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an idea of the orders of magnitude to be expected. The industry is too young, and there are too many variables.

Although the estimated waste from reactors accumulated by 2000 will be less than the amount of nuclear wastes presently stored, it will be more than the present total fission yield from weapons tests. This can be seen most clearly by looking at strontium 90 figures. Up to January, 1964, the total fission yield from weapons tests was about 193 megatons, resulting in an atmospheric load of strontium 90 of about 1.3 megaruries, and a total worldwide deposition of about 9 megacuries.1 Thus by 1970 the amount of accumulated stronitum 90 in reactorproduced wastes will be about as great as the total produced by weapons testing, and the strontium 90 accumulation by 2000 will be about 700 times as great as the total produced by testing. Other radionuclides produced in the fission process will scale in approximately the same way.

Thus the accumulated amounts of radioactivity will be much larger than the radioactivity released in weapons tests, and they will be concentrated at just a few locations. The very magnitude of these numbers reinforces the need for containment and disposal to be virtually foolproof-depending little or not at all upon the vagaries of natural catastrophe, human carelessness or indifference, and possible nuclear war. The stored amounts of radioactivity might well be about as great

as the total fission yield in a major nuclear war, so the prospect of waste storage systems which are themselves vulnerable to nuclear attack is indeed a serious one. The proposals for waste solidification and ultimate deep burial in monitored waste "cemeteries" would seem to be the only feasible answer to this potential danger.

Clearcut and uniform safety guidelines have not yet been adequately spelled out; the three AEC installations at which waste is presently stored have markedly different approaches to the surveillance of the stored wastes. In addition, experience has shown that the most dedicated and sincere experts in the nuclear field can still fail to foresee substantial potential hazards, and industrial and government administrators have not proven immune to the lure of short-term expedients which entail serious long-term problems. The same criticisms can be made in virtually all phases of our complex society, but mistakes in nuclear technology inay, because of the long-term, irreversible nature of the hazards, carry an unusually severe penalty.

The nuclear industry has heretofore had a quite remarkable safety record by normal industrial standards. However, the unprecedented hazards involved require a continuing commitment toward the study of waste disposal, and the complete development of defect-free processing and disposal methods before the public can be assured that the benefits of nuclear energy may not generate unacceptable risks.

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REFERENCES

1. Journal of the British Nuclear Energy Society, June, 1965, p. 162.

2. Seaborg, Glenn. Address to British Nuclear Energy Society, October 24, 1966.

3. Wall Street Journal, December 27, 1966.

4. "Local Fallout: Hazard from Nevada Tests," Scientist and Citizen, August, 1963, p. 3.

5. SL-I Accident, Atomic Energy Commission Investigation Board Report, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, June, 1961.

6. Duffy, J. G., W. H. Jens, J. G. Feldy, K. P. Johnson and W. H. McCarthy. "Investigation of the Fuel Melting Incident at the Enrico Fermi Power Plant," Proceedings of the American Nuclear Society, National Topical Meeting, April, 1967.

7. McCullough, C. R. "Safety Aspects of Nuclear Reactors," Chapter 7, D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., 1957.

8. Blomeke, J. O. and J. T. Roberts. "Waste Management," Annual Reviews of Nuclear Science, 1965, p. 157. 9. Ibid. p. 156.

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15.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 2, 1967.

16. Blanco, R E, JO. Biomeke and J. T. Roberts. "Solv ing the Waste Disposal Problem," Nucleonics, February, 1967, p. 60-61.

17. Coleman, J. R. and R. Liberace. "Nuclear Power Production and Estimated Krypton 85 Levels," Radiological Health Data and Reports 7, 1966 (Reviewed in S/C, February, 1967).

18. Comar, C. L. "Movement of Fallout Radionuclides Through the Biosphere and Man," Annual Reviews of Nuclear Science, 1965, p. 175.

Joel A. Snow, a National Science Foundation Fellow, is receiving his Ph.D. in physics from Washington University this summer, and will be an associate member of the Center for Advanced Study at the University of Illinois in the fall. He is a member of CEI's Scientific Division (nuclear reactor committee) and author of previous S/C articles. Prior to embarking on his graduate study and research in the field of the theory of superconductivity, he taught for three years at the US Naval Nuclear Submarine School.

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CAN WE SURVIVE THE PEACEFUL ATOM?

John W. Gofman and Arthur R. Tamplin

GT-120-70

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There is a reasonable segment of the thinking population which considers the environmental-ecologic fanfare a first-class cop-out convenient diversion of anger over the injustices of racism, of poverty, of an idiotic dehumanizing war, of man's general inhumanity to other men. We have no doubt that this is a precisely correct diagnosis of the meaning of the lip-service paid to the "environmental crisis" by numerous politicians and others who indeed would like to have the heat taken off the

issue of our national absence of any rational sense of priorities or

values.

Today, however, we should like to point out, using atomic energy as a prime example, that the environmental crisis is not really a diversion from what might be regarded as truly important issues of our time. Rather, it is a manifestation of the ultimate retribution and irony that faces a society which, at best, can be charitably said to be free of a system of human values and, at worst, possessed of a grossly inverted set of centering around human instant greed and human power over other humans. The irony aspect arises because no favored group will be able to find a plastic bubble in which to hide from the consequences of an unbridled Madison Avenue hucksterism bent upon the creation of products and diversion of energies into activities

values

worthwhile human needs and goals.

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both totally unrelated to

Optimism that we can survive is hardly justified. Yet,

because hope springs eternal, it seems worthwhile to describe one of the most serious manifestations of the rape of the environment by what

may be called the ultimate pollution in the faint hope that yet another illustration of human folly might somehow brake our determined, head

long race toward disaster in the form of conversion of the earth to the stark, lifeless beauty of the Moon.

All of you know that the Atomic Era was ushered in during World War II with the development and use of atomic bombs. The newly-found ability to destroy life in a wholesale, efficient, inexpensive manner was indeed awesome. The Congress of the United States recognized this potential and, in what appeared a sound move, decided that the further development of atomic energy must be kept out of the hands of the military establishment. Thus, the Atomic Energy Act created a civilian Atomic Energy Commission and charged it with the dual responsibility of meeting the National Security needs in atomic weapons and at the same time of bringing to society all the benefits which nuclear energy must surely have in store. A last proviso was duly added, that all this should be accomplished with careful attention to the safety and health of the public. No doubt the motivation of the Congress was of the highest. The result, however, has been a fiasco of mammoth proportions. retrospect one might say the outcome was predictable, but that is because of the enormous power of hindsight.

In

Several hopeless ingredients are now evident in the mix

which has led to the present danger to life provided by the technology

of atomic energy as developed under the aegis of the Atomic Energy

Commission:

1.

The same cast of characters held the responsibility for the military and "peaceful" aspects of the development of atomic energy.

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