• junebug2 [comrade/them, she/her]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    yes, improperly stored radioactive waste can leak into water and soil. the mining waste that existed historically (and is still being made today by fracking) was damaging to the environment because it was not regulated. you refuse to acknowledge this point, i guess? and why are you randomly wielding people with cancer like a cudgel? i’d love for you to explain what i said that is so offensive you think it’d be worth shooting me for. nuclear policy, like literally any other matter of politics, can not be determined by our personal feelings or by repeated reference to how things have effected people we know.

    most of the worst effects that exist today are a matter of regulatory failure, and most uranium mining in USamerica has been shut down. i made a point about how already mined and processed “waste” uranium can be used in a reactor. you didn’t address what i said about almost anything. if you think batteries are a mechanical device, i don’t think there’s hope for you in this conversation. speaking pretentiously about not having time and then saying i should watch my mouth is not a substitute for an actual point

    • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      Popping you in the face doesn’t mean shooting you, maybe a difference in dialect, but it means I’d punch you in the face. Haven’t finished reading your comment, but I felt it imperative to point out that I wouldn’t shoot you, I’d punch you.

      Salt injection is not safe waste storage, it is putting the waste off into the future to hopefully be dealt with by the future generations, and hopefully never accidentally dug up, and hoping that that land can be maintained permanently in perfect conditions and there’s never a change in state power that results in neglect. It’s literally idealist thinking at its finest. Don’t create waste that relies upon permanent idealism to manage.

      Even worse if you’re referring to the injection process in molten salt reprocessing when you’re talking salt injection, which is not an even less reliable source of power than regular nuclear, and costs 5x what solar does per megawatt hour.

      The waste stored at the location I speak of is stored in the most safe way according to all regulations, and has no leaked, its mere presence results in higher cancer rates for those nearby, despite being underground. And when we’ve tried to move it, people have (rightfully) blocked the trucks on the highway until it was forced to be returned.

      You said the contamination I’m talking about in the southwest comes from production and testing, but it doesn’t, it comes from the mines, which leak into the water table after the radioactive materials have been disturbed. Aerosolization of radiocarbons is inherent part of mining, and results in soil contamination as well. The process is inherently dirty, regardless of any regulations taken. The world isn’t a clean room, you can’t mine in a clean room. You can’t create optimal conditions. We already have to damage the environment for metals, no reason to do so for heavy metals also, and permanently harm generation after generation after generation, as is literally unavoidable in radioactive material mining.

      • junebug2 [comrade/them, she/her]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        i appreciate the clarification comrade, definitely a dialect mixup there. i think that colored some of the rest of my response.

        by salt injection, i mean creating artificial caverns deep inside salt formations and then injecting a waste slurry into them. i do not mean the existing methods used in south carolina or the proposal for yucca mountain. if you’ve seen evidence that creating artificial salt caverns doesn’t work, i’d love to see that.

        i feel like the last paragraph is something we’re both saying. the real life and historic use of nuclear energy in USamerica, at every step, has involved the horrible treatment of the workers and the people who lived near the sites. i feel that that is a result of the US government, not the inherent nature of nuclear power. to give an example, my uncle fell off a roof putting up solar and is on disability right now. i can think of a good number of friends, family, and neighbors with long term health issues because of contracting work. i think that that means we ought to have higher safety standards and better working conditions, not that building houses or installing solar is a lost cause

        • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          Falling off a roof and multiple generations of people including people born decades after the closure of the mines suffering life threatening cancers are different. We can have a decent government, but we can’t put the cat back in the bag on radiation, no matter who is in the government. I do not believe it is possible to safely mine nuclear components, it has never been done in human history, regardless of what government it was under, or in what country. There are places where it is less bad, certainly, but it is always bad on some level.