tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22974616.post6750159277773712538..comments2023-10-02T14:33:18.136+01:00Comments on The Very Fluffy Diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant: Day 2705: Mr Frown Risks a MeltdownMillennium Domehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08430269096817934037noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22974616.post-10316707446486635752008-06-03T22:30:00.000+01:002008-06-03T22:30:00.000+01:00I have received a comment from Ms Lois Norton. She...I have received a comment from Ms Lois Norton. She writes:<BR/><BR/>quote:-<BR/>"you just cannot get away from the fact that nuclear fission produces <BR/>waste material that is both LETHAL and INDESTRUCTIBLE and the only <BR/>solution that our scientists have managed to come up with is to bury it <BR/>in the ground forever and hope it goes away.<BR/><BR/>Which of course it WILL, because it is radioactively decaying, but not <BR/>for a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, <BR/>very, very, very, very long time!"<BR/><BR/>My point is - You might have too many occurrences of the word 'very'.<BR/><BR/>While the naturally occurring isotopes of uranium do have very long <BR/>half-lives, running up to billions of years - which is why the uranium <BR/>is still around to be mined, the radioactive products from the fission <BR/>process have very much shorter half-lives, so decay much more quickly. <BR/><BR/>i.e. from the waste you get a lot of radioactive decay in a very short <BR/>time (compared to the rate of decay of uranium itself) - that is what <BR/>makes the high-level waste so dangerous. The issue is to put it <BR/>somewhere well out of the way where it can decay over a period of more <BR/>like tens of thousands of years until the radiation has dropped to a <BR/>safe level.<BR/><BR/>Regards,<BR/><BR/>Lois NortonMillennium Domehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430269096817934037noreply@blogger.com