The Marshall Islands: half life, half lives
Shame’s an emotion that’s not much in evidence in these cynical times. The glands that produce it are underused and weakened. I bet they don’t survive our next evolutionary iteration.
Take the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean as an example. Back during the Cold War it was actually quite hot – over a period of 12 years, the Americans tested a total of 67 nuclear weapons there including the world’s first hydrogen bomb. Two of the islands were vaporised entirely.
The residents of the nearby islands saw the flashes of light brighter than the sun; the white ash of the fallout fell on their upturned faces. Those still alive today who witnessed the test are dying of cancers; their grandchildren, the ‘octopus babies’, who survive long enough, head for less remote parts of the world to have their birth defects treated.
Between 1964 and 2004, the US government gave $400 million for the clean up and compensation. Ten million dollars a year. One hundred and fifty millions of the money was ‘final settlement of all past and future claims deriving from the nuclear tests’. In other words, so long suckers.
On the nearby island of Runit there’s a crater left by one of the blasts. The US military collected all the radioactive by-products from the 67 nuclear tests (except for 19,000 cubic metres of radioactive soil that somehow went missing) and put it in the crater. They then built a concrete dome over the crater, nine metres high and 115 metres wide. The WA Today journalist who visited the dome wrote:
While the views from the top are stunning, it is a sobering experience to climb. Cracks riddle the surface, many water-stained at the edges and crumbling. Some spalls are so large, birds have laid eggs in them. The concrete cap – 45 centimetres thick and peppered with plutonium waste – contains at least two holes 15 centimetres deep. Below lie thousands more cubic metres of radioactive waste.
The dome was built in 1979. The plutonium waste underneath it has a half-life of 24,000 years. The US Department of Energy says that ‘the US has no formal custodial responsibilities for the site’. Anybody care to put a length to shame’s half-life?
Burying nuclear waste demands commitments – financial and moral – from future societies and governments. It’s a future we can’t predict and they are commitments which, by their very nature, we can’t put to those expected to keep them. The US’s ‘commitment’ to the people of the Marshall Islands lasted forty years. Iodine-129, a by-product of nuclear reactors (to name but one), has a half-life of 16 million years.
(See also Nuclear Reaction)
Posted on August 18th, 2008 at 5:48pm under Nuclear: power and weapons
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• 6 Comments |
I’m afraid I have a few problems with this post.
The first, and biggest, is the conflation of nuclear weaponry with nuclear power.
The second is your opposition to everything. Perhaps that’s a little strong? Perhaps not.
“Burying nuclear waste demands commitments – financial and moral – from future societies and governments.”
Everything does, and in ways we cannot predict; think, for instance, of the effects of Margaret Thatcher’s economic reforms of the 1980s on Britain, or even that the A46 follows the route of the (Roman) Fosse Way. Before you say anything, I know that these are recent when compared with the half-lives of some of the more unpleasant isotopes produced by nuclear fission. However, the alternative – combustion of fossil fuels – isn’t particularly attractive.
Thirdly, the attitude of some states towards their obligations in the past is poor. The Marshall Islands are one example; the decaying sarcophagus at Chernobyl is another. That argument can be extended to almost any area of human activity. In any case, nuclear waste – and I concede much of it is not properly stored – is an existing problem. Whether or not we build new nuclear plants, we have to deal with it; as you’re probably aware, CoRWM felt that geological storage was the best option. A new generation of nuclear power stations would not change the problem.
xD.
xD.
Dave Cole’s latest blog post… China, the unexpected and the impossible
1. Well, nuclear waste is nuclear waste is nuclear waste whether it’s bombs or reactors that produce it.
2. What, everything? I’m for a lot of things: Political accountability, electoral reform, civil liberties, Iraqi interpreters, pork scratchings, free speech, organ donation, public engagement, clean renewable energy, lager, human rights, honesty, public inquiries into the Iraq war and 7/7, freedom of information, arms control…
However, the alternative – combustion of fossil fuels – isn’t particularly attractive.
I completely agree but there is this and the new research showing that if only the UK sticks to its renewables commitments and CO2 emmission reduction targets we won’t need any new power station of any flavour until at least 2020.
3. CoRWM felt that geological storage was the best option
I think ‘least worst’ is the better way to describe it, Dave. Or ‘wishful thinking’. The fact is that we lack the expertise to deal with the waste in any satisfactory manner.
A new generation of nuclear power stations would not change the problem.
Yes it would, it would make it worse, wouldn’t it? We end up with more waste to deal with. We’d need to dig more holes and cross more fingers.
1. Nuclear weapons do have a propensity to liberally scatter the stuff over the surrounding area…
2. You are opposed to everything. You said that “Burying nuclear waste demands commitments – financial and moral – from future societies and governments”. I think that just about any area of public policy does the same. As you find this unacceptable, you’re opposed to everything. I’m trying to point out a hole in the logic; you can’t make that statement in an absolute fashion. It would be more meaningful to say that some future commitments are unacceptable.
3. The point stands; it’s there and it needs to be dealt with.
4. By about 10% by volume (though I accept that it would be mostly HLW).
xD.
Dave Cole’s latest blog post… China, the unexpected and the impossible
1. So does the nuclear power industry.
2. I didn’t realise I had made the statement in an absolute fashion. Where did I say ‘all’ commitments are unacceptable? I was talking specifically about nuclear waste. I find the commitments we demand about nuclear waste unacceptable. Where does the rest of it come into it? Are you implying that I’m against wind farms because they ask a commitment from future generations? The cure for cancer? Procreation?
1. Not as much
2. I don’t want to make too much of this. I just think that the argument, as you put it, is one of absolutes where shades of grey are more appropriate. Given the latter, things become much more debatable.
I’m not trying to be unpleasant, Justin, I’m just slightly radioactive
xD.
Dave Cole’s latest blog post… China, the unexpected and the impossible
Lack of foresight, planning, shirking of responsibilities and a need for a ‘quick fix’ have led to a sudden rush for nuclear power – and the boys always love their nuclear toys to wave around as well.
Given that most governments can’t even budget for future pensions, how could we ever trust them to safeguard this most dangerous of poisons FOR MILLENNIA?