The powerful eruption of such an enormous volume of lava and ash injected significant quantities of aerosols and dust into the stratosphere. Sulfur dioxide oxidised in the atmosphere to produce a haze of sulfuric acid droplets, which gradually spread throughout the stratosphere over the year following the eruption. The injection of aerosols into the stratosphere is thought to have been the largest since the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, with a total mass of SO2 of about 17 million tons being injected--the largest volume ever recorded by modern instruments (see chart and figure).
Didn't I just say that Tritium (radioactive hydrogen) has a half-life of 12 years?
I think I may need to write a diary on radioactivity just so everyone knows what we're talking about. Your questions are really useful so keep asking, that way i'll know what needs to be explained. Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman
So, another question. First, the context. I am anti-nuclear for the simple reason that I think once we worked out how to get down out of trees, the next thing we should have done was learn how to build treehouses, fireproof them, then hook up some solar and wind. Add a suitable toilet-to-cesspit system, then lay back and eat more bananas. And make love on the funky leafbed we made one afternoon. Monkey junior can play on the ground with the other monkeys.
So I am in a minority (I would love to see car exhaust pumped directly back into and through the car before venting through super-filters into the atmosphere. See how many people still think their car journey is worth it when they have to breathe the smog they're creating instead of farting it out all over pedestrians and cyclists.)
So, I have not followed the details of the nuclear debate. However, I have a friend who is much more practical than me. He is a fervent believer in nuclear power.
"You don't understand," he said to me one night in the pub. "The next wave of nuclear power, they're already working on it. They take the waste and fire it back into the process, down long tubes, there is no waste."
And, in the long term (e.g. when the next volcano blows up and extinguishes sunlight for a few years), I agree that nuclear power will help humans--and plants, and animals--survive underground.
So, anyway. My question is: what is this new system he is talking about? Does it exist? When will it bee ready? What are its drawbacks? Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
A lot of the problems with nuclear technology have to do with nuclear weapons proliferation. Some of the better energy-production technology has high risk of proliferation (e.g., produces plutonium as a byproduct).
[P.S. the thing wit the paragraphs was involuntary and is now corrected] Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman
The paragraph swapping was excellent. I'm serious. The danger (for me, who would like to learn the language) of keeping the paragraphs on their respective sides, is that I will tend to read one and then go to the other for reference. I imagine a lot of readers would go for their prefered language and perhaps glance across occasionally. But flipping randomly (and I especially liked that it didn't happen at the beginning. Get the flow going first, and then whang!, hey! I'm reading spanish, no english, no ingles, no espanol, hey, I'm reading two languages! That was the effect on me, anyway.)
Plus there was a relevant news story attached. Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
So I don't disagree on that, I am saying that the reason breeder reactors are not more widely used is that <gasp> they can be used to proliferate. Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman
The real reason breeders aren't widespread is cheap uranium.
