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[Angle]

...Facepalm.

[MrWiggles]

No, there almost no HE3 on the Earth, all deposits of any note are on other celestial bodies. Our very own moon has a a shit load of it.

[10ebbor10]

Problem with He-3 + Deuterium fusion (Ie Second generation fusion) is that:
A) We can't even get first generation(Dueterium+tritium) fusion to produce energy
B) There's almost no research being done into it, as there's not enough He-3 availble (There's exactly one test second gen fusion reactor*)
C) * Results from that reactor show some hard to overcome problems. Primarly the fact that Deuterium reacts about a hundred times as fast with itself then with He-3, resulting in a Deuterium + Deuterium= Tritium==> Tritium + Deuterium reaction rather than the intended reaction

[Karnewarrior]

One of the reasons space travel would be worth the effort is because we could just dump all our radioactive waste onto some random ass asteroid, or hell, make our own.

I'd like to pull a asteroid into orbit and use that. Would that irradiate us all, or make an awesome glowy green moon?

[10ebbor10]

One of the reasons space travel would be worth the effort is because we could just dump all our radioactive waste onto some random ass asteroid, or hell, make our own.

I'd like to pull a asteroid into orbit and use that. Would that irradiate us all, or make an awesome glowy green moon?

It would jam all our sattelites, and iradiate passing spaceships. It's not getting through the athmosphere though.

[miauw62]

Not if we dump it far enough away.
Think rings of saturn.
Or even better, just dump it IN a gas giant.

[10ebbor10]

Not if we dump it far enough away.
Think rings of saturn.
Or even better, just dump it IN a gas giant.

The Sun is closer, and less energy intensive at that.

However, I doubt dumping nuclear waste in space is ever going to be viable. You'll be getting a net energy loss

[GreatJustice]

*Might I add that Fukushima is still leaking radiation, but apparently no one cares anymore

Negligible amounts.

More than enough to greatly increase the chance of painful death in the area.

Nuclear fission does have one big disadvantage: The more waste is generated, the deeper you'll have to dig to store it.... Or chuck it in a mountain, but that's not nearly as Fun.

Most waste can be run through a breeder reactor and used again if needed. France deals with most of its nuclear waste in this way, and it works better than, say, hollowing out a mountain and tossing your nuclear waste inside.

[10ebbor10]

*Might I add that Fukushima is still leaking radiation, but apparently no one cares anymore

Negligible amounts.

More than enough to greatly increase the chance of painful death in the area.

Isn't that because of the already escaped radiation. As far as I know, the reactors are currently completly shut down.

Besides, Fukushima was a second generation reactor, and the disaster has been contributed to human error, proving that there are no unovercomeable problems with nuclear power.

[miauw62]

Even if the reactors are shut down, radiation stays for a fucklong time.

[Sheb]

Also, I'd like to ee sources for the massive death losses due to Fukushima. Even Tchernobyl only caused a few thousand deaths, and that was due to piss-poor handling (Stuff like not evacuating people and allowing farmer to sell contaminated milk to kids).

Compared to the hundred of thousands that die each year from coal plants (Even in developed country they kill thousands), nuclear is friggin' safe.

[10ebbor10]

Chernobyls death counts where a bit larger then a few thousand, if you count the indirect deaths. Then again, Chernobyls was stupidly designed, extremely poor handled, and most important of all, did not have an outer shell.
The fact that the USSR did not say anything untill the radioactivity sensors of a reactor went off from the radioactive rains.

Most of these problems have been solved however. Current designs shut down whenever they get power problems.* And are much more resilient. It took an Earthquake and Tsunami to take the Fukushima plant down, combined with inferior safety procedures. Even then, rather than blowing up in seconds, it was more of a slow meltdown.

*The Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters are eerily system. Both feature a partial meltdown/ cool water blow up when the cooling system failed (Accidently deactivated in Chernobyl, broken by the earthquake in Fukushima) and a failure of the emergency cooling system to activate in time(The Chernobyl reactor overheated before the generator kicked in(Ironically, the test that caused this was just to test that system), while the Fukushima's emergency power generator was flooded by the Tsunami )

[Sheb]

Well, direct death toll is 47 from acute radiation sickness. Indirect death toll estimates vary greatly depending on the study you look at, but except for Greenpeace, even opponent of Nuclear power tends to agree around a figure of 30-40,000 deaths.

[GreatJustice]

A disproportionate amount of the indirect deaths would be children dead from thyroid inflammation and so on, though.

Plus, they evacuated everyone a fair ways around Chernobyl and the area is still basically deserted, whereas there are lots of people living around Fukushima.

[Sheb]

The only evacuated them after the damage was done. The region around Fukushima was evacuated much earlier.

And thyroid cancer are usually non-lethal. And can be prevented by distributing iodine which I'm pretty sure the Japanese did and the Soviets did not.