Having looked at a lot of geological maps. The areas we humans live, mostly in river valleys and such. The rock on the geological map is colored yellow and orange. That means alluvial and colluvial rock ... which means rock in motion. I see someone plowing a road through mounds of rock and I think 'that will never be the same again. But then I consider, those mounds were emplaced by moving water, moving water that we struggle to control. Those mounds are only there because we have successfully controlled that moving water for the past 100 years. With just a few decades of neglect, that whole area will be re-landscaped by the river.
We know from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl that dirty isn't really a problem. Uranium and Plutonium are very mobile in water. As a matter of fact, we mine uranium from ancient marine estuary deposits. It was dissolved by fresh water and deposited in marine estuaries. Its called Uranium Roll-Front deposits; which are sandbars in ancient river deltas where fresh water met sea water.
The other one people forget is that fallout from direct strikes on nuclear power plants and waste repositories would be pretty devastating. The fission products from a warhead might decay quick but several tonnes of vaporised high level waste will not.
"We know from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl that dirty isn't really a problem."
I'm having some trouble accepting that claim. Can you elaborate?
"Uranium and Plutonium are very mobile in water."
Compared to what?
I realize that there's a lot of uranium dissolved in ocean water- like, 4.5 billion tons of it. But my impression is that it's because uranium is a relatively common element, not because it's inherently "very mobile." Most of the other heavy metallic elements are present in massive tonnage amounts in ocean water, too.
There's only a miniscule amount of plutonium dissolved in ocean water, of course- because practically all of it is the result of human manufacture, and we haven't manufactured very much of it- around 2850 metric tons, and it's estimated that only 1% of that amount has escaped from containment. https://str.llnl.gov/past-issues/march-2021/tracking-plutonium-through-environment
"The ability to completely, of our own volition, wipe out all complex life on this planet" doesn't exist.
Having looked at a lot of geological maps. The areas we humans live, mostly in river valleys and such. The rock on the geological map is colored yellow and orange. That means alluvial and colluvial rock ... which means rock in motion. I see someone plowing a road through mounds of rock and I think 'that will never be the same again. But then I consider, those mounds were emplaced by moving water, moving water that we struggle to control. Those mounds are only there because we have successfully controlled that moving water for the past 100 years. With just a few decades of neglect, that whole area will be re-landscaped by the river.
We know from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl that dirty isn't really a problem. Uranium and Plutonium are very mobile in water. As a matter of fact, we mine uranium from ancient marine estuary deposits. It was dissolved by fresh water and deposited in marine estuaries. Its called Uranium Roll-Front deposits; which are sandbars in ancient river deltas where fresh water met sea water.
The other one people forget is that fallout from direct strikes on nuclear power plants and waste repositories would be pretty devastating. The fission products from a warhead might decay quick but several tonnes of vaporised high level waste will not.
"We know from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl that dirty isn't really a problem."
I'm having some trouble accepting that claim. Can you elaborate?
"Uranium and Plutonium are very mobile in water."
Compared to what?
I realize that there's a lot of uranium dissolved in ocean water- like, 4.5 billion tons of it. But my impression is that it's because uranium is a relatively common element, not because it's inherently "very mobile." Most of the other heavy metallic elements are present in massive tonnage amounts in ocean water, too.
https://sciencenotes.org/abundance-of-elements-in-earths-oceans-periodic-table-and-list/
" Altogether, there are some 50 quadrillion tons (that is, 50 000 000 000 000 000 t) of minerals and metals dissolved in all the world’s seas and oceans. To take just uranium, it is estimated that the world’s oceans contain 4.5-billion tons of the energy metal..." https://www.miningweekly.com/article/over-40-minerals-and-metals-contained-in-seawater-their-extraction-likely-to-increase-in-the-future-2016-04-01/
There's only a miniscule amount of plutonium dissolved in ocean water, of course- because practically all of it is the result of human manufacture, and we haven't manufactured very much of it- around 2850 metric tons, and it's estimated that only 1% of that amount has escaped from containment. https://str.llnl.gov/past-issues/march-2021/tracking-plutonium-through-environment