Messages

So what you're saying is workers should accept a higher limit specified as 'safe' exposure because it would be good PR for the nuclear industry?

This has nothing to do with exposure. Radiophobia is used for political lobbying and irrational activist groups to ban extremely useful things, like recycling our existing spent fuel rods. Nobody is ever exposed to it at all, not that it would matter if they were. As long as you're not inhaling Plutonium or eating Polonium-210, this stuff is perfectly safe. Yet this fear mongering keeps the cheapest, most efficient, cleanest, most sustainable power source on the planet from being utilized rationally.

This is crazy talk. The government sometimes imposes standards and regulations to protect public safety and to facilitate the exploitation of workers in a way that isn't dangerous and doesn't outrage public sensibilities.

Yeah, and if it wasn't for child labor laws pre-schoolers would be working in coal mines. Gibberish. I have no interest arguing with someone who thinks that an organized crime ring 'represents' them and is their friend.

This I find an astonishing assertion. Too low for what purpose? Profitability, somehow?

For the same reason the FDA's standards are absurd, because nobody wants to get blamed.

But so what? If it's no more expensive to have higher standards for safety than are strictly necessary then what's the problem? I suspect there are additional costs involved the lower the acceptable level for exposure. It's our old friend the profit motive.

First of all, the profit motive is the core of civilization.
Secondly, because it's a source of irrational scare mongering and nonsensical things like banning importation of Depleted Uranium into European countries, or the recycling of radioactive byproducts (even though we import them from Canada for medical purposes).
Furthermore, because the notion that state bureaucracies protect people is BS. People suffer from diseases and reduced standards of living because these useless monkeys want to make themselves and their ever expanding gang of crooks seem useful.

There's no government like no government.

More on DU myths: http://depletedcranium.com/known-illnesses-caused-by-depleted-uranium/
Something most people who are terrified of DU don't seem to realise is that DU is ordinary Uranium-238, which human beings have been in contact with for thousands of years. It regularly occurs in many regions where people live, I have found small chunks of uranium ore where I lived in Arizona. Strangely enough, everyone around was not retarded or suffering from 'all birth defects known and unknown'.

U-238 can cause problems, like most heavy metals, but it's not particularly toxic at all. It's less plausible than the theory that cellphones cause cancer, if only because we know so much more (and have so much more evidence) of the effects of uranium exposure, including radioactivity, inhalation and ingestion.
It's used in orange paint on old ceramic dinnerware, for Chirssakes.

[Peter Wolf]

This I find an astonishing assertion. Too low for what purpose? Profitability, somehow?

For the same reason the FDA's standards are absurd, because nobody wants to get blamed. If one person gets sick then it's their ass, but if thousands of people die or suffer want because they don't approve something it's unseen. Typical bureaucratic BS. Human tolerance for radioactivity is much, much higher and has been demonstrated to be. It's just a variant of chemophobia, scare-mongering and ignorant people.

In reply to the maniacally ranting Peter Wolf, you are clearly unwilling to actually discuss the science involved and you're just repeating bogus conspiracy nonsense; despite the fact that the toxicity of U-238 was known decades before it was ever used as a weapon. So whatever, go read Alex Jones.

To anyone interested in the real facts, here's a blog post on the bogus images used by DU-tards to make their nonsensical claims: http://depletedcranium.com/depleted-uranium-image-claims/

China is not a hardline communist country. Its people and economy are arguably more pro-market than the USA or Europe. They're at least less regulated, though the state does own some large holdings.

No, I don't think they'd have those.

What if they were anthropomorphic telekinetic mutant crabs? Are you saying they'd all be men? Are you implying that crabs are homosexual?

Now, that's fine with me, but I don't think they'd appreciate it. They're not very tolerant, you know. Something to do with all those dead mafiosos they've eaten.

Now the tiny cybernetic telepathic shrimp...that's another story.

This thread is rubbish. There's nothing about giant mutated crabs with psychic powers taking over the world in it.

Except for just then.

To be pedantic, giant mutated crabs would be unable to get enough oxygen to function with their primitive aqualungs, and they'd also be crushed by the weight of their own exoskeleton.

Giant mutated wolverines are a more plausible outcome.

Which I believe is exactly what I was describing when I mentioned inhaling circa 7.5 grams of Pu238.

And in the original post you quoted, I said you don't want to inhale significant amounts of Plutonium.

However, the radioactive materials that are actually dangerous (Plutonium, Cobalt-60, Strontium-90, Polonium-210) are pretty much never going to be encountered in relevant amounts because fallout blasts it into tiny particles and spreads it over the world and the amounts of it that come out of reactors are far too useful and valuable to let get out. And, in low levels, these can actually be beneficial to be around (for example, an apartment constructed in Hong Kong from cobalt-60 steel alloys) because it stimulated genetic repair and various other natural processes. Just like sunlight, high amounts can be bad for you and (rarely) cause cancer, but small amounts are beneficial or harmless.

while plutonium carries the added fun of radiation poisoning, is precisely the point.

First of all, low levels of radiation do not produce radiation poisoning; not from exposure and certainly not from ingestion. The lungs are the weakest point, but even there it depends on the chemical being 1) fairly radioactive in terms of alpha particles and 2) in a significant amount.
Very low levels of the vast majority of radioactive heavy metals are not dangerous at all; especially on external exposure or consumption because the alpha particles are easily blocked by skin and damn near anything else.
Radiation poisoning from low doses is a fantasy cooked up by the NRC and scare mongering media that has absolutely no evidential or scientific support.

Don't walk into a reactor core. But holding a piece of plutonium won't hurt you, unless (perhaps) you held it for a very long time. And the stuff people freak out about (like barely trace levels of Strontium 90 in soil, for example) is absolutely stupid.

I wouldn't want a volcano erupting at the end of my street, all the same.

Obviously at close range a nuclear weapon is absurdly, overkill dangerous (just like a volcano). But the radiation will be the least of your problems, compared to the superheated plasma and concrete powdering shockwave.

I'm not arguing that nuclear explosions aren't ridiculously powerful (for human-caused explosions), just that their likely aftereffects are vastly overstated.

And that's how you know you've found uranium ore...

It's native in the soil in several places I've lived. Also, bananas are radioactive because of the Potassium they contain. Not only radioactive, but they actually emit anti-matter.

There's a noble motive if ever I heard of one.

Spiting hippies and conservatives is a fun hobby.

Including that stuff about it being poisonous and giving you cancer?

It can, certainly. But in most levels you'll encounter it at, even in worst-case scenarios like actual fallout, the chances are vanishingly small. Even most people around Hiroshima didn't get cancer.

And, FYI, there are radioactive materials in your food already (see bananas above), and in your potting soil, and in 'natural' fertilizers, and in your body, and cosmic rays streaming down from space. The contribution of fallout and man-produced materials to this is insignificant unless you happen upon a bigass chunk of Polonium-210, which is unlikely since it pretty much withers to nothing in a few years.

What's the view like from your ivory tower? People who actually work for a living will put up with all kinds of crap in the course of trying to make a living, in America and in Britain as well as in the former Soviet Republics, Mexico and China.

Okay, again, basic economics: people will not do things that are more dangerous unless they are more remunerative or are not allowed alternatives (i.e., Communist countries like the USSR). If you think otherwise, you live in fantasy land.

I understand the potentially "fatal dose" for coffee is in the order of 100 cups per day, or something like 15 grams of pure caffeine.  Care to inhale just half that amount of Pu238?

No, because it emits alpha particles - a lot of them. You're confusing toxicity with radioactivity. The point is that toxicity-wise, Plutonium is about like caffeine; radioactivity wise it is far worse than DU yet it is safe to handle with your bare hands as long as you don't get it into your lungs.
So, your question is irrelevant to my original statement.

And as I have said repeatedly, I would have no problem eating a gram of Plutonium (except for the self-heating stuff, because it's red hot), or swimming in fuel rod storage pools. Because I understand basic nuclear physics. I've walked around in decommissioned Uranium mines and drank water infused with Radon.

One guy claiming he has DU related illnesses. No motivation to slant things there...

I trust RAND corporation and a dozen other agencies and nuclear scientists over one guy, thank you.

DU illnesses is just like those freaks that claim powerlines give them cancer.

If you inhaled granulated DU it might give you cancer. Might. But the alpha radiation levels are very low. The NRC guidelines for radiation safety are between 40 and 1000 times too low.

Most of the claims of DU poisoning are from journalists and people claiming they have it. Actual nuclear scientists (and those who study the effects of radiation on biology) know that the metal's actual toxicity and radiation levels are not high enough to be a significant cause of cancer, and as I've stated people exposed to vastly more alpha, beta and gamma radiation have pretty much no incidence of birth defects; so it hardly makes sense that DU could cause it.

wow, that's a lot of nonsense.
I'll repeat again:

The increase in birth defects is also not apparent. That is to say 7.45% of veterans from the Persian Gulf had children with birth defects in contrast with 7.59% of veterans not deployed at all - so there were actually fewer birth defects amongst them

Read this: http://conspiracyscience.com/articles/military/depleted-uranium/
And this: http://www.wise-uranium.org/pdf/dumyths.pdf
and this: http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/26/nuclear-genocide

DU is less radioactive than remote control buttons. It's not any more toxic than most heavy metals. Most studies of low level radiation show it decreases chances of cancer and genetic damage. People exposed to much higher levels of radiation (Hiroshima) have shown almost no genetically transmitted damage (birth defects, cancer).

Even Plutonium, a substance vastly nastier than DU, is only about as toxic as caffeine and is only likely to cause damage if directly inhaled where alpha particles can damage the lungs. Even swallowing it will most likely result in rapid elimination and no serious problems. As far as radioactivity externally, I would have no problem handling any of the Plutonium isotopes that don't self-heat; which includes weapons grade plutonium used in hydrogen bombs.

'Gulf War Syndrome' is just a myth. At most, it's normal shellshock and arbitrarily lumping together of unrelated natural problems.

I'd like to blame everything in the Universe on the government, but your science is just wrong. It's not even science...it's propaganda and scare mongering.

You, too, can be a Strontium Dog. http://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_5&products_id=475
Funny thing about Strontium Dog comics, is that Johnny Alpha uses Alpha particles, but Alpha Particles hardly penetrate anything and Strontium-90 is, in fact, almost a pure Beta-particle source.

Well with respecting Burke at least we can find a bit of common ground. 

http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=850#toc_list

Praxis is what counts.

Praxis without theory is blind.

And, I would not consider anyone who is not akin to Lysander Spooner or Sir Richard Overton or the early Edmund Burke to be libertarian. Classical liberals are not libertarians, and state efficiency experts like the Chicago school are definitely not libertarian.

Also, here's another article on DU myths: http://conspiracyscience.com/articles/military/depleted-uranium/

The increase in birth defects is also not apparent. That is to say 7.45% of veterans from the Persian Gulf had children with birth defects in contrast with 7.59% of veterans not deployed at all - so there were actually fewer birth defects amongst them