Radioactive Waste Quotes

Fang: "Have you guys been playing in the toxic waste again? Been bitten by a radioactive spider? Struck by lightning? Drink a super-soldier serum?

What is it that you contain? The dead. Time. Light patterns of millennia opening in your gut. Every minute, in each of you, a few million potassium atoms succumb to radioactive decay. The energy that powers these tiny atomic events has been locked inside potassium atoms ever since a star-sized bomb exploded nothing into being. Potassium, like uranium and radium, is a long-lived radioactive nuclear waste of the supernova bang that accounts for you. Your first parent was a star.

Have you guys been playing in toxic waste again?" Fang asked severely, putting his hands on his hips. Nudge giggled. "No." "Been bitten by a radioactive spider?" Fang went on. "Struck by lightning? Drink a super-soldier serum?" "No, no, no," said Iggy. He started reaching for things around the table, and his hand landed on Total. "You're black." "I prefer canine-American." said Total. "When's that pie coming? I'm starving.

Oh, man," says Dum. "That would have been so awesome. Can you imagine? Boom!" He mimes a mushroom cloud. "Moo!" Dee gives him a long-suffering look. "You´re such a child. You can´t just waste a nuke like that. You gotta figure out a way to control the trajectory so that when the bomb goes off, it shoots the radioactive cows into your enemies.

My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all) - that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth. We have learned to give them exactly the same proportion of attention that teachers and writers often give them in the most respectable classrooms and textbooks. This learned sense of moral proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when it comes from politicians at press conferences. It is therefore more deadly.

One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth. We have learned to give them exactly the same proportion of attention that teachers and writers often give them in the most respectable of classrooms and textbooks. This learned sense of moral proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when it comes from politicians at press conferences. It is therefore more deadly.

he predicted...that human slavery would come bac, that it had infact never gone away. he said that so many people wanted to come here because it was so easy to rob the poor people, who got absolutely no protection from the government. he talked about bridges falling down and water mains breaking because of no maintenance. he talked about oil spills and radioactive waste and poisoned aquifers and looted banks and liquidated corporations. "and nobody ever gets punished for anything," he said. "being an american means never having to say you're sorry.

To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to deemphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves—unwittingly—to justify what was done. My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)—that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth. We have learned to give them exactly the same proportion of attention that teachers and writers often give them in the most respectable of classrooms and textbooks. This learned sense of moral proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when it comes from politicians at press conferences. It is therefore more deadly.

He predicted, I remember, that human slavery would come back, that it had in fact never gone away. He said that so many people wanted to come here because it was so easy to rob the poor people, who got absolutely no protection from the Government. He talked about bridges falling down and water mains breaking because of no maintenance. He talked about oil spills and radioactive waste and poisoned aquifers and looted banks and liquidated corporations. “And nobody ever gets punished for anything,” he said. “Being an American means never having to say you’re sorry.

the main expressed goal for oceanographers during International Geophysical Year, 1957/8, was to study “the use of ocean depths for the dumping of radioactive wastes.” This wasn’t a secret assignment, you understand, but a proud public boast. In

It’s perilous and foolhardy for the average citizen to remain ignorant about global warming, say, or ozone depletion, air pollution, toxic and radioactive wastes, acid rain, topsoil erosion, tropical deforestation, exponential population growth.

the consequences of scientific illiteracy are far more dangerous in our time than in any that has come before. It’s perilous and foolhardy for the average citizen to remain ignorant about global warming, say, or ozone depletion, air pollution, toxic and radioactive wastes, acid rain, topsoil erosion, tropical deforestation, exponential population growth. Jobs and wages depend on science and technology. If our nation can’t manufacture, at high quality and low price, products people want to buy, then industries will continue to drift away and transfer a little more prosperity to other parts of the world. Consider the social ramifications of fission and fusion power, supercomputers, data “highways,” abortion, radon, massive reductions in strategic weapons, addiction, government eavesdropping on the lives of its citizens, high-resolution TV, airline and airport safety, fetal tissue transplants, health costs, food additives, drugs to ameliorate mania or depression or schizophrenia, animal rights, superconductivity, morning-after pills, alleged hereditary antisocial predispositions, space stations, going to Mars, finding cures for AIDS and cancer. How can we affect national policy—or even make intelligent decisions in our own lives—if we don’t grasp the underlying issues?

the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)—that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth. We have learned to give them exactly the same proportion of attention that teachers and writers often give them in the most respectable of classrooms and textbooks. This learned sense of moral proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when it comes from politicians at press conferences. It is therefore more deadly.

The mind is more comfortable in reckoning probabilities in terms of the relative frequency of remembered or imagined events. That can make recent and memorable events - a plane crash, a shark attack, an anthrax infection - loom larger on one's worry list than more frequent and boring events, such as the car crashes and ladder falls that get printed beneath the fold on page B14. And it can lead risk experts to speak one language and ordinary people to hear another. In hearings for a proposed nuclear waste site, an expert might present a fault tree that lays out the conceivable sequences of events by which radioactivity might escape. For example, erosion, cracks in the bedrock, accidental drilling, or improper sealing might cause the release of radioactivity into groundwater. In turn, groundwater movement, volcanic activity, or an impact of a large meteorite might cause the release of radioactive wastes into the biosphere. Each train of events can be assigned a probability, and the aggregate probability of an accident from all the causes can be estimated. When people hear these analyses, however, the are not reassured but become more fearful than ever. They hadn't realized there are so many ways for something to go wrong! They mentally tabulate the number of disaster scenarios, rather than mentally aggregating the probabilities of the disaster scenarios.

It is not that the historian can avoid emphasis of some facts and not of others. This is as natural to him as to the mapmaker, who, in order to produce a usable drawing for practical purposes, must first flatten and distort the shape of the earth, then choose out of the bewildering mass of geographic information those things needed for the purpose of this or that particular map. My argument cannot be against selection, simplification, emphasis, which are inevitable for both cartographers and historians. But the map-maker's distortion is a technical necessity for a common purpose shared by all people who need maps. The historian's distortion is more than technical, it is ideological; it is released into a world of contending interests, where any chosen emphasis supports (whether the historian means to or not) some kind of interest, whether economic or political or racial or national or sexual. Furthermore, this ideological interest is not openly expressed in the way a mapmaker's technical interest is obvious ("This is a Mercator projection for long-range navigation-for short-range, you'd better use a different projection"). No, it is presented as if all readers of history had a common interest which historians serve to the best of their ability. This is not intentional deception; the historian has been trained in a society in which education and knowledge are put forward as technical problems of excellence and not as tools for contending social classes, races, nations. To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to de-emphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves- unwittingly-to justify what was done. My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)-that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth. We have learned to give them exactly the same proportion of attention that teachers and writers often give them in the most respectable of classrooms and textbooks. This learned sense of moral proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when it comes from politicians at press conferences. It is therefore more deadly. The treatment of heroes (Columbus) and their victims (the Arawaks)-the quiet acceptance of conquest and murder in the name of progress-is only one aspect of a certain approach to history, in which the past is told from the point of view of governments, conquerors, diplomats, leaders. It is as if they, like Columbus, deserve universal acceptance, as if they-the Founding Fathers, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Kennedy, the leading members of Congress, the famous Justices of the Supreme Court-represent the nation as a whole. The pretense is that there really is such a thing as "the United States," subject to occasional conflicts and quarrels, but fundamentally a community of people with common interests. It is as if there really is a "national interest" represented in the Constitution, in territorial expansion, in the laws passed by Congress, the decisions of the courts, the development of capitalism, the culture of education and the mass media.

Somewhere deep within the bedrock, where the nation kept its radioactive waste and where only machines labored, there were now endless rows of echo spheres filled with concrete. If we had been able to linger there without being incinerated by the radiation, and if we had been able to put our ear to the spheres, we might have heard it—the nervous heartbeats of something in there, slumbering restlessly.

Year of 1957–58 was to study “the use of ocean depths for the dumping of radioactive wastes.” This wasn’t a secret assignment, you understand, but a proud public boast. In fact, though it wasn’t much publicized, by 1957–58 the dumping of radioactive wastes had already been going on, with a certain appalling vigor, for over a decade. Since 1946, the United States had been ferrying fifty-five-gallon drums of radioactive gunk out to the Farallon Islands, some thirty miles off the California coast near San Francisco, where it simply threw them overboard.

I don’t know to what extent ignorance of science and mathematics contributed to the decline of ancient Athens, but I know that the consequences of scientific illiteracy are far more dangerous in our time than in any that has come before. It’s perilous and foolhardy for the average citizen to remain ignorant about global warming, say, or ozone depletion, air pollution, toxic and radioactive wastes, acid rain, topsoil erosion, tropical deforestation, exponential population growth. Jobs and wages depend on science and technology. If our nation can’t manufacture, at high quality and low price, products people want to buy, then industries will continue to drift away and transfer a little more prosperity to other parts of the world. Consider the social ramifications of fission and fusion power, supercomputers, data “highways,” abortion, radon, massive reductions in strategic weapons, addiction, government eavesdropping on the lives of its citizens, high-resolution TV, airline and airport safety, fetal tissue transplants, health costs, food additives, drugs to ameliorate mania or depression or schizophrenia, animal rights, superconductivity, morning-after pills, alleged hereditary antisocial predispositions, space stations, going to Mars, finding cures for AIDS and cancer.

I did another commercial. Don't lose your loved ones, I wrote, because of excessive radioactivity. Don't be a wallflower at the dance because of strontium 90 in your bones. Don't be a victim of fallout. When the tart on Thirty-sixth Street gives you the big eye does your body stride off in one direction and your imagination in another? Does your mind follow her up the stairs and taste her wares in revolting detail while your flesh goes off to Brooks Brothers or the foreign exchange desk of the Chase Manhattan Bank? Haven't you noticed the size of the ferns, the lushness of the grass, the bitterness of the string beans, and the brilliant makings on the new breeds of butterflies? You have been inhaling lethal atomic waste for the last twenty-five years and only Elixircol can save you.

I know that the consequences of scientific illiteracy are far more dangerous in our time than in any that has come before. It’s perilous and foolhardy for the average citizen to remain ignorant about global warming, say, or ozone depletion, air pollution, toxic and radioactive wastes, acid rain, topsoil erosion, tropical deforestation, exponential population growth. Jobs and wages depend on science and technology. If our nation can’t manufacture, at high quality and low price, products people want to buy, then industries will continue to drift away and transfer a little more prosperity to other parts of the world. Consider the social ramifications of fission and fusion power, supercomputers, data “highways,” abortion, radon, massive reductions in strategic weapons, addiction, government eavesdropping on the lives of its citizens, high-resolution TV, airline and airport safety, fetal tissue transplants, health costs, food additives, drugs to ameliorate mania or depression or schizophrenia, animal rights, superconductivity, morning-after pills, alleged hereditary antisocial predispositions, space stations, going to Mars, finding cures for AIDS and cancer. How can we affect national policy—or even make intelligent decisions in our own lives—if we don’t grasp the underlying issues? As I write, Congress is dissolving its own Office of Technology Assessment—the only organization specifically tasked to provide advice to the House and Senate on science and technology. Its competence and integrity over the years have been exemplary. Of the 535 members of the U.S. Congress, rarely in the twentieth century have as many as one percent had any significant background in science. The last scientifically literate President may have been Thomas Jefferson.* So how do Americans decide these matters? How do they instruct their representatives? Who in fact makes these decisions, and on what basis? —

Unless you are as smart as Johann Karl Friedrich Gauss, savvy as a half-blind Calcutta bootblack, tough as General William Tecumseh Sherman, rich as the Queen of England, emotionally resilient as a Red Sox fan, and as generally able to take care of yourself as the average nuclear missile submarine commander, you should never have been allowed near this document. Please dispose of it as you would any piece of high-level radioactive waste and then arrange with a qualified surgeon to amputate your arms at the elbows and gouge your eyes from their sockets. This warning is necessary because once, a hundred years ago, a little old lady in Kentucky put a hundred dollars into a dry goods company which went belly-up and only returned her ninety-nine dollars. Ever since then the government has been on our asses. If you ignore this warning, read on at your peril--you are dead certain to lose everything you've got and live out your final decades beating back waves of termites in a Mississippi Delta leper colony

She was always saying, ‘I know I am dying from radium poisoning,’” remembered one of her physicians. “I convinced her she wasn’t; that she was going to get better. It is tact of a physician not to reveal a fatal prognosis.”17 Martland wasted no time enlightening the world about the evolution of radium’s MO. He had seen enough cases now to know that these latent sarcomas—which could leave a victim healthy for years after her exposure to radium, before coming horribly to life and taking over her body—were the new phase of this terrifying poisoning. He added: “When I first described this disease, there was a strong tendency among some of those interested in the production and therapeutic use of radium to place the entire blame on mesothorium… In the cases autopsied recently, the mesothorium has disappeared while the radium persists.”18 He could reach only one conclusion: “I am now of the opinion that the normal radioactivity of the human body should not be increased; [to do so] is dangerous.”19 It had to be, for each week another dial-painter presented another sarcoma, each in a new location—her spine, her leg, her knee, her hip, her eye… Irene’s family couldn’t believe how fast she was fading from them. But she still had grit in her. On May 4, 1931, as she lay dying in hospital, she filed a claim for damages

demonstrating that the first of these, the integral fast reactor, was safe even under the circumstances that destroyed Three Mile Island 2 and would prove disastrous at Chernobyl and Fukushima. The liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR), an even more advanced concept developed at Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is fueled by thorium. More plentiful and far harder to process into bomb-making material than uranium, thorium also burns more efficiently in a reactor and could produce less hazardous radioactive waste with half-lives of hundreds, not tens of thousands, of years. Running at atmospheric pressure, and without ever reaching a criticality, the LFTR doesn’t require a massive containment building to guard against loss-of-coolant accidents or explosions and can be constructed on such a compact scale that every steel mill or small town could have its own microreactor tucked away underground. In 2015 Microsoft founder Bill Gates had begun funding research projects similar to these fourth-generation reactors in a quest to create a carbon-neutral power source for the future. By then, the Chinese government had already set seven hundred scientists on a crash program to build the world’s first industrial thorium reactor as part of a war on pollution. “The problem of coal has become clear,” the engineering director of the project said. “Nuclear power provides the only solution.

For starters, of the four so-called weapons of mass destruction, three are far less massively destructive than good old-fashioned explosives.272 Radiological or “dirty” bombs, which are conventional explosives wrapped in radioactive material (obtained, for example, from medical waste), would yield only minor and short-lived elevations of radiation, comparable to moving to a city at a higher altitude. Chemical weapons, unless they are released in an enclosed space like a subway (where they would still not do as much damage as conventional explosives), dissipate quickly, drift in the wind, and are broken down by sunlight. (Recall that poison gas was responsible for a tiny fraction of the casualties in World War I.) Biological weapons capable of causing epidemics would be prohibitively expensive to develop and deploy, as well as dangerous to the typically bungling amateur labs that would develop them.

It is a hot summer day in Tennessee in the midst of the sixth decade of this century. The girl has climbed the fence to get to the swimming hole she has visited so many summers of her life in the time before this part of the land was enclosed. She stands now at the edge of it. Her body is sticky with heat. The surface of the water moves slightly. Sunlight shimmers and dances in a green reflection that seems as she stares at it to pull her in even before her skin is wet with it. Drops of water on the infant’s head. All the body immersed for baptism. Do these images come to her as she sinks into the coolness? The washing of hands before Sunday’s midday meal. All our sins washed away. Water was once the element for purification. But at the bottom of this pool, There is no telling what is there now. This is what the girl’s father will say to her finally: corroded cans of chemical waste, some radioactive substances. That was why they put the fence there. She is not thinking of that now. The words have not yet been said, and so for her no trouble exists here. The water holds up her body. She is weightless in this fulsome element, the waves her body makes embracing her with their own benediction. Beneath her in the shadowy green, she feels the depth of the pond. In this coolness as the heat mercifully abates, her mind is set free, to dream as the water dreams.

For example, in order to increase wind and solar capacity significantly, we would need to increase the production of concrete, steel, copper and numerous other materials considerably. Even with increased material efficiency, this will mean more mines and more environmental damages in the form of open cast mines, tailings ponds, smelters and pollution. Somewhat ironically, the rare earths required in solar PV, electric cars and wind turbines even leave radioactive waste at scales comparable with uranium mining required for equivalent energy production. Even when uranium

A species isolated from mining waste is one of the most radiation-resistant organisms ever discovered and may help to clean up nuclear waste sites. The blasted nuclear reactor at Chernobyl is home to a large population of such fungi. A number of these radio-tolerant species even grow toward radioactive “hot” particles, and appear to be able to harness radiation as a source of energy, as plants use the energy in sunlight.

Nuclear Remediation with Zeolite - The decontamination of low level radioactive waste is performed by ion exchange using natural Zeolites at the Idaho.

Carlton Church Warning - Nuclear Fraud Scheme North Korea has been producing different nuclear weapons since last year. They have sent warning on the neighboring countries about their plan for a nuclear test. Not just South Korea, but other countries like China, U.S., and Japan have stated their complaints. Even the United Nations has been alarmed by North Korea’s move. During the last period of World War, a bomb has been used to attack Japan. Happened on 6th of August 1945, Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb just 10 kilometers away from Tokyo. This is why people and organizations like Carlton Church who’s against the use of nuclear power for production of armory in war. Many protested that it is a threat to mankind and environment. Groups who are in favor of the nuclear use explained its advantage. They say it can be helpful in generating electricity that can be used for residential and commercial purposes. They also expound how it is better to use than coal mining as it is “less harmful to the environment.” Nuclear Use: Good or Bad? Groups who are against the use of nuclear reactor and weapons try to persuade people about its catastrophic result to the environment and humankind. If such facility will be used to create weapons, there is a possibility for another world war. But the pro-nuclear groups discuss the good effects that can be gained from it. They give details on how greenhouse gas effect of coal-burning can emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases and other pollutants such as sulfur dioxide nitrogen oxide, and toxic compounds of mercury to the atmosphere every year. Burning coal can produce a kilowatt-hour of electricity but it also amounts to over two pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. They also added that the amount of carbon dioxide it produces contributes to climate change. Sulfur dioxide may cause the formation of acid rain and nitrogen oxide, if combined with VOCs, will form smog. Nuclear power plants do not emit harmful pollutants or other toxic gases. Generating energy from nuclear involves intricate process, but as a result, it produces heat. These plants have cooling towers that release water vapor. If the facility has been properly managed it may not contribute disturbance in the atmosphere. It may sound better to use compared to coal. But studies have shown that the vapor that came from nuclear plants have an effect to some coastal plants. The heated water that was released goes back to lakes and seas, and then the heat will eventually diffuse into surface warming. As a result of the increased water temperature on the ocean bodies, it changes the way carbon dioxide is transferred within the air. In effect, major shifts in weather patterns such as hurricanes may occur. It does not stop there. The nuclear power plant produces radioactive waste, which amounts to 20 metric tons yearly. Exposure to high-level radiation is extremely harmful and fatal to human and animals. The waste material must be stored carefully in remote locations for many years. Carlton Church and other anti-nuclear groups persuade the public to initiate banning of the manufacturing of nuclear products and give warnings about its health hazards and environmental effects.

With this advance, it is easier to imagine, in the not-too-distant future, a colony of specially designed microbes living within the emission-control system of a coal-fired plant, consuming its pollution and its carbon dioxide, or employing microbes to radically reduce water pollution, or to reduce the toxic effects of radioactive waste.

The Pashupatiastra was a pure nuclear fusion weapon, unlike the Brahmastra and the Vaishnavastra which were nuclear fission weapons. In a pure nuclear fusion weapon, two paramanoos, the smallest stable division of matter, are fused together to release tremendous destructive energy. In a nuclear fission weapon, anoos, atomic particles, are broken down to release paramanoos, and this is also accompanied by a demonic release of devastating energy. Nuclear fission weapons leave behind a trail of uncontrollable destruction, with radioactive waste spreading far and wide. A nuclear fusion weapon, on the other hand, is much more controlled, destroying only the targeted area with minimal radioactive spread.

Toxic is toxic, and you don’t have to keep exposing yourself to radioactive waste because you share a bloodline with it.

Gossip is like radioactive waste. It has a long and toxic half-life.

Radioactive Mind (The Sonnet) In front of the radioactivity of mind, Radioactivity of matter turns dim. In front of the joules of a just heart, A billion ohms of hate become nil. Hate is the question, Heart is the answer. Hate is the sickness, Heart is the cure. Prejudice is the ailment, Piety is the cure. What is piety you ask! Nothing but kindness more pure. Kindness is divinity, kindness is sanity. Wasting it to codify life is sheer stupidity.

a fusion power plant would produce a larger volume of radioactive waste than a standard nuclear power plant.

Nukes and Peace It takes hundreds of years of hard work to build a civilization, and yet with the press of a button we can destroy it all in a day. Let us not press the button my friend. In fact, if we must destroy something let us destroy the very button of destruction, both from outside and inside. Let us incapacitate every single button of death and destruction, be it technological or psychological, and redirect that energy towards creation and conservation. You see, destroying the nukes mean nothing. Destroy one, another will be built in its place in a matter of months. We have to nuke the hate in us first, so that we no longer feel the need for nukes against our own kind. However, for the sake of investigation, let us forget the common sense of peace, and talk defense strategy for a moment, in a way that might make sense to world leaders. You see, the best defense against a nuke is not another nuke, but a code. It is the best defense because it is exponentially less expensive. In a technologically advanced world, the most powerful nation is not the one with nuclear power, but the one with coding power. So, to the so-called leaders of the world I say - if you're still foolishly worried about your neighbor's nuclear capabilities, don't go about wasting billions of dollars on a nuclear program, just spend a fragment of those funds on post-launch warhead hacking. But then again, it would open up a new realm of problems at a different level, because any nation with exceptional wireless channel manipulation expertise can remotely take over the command of another nation's nuclear warheads. So, at the end of the day, so long as there is animosity among the nations of the world, between mind and mind, sustained by stupid borders and foul ideologies, there is no safe way out. I'll say it to you plainly. Wasting nuclear power on warheads is a barbaric use of a scientific revolution. Let me elaborate with some numbers. A single nuclear warhead contains nearly 4 kilograms of Plutonium-239, which in a nuclear power plant can produce sufficient heat to generate about 32 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, that is, 32 Gigawatt-hours (GWh). 1 GWh of electricity powers about 700,000 households for one hour, hence 32 GWh would power about 22.4 million households for one hour. Now, if we divide that number by the number of hours in a year, that is, 8760, we are confronted with an astounding revelation. It is that, the radioactive material from one nuclear warhead can power over two thousand households for a year (2557 to be exact). And that's just the radioactive material we are talking about. Many more resources are required to set up a nuclear program. The point is, instead of wasting such potent and precious resources on fancy, frivolous and fictitious geopolitical insecurities, let us redirect those resources to alleviate actual, real human suffering from society. Let us use them to empower communities rather than to dominate them - let us use them to elevate the whole of humankind, rather than to downgrade the parts that we do not like. Because by degrading others, we only degrade ourselves, whereas by lifting others, we rise ourselves. Remember, there is no world peace, so long as fear is off the leash.

The radioactive material from one nuclear warhead can power over two thousand households for a year. Instead of wasting such potent resources on fancy, frivolous and fictitious geopolitical insecurities, let us redirect those resources to alleviate actual human suffering from society.

The colossal legacy of Hanford, which now accounts for two-thirds of all high-level radioactive waste in the country, is fraught with calamity--a lingering wreckage with little sign of being remediated anytime soon, if ever.

Dr Edward D. David, President Nixon’s Science Adviser, talking about the storage of radioactive wastes, says that ‘one has a queasy feeling about something that has to stay underground and be pretty well sealed off for 25,000 years before it is harmless’.

Somewhat ironically, the rare earths required in solar PV, electric cars and wind turbines even leave radioactive waste at scales comparable with uranium mining required for equivalent energy production.

Perhaps we can assume that nature’s tolerance margins will be able to cope with such small impositions, although there are many people even today who are deeply worried, and Dr Edward D. David, President Nixon’s Science Adviser, talking about the storage of radioactive wastes, says that ‘one has a queasy feeling about something that has to stay underground and be pretty well sealed off for 25,000 years before it is harmless’.

The boom brought an increase of crime, drug use, and damage to sacred tribal lands. Industry trucks dumped toxic fluid into ditches by the road or unloaded radioactive waste, a byproduct of fracking, into garbage bins and backyards.