RE: So, is reprocessing in America's future?

["Ted Rockwell" <tedrock@CPCUG.ORG>]

I wish all you guys would stop reinforcing the concept that radioactivity is

uniquely hazardous.  It isn't. (Try a gallon of LSD tossed over the fence

into the water reservoir.  Or Sarin in the subway air system.)  But

radiation can sure be uniquely terrifying if we keep telling people it is.



So many substances can injure or incapacitate instantly.  Is that really

less effective than having someone call up and say "If you guys keep using

that building, we calculate you will increase your chance of getting cancer

30 years from now by 28%"



C'mon, people.  We've got to give up the conceit that radiation is the most

dangerous thing in the whole world.  The thick cloud of fireworks smoke

enveloping major cities this week, containing strontium, barium, boron, and

who knows what else, is probably more lethal than what you could scatter

around with a dirty bomb.



Does everybody realize that 10,000 people (or more) have been living in

apartments in Taiwan where Co-60 in the rebar has been giving them up to 100

rad?  This has been going on for more than a decade, and they can't even get

people to move out.  The cancer rate is way below normal.  So nobody in

authority will talk about it.  They don't want to endanger all the money

going to study stuff like the horrors of low-dose radiation and the dangers

of proliferation.



This problem wouldn't exist, except as a low-priority question to be dealt

with in due course along with a lot of other such questions.  Let's not make

it a big deal.



I understand the Iraqis tested one such bomb and decided it was militarily

useless.  It really is.  Honest.  It's much easier to do it dozens of other

ways.



Ted Rockwell





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