Robert Anson Heinlein, deceased science fiction author, popularized an acronym: TANSTAAFL. This means “There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch”.
I’ve watched with interest as various environmental activists over the years have opposed coal, oil, and nuclear power plants. Some advocate hydroelectric power, but we’ve discovered to our chagrin that damming rivers leads to dramatic downstream ecosystem declines. Wind power, on the other hand, has been proposed by many as a viable alternative.
Well, it turns out that Wind Power Ain’t All It’s Cracked Up To Be. WPAAICUTB… nah, it doesn’t quite cut it. Anyway, wind power actually raises local temperatures significantly, and if used in sufficient numbers, could cause global climatologic variances, too. While the impact of wind towers on the environment are roughly 1/5th the equivalent, per megawatt, of coal power, it just goes to show TANSTAAFL.
I dunno, I still think that nuclear power is the solution. We can dump all the waste in a very confined geographic area (like the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Tribe proposes we use some of their mostly-wasteland reservation for), and the global climate cost is negligible. But the old “NIMBY” (Not In My Back Yard) contingent opposes storing waste near them.
Me, I live in Tooele. I’d live literally just a handful of miles from what the Goshutes propose should be the world’s largest radioactive waste dump. Store the dang stuff; it’s better to store it near my family than raising the world’s temperatures and sea levels.
Or…
Blast the gunk into space. Of course, if we do that then we’ll discover that spent fuel rods can cure alzheimer’s or something.
Hmmm
I wonder what the side-effect s would be of dumping it into the lava at Mt Kilalea (or however it’s spelled)?
Don’t we have a bunch of abandoned mineshafts that we could use?
Personally, blasting it into space towards the sun is my favorite too..
My $.02 Weed
Massive Mines in the Mountains
Well, Yucca Mountain, Nevada is one such proposed waste site. Miles of tunnels, at least a thousand feet higher than the water table, remote location that had already been used for nuclear testing. Its proposed start date is 2010, and efforts to date represent the single most expensive geological survey in the history of mankind.
And, for those video game fanatics, if I understand correctly Yucca Mountain was the inspiration for the setting for Half-Life. Speaking of which, I must buy Half-Life 2. Gordon Freeman is my idol.
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Matthew P. Barnson
Download it
If you download Valve’s Steam client, it’ll download most of the games files to your computer. You can bug it online, and when it’s released on MOnday, you can start playing it.
The demos of the physics engine in that game look positively amazing!
My $.02 Weed