This happens with many places that work with at least moderately radioactive material (not just reactors). What you do is tape the building/site in question off and allow it to sit for 1-2 decades. In that time the radioactivity typically decreases by orders of magnitude from decay. I can't speak to the cost savings, but so long as the site is properly fenced the safety concerns from handling all that waste go down by a lot. It isn't a bad decision in theory, but many small outfits just go "woops, can't pay to clean this up" and stick the EPA with the bill. Which is ackward, because you can't very well require the funds for cleanup up front because it would make buisnesses that use radiation in any significant way (radiopharmaceutical companies, as an example) impossibly expensive to start.

But I suppose the point of this is to attack "evil nuclear," so I'm probably wasting my time even expaining the reality. That seems to be in fashion nowadays, reality be damned.

Application? How about an overhead drone carrying a payload thats roughly the same weight as now, except instead of blowing things up it just shoots you in the face. You dont have to carry a huge amount of munitions when 95% of the bullets will hit the target.

From now on, whenever you see a new military technology you should think about how it works with drones. For example, it probably isnt a coincidence that our new magnetic launch systems on carriers will allow lighter, more fragile aircraft (read, composite drones) to be launched. The official line is it does less damage to tradition aircraft, which it does. But the guys calling the shots on this stuff make war for a living, and the writing is on the wall as far as the future goes. "Lighter. Cheaper. Disposable"

I worry about this too. Not that I personally use it, but for a great many people (mostly poor and rural) OTA television is the only source of news and entertainment they have. They dont deserve to have public airwaves taken from them so that verizon makess more money, or so people in metro areas can download transformers in HD on their phone.

That being said this spectrum would be better off as data. The best solution would be to use it to offer free internet for personal use for the poor, as it has excellent coverage and is public property anyway. My parents finally got decent internet last month via Verizon, and though the data limits are terrible and the price high for home use, its a start. Probably more practical than burying fiber or cable into remote or poor areas.

Helium is the least reactive noble gas, and much lighter than air. Common sense says that it will rapidly leave our atmosphere. I dont remember the exact details (I had this brought up in a class once), but it was some combination of the ascending helium reaching escape velocity and solar wind peeling off anything that might try to settle in a super high orbit. The impending heium shortage is a well known problem, and a significant part of the reason I get an overwhelming urge to punch clowns in the face every time I see them handing out balloons.

And frankly, almost every alternative energy solution has serious if not fundamental flaws. If they didn't, we would already have been using them. Seriously, this "you're all just pessimists who work for oil companies and kick puppies" crap is getting old. Going off half cocked with some doe-eyed fantasy of a technotopian future filled with helium blimps and solar farms the size of small nations isn't going to fix anything. It took a hundred years and a lot of ignorance to get stuck in this energy policy quagmire, and logic dictates it will take twice that amount of time to get back out. You dont extract yourself from quicksand by thrashing about in a panic.

The body treats radioactive isotopes like any other particles: when ingested, it expells them almost immediately. There are specific exceptions, like iodine 131, that the body can mistake for the normal isotope (because your body only wants the iodine, the form means nothing), but even those are only harmful if ingested in very large quantities.

As an example, the posterchild for nuclear disaster, Chernobly, mostly resulted in a few dozen cancer deaths in children from iodine 131. Cows which eat grass covered in iodine 131 concentrate it in their milk. Children, who drink lots of milk, are also uniquely succeptable as they concentrate more iodine in their thyroid than adults (among other things). Had there been more care taken initially and more knowledge about the danger of thyroid cancer from iodine, virtually all the cancers could have been avoided (excluding the few people the Russians sent to die for the sake of expediancy. If you study the incedent, you'll learn how badly Chernobly was mismanaged and the crimes that were commited to calm the public quickly).

In short, dont worry so much. Even in the unlikely event you breathe or eat something, you will excrete it hours later. The old joke is that the biggest leathal force radiation brings to bear is anxiety. Your week of stress likely took more time off your life than walking through the Fukishima grounds would have.

Other posters have pointed out that this is the linear no threshold model, and we use it because it is the worst case scenario. Honestly, it is probably wrong. In fact, there has been recent speculation based on data from areas of the country with high natural radon concentrations that small doses of radiation are good for you. The theory goes that a small dose stimulates your body's natural genetic repair mechamisms, thus decreasing cancer occurance across the board.

We regulate using the worst models, assuming the highest exposure possible (example: if there is radiation in a stagnant lake we assume you drink that as your sole water source from birth to death, and regulate accordingly). Did you know peanuts naturally produce aflatoxin? Its a carcinogen. If you eat peanut butter toast for breakfast every day for most of your life, you have a measurable cancer risk increase. Radiation gets the press because it is abstract and scary. In reality, something mundane will probably kill you. And no one will care, because they will understand it. But god forbid you keel over within fifty miles of a nuclear plant. Because then the boogeyman (eherm, I mean radiation) must have gotten you.

I love technology of all kinds. I am also working on a graduate degree in health physics (radiation protection would be the more appropriate title, fyi). Frankly, assuming this isn't someone trolling slashdot, he really shouldn't bother. The fact that he had to ask if alpha radiation was a significant concern tells me he isn't even close to qualified to assess the risks a radioactive source poses.

Think of it this way.. If someone asked you "I want to write my own TV database scraper. What would the best type of programming language to learn be? Will I need a keyboard? Just fyi, I only have a small amount of time, as this isn't my career," what would your response be? The question he asked is on the same level. If you don't immediately recognize that, then you really have no business commenting on the subject. It would be like someone asking for the best statistical thermodynamics textbook, then making it apparent they didn't know basic algebra.

Ignoring for a second the obvious serious lack of knowledge, radiation monitoring equiptment of any quality is expensive and needs calibration. Which requires access to radioactive standard sources. A geiger counter tells you nothing, especially a crappy one. I have a natural uranium deposit not far from my home. A geiger counter would light up like a christmas tree near it. If you didn't understand what what was going on, or even worse, didn't have any understanding past "the needle is moving, oh no!", then the results would be at best worthless and at worst misleading. And in the end someone untrained would have wasted thousands of dollars for no reason.

Believe it or not radiation is a complex and not at all obvious thing. Most people haven't studied it in any significant fashion, in a university or otherwise. In the same way a doctor would never encourage someone to self diagnose, I would never encourage someone to measure radioactive exposure by themseves. It would be irresponsible for me to do so. And excuse all the comparisons, but I occasionally go to public outreach meetings and have become aware that people need things put in terms they understand. Especially smart people. Smart people tend to form an ignorant view, assume they are right, then assume some kind of conspiracy when they are informed they are wrong.

Personally I'm against huge investments in solar power because not only are the economics not favorable yet, but the realities of storing and transmitting solar power (ignoring the actual panel efficiency and production costs, which still aren't great either) at the present moment make it only marginally useful in very isolated areas. Its not a realistic solution for this generation, no matter how badly anyone wants it to be. With large breakthroughs in battery technology (pretty likely), panel efficiency and cost (pretty likely), and superconductor technology (maybe) in the next handful of decades it may be the perfect solution for the next generation. But huge expenditures and preferential legislation now would be a waste: the groundwork isn't laid and like most research you can't pump money in and expect results to scale with the investment.

That all being said, there are certainly legitimate uses for solar technology right now that doesn't involve industrial power. Solar is great for prolonged field applications where weight and accessibility are issues. This story is a perfect example. Solar powered electric fencers for small and medium livestock is another (up to horse size, I sure wouldn't expect to keep a bull in with one. Not enough juice for something that bends steel like candle wax). It a great time to start a small firm and expand the technology into peripheral markets like these.

What irritates me is when people insinuate there are massive conspiracies to destroy alternative energy like wind and solar in favor of coal and nuclear, and that the only justification for endorsing those "bad" technologies is financial or ideological. What is desired and what is practical very rarely coincide, and most mainstream alternative energy still isn't practical on a large scale. Its not a free market issue, I wholeheartedly wish that embracing wind and solar on a large scale was as simple as a change in tax code or a congressional mandate. But it isn't. And I don't care if oil companies, the NRA, the pope or the goddamn Illuminati say the same thing, it doesn't make the reality of it any less true.

Not even remotely true. In the area I come from, the creationist strategy is simply changing.

When I was just a child there was a community not far from my home that had maybe ten houses and an ultra-fundamentalist church with 50 or so members. I went to school with some of the members' kids, and it led to some very interesting conversations (and I was raised in a liberal-ish Lutheran congregation, so its not as though I'm at all hostile to Christianity).. Anyway, that congregation has something like quadrupled in size, and is currently adding on a youth center and a gym to "keep the kids out of sin." Presumably there will eventually be an ultraconservative private school there, since the people that attend that church are fed up with not getting their way in our local school districts (although I vividly remember having to watch creationist propaganda in eighth grade science class, though at that time no one said anything.). A friend of mine growing up, from a different church (hes baptist), told me in college he learns the biology textbook to pass the tests, but refuses believe any of it. I imagine that will be the line the private religious school will take too.

I guess the point I'm making is that creationist teaching is just going underground. These people are segregating themselves and becoming more radical, which is providing the illusion that the creationist line of thought is in decline and the attack on science is relenting. It isn't. Segregated communities are indoctrinating kids from day one, then sending them to conservative colleges and law schools where they are trained to enter government and undermine it from within. Representative Bachmann is a prime example, she doesn't even deny that was the mission of the law school she attended.

I'll end with this tidbit: ever wonder why ultraconservatives were pushing so hard for a school voucher system? Could it be that such a system would make it frighteningly easy for this type of behavior to flourish, by essentially subsidizing extremist institutions? Just my take on things of course, but it disturbs me as someone inside the scientific community.

I can't speak for the large operations, but on the small (thousand-ish) acre farm where I grew up we baled cornstalks just like hay or straw. The big cornstalk bales are piled off to the side where they are used as animal bedding (either in the feedlot sheds or pushed around in the fields for the roaming herds). It gives the animals a warm comfortable place to sleep, mostly just during the winter. Once it thaws or becomes too messy the shed is cleaned into a manure spreader, and flung onto fields that need it (either visibly or based on a soil analysis). Generally this results in the poo+cornstalks being plowed back in at the start of spring.

I know its not popular on here, but there is a point at which you just have to accept that humans change their environment, and there will be casualties. Rather than wasting a bunch of money fighting and regulating every industry on the planet, its probably more realistic to regulate enough to make the environment safe for people and buy separate reserves to set aside for animal habitat. Its not a solution I like either, but turning back the clock on over a hundred years of industrial progress just isn't going to happen.

Not to mention there is a law of diminishing returns on farm regulation: past a certain point, regulation make small scale farming infeasible. But large scale farms are far and away more likely to use "unfriendly" farming methods, largely because the connection to the land isn't there. If you over regulate (and its already happening) small farmers who are likely to care about the land get bought out by superfarms. Superfarms typically don't care about sustainability or the landscape. Two farms near us recently went under, and when they were purchased all the wooded areas that had been used for grazing were chopped and plowed under. The regulations that were supposed to help protect wildlife ended up doing tremendous harm.

Another example is Monarch Butterflies. Monarchs feed exclusively on milkweed, and the best place to find milkweed as I grew up was on fence lines (typically between cow-pastures). As farms merge and pasture is being plowed in favor of large straight fields that giant farm implements can drive easily, these areas are vanishing (the idea that the price of corn is diving these changes isn't entirely true, the fact is that even if corn was dirt cheap its more cost effective for a large farm to grow it in giant straight fields with giant implements). Not surprisingly, experts are now worried about declining Monarch populations. Food for thought, I hope.

I did my physics undergrad at the University of Minnesota Duluth, and they graciously let me play around in the mine on occasion. I don't do much particle physics anymore so I'm not particularily equipped to judge their results, but I can say that all kinds of seasonal errors can be introduced in these experiments. Cosmic rays have a seasonal variation for example. Another that happens at Soudan for sure and possibly in Italy is seasonal variation in background radiation. The air circulation at Soudan is largely passive, and there is lots of radon gas seeping from the rocks. In the cold winter the exchange is excellent, but in the summer the circulation is terrible and you get anywhere from 5 to 10 times the radon background in the cave (air in the cave is warmer than outside in the winter and cooler in the summer, you can do the math).

I'm not saying either of those are the cause of this, but there is good reason to squint hard at anything claiming "seasonal evidence" when the claim is extrordainary (in the sense that it is way off from any model). Scientists should be skeptical of this, especially since they are claiming a result before theory suggests a result should even be possible.

The problem I have with solar numbers like the ones you are talking about (one year is low by the way, its more like 2-3 years depending on the area) is that they only consider the solar panel, as though thats all thats required for the system. Any commercially viable solar system requires batteries to implement. Lots of them. If you weigh the price of the "total system" for solar versus anything that produces power on demand (nuclear, hydro, geothermal, and in limited areas wind) solar is still a horrendous technology (batteries are pretty universally expensive to produce and dispose of, have a short life, and are toxic as all hell). I've noticed the cost of reprocessing and disposal of solar cells generally isn't included in these estimates either, which is highly relavent to something mass producible that degrades.

Some will immediately scream in the case of nuclear (picked because you specifically mention that) that its estimates should include the cost of disasters/all future remediation operations (some do, most dont). Its not an unfair criticism, but the numbers are surprisingly low if NEW nuclear is used as the metric. You can't compare disaster predictions for reactors designed in the sixties and leverage that against nuclear forever. New nuclear is orders of magnitude safer and more efficient (I recently visited the site of the new reactors being built in SC, and the new designs produce double the power of the existing reactors on the site with half the parts/pipes, Truly impressive.), and we have reprocessing techniques that could vastly decrease our waste production. There is currently a feedback loop where anti nuclear activists block the adoption of new technology, then use the failures of the old technology (preventable accident, waste, etc.) to justify the continued blocking of the new (safer, less waste generating) technology. Its somewhat ridiculous.

The real problem that plagues lots of "green" technologies is that they are only viable if many other pieces fall into place. Solar power is only useful if it not only improves the cost and efficiency of cells far beyond current levels, but also if battery technology (or for industrial scale solar arrays other storage mediums) greatly improves, and probably only if transmission technology improves (superconductors, etc., since it is likely that electricity will have to be piped some distance). For electric cars you need drastically better batteries, massive upgrades to the current electrical infrastructure, and a "green" source of power (there are more, but I'm starting to ramble) before they even begin to be sensible. And God forbid you tell the solar people they have to try and meet the energy demands of a world filled with electric cars, because that moves the goalposts way back.

In summary, people advocating the technologies that greens hate (nuclear, biofuels, etc) aren't stupid or biased or whatever other derogatory term you were thinking of using. These technologies are understood to be flawed in pretty fundamental ways, and in an ideal world where all the various technologies have fully matured they probably wouldn't be considered. But in the real world, where people are trying to come up with solutions that can be implemented within five to 100 years on a scale large enough to matter, those "bad" technologies win. Sure a fully electric car powered from solar would be great, but a hybrid electric car powered by ethanol and nuclear isn't half bad all things considered. If the option is the former in the next century and a half or the latter in the next decade I'll take door number two, thanks. Filling the world with crappy solar panels and poor electric cars, neither of which can even be implemented on a large scale in the foreseeable future, isn't going to help anyone. And pumping obscene amounts of money into "green" tech won't help it mature any faster, any more than drinking fifty gallons of water in an hour will cure a man of dehydration. Do what you can with what makes sense.

You get "crappy" movies because that is what most people enjoy and are willing to pay for. Some people don't care about depth or creativity, they go to the theater to have an experience. Many want to experience a sappy love story, and through that story assimilate those feelings into their life (if only for a time). Some want to see explosions. Some want cheap scares. As an "movie buff" (presumably in the intellectual sense) you are a niche, as it seems most people watch and pay for movies for more primal reasons. Good or bad, thats reality.

Not to mention the math doesn't work out, unless you are claiming all pirates have your taste in movies. If piracy is dragging down the baseline of profitability for Hollywood, then in relative terms the movies you like were going to be much less profitable than the "pay $8 and forget" movies anyway. Hollywood is about $$, they don't give a rats ass about entertaining you. If you want creativity there are plenty of low budget indie directors you could donate to.

Many farmers would agree that corn subsidies need to end, but the situation is much more complicated than "evil corn lobby and farmers!" I honestly dont expect most people to dig deep enough to figure out whats actually going on, for the same reason I've stopped trying to explain to homophobes why gays aren't evil. Everyone seems to need a little "us versus them" in their diet. But I'll give a quick rundown.

-Ag subsidies in general are a way to slow the bleeding of population out of rural America. The price of commodities in general is so low (due to advancements in machinery and genetics) that the majority of farms would simply go under without some subsidies and tax breaks (either directly or through things like ethanol). In the short term this would lead to all kinds of problems, and frankly some government intervention this way is better than welfare. In the long term all of that freed land would be acquired by superfarms, and we all know how fond slashdot is of cartels...

-Agriculture in general is used as a bargaining chip on the world market, usually in diplomatic negotiations. The money that goes into ag subsidies could be reduced substantially if actual free market forces existed internationally. As it stands, there is a curious correlation between favorable agricultural tariffs/import bans for other nations and technology/manufacturing/??? deals favoring the United States. China blatantly manipulates demand to keep its rural areas from revolting. Europe in general tends to find "health risks" in American ag exports right as their own home industries decline, and ban imports until the local prices increase. Its a dirty business.

-And just fyi, corn isn't grown because there is some large conspiracy. It is very hearty, and with the current genetic modifications can take a lot of abuse from temperamental climates. If cellulistic ethanol pans out modified switch grass will likely take its place, but at the moment there just aren't that many crops positioned to displace corn. Since we went to all the trouble developing industries to create things like bio-degradable plastics from corn, why suddenly yank the rug out and force a move back to non-renewable?

This is just my two cents of course. I just find it discouraging to see so much negativity about rural Americans and farmers specifically. Most are just trying to make minimum wage on a consistent basis. I think if people actually interacted with farmers and were exposed to agriculture (ever) positions such as yours would soften a bit.

The argument agains this is that companies like, say, Charter, will simply put the per MB price so high that consuming media through the internet is infesible. Which is oddly convenient for a company that would then control the only cost-effective media delivery system, a.k.a. cable. Perhaps they make some deal with Microsoft to route X-Box live traffic seperately for a fee, but past that I'm doubtful.