
Long time nuclear waste warning messages - rolph
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-time_nuclear_waste_warning_messages
======
RcouF1uZ4gsC
>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 was
dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger. The
danger is in a particular location... it increases towards a center... the
center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us. The
danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours. The danger is to the
body, and it can kill. The form of the danger is an emanation of energy. The
danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically.
This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

Thought experiment, suppose in a remote part of the world, someone comes
across a site with this exact message tomorrow and tweets it. What is the most
likely scenario:

A) People heed the message and avoid the area.

or

B) The place is overwhelmed with people trying to find some hidden treasure or
have alien encounters, etc.

I would argue that scenario B, is much, much more likely.

For better or worse, curiosity especially about forbidden stuff has been a
hallmark of humanity, and likely will be so into the future. All this sign
will do is encourage people to come and try to find the treasure and the
mysterious source of power.

~~~
MrLeap
I wonder if it wouldn't be more helpful to try and design a Geiger counter
that could last 10,000 years. I'm picturing a ring of large obelisks made out
of some radio luminescent material. Actually it would probably be better if it
changed between ugly colors rather than glowed. If it's pretty people would
demolish it before the ribbon is cut.

Have all your pictograms try and communicate that some color = you're going to
die, as well as "If you move much beyond this point, you're going to die
_fast_."

Here's the important, albeit macabre part: After about 100 meters towards the
center of the exclusion zone, you need to store enough radioactive material,
preferably near Geiger obelisks, that going there will kill you _very_
quickly, for 1000's of years. Quicker the better. People need to associate the
deaths with the area!

I assert that when 50% of people get cancer a month after entering a dump
zone, it's hard to associate those illnesses with the cursed area until a lot
of people are doomed. If 3 people go somewhere and none return, it becomes
part of local lore.

~~~
hermitdev
> I wonder if it wouldn't be more helpful to try and design a Geiger counter
> that could last 10,000 years.

You'd also need to design signage/language to last and transcend those same
10K years to indicate what that constant "blip blip blip" means.

~~~
viklove
That's what the bodies are for

------
nukd235
There's an opposite line of logic to the disposal of nuclear waste that
projects such as these don't seriously consider:

Bury it in such a way that any hypothetical future primitive neo-civilisation
can't detect it and can't dig it up - for better or for worse.

Instead of drawing attention to the dump of strange rocks that make neolithic
humans sick, why not make it so unobtrusive that any enterprising future
miners don't discover the waste dump in the first place?

We have the technology to survey geological formations for exploitable
minerals. Why not instead survey for both the lack of exploitable minerals AND
a long-term stable environment, then bury the small volume of high-reactivity
waste that we've produced so far in a tiny shaft with a tortuous access route?

It's a lot easier to get humans to ignore something for 10,000 years than to
make them pay attention to a warning sign.

~~~
number6
Just bury it deep and seal the doors. If they have the tools to open it up or
dig it out they should be able handle it.

Also why do all these people think a) that we are around in 10.000 years or b)
we are tribal people at this point?

~~~
jobigoud
If we aren't around there is no problem. If we are around and have continued
historical records of the waste dump areas there is no problem. The core
problem is if we are still around but there has been a big disruption in
technology and bookkeeping.

~~~
number6
Sounds like we need a distributed Ledger, a Chain of Blocks do to speak. Like
Stone Hedge.

------
8bitsrule
Don't see any way of succeeding at graphic representation of a silent,
invisible, eventually deadly emanation.

Too much left-brain in most tries. The modern 'biohazard' symbol is not
scary... nor is the ISO radiation sign. 'Skull and bones' is moreso.

Many old Hollywood films kept it simple with warning messages posted around
territories ... heads on pikes, hanging skulls, that sort of thing. They say
'Enter here and you will likely die' pretty effectively.

Even George Pal's morlocks were scarier than that ISO sign. Looks like an ad
for sunblock.

~~~
askvictor
I was just having the discussion with my students when discussing icon
designs. As a kid I always thought the radiation sign was a fan; was mildly
confused by suburbs/towns which had anti-nuclear signs up - what does this
place have against fans?

~~~
askvictor
And reading this
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazard_symbol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazard_symbol)
it seems that the skull and crossbones is now enticing to kids because
pirates! Gah.

Also, the biohazard symbol was designed to be memorable but meaningless so
people could be educated.

------
mc32
We only have to build a permanent waste site that’s beyond the capability to
dig of a pre-Geiger counter society. So long as they can detect the radiation
(know what it is and what it presents) they will avoid it. No need for Super-
Sanskrit.

------
szhu
There was an article on this on WIPP's own website -- great read. It appears
to have been taken down, but here's a snapshot:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20090402185739/https://www.wipp.e...](http://web.archive.org/web/20090402185739/https://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%20message%20to%2012,000%20a_d.htm)

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bsmith0
The documentary mentioned at the bottom, "Into Eternity" is definitely worth a
watch, it's fascinating.

~~~
bsrhng
There is another documentary called Containment by historian of science Peter
Galison: [https://vimeo.com/124451868](https://vimeo.com/124451868).

------
squirrelicus
It's interesting how, when communicating with hypothetical future people in
written form, we have to choose language we have the best hope of them
understanding. A center of emanating energy that is dangerous to the body and
kills.

Really makes you empathize with religious writers trying to communicate often
second hand divine truths that people thousands of years later will have to
figure out without the understanding the original prophet had.

~~~
aeternus
Seems like they are trying too hard, and actually made the message more
cryptic than it needs to be.

Why not say "nuclear" or "radiation"? It seems very unlikely that the entire
species will completely forget about the concept of nuclear radiation.

~~~
roenxi
Also on point, if they _have_ forgotten about the concept of nuclear radiation
then discovering a nuclear waste dump will be a massive boon and cause for
celebration. When we zoom out enough to see entire civilisations at once, a
few people dying just isn't an issue; it is routine. We try our best to keep
everyone healthy, but at the end of the day the benefits of progress outway
handfuls of dead astronauts, scientists, explorers and early colonists.

We don't sit around moping that Marie Curie & co died doing research, everyone
involved gets recognised for helping to usher in a new age of scientific
progress.

~~~
Spooky23
This is HN and nuclear energy byproduct. There is no danger to worry about.
Future cave men are more likely to die cutting themselves on discarded solar
panels in landfills!

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Double_a_92
The message seems overly apologetic, unnecessarily long and non-technical.
Almost makes you curious to see what the danger really is...

------
gen220
This reminded me of "Canticles for Leibowitz", a book centered on a group of
monks living in the American southwest, whose objective in life is the
preservation of "pre-deluge" (the book was published in 1959) knowledge, to
the extent that any survived. Super interesting with some fun implicit
parallels to "legacy code" ;)

In one scene, a character is ruminating on what the mysterious "Fallout" might
be, that their ancestors were trying so desperately to take shelter from. He
pictured it as a towering monster, that prowled around hunting for people to
eat.

It's a fun thought to imagine what people will think of these warning signs in
5000 years, assuming there are still people left!

------
ChanderG
On the same topic: [https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/07/what-nuclear-
semiotic...](https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/07/what-nuclear-semiotics-
are)

------
hestipod
I wonder who the primary audience is intended to be? I would think future
societies at the point these sites could be lost (thousands of years per the
article's suggested readability) to common knowledge would have tech to
scan/detect such sites. Though its always possible for things to regress as a
result of some disaster.

~~~
acidburnNSA
Post WWIII may certainly be regressed considering the multiple orders of
magnitude more destructive firepower we built up in the Cold War. As Albert
Einstein (allegedly) said: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be
fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

------
inanutshellus
The only use-case I can think of that isn't covered by either signage or words
is discouraging its utility as a weapon.

e.g. "There's something deadly buried here? Neat, I'll dig it up and throw it
at my enemies!"

Perhaps they'd consider it covered by saying "nothing of value is here"...?

~~~
t0astbread
"Nothing of value is here so please leave this place uninhabited and do not
disturb it" sounds kinda suspicious if you ask me.

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coziestSoup
99pi had a great episode on this: [https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-
thousand-years/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-thousand-years/)

------
greggeter
Many Gen IV nuclear designs can use the 10K year waste fuel and turn it into
300 year waste. If you believe climate change is killing us, this is the
answer. If you don't believe that but believe clean, free electricity in
abundance is best for a developing world, then this is also the answer.

~~~
acidburnNSA
I'm the biggest proponent of Gen IV nuclear. But believe me that the level of
partitioning and transmutation required to get to 300 year waste requires
reprocessing processes of a sophistication that are contrary to the concept of
"free" anything. In fact, there's SO much nuclear fuel on Earth and in the
seawater, and seawater uranium extraction is getting cheap enough that it's
now reasonable to envision world-scale nuclear fission without heavy
reprocessing. Deep burn/modified once-through cycles or limited recycling can
get you really far with this kind of resource.

