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Comment by DarkWiiPlayer | Hacker News Reader

Not nearly as scary as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_...

What makes this one scary? I agree, the optics are terrible, but studies of each known dumpsite showed no real negative effects..

It's scary if you think that the precautionary principle should be guiding when dealing with radioactive waste and looking back in history of this, and many other examples of "this seem like a permanent solution" and later scientists going "actually...".

And I don't really get too much comfort from statements like "studies ... showed no real negative effects". I still imagine mutant lizards emerging from the ocean in the future with frazers[1] killing off all humanity.

[1] lizard tech, don't ask

But in case there exists a hostile non-mutant species of lizards deep down there, dumping our nuclear waste might actually have been a proper defensive first strike. Who knows, maybe we completely wiped out an invasion army?

I agree that ocean dumping is bad. I asked mainly because nobody openly dumps nuclear waste in the ocean any longer, and progress towards long term nuclear waste storage is being made (in Finland, particularly)

It seems like the amount of water in the ocean is so vast, that the quantities of nuclear waste dumped into it will not create a nuclear ocean, but I’m just speculating here.

Scary nuclear incidents to me are Cuban Missile Crisis, Able Archer 83, Stanislav Petrov incident, and the Norwegian rocket incident. Early nuclear era ocean dumping that isn’t being continued isn’t exactly an existential threat.

"How the U.S. betrayed the Marshall Islands, kindling the next nuclear disaster" (latimes.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21870906

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash This one is also quite a scary example if you ask me.

> Early nuclear era ocean dumping that isn’t being continued isn’t exactly an existential threat.

I'm more worried because the mentality that lead to this doesn't seem to have changed whatsoever. The moment something is proven to be a dumb idea, people move on to the next best thing with the exactly same attitude of "We don't know it's bad, so let's just go with it"

> I'm more worried because the mentality that lead to this doesn't seem to have changed whatsoever.

I think the current attitude of "new technology will solve this" is an example of this mentality. Examples readily available in this thread.

Its shockingly irresponsible behaviour from national governments of the first world, and these containers are probably not stable in the long term.

Not necessarily scary as "ow my god we are going to all die" sence.

Godzilla

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