", which is downright untrue - the beta radiation (energetic electrons) aren't going to be going anywhere near your eyes.
Yes, it will. 99.99% of the electrons will never make it to your eyes, but a very small percentage will. Newsflash--air is thin. Really, really thin. Some of the electrons will, by sheer lucky change, manage to pass through many feet of air without hitting any molecules at all. So yes, a few electrons will indeed be beamed directly into your eyes.
On top of this misunderstanding, you severely underestimate the penetrating potential of beta radiation. (Perhaps you've confused it with alpha radiation?) It's very wrong to claim that ALL sources of beta radiation lack the ability to significantly penetrate the air--it's all a matter of power level. I've seen examples of homemade Van der Graff-type beta accelerators capable of achieving very significant penetration of 4+ feet of air (i.e. measurable and potentially dangerous, even for short-term exposure.) If you want, I can find the book that describes how you can make one (it's a fascinating DIY science experiment book from the mid-60s, of the type that would NEVER be published nowadays due to the threat of lawsuits), though I wouldn't advise it.
The electrons striking the grill are energetic enough to create some x-rays. This is a well-documented side effect of beta radiation particle accelerators--if the electron beam strikes any heavy-ish metal (the grill in a CRT is usually made of steel), x-rays will be generated. (Hence the fact that I said "side-effect" in my original post.)
And I never said you're going to "have a problem." In fact, I have repeatedly stressed the exact opposite. Despite the fact that very, very, very small amounts of electrons and/or xray-energy photons manage to make it through the lead shielding and air to your face (but rest assured, over the course of a hour-long watching session, statistics says at least a few of them must--even if your head is five feet away), it isn't something anyone needs to worry about. The radiation dose you receive is (likely, though I'm not 100% sure) less than the amount you receive from cosmic rays.
My entire point, which you've utterly failed to grasp, is that just because something is spewing radiation, doesn't make it significantly dangerous. For example--the geographically isolated, isotope-generating nuclear reactor mentioned in the article isn't significantly dangerous to anyone (as compared to the dangers we already accept, both radioactive and non-radioactive) except maybe the workers at the plant. Even they are likely at far less danger than people who brave the conditions in coal mines, oil fields (esp. oil field firefighters), and other fossil fuel-related endeavors.
ts 200miles or so upriver from the Nation's capital city Ottawa
You are very much mistaken if you think that even the worst possible accident could significantly affect a city 200 miles away.
The problem with nuclear power, is that people automatically assume all plants are the equivalent of the Chernobyl reactor. They're not. A isotope-generating reactor is NOTHING like a electricity-generating reactor, and even the most powerful modern electricity-generating reactor is NOTHING like the kind of shabby POS they were using at Chernobyl.
Re: Chalk River--as I asked someone else elsewhere, I'd still love to see the numbers on this thing. Just because something was a media sensation doesn't mean it was actually significant. Three Mile Island was the USA media sensation, yet the coal burning plants in our country release far more radiation into the environment every single year. People just don't seem to care about radioactive contamination unless it comes from something with the word "nuclear" in its name.
So, worst case, how many rads did people living near the Chalk River plant absorb?
I meant "contamination" to be in terms of rads--unit of radiation absorbed by the general populace.
Also, given the number that everyone breathes the same city air, but only some people use well water (assuming the city water was derived from a non-groundwater source.) So, regardless of the rads, in this particular case it's probable that only minority of the population received any exposure at all.
Untrue. You can't base your numbers on what's currently available, because Carter banned cost-efficient breeder reactors due to (unreasonable, IMO) nuclear proliferation concerns.
people who are learned about such things get excited about alternative schemes which involve lowering energy use and using demonstrably cheap and clean energy sources which have no danger of directly resulting in pollution while generating power.
I think you overestimate just how cost-effective things like solar and wind are. In terms of total cost per kilowatt-hour, I don't believe they can compete with coal or (breeder reactor) nuclear without government subsidy.
Re: "no potential for pollution"-- the production of solar does involve the use of potentially polluting chemicals, and hydro can involve widespread damage to the environment by altering waterways, not to mention all of the air pollution given off by the sometimes-tremendous (e.g. Three Gorges) construction effort.
Wind is nearly perfect from an environmental standpoint (all you have to worry about are a few dead birds), but even staunch liberals like Ted Kennedy still somehow manage to be anti-wind.
but for the complete life-cycle of the plant (dirt lot to dirt lot), it is extremely expensive.
This is only because:
1. Carter outlawed breeder reactors (due to overblown Plutonium proliferation concerns.) Breeders drastically cut down on the amount of radioactive waste generated, plus they're much more profitable because they actually create fuel in addition to burning it.
2. You fail to take into account the large health care costs brought about by fossil fuel-derived air pollution.
I believe I heard somewhere that France has a very economical network of nuclear power plants. Supposedly, they're actually making decent money by selling their excess power to their neighbors. I don't have a source handy, though.
Interesting point. I sort of agree with you, except for the phrase "if it fails, it fails big-time." That's rather misleading. Some people consider Three Mile Island to be "big time", even though the harm to people was quite small compared to fossil fuels. And what about oil field fires, oil tanker spills, natural gas explosions, massive lead contamination (back when leaded gasoline was legal), city-wide smog that gives thousands of people respiratory illnesses (some of whom will die as a result) etc.? Are these things not "big-time"?
But back to your original point about people taking nuclear power safety seriously--design, in general, is much more important than upkeep. A properly designed nuclear power plant will never, ever do what Chernobyl's did. If it's not properly maintained, it might do what Three Mile Island's did, but as I've already said we could have a Three Mile Island every year and still not equal the radiation output of our coal burning plants. I'm not saying that it isn't a good idea to have properly trained staff operating them, but once you start using reactors designed with safety in mind (which admittedly does raise the price), I believe the risks with "people of equal skills, and equal concern for safety" are comparable--maybe even in nuclear's favor.
CRTs generate x-rays as well, and my comment about the glass in TV being leaded out of safety concerns was a truthful one.
As far as stupid decisions being "only minimized", not eliminated--well, for years gasoline was leaded. The decision to dump lead in billions of gallons of gas, then burn said gas, was arguably a major worldwide health issue. I don't know if they've managed to do any conclusive studies on it, but it's entirely possible that the collective average IQ of the industrialized world went down a few points. You also ignore the mass effects of cities with major (fossil fuel-caused) air polution. In such cities, deaths due to respiratory illness are much higher, including respiratory cancers.
My point is, the number of people who GET SICK AND DIE AS A DIRECT RESULT OF FOSSIL FUELS is great than those who've gotten sick and died as a result of nuclear power. In both cases, stupid decisions were involved. True, Chernobyl was a little more spectacular than L.A. smog, but that doesn't give you the right to ignore the numbers.
A Chernobyl-style meltdown won't happen again. There were just too many stupid decisions that will never, ever be made again. And even if we did have a Chernobyl-style meltdown every 50 years, it still wouldn't make nuclear power more dangerous than fossil fuels.
And I'm sure, over the past century, many thousands of people have died and been maimed in oil field fires, coal dust and gasoline explosions, etc. Not to mention that (like radiation), many fossil fuel-derived compounds (including gasoline) are carcinogenic.
The point isn't "radiation is safe." The point is, "it's a danger on par with the dangers that already surround us."
I don't think you understand how radiation shielding works. I assure you, a few X-Ray-frequency photons do indeed make it through the leaded glass and strike your eyes. Depending on the power output, probably even an electron or two as well. They are diluted enough to safely ignore, but (as I said) that is precisely my point--radiation already surrounds us, but if it's properly managed it isn't a big deal.
Ionizing vs. non-ionizing radiation--yes yes, I should have mentioned that dichotomy as well. However, IIRC there is *some* evidence that large amounts of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation can have a cancerous effect on living cells (the mechanism of action isn't clear yet.) And all of the radiation sources I mention are, in fact, ionizing.
Yes, good point. We're all surrounded by small amounts of electromagnetic radiation, therefore *any* amount of *any* radiation is just fine!
Except I didn't say that. In fact, I quite explicitly said the opposite. Also, FYI, beta radiation isn't electromagnetic, and the amount of radiation required to give you a sunburn isn't "small", nor is the amount of radiation dumped into the air by coal burning plants "small" (in fact, it's much greater than the amount of radiation nuclear plants dump into surround environment.)
The point isn't "radiation is safe". The point is, we're already saturated by it, plus more than a few nastier and deadlier things. A given source of radiation, therefore, should be evaluated objectively instead of saying "OMFG it's radioactive, get it away from me!" A small, modern isotope generating reactor probably has as much in common with the Chernobyl disaster as a butane lighter does with the firebombing of Dresden.
Yup. A simple name change would go really far. In fact, I think that's the biggest thing fusion power has going for it. We're always told "Nonono, it's not Nuclear [fission] power, it's [nuclear] Fusion power!" Nevermind that fusion generates significant quantities of radioactive waste that needs to be quarantined, and in quantities comparable to fission power. Admittedly, there's not a runaway/meltdown possibility with fusion, but a sane fission reactor design can render this possibility remote enough that we really shouldn't care.
And when was the last time you heard the big, scandalous story about the radiative particles that coal burning plants dump into the air supply? Oh, right, there never was one, because people don't care about radiation unless it's coming from a nuclear power plant. Nevermind that coal burning plants release much more radiation than nuclear plants. Nevermind that the total yearly release is greater than that of Three Mile Island.
If you want me to care about a specific instance of mis-management, I'm going to have to see some numbers first. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the total radioactive "contamination" was still less than that of a typical coal burning plant (granted, drinking water contamination vs. air contamination is different.)
And you only say that because you've been brainwashed into thinking that nuclear power is more dangerous than fossil fuel power.
Stupid Russians aside (and trust me, Chernobyl wasn't an accident--it was the direct, foreseeable result of extreme stupidity. Quick analogy: Its crappy design made it the Pinto of nuclear reactors, and then the operators in charge basically went around slamming on their brakes randomly until they got rear-ended and the fucking thing blew up), pollution from fossil fuels (including--*gasp!*--radioactive pollution) outweighs pollution from nuclear power by many orders of magnitudes. People die every day due to the direct effects of using fossil fuels (and this isn't a snide criticism of Iraq, though that argument could certainly be made as well.) They explode. And cause cancer and respiratory illness. And then there's the whole greenhouse gas thing. Three mile island, on the other hand, dumped enough radiation into the area that they calculated there is a 50% chance that one extra person died from cancer. Eventually. Years later.
You see, what people fail to grasp is how utterly surrounded they are by radiation. Have you ever watched television on anything other than a flat screen? If so, you've been staring directly into a cathode ray tube. Wanna know what a CRT really is? A particle accelerator. It's beaming beta radiation (and some side-effect X-Rays as well) directly into your eyes. They actually have to add lead to the glass in TV sets to prevent the radiation from reaching harmful levels. I am not making this shit up; every day, millions (if not billions) of knee-jerk anti-nuclear hippies sit around for hours and stare directly into a particle accelerator. (Yes, you can argue that the power levels and leaded glass makes it a pretty safe activity, but that's PRECISELY my point. Just because radiation is involved doesn't mean something is inherently dangerous. Radiation is a danger like high current electricity or poisonous chemicals are a danger. We're surrounded by all three, all of the time, yet sane design renders these things fairly safe.)
And, of course, almost everyone will (at least a couple times in their lives) suffer a radiation burn--more commonly known as a "sunburn". Many people suffer these radiation burns repeatedly, even though they (like all radiation exposures) cause cancer, and even though they're fairly trivial to avoid.
I'm not arguing that we should have a cavalier attitude towards nuclear power--just a little sanity and appropriateness. I don't know the specifics in this case, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the safety requirements were minor and/or highly redundant. Personally, I'd rather we get decent air filters put on our coal-burning plants first. They're far more of a threat to our well-being.
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A 3-5 megaton blast over the Atlantic wouldn't cause so much as a rough surf advisory in Key West. In comparison, the USA built a 45 megaton bomb and the USSR's fission-fusion-fission Tsar Bomba would have been 100+ megatons had they not taken the sensible precaution of replacing the final fission stage with inert lead. If a mere 5 megaton warhead could cause such worldwide devastation, I'm pretty sure someone would have mentioned it before now (and trust me, I've read just about every far-fetched doomsday scenario imaginable.)
As for the possibility of similar-sized asteroid impacting the ocean instead of exploding above it--well, the article only says that the asteroid is now thought to be "only a fraction as large as previously published estimates". That doesn't tell us anything. The Tunguska asteroid may or may not have been large enough to trigger a tsunami had it impacted an ocean instead of exploding over land. I'm going to assume that an impact will usually be less energetic (though perhaps more concentrated) than a heat-induced explosion, in which case no, the Tunguska asteroid never posed a significant threat to the world as a whole.
That said, the Tunguska explosion is still fascinating as hell. I know that there's a lot of very strong evidence pointing to the asteroid theory, but it's still fun to toy with conspiracy theories. The atomic bomb was first being conceived of, Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower was being tested (by some accounts, it was brought online the day before the explosion)... it's all absolute rubbish, to be frank, but it's very entertaining rubbish.
Well, I'm no Microsoft apologist (been an Ubuntu user since Hoary), but the phenomenon you describe could be due to the simple fact that you can buy a PC anywhere or even build your own from scratch. If you want a complete selection of Macs to choose from, though, there's really only one place to go--the Apple store.
Make no mistake, I believe that over the next 5-20 years Microsoft dominance will die by the collective hands of Apple, Linux and themselves, but it's going to be a slow process. Lock-in is a bitch, and it's not just about document formats--drivers are a bitch as well, and many important programs simply do not have decent OSS equivalents (or run in Wine without tons of tweaking.)
If it were a fair fight, I'd have to wager Microsoft on being the absolute victor; fortunately, it's not a fair fight. Apple is a small and nimble target, kept alive by specific, loyal market segments, while Linux is simply immortal.
As the tag says--"bullshit, it's a felony". When the fuck are we going to see everyone involved in this project DRAGGED AWAY IN HANDCUFFS? As I've said before, if a preteen was caught installing rootkits on thousands of computers without their owners' consent, he would certainly be dragged away in handcuffs even if he was just messing around, even if money wasn't involved at all.
If you care about freedom and justice in this country, don't sit around idly talking about class action lawsuits. Instead, find a copy of a rootkit'ed CD (buy it from eBay if you must), put it in the drive of your XP box to verify that it does its thing, then take it to your local law enforcement office (preferably FBI) and report the crime. If enough people do this, they just might take it seriously. They JUST MIGHT hold a multinational corporation to the same standards of justice as a preteen kid.
Doesn't matter how bad the edits were; the very fact that the government is wasting YOUR tax money paying a guy to make pro-USA government edits should get you "worked up over it." Just remember that at BEST it's a waste of taxpayer money.
Does Encyclopedia Brittanica have such disclaimers? Does the New York Times?
All media is prone to inaccuracies. In my experience, most news periodicals are chock full of misinformation (hell, the only time I ever appeared in print, it was a severe misquote.) Print encylopedias are better, but still contain a fair number of errors and even more omissions. If you discount the minority articles in Wikipedia that are OBVIOUSLY badly written/biased/whatever (it's usually immediately obvious), the remainder is MUCH more accurate than anything you'll read in a newspaper, read in an encyclopedia, or hear about on the evening news. As another poster noted, there have been studies done that confirm this--Wikipedia is more accurate than most print encyclopedias.
I applaud the spirit of your post, but I severely question singling out Wikipedia. IMO, they're much less guilty of this than most sources because people already KNOW the potential for misinformation (see: Stephen Colbert, etc.). People are much more gullible when it comes to the evening news, even though they're actually (in my experience, anyway) much less accurate... ESPECIALLY if you count important omissions against them.
It does hurt my head. I can't understand why someone inevitably brings up this erroneous comparison.
The difference is, 2000 wasn't marketed towards the home user. Non-business users didn't receive it preinstalled (and that's how the vast majority of consumers get their copy of Windows. After OEM and piracy, the number of home users who buy the full retain version is vanishingly small.) Upgrading from 98SE or ME to XP was a HUGE difference for most people. Going from XP to Vista is a considerably more under-whelming experience.
Many business users, on the other hand, have stuck with Windows 2000. In fact, I've NEVER seen XP running in a business environment. I'm sure it's out there in places, but most business seem to have realized the lack of value in moving to XP. The same thing is happening now on the home front (though probably not as bad, since consumers are generally much more easily wowed with glitter), with the lackluster improvement Vista was over XP.
My apologies, then. It just seemed like you were going on and on about how beta radiation couldn't possibly travel that far through air.
We have life. Any significantly advanced civilization is going to have an interest in genetic engineering--the idea of a planet chock-full of many trillions of species to harvest and analyze is going to be pretty damn tempting. And, as other people have pointed out, there's the matter of our climate, liquid water oceans, and atmosphere. So far, astronomers haven't discovered any other planets that look as remotely livable as the Earth.
Why would a forewarning of their savage, pagan ways (plus, as someone else mentioned, the fact that many nations--e.g. the Aztecs--had a lot of gold) make the Europeans more friendlier when they arrived?
For one thing, Earth-like planets may be pretty unusual--in fact, the current scientific opinion is were are EXTREMELY unusual. Assuming the aliens have a similar fundamental carbon structure (yes, there are other possibilities but by far it looks like DNA is the best way to go for storing genetic information), Earth would probably look pretty damn tempting. Not the minerals so much as the magnetosphere, atmosphere and the ecosystem that keeps replenishing the atmosphere--not only is it probably a nice home away from home, but there are also billions of interesting life forms to study and harvest for scientific and biological (e.g. genetic engineering) purposes.
Yes, but who's disputing the creation of X-rays? You stated that a CRT will be "beaming beta radiation" "directly into your eyes", which is downright untrue - the beta radiation (energetic electrons) aren't going to be going anywhere near your eyes.
Yes, it will. 99.99% of the electrons will never make it to your eyes, but a very small percentage will. Newsflash--air is thin. Really, really thin. Some of the electrons will, by sheer lucky change, manage to pass through many feet of air without hitting any molecules at all. So yes, a few electrons will indeed be beamed directly into your eyes.
On top of this misunderstanding, you severely underestimate the penetrating potential of beta radiation. (Perhaps you've confused it with alpha radiation?) It's very wrong to claim that ALL sources of beta radiation lack the ability to significantly penetrate the air--it's all a matter of power level. I've seen examples of homemade Van der Graff-type beta accelerators capable of achieving very significant penetration of 4+ feet of air (i.e. measurable and potentially dangerous, even for short-term exposure.) If you want, I can find the book that describes how you can make one (it's a fascinating DIY science experiment book from the mid-60s, of the type that would NEVER be published nowadays due to the threat of lawsuits), though I wouldn't advise it.
The electrons striking the grill are energetic enough to create some x-rays. This is a well-documented side effect of beta radiation particle accelerators--if the electron beam strikes any heavy-ish metal (the grill in a CRT is usually made of steel), x-rays will be generated. (Hence the fact that I said "side-effect" in my original post.)
And I never said you're going to "have a problem." In fact, I have repeatedly stressed the exact opposite. Despite the fact that very, very, very small amounts of electrons and/or xray-energy photons manage to make it through the lead shielding and air to your face (but rest assured, over the course of a hour-long watching session, statistics says at least a few of them must--even if your head is five feet away), it isn't something anyone needs to worry about. The radiation dose you receive is (likely, though I'm not 100% sure) less than the amount you receive from cosmic rays.
My entire point, which you've utterly failed to grasp, is that just because something is spewing radiation, doesn't make it significantly dangerous. For example--the geographically isolated, isotope-generating nuclear reactor mentioned in the article isn't significantly dangerous to anyone (as compared to the dangers we already accept, both radioactive and non-radioactive) except maybe the workers at the plant. Even they are likely at far less danger than people who brave the conditions in coal mines, oil fields (esp. oil field firefighters), and other fossil fuel-related endeavors.
ts 200miles or so upriver from the Nation's capital city Ottawa
You are very much mistaken if you think that even the worst possible accident could significantly affect a city 200 miles away.
The problem with nuclear power, is that people automatically assume all plants are the equivalent of the Chernobyl reactor. They're not. A isotope-generating reactor is NOTHING like a electricity-generating reactor, and even the most powerful modern electricity-generating reactor is NOTHING like the kind of shabby POS they were using at Chernobyl.
Re: Chalk River--as I asked someone else elsewhere, I'd still love to see the numbers on this thing. Just because something was a media sensation doesn't mean it was actually significant. Three Mile Island was the USA media sensation, yet the coal burning plants in our country release far more radiation into the environment every single year. People just don't seem to care about radioactive contamination unless it comes from something with the word "nuclear" in its name.
So, worst case, how many rads did people living near the Chalk River plant absorb?
She always flew Concorde when she could because the company was paying her salary during her flight.
Errr, wouldn't that be more of a reason to take a slower flight instead? Unless she cared more about the company's financial well-being than her own.
And, as someone else noted, the Concorde was NOT a financial success by any means.
I meant "contamination" to be in terms of rads--unit of radiation absorbed by the general populace.
Also, given the number that everyone breathes the same city air, but only some people use well water (assuming the city water was derived from a non-groundwater source.) So, regardless of the rads, in this particular case it's probable that only minority of the population received any exposure at all.
Nuclear power is pretty expensive
Untrue. You can't base your numbers on what's currently available, because Carter banned cost-efficient breeder reactors due to (unreasonable, IMO) nuclear proliferation concerns.
people who are learned about such things get excited about alternative schemes which involve lowering energy use and using demonstrably cheap and clean energy sources which have no danger of directly resulting in pollution while generating power.
I think you overestimate just how cost-effective things like solar and wind are. In terms of total cost per kilowatt-hour, I don't believe they can compete with coal or (breeder reactor) nuclear without government subsidy.
Re: "no potential for pollution"-- the production of solar does involve the use of potentially polluting chemicals, and hydro can involve widespread damage to the environment by altering waterways, not to mention all of the air pollution given off by the sometimes-tremendous (e.g. Three Gorges) construction effort.
Wind is nearly perfect from an environmental standpoint (all you have to worry about are a few dead birds), but even staunch liberals like Ted Kennedy still somehow manage to be anti-wind.
but for the complete life-cycle of the plant (dirt lot to dirt lot), it is extremely expensive.
This is only because:
1. Carter outlawed breeder reactors (due to overblown Plutonium proliferation concerns.) Breeders drastically cut down on the amount of radioactive waste generated, plus they're much more profitable because they actually create fuel in addition to burning it.
2. You fail to take into account the large health care costs brought about by fossil fuel-derived air pollution.
I believe I heard somewhere that France has a very economical network of nuclear power plants. Supposedly, they're actually making decent money by selling their excess power to their neighbors. I don't have a source handy, though.
Interesting point. I sort of agree with you, except for the phrase "if it fails, it fails big-time." That's rather misleading. Some people consider Three Mile Island to be "big time", even though the harm to people was quite small compared to fossil fuels. And what about oil field fires, oil tanker spills, natural gas explosions, massive lead contamination (back when leaded gasoline was legal), city-wide smog that gives thousands of people respiratory illnesses (some of whom will die as a result) etc.? Are these things not "big-time"?
But back to your original point about people taking nuclear power safety seriously--design, in general, is much more important than upkeep. A properly designed nuclear power plant will never, ever do what Chernobyl's did. If it's not properly maintained, it might do what Three Mile Island's did, but as I've already said we could have a Three Mile Island every year and still not equal the radiation output of our coal burning plants. I'm not saying that it isn't a good idea to have properly trained staff operating them, but once you start using reactors designed with safety in mind (which admittedly does raise the price), I believe the risks with "people of equal skills, and equal concern for safety" are comparable--maybe even in nuclear's favor.
CRTs generate x-rays as well, and my comment about the glass in TV being leaded out of safety concerns was a truthful one.
As far as stupid decisions being "only minimized", not eliminated--well, for years gasoline was leaded. The decision to dump lead in billions of gallons of gas, then burn said gas, was arguably a major worldwide health issue. I don't know if they've managed to do any conclusive studies on it, but it's entirely possible that the collective average IQ of the industrialized world went down a few points. You also ignore the mass effects of cities with major (fossil fuel-caused) air polution. In such cities, deaths due to respiratory illness are much higher, including respiratory cancers.
My point is, the number of people who GET SICK AND DIE AS A DIRECT RESULT OF FOSSIL FUELS is great than those who've gotten sick and died as a result of nuclear power. In both cases, stupid decisions were involved. True, Chernobyl was a little more spectacular than L.A. smog, but that doesn't give you the right to ignore the numbers.
A Chernobyl-style meltdown won't happen again. There were just too many stupid decisions that will never, ever be made again. And even if we did have a Chernobyl-style meltdown every 50 years, it still wouldn't make nuclear power more dangerous than fossil fuels.
And I'm sure, over the past century, many thousands of people have died and been maimed in oil field fires, coal dust and gasoline explosions, etc. Not to mention that (like radiation), many fossil fuel-derived compounds (including gasoline) are carcinogenic.
The point isn't "radiation is safe." The point is, "it's a danger on par with the dangers that already surround us."
I don't think you understand how radiation shielding works. I assure you, a few X-Ray-frequency photons do indeed make it through the leaded glass and strike your eyes. Depending on the power output, probably even an electron or two as well. They are diluted enough to safely ignore, but (as I said) that is precisely my point--radiation already surrounds us, but if it's properly managed it isn't a big deal.
Ionizing vs. non-ionizing radiation--yes yes, I should have mentioned that dichotomy as well. However, IIRC there is *some* evidence that large amounts of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation can have a cancerous effect on living cells (the mechanism of action isn't clear yet.) And all of the radiation sources I mention are, in fact, ionizing.
Yes, good point. We're all surrounded by small amounts of electromagnetic radiation, therefore *any* amount of *any* radiation is just fine!
Except I didn't say that. In fact, I quite explicitly said the opposite. Also, FYI, beta radiation isn't electromagnetic, and the amount of radiation required to give you a sunburn isn't "small", nor is the amount of radiation dumped into the air by coal burning plants "small" (in fact, it's much greater than the amount of radiation nuclear plants dump into surround environment.)
The point isn't "radiation is safe". The point is, we're already saturated by it, plus more than a few nastier and deadlier things. A given source of radiation, therefore, should be evaluated objectively instead of saying "OMFG it's radioactive, get it away from me!" A small, modern isotope generating reactor probably has as much in common with the Chernobyl disaster as a butane lighter does with the firebombing of Dresden.
Yup. A simple name change would go really far. In fact, I think that's the biggest thing fusion power has going for it. We're always told "Nonono, it's not Nuclear [fission] power, it's [nuclear] Fusion power!" Nevermind that fusion generates significant quantities of radioactive waste that needs to be quarantined, and in quantities comparable to fission power. Admittedly, there's not a runaway/meltdown possibility with fusion, but a sane fission reactor design can render this possibility remote enough that we really shouldn't care.
And when was the last time you heard the big, scandalous story about the radiative particles that coal burning plants dump into the air supply? Oh, right, there never was one, because people don't care about radiation unless it's coming from a nuclear power plant. Nevermind that coal burning plants release much more radiation than nuclear plants. Nevermind that the total yearly release is greater than that of Three Mile Island.
If you want me to care about a specific instance of mis-management, I'm going to have to see some numbers first. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the total radioactive "contamination" was still less than that of a typical coal burning plant (granted, drinking water contamination vs. air contamination is different.)
And you only say that because you've been brainwashed into thinking that nuclear power is more dangerous than fossil fuel power.
Stupid Russians aside (and trust me, Chernobyl wasn't an accident--it was the direct, foreseeable result of extreme stupidity. Quick analogy: Its crappy design made it the Pinto of nuclear reactors, and then the operators in charge basically went around slamming on their brakes randomly until they got rear-ended and the fucking thing blew up), pollution from fossil fuels (including--*gasp!*--radioactive pollution) outweighs pollution from nuclear power by many orders of magnitudes. People die every day due to the direct effects of using fossil fuels (and this isn't a snide criticism of Iraq, though that argument could certainly be made as well.) They explode. And cause cancer and respiratory illness. And then there's the whole greenhouse gas thing. Three mile island, on the other hand, dumped enough radiation into the area that they calculated there is a 50% chance that one extra person died from cancer. Eventually. Years later.
You see, what people fail to grasp is how utterly surrounded they are by radiation. Have you ever watched television on anything other than a flat screen? If so, you've been staring directly into a cathode ray tube. Wanna know what a CRT really is? A particle accelerator. It's beaming beta radiation (and some side-effect X-Rays as well) directly into your eyes. They actually have to add lead to the glass in TV sets to prevent the radiation from reaching harmful levels. I am not making this shit up; every day, millions (if not billions) of knee-jerk anti-nuclear hippies sit around for hours and stare directly into a particle accelerator. (Yes, you can argue that the power levels and leaded glass makes it a pretty safe activity, but that's PRECISELY my point. Just because radiation is involved doesn't mean something is inherently dangerous. Radiation is a danger like high current electricity or poisonous chemicals are a danger. We're surrounded by all three, all of the time, yet sane design renders these things fairly safe.)
And, of course, almost everyone will (at least a couple times in their lives) suffer a radiation burn--more commonly known as a "sunburn". Many people suffer these radiation burns repeatedly, even though they (like all radiation exposures) cause cancer, and even though they're fairly trivial to avoid.
I'm not arguing that we should have a cavalier attitude towards nuclear power--just a little sanity and appropriateness. I don't know the specifics in this case, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the safety requirements were minor and/or highly redundant. Personally, I'd rather we get decent air filters put on our coal-burning plants first. They're far more of a threat to our well-being.