[ RadSafe ] Global Warming

[Brennan, Mike (DOH)]

There aren't actually a lot more isotopes after the etc., but yes, there
are some fission fragments that have long half lives.  However, they
represent a small fraction of the inventory of fission products in
"fresh" spent fuel, either on an atom basis or an activity basis.  They
also generally represent a small fraction, again on an activity or atom
basis, of the fissile material that was consumed by the reaction (the
exact ratio is dependent on many factors).  In most cases, even with the
long lived fission fragments mentioned, somewhere in the 300 to 500 year
range the spent fuel will probably become less radioactive than the
fresh fuel was, even including the unused fuel and fissile transuranics.
It gets even better with reprocessing.

So, if the assumption is that radioactive material is bad, and that we
need to be willing to sacrifice now in order to protect less
technologically sophisticated later generations, it is clear that the
ethically sound choice is to use as much uranium as possible now to make
electricity, so that there will be less radioactive material in the
world later.

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On
Behalf Of Peter Bossew
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 3:47 AM
To: gstanford at aya.yale.edu
Cc: radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Global Warming

George Stanford <gstanford at aya.yale.edu> writes:

(...)
>
>
>     Then the only waste would consist of fission 
>products, which can be easily isolated in various 
>ways for 300 - 500 years, by which time their 
>radioactivity has decayed below any reasonable level of concern.

(...)

129I: half life 1.57e7 a
99Tc: 2.11e5 a
135Cs: 2.3e6 a
etc.


Peter Bossew

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