The thing with nuclear waste is that it origionaly came from the ground, as long as we place it back there once were done with it while taking things like underground water into account it will be more or less a safe as any natural deposit of radioactives.
No, Uranium ore and trace amounts of Plutonium 94 are taken from the ground. Nuclear waste is MUCH more radioactive AND toxic. It's definitely less safe, nor "more or less" as safe. Nuclear waste is not just man-made chemicals, it's man-made elements that don't occur naturally on Earth.
200 tons per year of the most tightly controlled substance in the world.
If it's so tightly controlled, how did 2 rods of fuel go missing for over 15 years WITHOUT ANYONE NOTICING? Sure, they were probably still in the pool, but no-one knew.
http://www.forbes.com/2001/01/08/0108disaster.html
The US Department of Energy lost enough plutonium in Hanford to make over 50 Nuclear bombs.
www.hanfordnews.com/static/includes/documents/lostplutonium.pdf
This is just some of the stuff we know got "lost", and look how long it took to figure out it was missing. You have to wonder how much has been lost that we don't know is missing.
As for the "coals worse" crowd, consider how many more coal plants are in use, and how long they've been used, and the disparity of health risk begins to shrink significantly. We are also much more aware of the long term risks associated with coal, nuclear plants haven't been around in significant quantity long enough to really know.
So how do you feed a countries thirst for energy?
Only about 2,400 of the 80,000 dams in the US are used to generate electricity. Many of those non-producing dams were built in the post war era, and are in need of major repairs and/or replacement. Converting those existing dams would be much cheaper than building new nuke plants, be safer, cheaper to operate, and add no risk (all risks associated with a dam failure already exist - the upgrades would actually make the dams safer).
In order to make a dirty bomb you need to steal the nuclear waste, which already isn't that easy to begin with, and then work with it which is another can of worm. Chemical weapons are much cheaper and you can make them with very little infrastructure.
It doesn't take much "infastructure" to make a dirty bomb, if you can lay hands on the radioactive material (to be honest, it's more likely to come from hospitals than from reactors) all you need are a homemade detonator, homemade explosives, and some duct tape.
Terrorists want to create terror. A chemical weapon will create terror for a short time, but after a couple hours you know the extent of the damage. Biological warefare causes more terror. Days, even weeks, can pass before the spread is stopped and you can't be sure the guy next to you isn't contageous. Radiation weapons are more terrifying. Years, even decades can pass before you know if you are a victim, or what the effects will be. You live in dread, wondering if it's safe to have children, or if you will get a cancer you wouldn't have otherwise, etc. You never know, and nothing is more terrifying than the unknown.
And I feel that Chernobyl proves another point. Murphy's law. And I know I've seen a "DeMotivational" poster that said "No matter how stupid the idea really is, someone in a position of power will think it's a good plan."
Please read the whole article. He counters (nukes?) every one of your arguments.
I did read the entire article. He addresses my arguments, but doesn't actually counter them. He just makes vague generalizations (10 feet of dirt lower the radiation emitted by 10%. What kind of dirt? What wavelenght of radiation? Some wavelenghts can barely penetrate paper, others can pass through several feet of lead. Not to mention that the dirt itself would become radioactive from exposure so I suppose we just through another ten feet of dirt on it every 20 years or so?
I especially liked the part about how people in Colorado get more cosmic radiation, and if you account for some of the causes (but not all) of similar diseases the numbers make it appear that a certain level of radiation is actually good for you. By the same argument, the bacteria contained in the trace amounts of rat feces found (and allowed by the FDA) in peanut butter could be shown to be good for your immune system, so we should just let the rats poop even more in our food.
Keep in mind that Hogan was not a physicist, he was an electrical and computer engineer. He also doesn't believe that there's any proof for evolution, that the Holocaust didn't happen the way they say it did. While in this article he points out the greenhouse gasses as being a point against coal, in a previous article (also for LRC) he claims that global warming is beneficial, so shouldn't we be building more plants by his reasoning?
