You know, the media gets things wrong so often, it really is quite impossible to keep count. I've noted before that if you read a media report on some subject where you personally have some degree of expertise, you will find inaccuracies. Sometimes they will be stunningly stupid mistakes that will leave you shaking your head. Unfortunately, many people (though this appears to be changing) will then go right ahead reading the news and reacting to a story on which they have little personal knowledge as if it were completely true. Frankly, if they get it wrong on a subject you know, why in the world do you automatically assume they got it right on something else?
Today, the Associated Press graces us with a report on nuclear waste that, frankly, gets it stunningly wrong.
BEAUMONT-HAGUE, France – Thousands of canisters of highly radioactive waste from the world's most nuclear-energized nation lie, silent and deadly, beneath this jutting tip of Normandy. Above ground, cows graze and Atlantic waves crash into heather-covered hills.
The spent fuel, vitrified into blocks of black glass that will remain dangerous for thousands of years, is in "interim storage." Like nearly all the world's nuclear waste, it is still waiting for the long-term disposal solution that has eluded scientists and governments in the six decades since the atomic era began…….……Now the "pros" are on a new mission to dispel a generation of scares and suspicion, saying nuclear power is less dangerous to humans and the Earth than burning oil or coal. The "antis" say nuclear energy can never offer 100 percent protection from its radioactive ingredients.
The splitting of uranium atoms in a nuclear reactor creates the exceptional heat that drives turbines to provide electricity. The process also creates radioactive isotopes such as cesium-137 and strontium-90 that take about 30 years to lose half their radioactivity. Higher-level leftovers includes plutonium-239, with a half-life of 24,000 years. (Ed Note: Wrong. The heat is not "exceptional" – it is merely heat.)
Direct exposure to such highly radioactive material, even for a short period, can be fatal. Indirect exposure, through seepage into groundwater, can lead to life-threatening illness for those living nearby and environmental damage. (Ed. Note: Wrong. Seepage into groundwater directly exposes one to what has leaked. That is the object of vitrification. Bound to glass, the waste cannot leach.)
For now, the best scientific solution for getting rid of the most lethal waste is to shove it deep underground……
……Another option is recycling. Countries such as France, Russia and Japan reprocess much nuclear waste into new fuel. That dramatically reduces the volume: Forty years' worth of France's highly radioactive waste is stored under just three floor surfaces, each about the size of a basketball court, at Beaumont-Hague.
Recycling, though, produces plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons — so the United States bans it, fearing proliferation. (Wrong. Carter banned it, Reagan reversed the ban. But it has never restarted in the US due to political pressures – and erroneous reporting.)
And not all waste can be reprocessed. The deadliest bits — such as fuel rod casings and other reactor parts as well as concentrated fuel residue containing plutonium and highly enriched uranium — must be sealed and stored away.
The object of recycling is to reclaim the plutonium and uranium. What is left after that, the fission byproducts and non-reclaimable waste, is what is then vitrified – or melted into glass. The object of binding the residue with glass is that it will not leach into the environment. Go read this and this and be better informed than the AP. Heck, even the Seattle PI has a better handle on vitrification of waste.
As an engineer, I don’t play one on TV, but in real life, I don’t bother with the media. When engineers get it wrong, bridges fall down and people get killed. They can’t afford to “read the newspaper” lest it pollute their thinking.
The article mentions grazing cows and ocean waves and then implies incorrectly that the nuclear waste could leech into the soil. The author has an agenda, it is not a mistake.
I would rather read an article about reactor pressure vessel embrittlement and how it is being dealt with in all those 30+ year old reactors in France
To the MSM, the narrative is all that matters, not facts, truth, or reality, just the narrative, the blessed, sacred, politically correct, and holy of holist, narrative. Don’t you know nuclear stuff is EVIIL?
I have expertise in agriculture and tax accounting. I have used nearly the same words as you regarding the media reporting on subjects within the scope of my special knowledge.
Most MSM journalists think that if the can operate a computer, use a cell phone, and sometimes watch The Discovery Channel they are scientific and technological experts. When the real experts disagree, they are either ignored or smeared.
In my previous life I was an engineer with a masters degree (I gave it up for the high-pay low-stress career of teaching). It was when I was an undergraduate (during the early 1980s) that I lost all faith in the credibility of the MSM.
The issue? The MSM’s outright dishonesty on the subject of Three Mile Island and nuclear power in general.
The plant I worked at had a steam generator tube rupture a few years after TMI. They granted extraordinary access to a local reporter, explained everything in great detail, toured the reporter all over and answered every question with complete honesty.
The article the reporter produced was so full of factual error it was astonishing. Nobody could believe how awful it was.
I know exactly where you are coming from, Mwalimu.
You know, the media gets things wrong so often, it really is quite impossible to keep count.
That’s why I decided instead to keep count of how many times they get it right.
It’s been a very quiet ten years.
I work as an electrical engineer for a gov’t owned electric utility (hydro power). I cringe whenever a reporter calls asking questions. First of all, the resulting article is usually a biased hit job. And second, the mistakes in the article are enough to make you laugh. “Such and such a power line will transmit 300,000 volts per year.” If they botch the article in an area that I am familiar with, what are they doing on the articles about subjects I don’t know anything about?
By the way:
leach (verb) To dissolve out by the action of a percolating liquid .
leech (verb) To bleed by the use of leeches.
Sorry to be punctilious.
Spel chek wurks gud. Thanks for pointing that out.
While I was at university, a radical black guy spoke to an assembly of students. The utter drivel that the local press reported about was incredible. They simply made up stuff. If you were not at the event, and only read the newspaper lies, you would have no idea about what really happened.
I have spoken with a number of other people who attended political events that were reported upon by the media. They, too, were incredulous at how wrong the media got it.
So, I am not at all surprise that the media mess up scientific stuff; I would be surprised if they got it right, or even close to right.
The NARRATIVE is all that matters; reporters are out to change the world into their own image of what it SHOULD be (so lies are OKAY, if not required).