If Waxman et al really believed the Earth was doomed because of global warming they’d stand up a hundred nuclear power plants immediately. Instead they’re going forward with the nonsense that coal can be replaced on the energy grid w/ wind, solar and rubber bands.

That’s all I asked for and now I can go read up on this and perhaps learn something.

I’m not trying to be snarky here, but you referred to, “So putting the little balls of neutron emitters in lead-lined containers in the basement is not feasible as safe storage.”

However, the ‘pebbles” being stored in the lead containers are constructed from Pyrolytic graphite, (see citation below)

Here’s something from the wiki citation in one of my comments above,

Pyrolytic graphite is the main structural material in these pebbles. It sublimes at 4000 °C, more than twice the design temperature of most reactors. It slows neutrons very effectively[emphisis is mine], is strong, inexpensive, and has a long history of use in reactors. Its strength and hardness come from anisotropic crystals of carbon. Pyrolytic graphite is also used, unreinforced, to construct missile reentry nose-cones and large solid rocket nozzles.[citation needed] It is nothing like the powdered mixture of flakes and waxes in pencil leads or lubricants.

Pyrolytic carbon can burn in air when the reaction is catalyzed by a hydroxyl radical (e.g. from water).[citation needed] Infamous examples include the accidents at Windscale and Chernobyl—both graphite-moderated reactors. Some engineers insist that pyrolytic carbon cannot burn in air, and cite engineering studies of high-density pyrolytic carbon in which water is excluded from the test. However, all pebble-bed reactors are cooled by inert gases to prevent fire. All pebble designs also have at least one layer of silicon carbide that serves as a fire break, as well as a seal.

The fissionables are also stable oxides or carbides of uranium, plutonium or thorium which have higher melting points than the metals. The oxides cannot burn in oxygen, but have some potential to react via diffusion with graphite at sufficiently high temperatures; the carbides might burn in oxygen but cannot react with graphite. The fission materials are about the size of a sand grain, so they are too heavy to be dispersed in the smoke of a fire.

The layer of porous pyrolytic graphite right next to the fissionable ceramic absorbs the radioactive gases (mostly xenon) emitted when the heavy elements split. Most reaction products remain metals, and reoxidize.[citation needed] A secondary benefit is that the gaseous fission products remain in the reactor to contribute their energy. The low density layer of graphite is surrounded by a higher-density nonporous layer of pyrolytic graphite. This is another mechanical containment. The outer layer of each seed is surrounded by silicon carbide. The silicon carbide is nonporous, mechanically strong, very hard, and also cannot burn.

Many authorities consider that pebbled radioactive waste is stable enough that it can be safely disposed of in geological storage thus used fuel pebbles could just be transported to disposal.[citation needed]

Again, I’m no expert and there is criticism of this design in the same wiki article cited above.

So back to the point in my original response to you. I think you would agree with me that regardless of one’s position on nuclear power (I’m for it, so are you), the waste containment issue is of major importance.

My desire is to learn more about it so as to make informed decisions. Unlike many of the global warming alarmists.

As for snark, if non is given, none will be returned. That’s how I roll, anyway.

Anyone with at least 1/4 of a brain who lived thru the brief “global freezing” scare of the early ’70s which quietly flubbed as all its predictions were far more than just wrong, knows that the current global warming scare — originally justified by models created BY THE SAME GLOBAL FREEZING CHARLATANS — is just as much hooey as the first attempt of these 4th rate scientists to achieve name recognition and income from engagements to speak to crowds of ignoramuses and retards. All the data shows — repeat ALL the available historic data, bar none — that although CO2 and atmospheric temperature are correlated, it is WITHOUT EXCEPTION the case that atmospheric temperature changes first, THEN much later the co2 level rises. It rises because of evaporation of co2 dissolved in the sea, more of which enters the atmosphere when surface sea temperatures are warmed. This is true for the data Gore shows in his famous “documendacity,” which he intentionally squeezes into a long time scale over a small chart so that the detail is obscured, since it shows the precise opposite cause & effect that he knows is the correct one in reality. The atmosphere has been far warmer in the past than now, and it has had at times at least 20 times the co2 concentration as at present. And… those times were wonderful times when plant and animal “biodiversity” flourished, as any botanist would tell you is the natural consequence of a little warming. That’s why life is easier in the warmer latitudes and terribly harsh in the northerly ones. We should PRAY (if religious) for global warming because it would go a long way toward ending world hunger, expanding the rain forests, increasing biodiversity and making this planet more of a heaven on earth than it already has the capacity to be. But the advocates of the global warming hoax are just SO incredibly uninformed (or such liars) that they are either unaware of (or hiding) their hypocrisy in advocating a war on non-existent man-caused warming that would, even if correct, accomplish all the other goals they claim to worship. It would be a colossal joke if these neanderthal numbskulls weren’t so populous and endowed with the voting power to destroy the lives of their betters along with their own suicides.

Solar activity, as mentioned in other posts, is also highly correlated with atmospheric temperature, something that ought to appear very common-sensical to anyone with 1/10th of a brain, and something which has been demonstrated to be EXTREMELY reliably correlated for much of earth’s history. So we have 3 correlated variables of concern(there are of course many others too, but they are not of concern here because we are addressing only the claims of a mass of mindless idiots parroting the propaganda of a few shrewd charlatan, so we can limit ourselves to examining only their stupid, worthless, and totally groundless claims). These are solar activity, atmospheric warming and co2 concentration in the atmosphere. And indeed the order I’ve mentioned them is the order of their causality. Solar activity increases, THEN the atmosphere warms as a result, and FINALLY, the co2 content of the atmosphere rises. Anyone who understands the basic laws of equilibrium states from physical chemistry knows that man’s contributions of co2 into the atmosphere CANNOT have an effect on its concentration, any more than you can increase the salt content of a glass of water after it’s become fully saturated at the prevailing conditions of temperature and pressure. You just precipitate out all the salt you add and the water remains at its equilibrium salt concentration no matter how much more salt you add.

Two final points of the 500 I might make if space permitted:
1. Al Gore’s net worth was public knowledge during the political campaign of 2000 — it was approximately $2 million. He is no longer a public servant so his financial affairs are his own private business. However, from investments in public concerns, it is known that he has to have at a minimum a figure upwards of $100 million now. At least a 50-fold increase in 9 years. What has he been doing full time for the past 9 years? Pushing the scam of global warming that’s making him rich. If cap & trade is passed in the US, Gore stands to become a multi-billionaire. He is the indirectly paid propagandist for the eco groups and the corporations who will benefit from that particular means of thieving on the grand scale from the average citizen. Which, I might add, will undoubtedly cause the deaths of at least thousands of elderly from freezing for lack of heat in winter, and of the poor whose diets will be pushed over the line into malnutrition that lowers their immune systems and causes them to succumb to diseases they otherwise would have recovered from (as food prices soar and as disposable incomes of the poor are especially hard hit).

2. For all the untold $billions of taxpayer monies wasted on global warming research, and all the zillions of published papers on the topic, ask the next advocate of this pure junk science that you meet to refer you to a bona fide, peer-reviewed scientific paper in any reputable journal anywhere on earth which has provided evidence of a link between any of man’s activities and atmospheric temperature changes or climate change. That’s not asking for proof, just one tiny but definite piece of evidence. And that’s regarding ANY of man’s myriad activities being damned by the pea-brained warming advocates. And…the evidence can be linked to either climate change of any type or atmospheric temperature change in either direction. He will not be able to offer you even one such paper, because despite the many, many billions wasted on this hoax, NOT ONE paper in any peer-reviewed scientific journal in any nation on earth, NOT ONE, exists or ever has existed which shows even EVIDENCE of a link between ANY of man’s supposedly nefarious activities and climate change. NOT ONE. NOT ANYWHERE. If you don’t believe me, try and find one. You warmers out there reading this, ask the gurus whose received wisdom you place your mindless faith in to provide you with the name and title and publication of such a paper ANYWHERE ON EARTH, and then post it here. And the rest of you, watch this space, because hell will freeze over before you see it. There is no such paper in existence for one reason only: there exists no line (that means NONE) whatsoever between man’s activities and global warming.

The Algorites are the 21st century’s version of the old gloom and doom religious zealots who walked around with signs urging everyone to repent because the world was coming to an end tomorrow. IE, they are lunatics one and all, with mental deficiencies or, in the case of their leaders, character deficiencies (or more accurately, lack of character). This is not a controversial statement. It may be debated by the lunatics themselves, but they won’t do a very good job of it, since they are after all very unintelligent sub-normal humans by definition, being lunatic fringe fanatic religious believers in the global warming religion. Their parents were probably zealots for global freezing in the 1970s, and they have inherited the genes. It is an absolute, inescapable requirement that to believe in a human contribution to global warming in the absence of any shred of evidence for any aspect of it whatsoever other than the arbitrary claim of charlatans that “We have a HYPOTHESIS, and it is confirmed by the computerized models WE put the garbage into, models which you must believe are TRUTH AND WISDOM even though they disagree with each other and continue to produce forecasts that prove wrong, one after the other” — yes you have to be, if you actually choose to believe this, you MUST ABSOLUTELY AND LOGICALLY be either (a) unfortunately quite ignorant of the topic OR (b) an unusually stupid person OR (c) suffering from a severe mental/emotional/psychological problem. These 3 together make up the all-encompassing, exhaustive list of possibilities. There is no 4th option.

I have read many of the posts supporting global warming and if there were time I could demolish every argument in each one. With ease. And with irrefutable fact and/or logic. I have already abused the generosity of this site by writing more than most, however, and it would take 10 times what I’ve written to dispense with all the lame-brained rationalizations the Algorites keep coming up with as each previous one is refuted. I have heard them all and there is not one with an iota of validity. They are arguments designed to sound reasonable to the unintelligent, and conclusive to those ignorant of the topic.
Not one is correct, or even partially correct.

Man-caused global warming a hoax and a fraud and complete garbage. There is no scientific dispute about this, only a political one which has enlisted a few scientists and many pseudo-scientists to join with the politicians and share the same agenda. This is a fraud on a global scale, and those who swallow it will deserve the truly horrible consequences for humanity, dwarfing the largest wars in history, DWARFING THEM, in the horrors of its consequences. Should the lemmings succeed in implementing the politics of the global warmers, unfortunately many of their betters — ie, those with actual HUMAN brains — will also perish, and the culmination of thousands of years of advancing human civilization will be destroyed for absolutely no reason.

You who advocate global warming, do you have any idea what awful harm you will be doing to humanity and life on this planet? How dare you, ignorant as you are, spout off like a scientist when you can’t possibly have any idea of the topic, given the side you take. Look into yourselves. I think if you are capable of being honest with yourself you will find someone who needs something to crusade for so badly in order to shore up his self-esteem, or something to draw away the focus of the hate he has for himself, and for that reason has an EMOTIONAL NEED to believe in this hoax and to have someone to condemn as evil. If you are man enough to admit it, welcome to the club of human beings. If not, you consign yourself to membership amongst the worst enemies of humankind, human life, human civilization: you are a crusading ignoramus, about to add your own 2 cents to the savagery and barbarism recorded history’s litany of human disasters.

Morry Markovitz
on June 16, 2009
at 06:41 AM
Daily Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5525933/Crops-under-stress-as-temperatures-fall.html

I do not pretend to be “well versed in radiation physics”. Nor did I make any suggestions as to how to deal with nuclear waste, or that I knew how to manage nuclear waste. You really need to work on your reading comprehension.

What I did say was, “the need to realistically address the waste issue is most important. I think any reasonable person would agree without having to be “well versed in radiation physics”. Don’t you?

In reaction to this…

“And with the fuel sealed inside layers of graphite and impermeable silicon carbide – designed to last 1 million years – there’s no steaming pool for spent fuel rods. Depleted balls can go straight into lead-lined steel bins in the basement.”

You said, “is a dead giveaway the author is appallingly ignorant of basic radiation physics, likely just another gee-whiz know-it-all journalist.”

Ok, I’ll bite, why not explain why? Snark is easy, really knowing what your talking about is harder. So, if you are as you say, “well versed in radiation physics”, please do explain what’s so appallingly wrong with that statement. I for one would like to know. And while you’re at it, please do tell how you think the nuclear waste issue should be handled, after all, you are “well versed in radiation physics”.

Since you too seem to be pro-nuclear, or at least are claiming to be, (a point in which we are in agreement in case you didn’t notice, that reading comprehension thing again) why not dispense some of your knowledge or post some links, I for one would be interested in reading them.