From: John Marlow (johnmarlow@gmx.net)
Date: Sat Jun 02 2001 - 04:35:03 MDT
Point isn't what hasn't happened; it's what could and probably will
happen; these other, "small potatoes" incidents were forerunners of
Chernobyl.
Nobody hurt at TMI? Gee, how do you know? No one (presumably) knows
the true extent of the release. No one (to my knowledge, anyway) is
tracking the residents and former residents for the next thirty
years. So you really can't say.
20 pounds for a bomb? Yah, about that if you're talking weapons-
grade; more like 30 for reactor-grade 63% fis. As you say, over a
thousand tons of the reactor stuff laying around. As Gofman noted,
however, a few ounces, evenly distributed and inhaled, is enough to
kill everyone on earth. Actually you're safer next to the coal plant;
the crap comes down miles away.
jm.
On 2 Jun 2001, at 1:12, John Clark wrote:
> John Marlow <johnmarlow@gmx.net> Wrote:
>
> > Windscale. Idaho Falls. Brown's Ferry. Three Mile Island.
>
> Small potatoes, especially Three Mile Island, nobody was hurt.
>
> >Chernobyl.
>
> Not small potatoes. But Chernobyl used graphite as a neutron moderator and
> graphite burns, USA reactors use water, water doesn't burn. Also Chernobyl
> had no containment building, western reactors do. Does that make them 100%
> safe? No. But I'd rather live next to a nuclear power plant than a coal power plant.
> Fast breeder reactors give me the creeps but there are few plans to build another one.
> The thing that really worries me is the plutonium that all reactors make, there are now
> thousands of tons of it on this small planet. You only need about 20 pounds to make a
> bomb but hay, nothing's perfect.
>
> John K Clark jonkc@att.net
>
>
>
>
>
>
John Marlow
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