Re: re Nuclear Power

["Ron L. Kathren" <rkathren@tricity.wsu.edu>]

Wade --

You missed my point, which was doubless obscure.  Basically I'm in
agreement with you.  However, after a few hundred yearsor so, the fission
products are not the hazard; the uranium is (a small hazard to be sure)
and most of it remains.  So essentially the fissions did not change the
hazard, once the FP's decayed.  (It's really a trivial point but
nonetheless I think it's important to remember that after all is said and
done, we still end up with the U (and maybe a little Pu with its 24K year
half life).

Cheers,

Ron
On Wed, 3 Apr 1996 HWADE@aol.com wrote:

> Ron:
> The fraction of U present that fissioned was small compared with the total
> available. It was after all, a commercial U mine, used by the French as a
> source of U to be enriched.
> However, the mega-watt days were huge, and that is what the waste comes from;
> the total number of fissions, not the fraction of U that did so.
> Wade
>