[ RadSafe ] Re: Spent Fuel and autompbile batteries-, Dangerous for Millions of Years?

[Michael J Vala]

I never bought into this concern that high level waste will be dangerous for generations to come.  What is the detriment cited in all these studies?  Cancer - in an exposed individual getting all their drinking water from a contaminated well and food from a farm contaminated by the releases of an ancient burial ground.  What are the chances that cancer will be a health concern in 50 or 100 years?  Just look at the progress in the last 20 years.  Once the cancer threat is diminished by science, do we really need to be concerned about the ensuing 10,000 years?  What happens to Health Physicists when our profession is limited to acute health risks?  I guess we will go the way of the iron lung manufacturers and the TB sanatoriums.

Mike Vala
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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 11:42:12 -0700
From: "Jerry Cohen" <jjcohen at prodigy.net>
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Re: Spent Fuel and autompbile batteries-
	Dangerous	for Millionsof	Years?
To: "Peter Bossew" <peter.bossew at jrc.it>, "Leo M. Lowe"
	<llowe at senes.ca>,	<radsafe at radlab.nl>
Cc: JGinniver at aol.com
Message-ID: <F67B2E38F0D14BDB8521406DBD835914 at JerryPC>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
	reply-type=response

The Lead used in manufacture of automobile batteries  each year, if properly 
distributed, would be sufficient to poison to death the entire world 
population several times over. Considering that lead has essentially an 
infinite half-life, it would appear that reactor produced plutonium would be 
"peanuts" in comparison. Nevertheless, the perceived threat of nuclear waste 
provides a nice living for the hoards of geologists, material scientists, 
bureaucrats,  and others involved nuclear waste research.