[pp.int.general] Environmentalists and pirates, free information perspective

[Félix Robles]

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 10:13 PM, Andrew Norton <ktetch at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2009/10/27 Félix Robles <redeadlink at gmail.com>:
>
> > Perhaps you spent time at those places and you don't glow, but remember
> that
> > it's only because the radioactive material was very controlled. No one
> can
> > assure that the radioactive waste will be under control in 10 thousand
> > years, or in 1 million years.
> >
>
> 100 years ago, we were ignorant about radioactivity. Radium was often
> sold as a balm, put it on your lips, your scalp, eat it, it's 'good
> for you'.
> Today we can control reactions and keep materials separate and 'safe'.
> Imagine what will be 100 years from now.
>

Maybe radioactive nuclear waste will be a thing of the past 100 years from
now, but until then, I can't support the use of nuclear power plants.

> So we are risking the lifes of future generations: you don't glow, but
will
> your descendants glow in  50 thousand years?

 The risks are generally over-exaggerated by many. We naturally grew up
> in a radioactive environment. In fact, there's strong evidence that
> it's due to radioactivity that life actually evolved (through
> encouraging genetic mutation)
>

If you exposure yourself a long time to radiation doses slightly less than
that which produces serious radiation sickness, chances are you're going to
develop cancer as cell-cycle genes are mutated. That risk is not
over-exaggerated: the relationship between probability of getting cancer and
a long exposure to certain doses of radiation can be measured and studied.


> There's no 'safe', half lifes are not "this is when it all is gone"
> it's a statistical approximation saying that approximately half the
> material has decayed. It's all statistical, not fixed. Even
> radioactive exposure is again, statistically based. I'll try and get
> some more info on that - one of my friends has just become a
> Radiologist (he got bored with being a surgeon)
>

O course it's a statistical approach, but a very useful one: if you receive
about 60 Sv chances are 4 days from now you will not be alive. If you
receive about 10^-20 Sv every year, you life expentancy is a little
higher...
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