2008/01/04

man in the moon


My brilliant solution for disposing of nuclear waste: bury it on The Moon!

In this time of ever increasing energy costs, forward-thinkers are harder pressed than ever to come up with possible ways to produce clean energy for fuelling our jet-skis, dune-buggies, and $2,000,000 sports cars.

Nuclear energy was viewed as the cleanest energy source available for a long time. Unfortunately, no one knew how to dispose of the waste.

Here in Ontari-ari-ari-o (historically a big proponent of nuclear energy), I recall a proposal to bury our nuclear waste in an abandoned mineshaft near Timmins. (Possibly the same mineshaft that people were recently proposing we use to bury Toronto's garbage? Who owns that property, I muse aloud...)

The only problem with this proposal was that nuclear waste has a half-life of something approaching 50,000 years. Since the geological record indicates that Ontario suffers a major earthquake every 5,000 years or so, that leaves lots of chances for ruptured nuclear waste containers buried in mineshafts to leak radiation into the environment.

Not exactly "Keeping Ontario Beautiful" in the long run, is it?

That is why I propose burying nuclear waste on the moon. If there is an earthquake (or more likely a major asteroid strike) and the containers are ruptured, leaking radiation into the 'atmosphere', then it is still no big deal.

It is not like the radiation is going to leak into our atmosphere, or anything.

Alternatively, we could just load up old, crappy USSR rockets with spent nuclear fuel and send them into the Sun. If that might theoretically destablise the Sun (who really knows?) we could always point the rockets at, say, the Dog Star (I have always felt dislike for the Dog Star) and fire away!

All I am saying, purely hypothetically, is why not put all this 'space science' stuff to work and help solve what is shaping up to be the biggest problem of the 21st (or is it the 22nd?) century-- how to fuel our God-given right to a "Mountain Dew" lifestyle as strategically as possible.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

what if the rocket goes boom on the way up.....

PALGOLAK said...

Of course, significant regulatory safeguards would have to be enacted.

Those busy capitalists out there (primarily in China and the Great Satan) would certainly abuse this innovation, otherwise.

A valid question!

Anonymous said...

I say we make MORE of this stuff!,See, if we have enough to shoot EVERYBODY, ( God , I loathe Altair!), then we'll be a big deal!

Anonymous said...

We have already developed the techonology to reduce the wastes danger to one hundred years. Unfortunately nobody is willing to implement it.

Passing the buck has never been a good plan.

Anonymous said...

We are a stupid species for making the stuff to begin with.

PALGOLAK said...

First anonymous, I discount your comment because I sense an unacceptable level of gaeity.

albur, I have no idea what you are talking about. Can you provide detail?

Second anonymous, I hear your words.