Project Sunshine

[Lloyd]

This is a bit on the scary side...gee I wonder what else lurks in the gov web.

http://www.hss.energy.gov/healthsafety/ihs/marshall/collection/data/ihp1b/7588_.pdf


http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/radiation/dir/mstreet/commeet/meet15/brief15/tab_d/br15d2.txt
The meeting was then turned over to Dr. Libby, who was now an AEC
Commissioner.  Dr. Libby began by stating that there was no effort
more important to the AEC than Sunshine. However. "[t]here are great
gaps in the data."  He explained that: (Tr. 6)

         By far the most important [gap] is human samples.  We have
         been reduced to essentially zero level on the human samples.  
         I don't know how to get them but I do say that it is a
         matter of prime importance to get them and particularly in
         the young age group.

    The supply of stillborns had evidently been shut off: (Tr. 7)

         We were fortunate, as you know to obtain a large number of
         stillborns as material.  This supply, however, has now been
         cut off also,  and shows no signs, I think, of being
         rejuvenated.

                  2



    Therefore, Libby told the audience, expertise in "body snatching"
would be highly valued: (Tr.

         So human samples are of prime importance and if anybody
         knows how to do a good job of body snatching, they will
         really be serving their country.

    Libby recalled that when Project Sunshine was created in 1953, a
law firm was hired to study this problem: (Tr. 12)

         I don't know how to snatch bodies.  In the original study on
         the Sunshine at Rand [the Rand Corporation] in the summer of
         1953, we hired an expensive law firm to look up the law of
         body snatching.  This compendium is available to you.  It is
         not very encouraging.  It shows you how very difficult it is
         going to be to do legally.  

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=APU&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=%22project+sunshine%22+radiation&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

[Lloyd]

http://nuclear-news.net/

If we can't drill then we must have nukes or do with less or without... To me micro co-gen seems better with a drill...then with nukes.

Lloyd

[WGB]

Report was released the day I was born.
Makes you warm and fuzzy doesn't it!

[AdeV]

Makes you warm and fuzzy doesn't it!

Warm and blurry maybe.... blurry round the edges. Radiation tends to do that...
 

[Lloyd]

http://www.hss.energy.gov/nuclearsafety/env/guidance/rcra/pbacidbatteries.pdf

Thank you for your letter dated May 24, 2001 requesting clarification of the Land
Disposal Restrictions (LDR) treatment standard for discarded radioactive contaminated lead acid
batteries. As you know, the LDR treatment standard must be met before hazardous waste may be
land disposed. There are three subcategories under the LDR treatment standard for lead:
numerical treatment standards are required for general wastes exhibiting the lead toxicity
characteristic (TC); lead recovery (i.e., smelting) is required for lead acid batteries; and
macroencapsulation is required for radioactive lead shielding and other elemental forms of lead.
You explained that several Department of Energy facilities manage drained, lead acid
batteries which are radioactively contaminated. These batteries display the TC for lead. You
asked whether you should apply the LDR treatment standard that requires lead recovery, or the
one that requires macroencapsulation of radioactive lead shielding and other forms of elemental
lead.

While I know many on this forum don't want to get into politics, this to me is kinda of an important issue. As I don't think Solar/Wind is ready for prime time...I don't support nukes...so that leaves us with the petro...but if as a result of the deepwater accident...what do we do for the near future...

It seems for at least the next 10 years oil, along with conservation is our only real solution.

I just don't trust any government with nukes. It seems at least with oil, when an accident happens ther is a probable chance that humans and the environment will recover...With nukes it is additive...and we will reach a point where humans nor the environment can be sustained, on this planet.

Lloyd

i don't want to just bury my head in the sand.

[M61hops]

I'd say we can't trust the goverment with oil either  !  It looks like the gulf will be a wasteland for the next several lifetimes of the children there.  I don't know why they arent spraying oil eating bacteria all over the coast down there, at least then maybe the bacteria would get buried in with all the oil and maybe speed up the recovery.  There seems to be a lot of secrecy around what is going on and that makes me wonder whose interests are being served  !                   Leland

[cognos]

I'm a big fan of nuclear done right. As I see it, it's the only power production method that has a hope of sustaining what passes for modern society in the future.

As far as a gulf oil spill...

No point in spraying an oil spill in the gulf with oil-eating bacteria - it's already there in amounts that wouldn't be augmented by man in any meaninful way.

Corexit 9500 and other dispersants make the oil available to the bacteria quicker (smaller droplets, larger surface area, bigger interface with the ocean) - that's part of how it works and why it's used.

Other "chemicals" - like sugar and some fertilizers - will be applied to help the bacteria multiply and eat up the oil as fast as possible. Problem with this is it's a massive amount oil that may take a good amount of time to decrease to a level that the public will shift it's fickle gaze away from, and go back to demanding cheap gas and gobbling it up as fast as it's produced.

There was a massive spill in the gulf in 1979, took a year or so to get off the public's radar, and the people around the gulf got used to a product called TarGone, used to remove tar off one's feet after a stroll on the beach. Was an outrage then, now it's just business as usual.

The government has no magic wand to wave and make it all nice again, no matter what one would like to believe. *Any* meaningful expertise lies with the "Evil Big Oil." And it's being used, and developed on the fly, faster than anything I've ever seen...

[rl71459]

Thanks Cognos

I appreciate your information about how things work (Oil/Dispersants/Environment).

I wish the media would begin providing "Usefull" stuff! instead of all the whining and finger pointing thats
all over the place!

Please do not take this as a lack of concern about the environment... I feel it is important to focus on where we need to go... less on how we got here!

The "bad guys" will get what they have comeing in time.

Rob

[Crofter]

Rob, I think the bad guys may just be all the you's and I's. We were certainly professionally coerced to consume though if that is any consolation for the collective conscience. Whatever the future holds it wont be in the name of punishment but it likely wont feel like any reward either. It it going to take some getting use to living on perhaps less than half the energy we presently consume. The ones presently supplying the other half of our energy and material goods are going to have to find something else to occupy themselves too.

Our present economic model goes into failure mode whenever faced with the idea of backing away from an ever expanding growth scenario. Collectively we seem to have all our eggs in that one basket! Might be getting ready for one of them thar "paradigm shifts". We will probably go "kicking and screaming" though.

[rl71459]

Hi Crofter

You have made another great presentation of "Useful" information.... My only point is that the media should try to present all of the info! Not just what makes ratings or scares the public.

I agree! we are in for some "Big" changes... I wonder how many of them my family and I will live to see?

Rob

[vdubnut62]

I wonder more how many of the changes our families will be "permitted " to live through!
Face it, the herd is being thinned.
Ron

[Crofter]

Ron, I think you have to give yourself the permissions and make as many of the changes as you can "on your own terms". Our needs are not too hard to satisfy but much of what we have been taught to "want" wont be attainable from day labor. I am starting to notice lots of activities like water skiing and jet skis are just too pricey to do unless you happen to be some rich folks kids.

In our family we have felt that things could take a big simplification but we are still mostly connected to gardening and rural living. People stuck in a city or a heavy debt load might have some interesting times.

I sure as heck aint gonna say "bring it on" but I know that I could cut way, way, back without feeling deprived.

[Desperate]

My vote goes to Concentrating Solar Power, big farms out in desert regions and  a HVDC electric distribution system. The technology is already proven, there is more than enough energy available, and it dont make a big mess if you spill it.
Sure it will cost big time to develop the infrastructure, but what doesn't when you are talking energy supplies??

Desperate

[mobile_bob]

my vote is as follows

like it or not, we got to keep drilling for oil, because it is the only thing energy dense enough and technologically mature enough
to sustain life as we know it "until" there is a paradigm shift.

nuke power should be brought on post haste, along with major upgrades to the major transmission lines

nuke should be placed where the massive amounts of waste heat can be put to use, places rich in tar sands come to mind.

we need a new generation of aggressive designers and architects that show the masses how small houses can be livable, affordable
and comfortable, along with government giving property tax breaks that favor the smaller homes, such as 50% of the current amount
charged per sq/ft (or sq/meter), and those tax breaks should be permanent for that house no matter if it is resold 50 times.

in the 1950's it was not unusual to see a family living in 1000-1100 sq/ft 3 bd, 1 bath home with a carport or a single car garage.
there was mom and dad, and frequently at least two kids if not 3 or more living in that space and doing just fine.

you want folks to live in smaller homes, then charge them 1000 bucks a year for a 1000 sq/ft home (or less if the local rate warrants such)

a thousand sq/ft home can be built quite reasonably, and have upgrades that would cost a fortune in a large home done at attractive rates as well.
efficient designs using natural light, proper siting using solar gains, and the best of our high efficiency appliances and all of a sudden you will have families buying these homes in huge numbers.

its all happened before!  look back on history!  the victorian homes got huge by their standards only to be broken up into multiplexes or torn down for an apartment building in the 50's when no one wanted to pay for the large heating and cooling bills.

and lastly, a 1000 sq/ft home can be heated/cooled/and electified with a cogenerator at rates that are comparable to utility rates, and in some cases for much less than utility rates. units fired by propane or fuel oil allow the home owner to bulk buy at times of the year when the cost of fuel is low and use it at times when it is high.

i got to believe that a 1000 sq/ft house, with a single car garage, highly insulated, properly sited, with high efficiency appliances, cogen power
and a tax rate half that of other larger homes on a cost per sq/ft basis, would sell like a sonofabitch.

its going to take a monumental educational effort to teach folks that living smaller and more efficiently allows them to live more comfortably
allow them to save more for their own futures, and that of their kids, and to illustrate how the money saved would allow them to take nicer vacations and do things that they find they cannot afford now.

we are on the edge of this change in my opinion, we need it to happen for numerous reasons, not least of which is the demand of those that
are coming of age each year, finding that an old starter home costs more than they can afford by a huge margin in most cases.

i can't imagine being a young man getting out of highschool today, thinking maybe he might take up a trade, get married and start a family.

around here a livable starter home starts at about 150k minimum and that is for a bad neighborhood and an old leaky inefficient fixer upper.

with the payment, insurance and taxes levied against the home, the payment would likely be in excess of 50% of his take home pay.

the matter is not much better for a college grad guy either, unless his folks paid for his education, he will have student loans to pay, and unless
he has a minimum of a masters or is working on a phd he likely is not going to find a job that will allow him to buy the same 150k home and have the payment/insurance/taxes come to much less than 30% of his income especially after making the student loan.

that is if either of these guys can find a job in a time of 9.5% unemployment ?

if the government would start this type of building program, our economy would start up again fairly quickly.

we need to demand that our children are taught economics, read "thoreau's" walden, and learn that there are other options
other more responsible options,

most of these younger kids are pretty sharp already, look around, most of them already drive little cars, unlike my generation
who would have driven 8 plus liter 1000 hp full size cars all every had we been able to find them.

i could go on, but i am preaching to the choir

bob g

[Desperate]

Hi Bob

Certainly agree that using less has to be THE most cost effective way of securing the future, not so sure about nuclear power though, If we all start clamouring for Fission power the Uranium reserves aint gonna last all that long even if we live on half our current energy consumption. Fast Breeders or Fusion could in theory provide for us for the long term, but that technology aint gonna happen anytime soon.

Check out "The Oil Drum" website (I have no connection) there's a lot of people who think we are pretty close to peak oil right now..........we need to do something right now not in 10 years or 20

Desperate