DU oldsters will remember this but you young ones may not know (re: nuclear)

[ensho]

excerpts from a new book:


"Plutonium was a crazy element that crawled and burrowed. It melted at room temperature. It was different colors - silverery or purple."

"The book documented the secret government plutonium experiments in the decade following Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

"In medical experiments, the essential substance of nuclear weaponry had been shot into the bloodstream of human beings who were told only that it was good for them."

"Besides trying to figure out tolerance doses of radioactivity, researchers used plutonium and other radioactive substances as an experimental cancer treatment. Most people lived only a short time, but a few lived for years with plutonium locked inside them."

"He remembered that the plutonium exeriments had come to light during the nineties, and the D.O.E. had apologized. Some reparations had been paid and then the subject was forgotten."

"Radioactive substances had been tried in breakfast cereal - boys at a correctional school and been fed radioactive iron and calcium in their oatmeal. He read about a radioactive iron experiment on pregnant women - a nutrition study that backfired. He read about huge black tumors in the mouth, grapefruit-sized growths on thighs. Some doctors thought plutonium might jazz up spermatocytes."

"Even though researchers figured that a microgram of plutonium might cause cancer, they injected people with many times that amount."

"The testes of prisoners. Plutonium mixed into vaginal jelly. Whole-body irradiation. The book said all baby boomers carry around a trace of plutonium in the bones, from fallout."

Works consulted in the writing of this book:


Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West
The Elegant Universe
Atoms in the Family
A Brief History Time
The Universe in a Nutshell
Cell and Molecular Biology
The Plutonium Files


the above from a novel by Bobbie Ann Mason - An Atomic Romance
--------------------


all of the above is true. and more and worse.
read how when it rains on the nuclear scrap piles it creates blue flames.
read about depleted uranium.

no more nuke plants of any kind.

[wtmusic]

1. Plutonium jumps up and down and shouts, "Go Lakers!" too.

Melt at room temperature? I guess if you're in a room that's 1,182°F.

What a load of crap.

[Lost4words]

4. I dont think that was the single most important part

the real issue was exposing all manner of human beings to it without their knowledge or understanding. Dont you get that how can you be so callus as to over look that part of the OP

[wtmusic]

6. The real issue is presenting the truth

Hysterical accounts about the nature of nuclear materials discredit the entire post.

Which pretty much sums up the anti-nuclear movement in a nutshell - hysteria and disinformation.

[Lost4words]

9. tell the 1 million at Chernobyl they are hysterical.

over generalizations are just as discrediting and thats it in a nut shill!

[wtmusic]

11. Which 1 million are you referring to?

I'm trying to find out if you have any idea what you're talking about.

[Lost4words]

15. google it lightweight!

[wtmusic]

17. Support your own argument, lightweight.

Why would I research a silly claim like that?

[Tikki]

12. Yeah...there is so much support for nuclear energy in California....

NOT...and we are the wise who have kept from more offshore drilling off our Central Coast.

Half Life—The Lethal Legacy of America's Nuclear Waste
http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/earth/inside-the-earth/nuclear-waste.html

This is just the first article of hundreds I ran across on the internets.


The Tikkis...children of the radiant glow"

[wtmusic]

16. Offshore drilling for plutonium?

What in heaven or earth are you talking about?

You probably aren't aware that 20% of the energy you're using to type your misguided diatribe comes from fission, and fossil fuel smoke kills more people every day than nuclear energy has in the last 60 years. Not that those facts would influence your opinion.

[Tikki]

26. It must be nice to scramble about...

California has protected it's Coast and, ALSO, has a low support for nuclear energy. Plain and simple.
Something about our environment and our childrens' future.

Nuclear waste...alive and well and living on and on into the 21st Century ∞.

The Tikkis.."Children of the radiant glow"

[wtmusic]

28. Your descendants will be long dead before nuclear waste has a chance to harm them

unless we build nuclear plants as fast as possible, now.

You have no idea.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=240342

[Tikki]

30. Unless you grew up next to the reactors...

you may not really understand...and I forgive you.


http://www.psr.org/chapters/washington/hanford/hanford-and-human-health.html
What are the risks of radiation?

Exposures can occur from external sources (gamma or x-rays) or internal sources (rays and particles from radioactive substances
entering the body by inhalation, ingestion or wounds.) Radiation can pass through a person without harming
any cells, or it can hit cells, damaging or destroying them.
At lower doses, radiation can damage cells, eventually causing cancer or genetic mutations that adversely affect the next generation.
Even inhaling the smallest particle of an intense alpha-emitter such as plutonium-239 could cause cancer.
Acute radiation effects include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever and hemorrhage.
High doses are lethal.
At DOE facilities, including Hanford, studies of workers exposed to radiation
show evidence of excess cancers including lung, brain, bladder, myeloma, leukemia and
other lymphatic cancers, stomach, respiratory, laryngeal and trachea cancer.

The Tikkis..."Children of the radiant glow"

[wtmusic]

32. Hanford was a plutonium processing facility which has absolutely nothing

in common with modern nuclear generating facilities. This is something of which you don't have a clear understanding.

Employees at nuclear generating facilities get the equivalent of a CAT scan of extra radiation over their entire careers.

[bananas]

46. Looks like the surface of the moon

Thanks for the link - great photo. ("great" as in horrible but eye-opening)
http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/earth/inside-the-earth/nuclear-waste.html

A tank farm at Hanford, Washington, built in the 1940s, uses only single-wall tanks to store radioactive sludge from plutonium processing. Many of the tanks have leaked, tainting groundwater.
Photograph by Peter Essick

[Lost4words]

2. when someone says I from the govt I here to help, RUN, RUN FAST

Run like you have never run before.

I'm old, I know too well what this country has done under the guise of research, science.

[Capn Sunshine]

37. now we're repeating conservative Reagan memes?

Reagans purpose in doing this was to make folks distainful of the government because of the fear that when the government helps people, they vote Democratic.

I'm annoyed when I see this oft repeated canard. please think about what you're posting, old timer.

[Lost4words]

47. wow do you even know how wrong you have that?

and the saying predates Reagan by several decades, where do you think he got it, smarty pants youngster! And its neither republican or democrat.

Is that enough thinking?

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

3. You make a wonderful case against medical and military radiological testing and use.

However, all that has jack shit to do with 21st century nuclear energy.

Fission baby, Fission!

[Lost4words]

5. what just flew over your head?

you dont know either?

[spanone]

39. good, let's store the waste in your basement....

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

42. How is that even a valid argument?

In whose basement has the nuclear industry threatened to store nuclear waste.
Your sensationalist emo-hyperbole is un-amusing. Get a brain Moran.

[FSogol]

7. Are you old enough to know what Fluroscopes are?

They used to be in all larger shoe stores. You stuck your foot in and it x-rayed your foot for your viewing pleasure. No shielding or safety mechanisms of any kind. In those days, everyone displayed a surprising lack of concern over radiation.

[SidDithers]

8. When the first line of your post is incorrect...

is there really any point to reading the rest of it?

Sid

[ensho]

13. if you know so much why don't you write your own book instead of

following me around while you pout.

[SidDithers]

21. Plutonium "melted at room temperature"...

fact or fiction?

Sid

[ensho]

25. fact

nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

29. The melting point of plutonium is 639 degrees C.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium

Room temperature, since you're confused, is about 23 degrees C.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

34. Maybe this is the author:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

35. Or maybe this guy.

Or maybe all three.

[SidDithers]

36. Mr. Heat Miser!!!

He's too much :)

Sid

[spoony]

10. You're quoting novels now?

What, no slip-and-fall accidents in nuclear plant cafeterias to report on as nuclear events today?

[ensho]

14. yes I'm quoting a novel - sue me

nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. Yeah, well, the novelist read a Brief History of Time!

Isaac Einstein wrote that!

So there!

[ensho]

18. many times when I post something nuclear my pc gets attacked

thank goodness for McAfee

[wtmusic]

22. Whoa dude. I think they're sending plutonium at you over the internets. nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

23. Many of your posts on nuclear energy are crap that deserve the criticism they receive.

[hayu_lol]

24. Apropos of nothing at all...

how many deaths in California have been due to radiation leakage from the plants we have operating, including the small ones used in research?

Ummm...thats what I thought.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

33. Maybe the websites you source from think McAfee is a government spy plot?

[WinkyDink]

19. Now, you aren't suggesting there might have been a govt CONSPIRACY, are you? :-)

[stray cat]

27. You youngsters may not remember it

but there are non-coal, oil and nuclear forms of energy we can return to.

[Codeine]

31. Untruth event. nt

[spanone]

38. no nukes. nada ziltch zip

[Capn Sunshine]

40. no nukes= mercury generating acid rain making coal burning power

In a perfect world, we'd have an answer to our electrical generation problems. But the only real answer is something dangerous, yet clean when operated responsibly.

Because of what coal mining and burning is doing to us I really don't see another short term fix except nuclear generation of power.

[spanone]

41. no nukes. i'll take kentucky over chernobyl

[Capn Sunshine]

43. That's easy to say if you don't live there I guess

How convenient that the little people of Kentucky are disposable for your power needs.

[ieoeja]

44. My favorite quote:

"Reed’s casual attitude toward danger infuriates his on-again-off-again girlfriend, Julia, as much as his quirky mind and muscular body intrigue her."

[SidDithers]

45. "their courtship began with banter about Stephen Hawking's theories of space-time"...

"and ever since it has been an up-and-down adventure of sexual attraction, intellectual game-playing, and long silences when Julia refuses to return Reed's calls."

:rofl:

I can't wait for the movie. I'm thinking Gerard Butler, as Reed, and Amy Adams as Julia.

Sid