"Hrmmm... radioactive waste? What's that? Oh yeah, the stuff with a half-life of a billion or so years."
We could start nuking garbage dumps that are already full to make space for new garbage (eg, Staten Island). Radiation won't be a problem compared to the other toxins that have already seeped into the ground, and besides--who cares?--its already a garbage dump.
-TD
From: Damian Gerow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: U.S. Drops 'E-Bomb' On Iraqi TV Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 19:00:17 -0400
Kevin S. Van Horn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >I can only see two reasons for bombing with
> >nuclear weapons: hate and stupidity.
> >
> >That being said, you'd have to *really* hate someone (or an entire
> >country) to actually /use/ a nuclear weapon.
> >
> That's nonsense. I can think of several entirely ethical uses of
> nuclear weapons, with the usage not motivated by hate but simple utility:
Okay, within the context of the conversation. Let me rephrase:
... you'd have to *really* hate someone (or an entire country) to actually use a nuclear weapon against them.
> 1. You have a large invading fleet approaching your nation. A few nukes > out in the middle of the ocean could handily take out the fleet without > getting any innocent bystanders. (This scenario occurs in one of Poul > Anderson's novels.)
I'm no radiation expert, but I highly doubt this would come with no consequences.
> 2. You have a large invading army crossing an uninhabited wasteland. > Again, tactical nukes would be useful and ethical here. Use airbursts, > though, to avoid producing a lot of fallout.
Again, one of my points was radiation. It doesn't go away quickly.
> 3. Power generation. One scheme I once read about for a fusion reactor > involved digging a deep cavern, exploding a nuke within it every once in > a while, and having the resulting heat drive your electrical generators.
Hrmmm... radioactive waste? What's that? Oh yeah, the stuff with a half-life of a billion or so years.
I've spoken to a designer of the CanDu <sp> reactor. He has said himself that nuclear waste is a *massively* underestimated problem, and one that's going to bite us in the ass. His attitude is just to get it away for his lifetime, and let his children (etc) deal with it themselves.
> 4. Interplanetary transportation of a massive payload. Project Orion, > anyone?
I've heard good things about using nuclear weapons in space. But again, there's *got* to be really adverse side effects. Kind of like using space as our new landfill.
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