We think we are depositing the waste in a "safe" area that will never be inhabited, and area in which it will never cause harm to humans or even wildlife. But the world gets smaller and smaller and there is less and less wasteland in which to throw our poisonous waste.

We cannot impose our nuclear waste on future generations. That is one of the main reasons that I oppose nuclear energy.

because it can harm people in the future.

BTW I have this nice bridge for sale in San Francisco overlooking the bay and I am wondering if anyone would be interested in purchasing it?

trade it for some 'waterfront in florida'

Does it have a view?

after being exposed to something like this, will they die? why do governments lie to us so much? why is power(perceived) such a drug that people with it lose their humanity? this world is evil.

Depends on a lot of things that I, as a non nuclear physicist, and not a physicist at all, don't know

rich people to get richer. Really. Think about it. It drives EVERYTHING.

- Because they know that we know what they've done to us. And they're afraid one day we won't take it anymore and make them pay for it......

Exactly what was predicted by science fiction back in the fifties. We'll have to have an eternal priesthood to take care of the waste and warn us away from it. Maybe we can build giant pyramids in the desert and bury it under them, thereby guaranteeing that grave robbers dig it up and spread it around in a few hundred years.

whether chemical, nuclear waste etc., we depend upon those who know about the incident to do the right thing. When money is at stake - that is an easy call.
I just hope these people are OK and don't have long lasting effects. The people responsible for leaving it there have a ton of ways to avoid liability.

they are likely in big trouble. They must have received a large dose, possibly a fatal dose.

These are the same people who reported that authorities dug up Sarin gas in a doctor's backyard a few years ago. Give it a week, and you'll find out these guys ruptured a sewer line.

If the workers had gotten that sick immediately upon exposure, they'd already be dead.

Vomiting is one of the first symptoms of exposure and can come from relatively small amounts.

http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp157-c3.pdf

Plenty of things can immediately nauseate someone, but radiation in most "reasonable" doses isn't one of them.

Hours to a couple of days, maybe, but the article's talking about people who began vomiting merely by getting close to whatever it was they found; that quick a reaction would need a couple of dozen Grays and is getting into the territory of being near something that was actually critical.

they were working there.

could've been hours.

That suggests something happened pretty quickly, anyway.

These are the communications mavens of King Cong (coal, oil, nuclear, gas)

Otherwise, they'd best prepare their wills, and their lawyers.

A cleanup should have been top priority. An investigation of top government officials is in order!

No warning signs? No fenced in area with symbols for radiation attached along the length? Whoever is responsible, if they haven't died already, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/pacific-highway-site-clear-of-radioactive-waste-roads-minister-duncan-gay-says/story-e6frg6nf-1226331772039

Mr Gay said initial investigations had found no radioactive material at the site, but assured people the government was "treating this investigation seriously and we are taking all the necessary precautions to protect workers at the site".

"Independent chemical specialists could not find any radioactive material present in samples taken from the site to date, but investigations are ongoing into any other possible contaminated substances," Mr Gay said in a statement.

He said a broader investigation would be conducted into the Pacific Highway site, but he said the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) had confirmed a container that fell from the truck in 1980 did not rupture and had been transported to Brisbane.

...

But Frank Harris, an Australian expert with nearly 25 years' experience in radiation protection, said the Pacific Highway workers on Wednesday simply could not have fallen ill as a result of exposure. "This description of people vomiting after being for a short time in close proximity (to the material) cannot happen from any of the radiation sources in Australia," the former Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) scientist told AAP. But he said it wasn't out of the question that the Pacific Highway workers could have become sick with worry.

You've gotta be kidding. Yeah, every time my 16 y.o. drives the car, I start vomiting.

Given the speed with which nausea occured.


See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident for the details of how 4 people died of Cesium-137 radiation in Brazil.

Everyone has an agenda, it's hardly unusual.

Most of us have a subject or three about which we're not particularly rational, man isn't a rational animal for the most part but rather an animal that rationalizes.

You say "nuclear" to a lot people and they see something like this, it's unfortunate but a lot of us grew up cowering under school desks practicing for the day that happened all over the world.

And THAT could still happen in a fucking heartbeat if every last nuclear power plant and scrap of waste on the planet suddenly disappeared into the heart of the Sun.

It's irrational to ignore the essential irrationality of the people your'e dealing with.

Overcoming my own knee-jerk reaction to the words nuclear power is difficult, I don't always manage it and I certainly don't trust private industry to exercise all due caution with things nuclear, government can be slipshod enough but at least they don't have the raw naked profit motive for cutting corners that private industry has.

Didn't mean to irritate you, just telling it like I see it..

A whole lot easier to drop something on the Moon than it is to send the same package to the Sun. The orbital velocity of the Earth is about 30 kilometers per second, you have to shed most of that to get to the Sun *after* you got to Earth orbit.. The orbital velocity of the Moon around the Earth on the other hand is only 1 kilometer per second...

The Sun is actually a difficult place to get to from the Earth in terms of delta vee (fuel usage basically).

Seems you're apologetic for not being gung ho about nukes.

Evidently radiation had nothing to do with the incident in question, something the poster had deduced from inconsistencies in the story.

For another, I have to try pretty hard not to let my inner asshole out, sometimes I overdo and seem like an actual nice person.

It's a failing..Mea culpa.

I don't believe a word coming from any gov. about anything like this. Whether it's a heckuva job in Katrina, spraying "safe" Corexit in the Gulf or a Fukushima meltdown, gov's lie most of the time in such situations.

Those workers would be dead or dying by now with all sorts of nasty symptoms, almost like turning inside out.

I mean huge huge, like "insert plutonium in mouth" huge, or "an actual nuclear weapon went off nearby" huge. The symptoms described in the article are symptoms of radiation sickness, but the onset for all but the most incredibly spectacular cases of high dosages are hours todays, not seconds to minutes.

Even Slotin's dose from the Demon Core took a little time to get to those kinds of levels, and he was actually holding a critical chunk of plutonium for a moment to get what he got.

For the record, my sole connection with the nuclear industry is I once worked part time doing IT for a management consulting company, which wrote a report on glassification of waste. Oh and I painted their offices too.

The subject is simply something which has interested me since I was a child, and as such I pay attention to FACT and put the boot into people who have the sheer gall to tell me to my face that their beliefs overide any possible truths.