
The Cat Went Over Radioactive Mountain - prostoalex
http://www.methodquarterly.com/2014/11/the-cat-went-over-radioactive-mountain/
======
shutupalready
A far more important issue that the article doesn't explain is why the Yucca
Mountain repository was shut down. It had nothing to do with technology or
safety, or even money.

It was the NIMBY-mentality -- Not In My BackYard -- of a population that can't
assess or compare risks[1]. I wonder which the average Joe in Nevada thinks is
worse: nuclear weapons (of which Nevada has plenty and a history of unreported
accidents) or Yucca?

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_re...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository#Opposition)

~~~
derekp7
It wasn't just Nevada -- it was any major city which would have the waste
material transport through or near it. Some cities would have a couple
shipments a day for months or years on end, or at least that's what the news
media was reporting at the time.

~~~
shutupalready
That brings up another thing that the average Joe doesn't think about: that
nuclear weapons are transported on unmarked trucks right along major highway
routes. For all we know, a couple shipments might pass certain cities every
day for months or years on end. Nuclear weapons have to be initially deployed,
moved for repositioning, maintained, repaired, upgraded, and retired. All this
is done in secret.

If only nuclear waste had also been handled in secret, the masses would have
turned their attention to protesting chemtrails or something, rather than
derailing the well-thought-out Yucca plan.

~~~
Ma8ee
Yes, demokracy is a mess. Better not tell the the stupid populace about
important decisions, they'll just interfere. /s

~~~
ObviousScience
You say that sarcastically, but isn't that the very basis of using a
republican system rather than a direct democracy, and a well known problem
with direct, majority-wins democracy?

~~~
Ma8ee
No, secrecy isn't the basis. The basis of representative democracy is
transparency so the citizens can judge how well their elected do their jobs.
If the elected do what ever they do in secrecy there can't be any fair
elections.

~~~
ObviousScience
Part of the basis is that most citizens simply don't have the time to have
informed opinions on topics such as this, and hence we'd end up with a lot of
ignorant opinions voted in, because the majority don't even really understand
what the issues is.

In theory, a republican form of government can help with this because the
representatives job is to learn about such issues and vote intelligently.

Some of the issue with the current US politics is that ignorant people insist
that their ignorance is as good as a reasoned opinion, and demand that elected
officials vote that way rather than from a reasoned position.

I'm not saying the secrecy part is the core, but rather, that officials should
make choices that seem counter to the opinions of most voters, because most
voters' opinions aren't actually aligned with their interests, purely because
not everyone has time to know about every topic and have a reasonable opinion
on it.

In a republican government, you should vote on your representative based on
the method he takes to voting (eg, how well he's doing at becoming educated
and translating that in to votes) rather than how well he matches your
uninformed opinions.

So in cases like a nuclear facility, a republican form of government should
probably just ignore the uninformed objections and do it anyway, which is the
sentiment that your paraphrasing was based on.

~~~
Ma8ee
The main issue with American politics is that _some representatives_ think
that their ignorance is as good as reasoned opinion.

I'm in no way championing direct democracy - I think we agree pretty much
about how representative democracy is supposed to work and how voters are
supposed to vote. Where we differ is that I think transparency is essential to
any functioning democracy. As you say, voters don't have the time or
inclination to inform themselves properly about the issues at hand. But
instead America has a system where most politicians don't bother to actually
form well thought through opinions either, but rather rely on the opinions of
the people that fills their campaign coffins. Allowing them to do that in
complete secrecy would be the same as giving the power directly to the oil
companies and military industrial complex.

------
michaelochurch
The thing that sticks out in my mind is that no "warning" is going to allay
curiosity.

If technological progress continues unabated, we won't have to keep nuclear
waste on the planet for 10,000 years because we'll have safe, economical ways
to dispose of it in interstellar space before then. We need the 10k-year
warnings to account for the situation in which our civilization declines, is
forgotten, and later humans come upon it.

So, let's say that it's 6500 AD and what we are now is an ancient
civilization. If you come upon a sign that says something like this (from the
article):

    
    
        This place is a message…and part of a system of messages…pay attention to it!
        Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
        This place is not a place of honor…no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here…nothing valued is here.
        What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
    

What are you going to do? Some of us would avoid it, but there are others
whose curiosity would lead them to explore. Think about it: a warning from a
_4500-year-old advanced civilization_. How does that mystery box not get
opened?

~~~
Maxious
The ray cats might be bad as well, in the Goiânia accident, many people were
exposed to the radioactive material because it's "deep blue light" glowing was
curious
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident)

~~~
Ma8ee
Yes, if I were a teenager and there were rumors that if you brought a black
cat to the mountain it would change color, I know where I would spend my
weekend. Combined with legends about horrible deaths to anyone who tried, it
would be completely irresistible.

------
jgeorge
A good page with discussion of how to built a 10,000 year warning monument is
at
[http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%...](http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%20message%20to%2012,000%20a_d.htm)
\- I remember seeing this link a while ago and it's creepily interesting, it's
a collection of ideas on how to mark Yucca Mountain for the long haul.

~~~
salgernon
I always found that paper fascinating. Unfortunately, perhaps, the solution
may be to do nothing with markers or semiotics and rely on future societies
learning about he danger by attrition.

------
lavitt
An episode of the podcast 99 Percent Invisible is about this. They talk more
about how you would communicate what this place is 10,000 years in the future,
however. [http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-thousand-
years/](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-thousand-years/)

really good, nonetheless.

~~~
chowyuncat
The disagreement about universal iconography in that episode is great. I think
Carl Sagan's idea was immediately shot down.

------
jimmcslim
The idea that we would need to warn a civilization 10,000 years in the future
to stay away seems quite fatalistic to me... what about the alternative of
assuming that we do survive climate change/global thermonuclear war/comet
strike/overpopulation; and the regular mechanics of bureaucracy ensure that
all documentation relating to such a site is transferred onto the latest
media/storage formats over the ages... so that future humanity is accessing
the files off crystal holographic storage via neural links, stored in
Microsoft Word 12000.

~~~
jgh
I suppose if the second scenario is correct and the bureaucracy lasts 10,000
years into the future there's not really any harm in having developed the
signage anyway. But on the other hand, if we just assume that the knowledge
will be passed on via bureaucracy or some other means and don't develop the
signage and then those methods of transmitting the knowledge fails, it could
be bad for people in the future.

------
maaku
Or, you know, we could reprocess (recycle?) the waste into much shorter lived
compounds and fuel for 2nd generation breeder reactors. Then there wouldn't be
a problem in the first place.

~~~
saalweachter
Yeah, I have a certain sadness regarding nuclear waste. It's dangerous, yes,
but it's also one of the rarest things in the world. Trying to throw it away
seems so wasteful.

~~~
maaku
Yeah it's basically an assortment of radiation sources, e.g. the things we
routinely use in medicine and obscure industrial cases.

The short-lived stuff could see immediate use in various contexts that need
access to radioactive sources, or in RTG batteries.

The long-lived stuff (plutonium, mostly) can be used as fuel in reactors that
currently exist mostly on paper, but would work if there was money to build
them.

There isn't a radioactive waste problem. There's an anti-nuclear political
problem :(

------
deadfall
Side note: I found out a while back that 47,500 55 gallon barrels were dumped
off the California coast near the Farallon Islands.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farallon_Islands#Nuclear_waste_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farallon_Islands#Nuclear_waste_dump)

------
colinshark
Sounds like Riddley Walker.

------
trhway
just dump the nuclear waste into the Sun (Sun's gravitation will even do the
most part of the job once the cargo is out of Earth's gravitational well). If
in the next couple hundred years we wouldn't come up with easy means of
interplanetary travel inside Solar system this civilization will be facing
much more serious issues than how to communicate into 10000 years future about
that nuclear waste.

They gathered $30B dollars into the fund - would be enough to build an
electrically driven cargo catapult/gun to throw cargo from Earth's surface
into the orbit.

~~~
jwilliams
Because launches have a probability of exploding, which would dust/litter the
planet with pretty nasty debris.

Getting to the Sun isn't actually that easy. You also need to counter Earth's
orbital velocity. That's takes a lot of energy - a lot more than leaving the
solar system. It would be easier to fling it into interstellar space than to
get to the Sun.

~~~
trhway
>Because launches have a probability of exploding, which would dust/litter the
planet with pretty nasty debris.

it is chemical rockets what explode. The rail/gun systems my potentially have
crashes, and the cargo shells designed to sustain 5000g acceleration should go
through crashes just fine. Anyway, it willn't be like an atomic explosion, and
we did have a share of it :)

>It would be easier to fling it into interstellar space than to get to the
Sun.

nope. The Sun's escape velocity from Earth's orbit is 42km/s. While Earth's
orbital speed is 30km/s, and you actually don't need the full 30km/s - Earth's
gravitation escape is 11km/s, so those 11km/s pointed opposite Earth's speed
will result in cargo getting "free" from Earth and having 19km/s on the
Earth's orbit - that's would result in the cargo going down toward the Sun at
it is obviously less than required orbital speed at the Earth's orbit of
30km/s.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity#List_of_escape_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity#List_of_escape_velocities)

~~~
mikeash
You've got some confusion there. The 11km/s escape velocity from Earth is how
much the Earth's gravity slows you down as you leave it. When you reach escape
velocity, it doesn't mean you leave the Earth's influence with 11km/s. It
means that if you're going 11km/s near the Earth, you'll leave the Earth's
influence before you fall back down. If you just barely escape, your velocity
relative to the Earth will be small.

What does matter is Earth's orbital speed, though. That counts towards the
42km/s you need to escape from the Sun, assuming you're smart enough to launch
in the direction of the Earth's motion. That means you only need 12km/s
additional velocity, whereas you need to cancel out virtually all of that
30km/s velocity to fall into the Sun.

~~~
trhway
>That means you only need 12km/s additional velocity, whereas you need to
cancel out virtually all of that 30km/s velocity to fall into the Sun.

no. Anything less than 30km/s will cause you to lose the orbit and start
falling down toward Sun.

>If you just barely escape, your velocity relative to the Earth will be small.

and if it is in the opposite direction, you'd start falling. You're right
though that it willn't be 19km/s - my mistake here.

Edit: to jwilliams below - what do you think happens when your speed is lower
than the orbital speed?

~~~
derekp7
::what do you think happens when your speed is lower than the orbital speed?

Answer: you move to a lower orbit, then stay there.

When you try to reduce orbital velocity (say by firing thrusters in the
opposite direction), you change to a lower orbit -- you don't just start free
falling to the object you are orbiting. In fact, the net effect is that your
actual velocity will increase. For example Mercury's velocity is 170,503 km/h,
while Earth's is 107,218 km/h, and Mars is 86,677 km/h.

Here's another counter-intuitive thing about orbital mechanics. Say you want
to catch up to something in front of you -- you fire reverse thrusters, which
causes you to fall into a lower (and faster) orbit, then you can fire forward
thrusters to raise your orbit once you catch up to the other object (i.e., you
do a move that you would normally do to "slow down" in order to "speed up").

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _When you try to reduce orbital velocity (say by firing thrusters in the
> opposite direction), you change to a lower orbit -- you don 't just start
> free falling to the object you are orbiting._

Well, technically you _do_ just start free falling - you have been the entire
time you've been orbiting.

~~~
derekp7
Yes, poor choice of words -- I think I meant to say "into the object", would
have made more sense.

------
judk
This was covered on 99pi and discussed here earlier this year.

