I considered resurrecting that subthread when I got back and upon consideration decided it would be a waste of time. Since you're taking pot shots at me though:
The point that nuclear waste will be dangerous for at least a thousand years and possibly much longer, because of its decay products, was accepted by yourself and Schneibster before I got back. I saw no point in harping on that.
I accepted nothing of the kind. I'll demonstrate that by merely asking, which of the several kinds of nuclear waste discussed on this thread is that, Kevin? Either you didn't notice that at least five have been mentioned, or you're claiming that because I "admitted" it about one, it's true about them all, an obvious logical fallacy.
The amount of relevance in Schneibster's talk of U-234 is approximately the same as the amount of U-234 in nuclear waste. I chose U-234 as an illustration of how decay products work and why you can't just look at the original isotope's half-life, chemical and physical properties in order to figure out if the waste is dangerous.
Now this is outright dishonesty, and I have no intention of letting it pass. You didn't even know that U-234 isn't created in the reactor except in vanishingly small quantities; you were talking about its presence in waste, implying that it was enough to worry about. It's about 0.0058% of natural uranium; that's less than six one thousandths of a percent. Note that you spoke of Pu-238 in the same sentence, and you apparently don't have a clue that a) Pu-238 isn't a product of nuclear fission of U-235 mixed with U-238, and b) U-234 is present in uranium ore, and therefore in both natural uranium and enriched uranium. Tell me, Kevin, what reaction in a nuclear reactor produces Pu-238? Do you know how Pu-238 is produced? "It comes from nuclear reactors" is not an acceptable answer. Since you seem to think you know more than I do about nuclear reactions, why don't you just tell us all? Tell us, after you find out, how much of it you think is in nuclear waste, too. That will be an interesting piece of information.
Moving right along, U-234
IS an "original isotope," so there is absolutely no point you could possibly make regarding how decay products work that has to do with not being able to "look at the original isotope's half-life" using U-234 as opposed to U-235 and U-238. Finally, U-234 is such a low percentage, even after enrichment, that it is essentially non-existent from a radiological point of view; its contribution is so diluted by its low occurrence that there's no point in even discussing it even in enriched uranium, much less in the natural uranium which is used in CANDU reactors.
You had not the slightest idea what you were talking about, and nothing I've seen from you since has changed that opinion one iota; you're STILL talking about U-234 as if it weren't an "original isotope." And now I've caught you outright misrepresenting what you said. That's not merely dishonest, it's
stupid, because you had to know I was going to go find where you said it and prove you had. So here it comes.
The idea that I was really arguing that the major danger in nuclear waste is the U-234 was his, not mine. I saw no point in digging up that straw man.
Spent fission reactor fuel contains U-234 (half-life 246000 years), Pu-238 (half-life 88 years then it turns into the aforementioned U-234) and Am-241 (half-life 432 years). Make a big pile of that stuff and it will be a serious health hazard for longer than any human political system has ever endured, by at least a couple of orders of magnitude.
And now I've caught you misrepresenting what you said again. Let's think about that; you've stated that U-234
makes an important contribution to the danger of nuclear waste, and this is emphasized by your use of it as an example of the danger of nuclear waste in another post in which you mention
it alone as an example of why nuclear waste is so dangerous, here:
Schneibster, exactly what do you think is dangerous about a stockpile of used fuel rods containing U-234?
This looks to me definitively as if you are arguing that it is at least A major danger, if not THE major danger (since you mention it completely alone as if it were somehow important enough to be worth considering), in nuclear waste. So here we have two phenomena of note; first, you again misrepresented YOUR OWN ARGUMENT. And second, you have done so TO AVOID ADMITTING YOU WERE WRONG, and here we find that although I appear to be able to admit it when I was wrong, you cannot. I think that speaks to character, and lack of it.
The claim that if we don't go nuclear a billion people will die was never adequately supported, nor was I ever clear on what exactly we had to do to prevent this mass slaughter, but Schneibster seemed to have dropped that claim anyway. I saw no point in digging it up either.
Plenty of evidence was presented; you just can't come up with any arguments against any of it, so instead of being honest and admitting that, you instead choose to descend to rhetoric and pretend there wasn't any.
The evidence is
right here. You've not refuted a lick of it, and now you're trying to pretend it doesn't exist. And that, Kevin, is a lie. Your fourth of the evening, in fact. Tell us all, after you just got done lying four times, why we should listen to anything further you might have to say.
