You Are Not Worried Enough About Nuclear Proliferation | Hacker News Reader

You Are Not Worried Enough About Nuclear Proliferation

roblh.substack.com

1 pointrob_lh7 comments

> You Are Not Worried Enough ...

How is this problem anything resembling actionable, for normal people? Maybe I could build and stock a basement fallout shelter. Or at least get some air filters and measuring equipment and KI pills and such. But no mention of those in the article.

But in general, "click here and read and get more anxious & depressed and repeat" content is one of the worst aspects of the web.

>How is this problem anything resembling actionable, for normal people?

Vote

For who? It's such a complicated question.

One theory of nonproliferation says we should bury spent nuclear fuel, burying 98% of the possible energy output, because if you reprocess the fuel you get Pu isotopes which could conceivably be used to make a bomb.

Trouble with that is the undesirable isotopes for bomb making decay faster than desirable isotopes so and the radiation from fission product today so 4000 years from now the Mormons and the Scientologists might be fighting over control of Yucca Mountain.

A sustainable plutonium economy could use much more of the energy in the fuel (consuming Pu almost completely in the long term), but requires maintaining a substantial stock of plutonium in reactors, spent fuel, and the reprocessing system for a very long time. Hypothetically somebody could nick Pu239 from such a system but it will usually be contaminated with enough other isotopes to make it undesirable for weapons. (A leading nuclear state could explode low-quality Pu because you want weapons that are easy to handle) Real nuclear terrorists might go for the Np237.

At times the Democrats (Jimmy Carter banning commercial reprocessing) and Republicans (Ronald Reagan repealing the ban but nobody wants to do it) have taken positions on the issue, but it is really a 1000+ year problem and it seems our politicians struggle to look 5 minutes ahead never mind to the next election.

Ah.

Here in Michigan (USA), there were no ballot measures related to nuclear proliferation which I could vote for or against.

Where should I have looked for information about the long-term consequences, with regard to nuclear proliferation, of the various political candidates' getting elected?

An excellent question. The long-term consequences are the realm of analysis, not politics, which is why I wrote this article. Those ideas shape how politicians make decisions and which issues to prioritize. To understand how your vote may impact foreign policy, study a candidate's knowledge, attitudes, and experiences of our relations with other countries. Specifically study their attitudes towards security guarantees, their language towards allied nations (especially the ones failing to meet their commitments to NATO), and how they respond to Russia's nuclear threats. If they are an incumbent, consider signing up for https://www.govtrack.us/ to get personalized updates about how your representatives vote on these matters.

You are not worried enough about climate change. Had we stayed the course in developing a nuclear economy we'd be down a certain number of 0.1 degree centigrade from where we are so the antinuclear movement is a contributor to the problem (one of many)

I have literally zero power over this, and our half hearted action in preventing Russia's takeover of Ukraine is just convincing every non-nuclear nation in the world that nukes are a GREAT idea.

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