Joined: 26 Mar 2006 Posts: 707 Location: Toronto,Canada (biggest Canadian city)
Human health may be the cost of a nuclear future
Quote:
As the world gears up to build new nuclear reactors the human cost of uranium mining is often forgotten
IN THE mountain village of Kara Agach in Kyrgyzstan people are unwittingly eating radioactive waste. Radium left behind by more than two decades of uranium mining during the Soviet era has contaminated their chickens, milk, potatoes and pears.
A new study by Belgian and Kyrgyz scientists has shown that villagers are receiving radiation doses up to 40 times the internationally recommended safety limit, mostly from the food they grow. If the uranium waste dumps were dislodged by earthquakes or landslides, thousands more could be in danger. "There is a potential for a radiological disaster to happen," says Hildegarde Vandenhove from the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre in Mol.
In the debate over the merits and demerits of nuclear energy, the situation in Kara Agach is a warning. Often the people and places that have to deal with the hazards of uranium mining are forgotten in discussions of the environmental costs of ...
There is a better way which will completely transmute plutonium and other high level nuclear waste known as the Roy Process
Have you heard of the Roy Process? Gets rid of neclear waste at on site
nuclear power plants.
Read, The Roy Process Brief Description:
Is there a safe process to get rid of nuclear waste? Maybe! One possible solution is a process invented by Dr. Radha R. Roy, former professor of Physics at Arizona State University, and designer and former director of the nuclear physics research facilities at the University of Brussels in Belgium and at Pennsylvania State University.
Dr. Roy is an internationally known nuclear physicist, consultant, and the author of over 60 articles and several books. He is also a contributing author of many invited articles in a prestigious encyclopedia. He is cited in American Men and Women of Science, Who`s Who in America, Who`s Who in the World and the International Biographical Centre, England. He has spent 52 years in European and American universities researching and writing recognized books on nuclear physics. He has supervised many doctoral students.
Roy invented a process for transmuting radioactive nuclear isotopes to harmless, stable isotopes. This process is viable not only for nuclear waste from reactors but also for low-level radioactive waste products.
In 1979, Roy announced his transmutation process and received international attention. The Roy process does not require storage of radioactive materials. No new equipment is required. In fact, all of the equipment and the chemical separation processes needed are well known.
What`s the basis for the Roy Process? If you examine radioactive elements such as strontium 90, cesium 137 and plutonium 239, you will see that they all have too many neutrons. To put it very simply, the Roy process transmutes these unstable isotopes to stable ones by knocking out the extra neutrons. When a neutron is removed, the resulting isotope has a considerably shorter half-life which then decays to a stable form in a reasonable amount of time.
How do we knock out neutrons? By bombarding them with photons (produced as x-rays) in a high- powered electron linear accelerator. Before this process, the isotopes must be separated by a well-known chemical process.
It is feasible that portable units could be built and transported to hazardous sites for on-site transmutation of nuclear wastes and radioactive wastes.
To give an example, cesium 137 with a half-life of 30.17 years is transformed into cesium 136 with a half-life of 13 days. Plutonium 239 with a half-life of 24,300 years is transformed into plutonium 237 with a half-life of 45.6 days. Subsequent radioactive elements which will be produced from the decay of plutonium 237 can be treated in the same way as above until the stable element is formed.
The Roy Process could be developed in three distinct phases, according to Roy. Phase I consists of a theoretical feasibility study of the process to obtain needed parameters for the construction of a prototype machine. Phase II will involve the construction of a prototype machine and supporting facilities for demonstrating the process. Phase Ill will consist of the construction of large scale commercial plants based on the data obtained from Phase II.
Cost estimates for Phase I and II are in the neighborhood of $10 million. For Phase Ill, Roy estimates a cost of $70 million. Says Roy, `It will be interesting to do a cost analysis of eliminating nuclear waste by using my process and by burying it for 240,000 years - ten ha if-lives of plutonium - under strict scientific control. There is also an ethical question: can we really burden the thousands of generations yet to come with problems which we have created? There is no God among human beings who can guarantee how the geological structure of waste burial regions will change even after ten thousand years, not to mention 240,000 years."
If you are interested in finding out more about this process, please contact Dennis Nester, Roy`s agent, whose address is listed below.
A final note:
To those who say that a process for transforming nuclear wastes is an invitation to keep making them, I ask, when we find a cure for cancer, shall we say it`s okay to continue to eat, drink and breathe carcinogens?
"There is no way one can change nuclear structure other than by nuclear reaction. Burial of nuclear waste is not a solution." Radha Roy, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus
"Do not be surprised if you learn that the nuclear industry makes billions of dollars by being a part of government`s policy of burial of nuclear wastes. It is not in their financial interest to try any other process. They are not idealists. Radha R. Roy, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus
i've read around about using micro-waves to lower the half life of radioactive material, pretty much as above.
i guess the principle is to increase the energy level of the nucleus using a microwave generator, causing it to deteriorate much more "quickly" or rather, "stablizing" the atom by knocking out the extra neutrons due to the increased energy level the atom (de-stabalizing the bonding of the extra neutrons?) is aquiring from the microwaves.
going to have to see if there's a patent by him above. in any case it fits with the "portable unit", being a common house hold microwave.
it would be interesting to see what would be more effective, microwaves or photon's.... low power laser would probably fit the bill nicely for that.
in any case, there's your photon generator funzone36.
Tripled
PS: i guess he was not so "ignorant" after all, just pretentiously annoying with his formating.
well this certainly is quite important, so i thought i might add something else.
does anyone know anyone else located in any of these contaiminated area's? Bosnia etc etc, that would be able/willing to do some testing with this?
i can't really see the power's at be willing to get this going, hell i would not be so surprised to learn if they didn't already know of such things as this.
Big money in nuclear waste disposal you know, don't forget the requirement for du rounds also.
anyways, just a thought.
Tripled
Mon Nov 06, 2006 8:56 pm
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funzone36
Joined: 26 Mar 2006 Posts: 707 Location: Toronto,Canada (biggest Canadian city)
Yes, I bumped with that important question. I haven't been paying attention to the forums so I didn't know there was a reply here. I posted tons of topics all over the place. Just ahh..... stopped all of a sudden in May because I ran out of interesting topics. I'm just reading most of the new topics that I haven't read now.
I think the colouring was used because the site background was dark and he had to lighten it up. My guess.
And lol about the microwave. So, you use the electricity generated from the nuclear reactor and you power those numerous microwaves (or make a football sized microwave) to stabalize the atom. Interesting and funny at the same time. I don't know if it does work but anyways.
