Well, I tried to shut up and let you guys get back to work, but you just wouldnt let me. 😊
As for Gofman, I previously read some of his stuff on reactor safety. He has some good points, but I think he is a bit extreme or purist on some arguments like voluntary versus involuntary exposures (unless you want to also shut down most industries using similar arguments).
Too many people fall for the Limits to Growth, zero-feedback, exponential growth models. There are other views. The earth does seem to be supporting much of the world living at incomes similar to America's. If some do it by using less energy, then they're demonstrating it's possible to be more energy-efficient, and that should give hope for the rest of the world. I tend to agree with Thomas Friedman's view that the real economic problem with most places is their business infrastructures are still using the economic equivalent of ms-dos 1.0.
On solid waste and landfills, most materials come out of holes in the ground, so there should be plenty of room to put wastes back into holes in the ground. Mass is conserved although volume may be increased some. The problem with the hazardous portions of those wastes is they don't all decay away like radioactive wastes.
I also liked the "stored sunlight" analogy until I read about possibility of "abiotic" formation of petroleum. I don't know if that's a crackpot idea or not. As for geothermal energy, I'm fairly comfortable with Hollenbach's recent work on a Deep-Earth reactor possibly being involved.
On Mayak and polluted sites, an interesting exercise to put things in perspective regarding nuclear waste problems versus other pollution problems is to look at some of the EPA superfund sites. Even in states with problems related to nuclear weapons production, those sites have mostly chemical problems, and there more sites with primarily chemical problems that are unrelated to nuclear (although some are other defense-related). Looking at power plants in Scorecard is also illustrative.
Every power source has advantages and disadvantages; we need to do the best we can with what we've got, and not put too many artificial barriers in our way. Most of our sources (coal, oil and gas) spew their leftovers directly into the air, but nuclear does the best we can to keep it bottled up as long as possible. But nothing raises donations like the fear of a meltdown...
Anybody checked prices on solar panel systems lately?!
-- Another environmentalist for nuclear power
