It is just as much hassle to open a letter passing through the post office by steaming it open as it is for a lawyer somewhere to subpoena and get the contents of an email you sent through gmail.

However, it is much easier for the NSA to use their backdoor into gmail to make an automated request for all of a person's emails and all of the emails of everyone that emailed them and store that information. Even if they decide that they don't need that information, it will still get stored, and that stored information could be leaked. Just the other day we heard about how Snowden used the "brilliant" tactic of privilege elevation and masquerading as other users to get data. If the NSA's system is designed such that one person can do this, you can bet that there are plenty more who do it and put the information to their own use without feeling the need to go public with it.

If an area the size of Greenland is depressed 300 meters, I'd wonder if it is deformation of the Earth's crust and the whole thing could be pushed back up by internal pressures when the weight is gone. Not assuming anything, just wondering if that could happen and what the impact on sea levels would be if it did.

"If the Greenland ice sheet melts completely it will raise global sea level by 7 metres and swamp many major cities" (article)

Does this account for what would happen when Greenland floats back up?

Propaganda. Erik the Red named it that in 985 AD to get people to colonize it with him.

That's the amount of ash that escapes the controls. Look at how little it is as compared to the captured ash. Put on the same scale, 100g/MWh vs 85,000,000g/MWh retained fly ash & bottom ash.

"the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy"

The quote isn't actually comparing coal waste to nuclear waste, it compares coal waste to overall nuclear power production. No nuclear power plant can be 100% shielded from all escaping radiation, nor can containment of radioactive waste, unless you build a vault so thick that no gamma ray can pass entirely through it, which is statistically practically impossible. Therefore, nuclear power production leaks a very small amount of radiation. At a certain distance from the reactor or waste storage, the radiation emitted from the reactor or waste drops to a point where it becomes indistinguishable from local background radiation. It is in this range that the radiation has added measurably to the environment. In a proper plant design, this range is within the plant's perimeter, and ideally within the containment structure itself.

So, no, it isn't saying escaped/released nuclear waste, it is referring to the radiation emissions from nuclear power production, which some percentage of will pass through the available shielding.

At some point, when I have some free time, I'll try and work out the relative radiations of actual waste products, out of curiosity. For reference, coal fly and bottom ash, together, release 5-6 (up to 8) picocuries of radiation per gram. A modern coal plant produces fly ash that leaves the stack at about 100g/MWh (going directly into the environment, uncontrolled) and produce 85kg/kWh of ash (recovered fly & bottom ash). Therefore a typical coal plant producing 3.5TWh/year creates waste emitting 1.8 curies/year, or 66.6 GBq (GigaBecquerels)/year. I don't have numbers handy for the waste products per power produced for nuclear.

Of course, I'll agree that this is somewhat overstating the case. When stored as a unit in a giant landfill, the vast majority of this radiation will never leave the landfill, because the material surrounding it will act as shielding. Only radiation emitted within, say, the outermost 10 meters or so will have any significant chance of reaching the outside world.

But the point isn't really that coal ash is a particularly dangerous radioactive substance, it is that we analyze nuclear power to an extreme but other sources of power get a free pass because they look easy to understand. When analyzed side by side, taking all factors into account, nuclear power, especially modern plants, should come out on top. At least until we have a significant fusion capability, or solar becomes significantly cheaper, more efficient, and lower in production toxicity.

I cited my source, and if it is wrong, as sources sometimes are, then I'm ready and willing to look at your refuting evidence. If all you're going to do is engage in attacks, then your position isn't one I'm likely to consider, even if it's right.

Editor's note citation: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste&page=2

Just because something is radioactive doesn't mean it is useful and able to be used to produce uranium. Yes, nuclear waste is very radioactive, per kg of waste, and fly ash is not very radioactive, per kg of waste. When compared to kWh of generated power, however, fly ash contains more decaying atoms than the waste from a nuclear reactor that produced the same kWh of generated power.

Well, its 14 thousand vs 3 million, but yes you're right, I was citing the pure uranium numbers and not the 'natural' uranium numbers, before enrichment.

Power plants typically take the heat generated by their fuel, which must then be converted into electrical energy, generally by heating water to steam to turn turbines. With that considered, the kWh below is of the heat output. Conversion to electricity is within the usual turbine efficiencies.

• 1kg of uranium can generate 24,000,000 kWh
• 1kg of coal can generate 8 kWh
• 3,000,000kg of coal can generate 24,000,000 kWh
• Which is to say, 1kg uranium = 3,000,000 kg coal

Then there's the fly ash problem. Fly ash can be 100 times as radioactive as nuclear waste, per kWh generated, and much of it goes up a flue. Nuclear waste is entirely contained unless there's a spill, and spills are tightly monitored. A coal plant produces about 8% of the input's weight as fly ash. Therefore, that 3,000,000kg of coal produces 240,000kg of fly ash. The coal industry desperately wants you to believe that fly ash is harmless, but it contains numerous toxins and if used near water sources will leach heavy metals into the water supply. Nuclear waste, by contrast, is well contained and small. Nuclear plants produce a bit more waste in output relative to input, because the radiation gets into the surrounding materials which then have to be managed as well as the fuel, but we're talking an input of 1kg of fuel generating perhaps 2-10kg of waste, versus coal's 240,000kg of waste for the same kWh of fuel.

Like.

Would it? While we couldn't readily eliminate the electoral college without a constitutional amendment, I don't recall anywhere in the constitution where the specific method of voting is prescribed. Isn't that delegated to the states? They should be free to switch to another system, like a preferential voting system.

I get the feeling that it was the kind of line that should have been expounded on, but for fear that it would become that much more transparent. A more full line might have read...

"How on earth could I, a junior analyst, possibly believe I could change the world for the better over the decisions of those with the proper authority? I divulged sensitive information to a third party with insufficient regard for the impact of that information. That information could have led to the deaths of Americans, leaving only negative impact. To make a positive change in the world it would have had to be seen by Americans. Those Americans would have had to petition our government to stop the atrocities revealed in the documents. Maybe even to have inspired another individual to turn "treasonous" and blow the whistle on even deeper secrets, surveillance penetrating the core of the American way. Going all the way to the top, until the President himself has to go on television and make a speech about reviewing our programs. How on earth could I, a junior analyst, possibly believe I could change the world for the better..."

Big Government is afraid of the damage Big Data could do because it knows the impact of storing and processing massive quantities of data. It has a lot of experience doing this, itself, and is afraid of anyone else doing the same thing.