Re: re a real solution

[Bernard L Cohen <blc+@pitt.edu>]

On Sat, 19 Aug 2000, Sherman, Conrad wrote:

> Mike:
> 
> Bernard Cohen (I think) wrote an article for Scientific American.  As I
> recall, in this seminal article, he showed toxicity curves for uranium
> bearing ore vs. fission products, proving that nuclear power plants were a
> valid method for reducing the health threat from in situ naturaly occuring
> radioactive material, in only about 300 years. 

	--This paper was published in the June 1977 issue. The time before
equal toxicity was shown there as close to a million years, but that was
based on ICRP-2 toxicities. The ICRP-30 toxicities change this to 15,000
years for reprocessed waste and 120,000 years for spent fuel
	Perhaps the confusion is with toxic chemicals. There is a graph
showing that the number of lethal doses produced per year of various toxic
chemicals is greater than that of nuclear waste after the latter has
decayed for about 10 years.

 Bernard L.Cohen
 Physics Dept.
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Tel: (412)624-9245
Fax: (412)624-9163
e-mail: blc+@pitt.edu


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