That's an unreasonable standard to hold anyone to. Can you imagine what the news stories would look like if this horrific incident ( http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/investigation-cont... ) had involved nuclear waste instead of plain old slag? Yet it's safe to say you've never even heard of it.
This double standard kills people every day. Over and over, nuclear power projects have been shut down for being "scary" and "dangerous" while new coal plants were built in their place. As a result we have thousands of premature deaths and disabilities that don't make the news because they're not dramatic enough. These deaths don't happen in reactor vaults or control rooms, they happen quietly in ICUs and nursing homes and cancer wards... and sometimes not so quietly in coal plants.
As for nuclear waste, put it in Antarctica.
You do realize it generates heat, yes? :)
(Admittedly not a lot outside of used fuel, and then only for a handful of years)
The article seems to assume the waste is uranium, with a density of 19.1g/cubic centimeter.
That's roughly 3.325×10^9 cubic centimeters of waste (70000 tons / 19.1grams) in cubic centimeters, or 117421 cubic feet
1 acre, 10 feet high, is 435602 cubic feet.
So it's a little more than 1/4 acre, 10 feet high, filled with uranium.
IMHO, that is not a lot especially over 60 years.
Sure, but you'd have to do the same for every other power source as well. Even making solar panels currently generates toxic waste ...
I was simply pointing out that when talking about potential danger from a given substance, the absolute amount, X ft^3, doesn't tell us much with knowing more about the substance's potential for deleterious effects at a given quantity of the substance.
If deleterious effects start at X * 4, X is less concerning. If deleterious effects start at X * .0000000004, X is more concerning.
I've got this little thimble full of material, just a small thimble. No big deal right? I'll just leave it laying somewhere around your house.
Would your assessment of this situation change if you knew it was a thimble full of cyanide?
P.S. I didn't mean for my original post to sound hostile, though with it's conciseness and using 'worthless,' I could understand such an interpretation. I have no problems with this line of analysis, I'm a fan and found the visual it provided interesting. I just intended to point out that if the intention was to give a sense of the danger posed by nuclear waste produced over the past 60 years, then the analysis was incomplete for the reasons stated above.
P.P.S Is the amount of toxic waste produced by solar vs nuclear per unit of energy produced in any way comparable? If so that would no doubt be of interest to the world at large.
I make no claims as to the danger represented by that amount, only "is it a large amount".
IE it may be a small amount, and totally and completely horrible.
"P.P.S Is the amount of toxic waste produced by solar vs nuclear per unit of energy produced in any way comparable? If so that would no doubt be of interest to the world at large. "
I actually don't know, but i may go try to figure it out.
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/john-oliver-and...
TL;DR: He did the anti bits quite well, but didn't explicitly state the pros explictitly. Which might me understandable, given the format, but he usually does state at least a few "however"'s or "but"'s, etc.
I don't think that instantly makes him a shill, FWIW.