>> That doesn't mean that the cooling system can't overload and explode.
>
> Right. But if you knock down a thorium salt reactor, it just gets cold.
> It's basically a big stack of pool-ball sized balls that heat up if you
> get a bunch of them close enough. So if something goes wrong and knocks
> down the wall, it cools off and you send in people in lead-lined
> bulldozers to scoop the stuff up.

If it's so simple and easy, why isn't everyone doing it?

>> Uranium-235 has a halflife is 700 million years.
>
> U-235 isn't that dangerous, tho, unless you pile up enough to interact.
>
> What it also means is that if you spill 100 pounds of U-235 somewhere,
> it's going to take 700 million years for even 50 pounds of it to have
> emitted radiation. That's a very low level of radiation.

How do you work that one out?

> The actual chemical properties are probably more dangerous than the
> radioactive properties if you spread it out widely enough.

Well, yeah, that's probably true enough.

>> That's /halflife/, not the
>> time it takes to degrade completely, just the time for *half* of it to go
>> away. 700 million years is longer than that oil has been in the
>> ground. ;-)
>
> Which tells you that it isn't *that* dangerous or there wouldn't be any
> life in the ground.

It's also an extremely rare element. Not like a reactor core, which is 
make out of pure Uranium...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
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