Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (604784)	3/23/2011 12:35:13 AM
From: d[-_-]b	3 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1575614

like mercury is being spread around the world Mandated by our government in fact in the form of CFL light bulbs.

To: koan who wrote (604784)	3/23/2011 12:59:00 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575614

Radiation isn't a severe problem for most of the world. Or at least it isn't a severe relatively new problem. Natural sources of radiation have been around pretty much as long as the universe has been around, and have been affected people in some ways as long as there have been people. The exact extent that radiation contributes to cancer or other problems is not precisely understood, but that radiation represents the majority of radiation (and the majority of ionizing radiation) most people encounter, often an overwhelming majority. I'd worry more about mercury, but in many forms it isn't as dangerous as many people think (although methyl-mecury is dangerous with a high enough concentration, and dymethel and some other forms are nasty) Nuclear plants have released less radiation than coal burning plants. Most people in Japan, let alone across the world, have not absorbed harmful levels of radiation from the recent problems with the reactor. A nuclear war is an entirely different story, not only would there be a lot more prompt radiation and a lot more fallout, there would also be fires, shock-wave effects etc. OTOH it might not be a "we are all dead" situation, and even if it somehow is that's a separate issue from nuclear power. I have seen estimates it will take 100 billion to clean up What does that even mean? Long before that the Earth might not be around anymore. Assuming that it does survive the sun going red giant and any other possible actual Earth destroying anomolies you wouldn't even be able to tell the plant was there long before a hundred billions years (for one thing it likelywould have long since been pushed deep in to the Earth through continental drift and subduction, for another the radiation would be indistinguishable from background levels long before that much time has passed, all without any actual cleanup. Radioactive materials that have long half lives, also tend to have low intensity, if something emits lots of radiation per kg, it usually doesn't emit for a huge length of time, it decays to something less harmful. Uranium-238 has a half life of billions of years, but its not that harmful in terms or radioactivity, a bigger problem is that its chemically toxic (and also pyrophoric so it can be a fire hazard). Most of the radiation released by it is alpha-particles which won't penetrate your skin and won't effect a wide area. If you eat it or breathe it you could harm yourself but the chemical toxity would probably be worse than the radiation. Other materials can be very deadly they can be more intense, some of them bio-accumulate, etc., but they don't last nearly as long.