Quote:
Originally Posted by morls
Yeah, and nuclear accidents have the potential to make places uninhabitable, totally toxic to life, over a wide area, for a long, long time...
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That's why there's a combined 1-2 million people now living in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That's also why in the Gabon in Africa there is a natural nuclear reactor that has been leaching radioactive isotopes out into the surrounding countryside for the best part of 2.5 billion years and still is. That same reactor melted down about a billion years ago. That same nuclear reactor is loaded with all sorts of life forms, especially various species of bacteria.
People need to get a little perspective about nuclear materials and the harm they can cause. Most of the nuclear isotopes that will leak from these reactors are short lived...yes, they will cause harm if ingested or they're come into contact for any period of time in exposed situations. So long as the containment vessels aren't breached and the plutonium in the core of the reactors isn't leaking out, nature will do the rest to clean the materials out of the ecosystem. Many of these isotopes are of elements which are highly reactive....iodine, cesium etc, with relatively short half-lives but that chelate readily with many of the substances found in ground and seawaters....chlorine and sodium salts, clay particles etc. In short, they're taken out of the system rather quickly. It's only substances such as Strontium 90, Plutonium and any isotope that gives of gamma rays on decay which are inherently dangerous, especially if they have long half-lives. However, the main problem with Plutonium isn't the immediate radioactivity, it's the fact that it is inherently a very toxic substance....chemically. It doesn't take much exposure to do a lot of damage and that's on top of its radioactive dangers.