CDR: Re: Insurance (was: why should it be trusted?)
I believe that the standard argument is "Eliminate the commons." (by auctioning off to the highest bidder perhaps)
So who gets the bid on the environment ? There are some commons that can not be eliminated so easily.
Generally, this would be water and air. If someone pollutes the air over their land, that's ok. As soon as the pollution crosses into your land, you sue for damages. People are concerned about the long term value of their property, so they will have a disincentive to pollute. Not only do you have people holed up in their bunkers, awaiting the arrival of the grim crypto-reaper, but everyone has a lawyer or 4 on staff.
On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Anonymous wrote:
So who gets the bid on the environment ? There are some commons that can not be eliminated so easily.
Generally, this would be water and air. If someone pollutes the air over their land, that's ok. As soon as the pollution crosses into your land, you sue for damages.
By the same basic tenet you can sue for theft - it was your pollution, not the neighbour's. As you can see there is no causation because one cannot control the air.
People are concerned about the long term value of their property, so they will have a disincentive to pollute.
Really? People have every incentive to pollute as long as they can either keep it a secret or make sure they are not around the shit hits the fan. Radioactive waste is a prime example of the latter approach. Sampo Syreeni <decoy@iki.fi>, aka decoy, student/math/Helsinki university
At 2:53 PM +0300 10/20/00, Sampo A Syreeni wrote:
People are concerned about the long term value of their property, so they will have a disincentive to pollute.
Really? People have every incentive to pollute as long as they can either keep it a secret or make sure they are not around the shit hits the fan. Radioactive waste is a prime example of the latter approach.
Nuclear waste is actually a _poor_ example of this. Nuclear waste is easy to track, easy to store, hard to hide. Most problems with storing nuclear waste come from irrational fears people have of anything having to do with "atoms." I could go on to educate you and others about the advantages of nuclear power over alternatives, and the ease of storing nuclear waste, but I expect this list is the wrong place for such education. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
On Fri, 20 Oct 2000, Tim May wrote:
Nuclear waste is easy to track, easy to store, hard to hide.
Self-evidently the problem is *not* in the kind of waste in the containers, but the enormous timespans - uranium is a metal, nothing else. What *is* a problem is that you cannot secure *anything* for more than about a couple of hundred years with any certainty. The only real problem specific to radioactive materials is that ionizing radiation of any kind accelerates the formation of active radicals which eat away the containers. This is something which can be guarded against through proper engineering.
I could go on to educate you and others about the advantages of nuclear power over alternatives, and the ease of storing nuclear waste, but I expect this list is the wrong place for such education.
Again, everybody with half a clue knows that nuclear energy is pretty clean, if not very cheap. This simply means that all of the alternatives are quite bad. Spending less energy does not seem to be in vogue, anymore. I still put the lights of, spin down my harddrive whenever possible and never intend to own a car... Sampo Syreeni <decoy@iki.fi>, aka decoy, student/math/Helsinki university
At 1:41 AM +0300 10/21/00, Sampo A Syreeni wrote:
On Fri, 20 Oct 2000, Tim May wrote:
Nuclear waste is easy to track, easy to store, hard to hide.
Self-evidently the problem is *not* in the kind of waste in the containers, but the enormous timespans - uranium is a metal, nothing else. What *is* a problem is that you cannot secure *anything* for more than about a couple of hundred years with any certainty. The only real problem specific to radioactive materials is that ionizing radiation of any kind accelerates the formation of active radicals which eat away the containers. This is something which can be guarded against through proper engineering.
1. Yes, uranium is a metal. So? 2. What is this "active radicals which eat away the containers" theory? Vitrification (mixing with glass) of waste is an established technology...those glass beads don't get "eaten away" by these mysterious "active radicals." 3. Radiation levels are quite low for most wastes of interest in the debate. Your theory above suggests some kind of Cerenkov blue glow around the waste! 4. Taking the vitreous beads and BACKFILLING THE URANIUM MINES would result in a situation which is: a) less likely to leach radioisotopes into the environment that was see with the original yellowcake and pitchblende mineral forms. (Think about it. Compute the solubilities in water of the various urananites and thoriated suphates and all versus a glass bead.) b) no more overall radioactivity than had been in the mine area before. (There may be some increased _concentration_, especially of so-called "high-level waste," but low-level waste is either a mix of uranium and other fissiles, or is lightly-contaminated medical waste and suchlike. The overall activity will not be greater per unit volume than was pulled from the mine in the first place. Further, such mines have no other use and can be backfilled and then sealed shut.) 5. Not that this is necessarily the best option. The domes in deep caves are perfectly fine. And there is much to be said for the Pournelle/Hogan solution: put the vitreous beads in concrete-filled drums, load them onto pallets, then park the pallets in neat rows and columns in the center of a 10 km by 10 km fenced area in the Mojave Desert of California. Very little rain (geological records and fossil lakes show this); certainly no significant flash flooding. Then erect signs, in many languages, and with skull-and-crossbones, saying: "This area is poisoned." Even the most bizarre devolution-to-savagery scenarios are unlikely to have wandering savages in the waterless Mojave trying to scavenge stuff out of sealed drums marked with skulls and crossbones! (I mention this because the Greens and other tree huggers make much of the fanciful notion that "radioactive waste lasts FOREVER!!" and that once civilization collapses, the Mad Max types will wander in to radioactive storage areas and be poisoned. I never saw the big deal of a few "mutants" becoming even more mutated...)
I could go on to educate you and others about the advantages of nuclear power over alternatives, and the ease of storing nuclear waste, but I expect this list is the wrong place for such education.
Again, everybody with half a clue knows that nuclear energy is pretty clean, if not very cheap.
Not as inexpensive as it _could_ be, had engineering work not been effectively frozen because of U.S. government standards, but still less expensive than the alternatives. Yes, really. California's Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant accounts for _most_ of the profits of Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E). It's a much better moneymaker than are the fossil-fuel-fired plants. Without Diablo Canyon, the precarious power situation here in California would instead be in a crisis situation. Most of the reputed "bad economics" of nuke plants come from the usual sources: tens of years of lobbying are needed before a plant can be even started under construction, another ten years before all of the delays and appeals and stalls unfold, then various shut-downs on specious grounds, then an absurd "decommissioning" procedure. Small wonder that no new nuclear plants are being planned in the U.S. Countries which have less of a tradition of citizen-units using their fears to block things they are afraid of have been building new plants. France, for example, which has dozens of nuclear plants. (And better designs than the "frozen-in-place" designs the U.S. industry was pretty much forced to stick to. The French took the basic 1950s design, the Westinghouse and GE designs, and then improved them.)
This simply means that all of the alternatives are quite bad. Spending less energy does not seem to be in vogue, anymore. I still put the lights of, spin down my harddrive whenever possible and never intend to own a car...
Spinning down your hard drive should be done sparingly. It usually makes no sense, for reasons dealt with by others. As for your not owning a car, whatever floats your boat. Just don't confuse your personal choice as somehow changing the world. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
May:
5. Not that this is necessarily the best option. The domes in deep caves are perfectly fine. And there is much to be said for the Pournelle/Hogan solution: put the vitreous beads in concrete-filled drums, load them onto pallets, then park the pallets in neat rows and columns in the center of a 10 km by 10 km fenced area in the Mojave Desert of California. Very little rain (geological records and fossil lakes show this); certainly no significant flash flooding. Then erect signs, in many languages, and with skull-and-crossbones, saying: "This area is poisoned." Even the most bizarre devolution-to-savagery scenarios are unlikely to have wandering savages in the waterless Mojave trying to scavenge stuff out of sealed drums marked with skulls and crossbones!
I've never really understood why we don't just put this stuff in some *really* tough polycarbonate containers aboard "mature" technology rockets and launch it into the biggest heat source in the solar system. I realize that there is a lot of it, but still. -- A quote from Petro's Archives: ********************************************** "We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech." --Dr. Kathleen Dixon, Director of Women s Studies, Bowling Green State University
At 9:02 PM -0700 10/21/00, petro wrote:
May:
5. Not that this is necessarily the best option. The domes in deep caves are perfectly fine. And there is much to be said for the Pournelle/Hogan solution: put the vitreous beads in concrete-filled drums, load them onto pallets, then park the pallets in neat rows and columns in the center of a 10 km by 10 km fenced area in the Mojave Desert of California. Very little rain (geological records and fossil lakes show this); certainly no significant flash flooding. Then erect signs, in many languages, and with skull-and-crossbones, saying: "This area is poisoned." Even the most bizarre devolution-to-savagery scenarios are unlikely to have wandering savages in the waterless Mojave trying to scavenge stuff out of sealed drums marked with skulls and crossbones!
I've never really understood why we don't just put this stuff in some *really* tough polycarbonate containers aboard "mature" technology rockets and launch it into the biggest heat source in the solar system.
I realize that there is a lot of it, but still.
This is a very old idea, rejected for good cause many, many years ago. Need I elaborate? --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
At 9:02 PM -0700 10/21/00, petro wrote:
May:
5. Not that this is necessarily the best option. The domes in deep caves are perfectly fine. And there is much to be said for the Pournelle/Hogan solution: put the vitreous beads in concrete-filled drums, load them onto pallets, then park the pallets in neat rows and columns in the center of a 10 km by 10 km fenced area in the Mojave Desert of California. Very little rain (geological records and fossil lakes show this); certainly no significant flash flooding. Then erect signs, in many languages, and with skull-and-crossbones, saying: "This area is poisoned." Even the most bizarre devolution-to-savagery scenarios are unlikely to have wandering savages in the waterless Mojave trying to scavenge stuff out of sealed drums marked with skulls and crossbones!
I've never really understood why we don't just put this stuff in some *really* tough polycarbonate containers aboard "mature" technology rockets and launch it into the biggest heat source in the solar system.
I realize that there is a lot of it, but still.
This is a very old idea, rejected for good cause many, many years ago.
Need I elaborate?
The only things I can think of are: (1) Cost of pushing heavy shit up the gravity slope. (2) Danger of rocket "catastrophically" failing and blowing radioactive material all over hell and gone. (3) Not a chance in hell of selling it to the tree huggers and the ignorant. (1) Is the only one that makes sense, but we should be able to find a cheaper way of getting up there. We should be able to engineer around (2). (3) Is probably the toughest nut to crack. So, I am not asking for much elaboration, just a bit of a clue. -- A quote from Petro's Archives: ********************************************** "We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech." --Dr. Kathleen Dixon, Director of Women s Studies, Bowling Green State University
-- I think the Russian solution is the best. They dump high level liquid waste in the deep cold salty waters of the arctic ocean. This water slowly settles, and it will be a thousand or so years before it rises again. In the course of that thousand years, all the non actinide radioactives will have decayed, and the most of the actinide radioactives will have settled into the mud, and what remains is diluted into an enormous volume of water. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG YAYXNRekExHP1fQNkbogjUN2SDZe9ovpdOyXZaKT 41E9yEvCZVlu3lbGXOO/z4hBwQx2poGSQGFPdEYb0
At 02:30 AM 10/22/00 -0400, James A.. Donald wrote:
-- I think the Russian solution is the best.
They dump high level liquid waste in the deep cold salty waters of the arctic ocean. This water slowly settles, and it will be a thousand or so years before it rises again. In the course of that thousand years, all the non actinide radioactives will have decayed, and the most of the actinide radioactives will have settled into the mud, and what remains is diluted into an enormous volume of water.
Are you talking about waste or the kursk? :-( I've heard they drop spent reactor cores too.
----- Original Message ----- From: petro <petro@bounty.org>
At 9:02 PM -0700 10/21/00, petro wrote:
I've never really understood why we don't just put this stuff in some *really* tough polycarbonate containers aboard "mature" technology rockets and launch it into the biggest heat source in the solar system. I realize that there is a lot of it, but still.
This is a very old idea, rejected for good cause many, many years ago. Need I elaborate?
The only things I can think of are: (1) Cost of pushing heavy shit up the gravity slope. (2) Danger of rocket "catastrophically" failing and blowing radioactive material all over hell and gone. (3) Not a chance in hell of selling it to the tree huggers and the ignorant. (1) Is the only one that makes sense, but we should be able to find a cheaper way of getting up there. We should be able to engineer around (2). (3) Is probably the toughest nut to crack.
So, I am not asking for much elaboration, just a bit of a clue.
Angular momentum. Putting waste into the Sun requires the removal of nearly all of the angular momentum associated with the revolution around the sun, about 66,700 mph. Since energy is proportional to the square of the velocity, that's about 6 times greater energy than achieving earth's escape velocity, or maybe 15 times greater than low-earth-orbit energy. Extremely inefficient. A far better solution, I'd think, would be to drill a 5-mile deep hole (perhaps on the ocean floor, for good measure) and fill the bottom couple of miles with waste, and the rest with concrete. Jim Bell
At 05:15 AM 10/22/00 -0400, jim bell wrote:
A far better solution, I'd think, would be to drill a 5-mile deep hole (perhaps on the ocean floor, for good measure) and fill the bottom couple of miles with waste, and the rest with concrete.
Jim Bell
Isolation isn't enough; you have to worry about leaching. Ergo interest in vitrification
Petro wrote:
I've never really understood why we don't just put this stuff in some *really* tough polycarbonate containers aboard "mature" technology rockets and launch it into the biggest heat source in the solar system.
Because (1) most of it (by bulk) isn't really that dangerous. The environmental damage done by the rockets would far, far, exceed any possible advantage in getting it off the planet. It is mostly consumables used in power-plants, labs, factories & so on. I contributed a little myself a few weeks ago - some rubber gloves & paper towels that had some really rather harmless scintillant spilled on it. All sealed in special bags & sent off to be shut away somewhere for a few years. Along with large amounts of lab coats, plastic bags, lunch boxes, used injection needles... for stuff which was less radioactive than the groundwater in Cornwall. (2) most of it (by mass) is bloody heavy. Reinforced concrete, big metal containers, submarines, the actual foundations of power stations. If anyone was into putting that much mass into space we'd be on our way to Mars by now. (3) The small amount of stuff that really *is* dangerous is dangerous enough that it would be too risky putting it in a rocket. What is the success rate of unmanned launches? About 19/20? Me, I'd favour subduction zones for the dangerous stuff. Even deep sedimentary rocks get eaten by bacteria sooner or later, so make sure anything really hot is on the going-down side of the escalator. But most of it just isn't nasty enough to be worth the bother. I guess most people don't have a sense of scale. If it says "nuclear waste" they dredge up half-remembered sf stories & think of two-headed lizards & glowing blue wastelands...
At 08:14 AM 10/23/00 -0400, Ken Brown wrote:
(3) The small amount of stuff that really *is* dangerous is dangerous enough that it would be too risky putting it in a rocket. What is the success rate of unmanned launches? About 19/20?
Those fsckers in NASA have lobbed a few kilos of very hot (literally) isotopes as thermoelectric power sources; they even played gravity-ball with one of them (Cassini IIRC) using Earth as the reflector. Wasn't that special of them? "We're from the government, and, well, you can't stop us, so bugger off."
On Mon, 23 Oct 2000, David Honig wrote:
At 08:14 AM 10/23/00 -0400, Ken Brown wrote:
(3) The small amount of stuff that really *is* dangerous is dangerous enough that it would be too risky putting it in a rocket. What is the success rate of unmanned launches? About 19/20?
Those fsckers in NASA have lobbed a few kilos of very hot (literally) isotopes as thermoelectric power sources; they even played gravity-ball with one of them (Cassini IIRC) using Earth as the reflector. Wasn't that special of them?
"We're from the government, and, well, you can't stop us, so bugger off."
Oh, bullshit. The containment vessel for Cassini was more than sufficient had their been a cato. As to Ken's question, the success is approaching 80-90% AFTER the initial burn-in of the design. That usualy takes 2-5 flights depending on the pedigree of the particular bird you're talking about. ____________________________________________________________________ He is able who thinks he is able. Buddha The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
participants (9)
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Anonymous -
David Honig -
James A.. Donald -
jim bell -
Jim Choate -
Ken Brown -
petro -
Sampo A Syreeni -
Tim May