Environment & Energy
In reply to the discussion: ERRORS in rebuttal to "Pandora's Promise" [View all]PamW
(1,825 posts)For Pete's sake; kristopher doesn't have ANY credentials in the sciences; doesn't have the academic skill set to properly evaluate scientific reports, doesn't work in the DOE / NNSA complex; has ZERO access to the reports of the DOE / NNSA, doesn't know the people and where the scientists work; yet kristopher has the temerity to tell us what DOE / NNSA says.
Unless kristopher is holding out on us as to some University degree that he hasn't told us about????
I have a doctorate in the field; and I work at the very national laboratory that wrote the study; and I also helped and advise on said study. I should know a thing or two about it.
kristopher is engaging in what I am now calling "mushroom logic". It goes like this:
Shitake mushrooms are mushrooms and are edible.
Portabello mushrooms are mushrooms and are edible
Button mushrooms are mushrooms and are edible.
Therefore, ALL mushrooms are edible.
Of course this last conclusion is FALSE. Just because there are edible mushrooms doesn't mean that they are ALL edible. The "Death Cap" and "Destroying Angel" are two examples of mushrooms that are toxic.
Likewise, just because a reactor is a breeder or sodium-cooled reactor, and some sodium-cooled breeders make weapons useable material; does NOT mean that they ALL do.
The Death Cap and Destroying Angel are EXCEPTIONS to the rule that mushrooms are edible.
The IFR is an EXCEPTION to the rule that sodium-cooled breeders make weapons usable Plutonium.
The IFR was designed specifically so that it would NOT produce weapons usable material.
So how do you know whether you can eat a given mushroom or not; follow the advice of a mushroom expert.
How do you know which reactors don't produce weapons usable material? Follow the advice of someone who is an expert on reactors and / or nuclear weapons.
Because of my experience working at BOTH Argonne and Lawrence Livermore National Labs; I happen to be one of the very few people who is an expert in BOTH fields.
IFR produced Plutonium is, as Dr. Till states; IMPOSSIBLE to make into nuclear weapons:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html
Q: So it would be very difficult to handle for weapons, would it?
A: It's impossible to handle for weapons, as it stands.
It's highly radioactive. It's highly heat producing. It has all of the characteristics that make it extremely, well, make it impossible for someone to make a weapon.
Dr. Till's statement above is SCIENTIFIC TRUTH.
The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson
PamW