One of the things that makes me anti-nuclear is the radioactive and toxic waste. Weaponization, accidents and disasters all have a chance to happen, but are hypothetical. However, nuclear waste is created when things are running perfectly as planned, it's part of the plan.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-waste-management.aspx
"Direct disposal (after storage) to a geological repository. The material has very long-lived radioactivity, and will take about 300,000 years to reach the same level as the original ore.
Aqueous reprocessing to remove only uranium and plutonium. The material then only takes about 9000 years to reach the same level of radioactivity as the original ore."

I love how they say "only about 9000 years" like it's not a big deal hahah

Renewable green energy all the way :-)

Can we all just agree to move the emphasis just a liiiiiiil tiny bit. Ura-Nus. Uranium can still be Ur-Anium, but come on now, Ur-Anus has gone on long enough.

Doesn't require uranium enrichment and doesn't produce byproducts that can be used for weapons.

This second point is why we chose not to go with this type of reaction when built our nuclear program in the US.

http://www.copenhagenatomics.com/?p=2741

To answer your question in the description, the waste water contains phosphogypsum which is a radioactive byproduct from the production of phosphate (sulphuric acid is reacted with phosphate rock to produce phosphoric acid used for fertilizer production).

The radioactivity comes from naturally occurring uranium and radium in the phosphate ore. Central Florida phosphogypsum averages 26 pCi/g radium, and the EPA prohibites its use, but further north in Florida the phosphogypsum has an average concentration of less than 10 pCi/g radium which can be used as an agricultural amendment, but for no other use.

Also, the European news that I saw reported 980 million litres of contaminated water which is only slightly higher than the 225 million u.s. gallons reported elsewhere.

I dunno. I'd get medieval on some fuck who dented MY tank. You know how much depleted uranium panels cost? Then you have to get them vinyl wrapped, which NEVER Goes on straight. ever went to war in a tank where the carbon fiber print is off of straight? Fucking embarrassing.

What? Helicopters are LESS vulnerable? How do you figure? They're vulnerable to small arms fire from ground troops, unlike a Warthog (unless you have a super sniper around that can do supercomputer type calculations in a fraction of a second and hit it on the fly with a 50 cal. depleted uranium round). They can pop up and down behind cover and do awesome targeting tricks, but in my eyes, for every advantage they have, there's another disadvantage.

But then you hit the nail on the head. Drones do it ALL better, for exponentially less, without putting a highly trained pilot in danger. I think it's just plain dumb to make piloted planes when we have working drone tech. For the current cost of the R&D on this single plane, not including the cost of building a single working F-35, we could have 1.3 million drones (+-, if we make that many, I'm sure we can make them for <$1 million a piece) and own the skies of the entire planet for eternity....or at least until Skynet takes over. Drones are far cheaper to maintain, don't have the G-force limitations human pilots do, can do far more dangerous jobs because we can afford to lose them, etc. We should never make another fighter that has a pilot IMO....maybe not any kind of military fighting plane.
I also love the A-10, but I've never had to fight in one. That cannon though, so satisfying.

What are the streaks that don't appear to originate at the piece of uranium? Other radiation sources?

Your video, watch uranium emit radiation, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Uranium 238 should be pretty safe to touch and carry, in small amounts (I don't know at what size it becomes truly dangerous to the site exposed, especially if left there for any long length of time; I'd guess anything below one pound should be perfectly fine, but for all I know it could be 30 pounds).

You just cannot do this: do not swallow or inhale any of it. Also, if it has very sharp and jagged edges and it cuts you--then a tiny piece gets into your body (then the bloodstream), same problem.

But, at least this version of Uranium isn't too hazardous, but you certainly could poison someone with it. The heavier Isotopes created from Uranium are much more dangerous (I'm sure many are aware of this); like Plutonium (made in the natural environment if nuclear reactions are going on nearby, like a Star).

We created quite a bit of Plutonium back in the day using Uranium (more specifically we used Uranium and Deuterons; Deuterons are gathered from Deuterium, which is "Heavy Hydrogen"; the Deuteron is the nucleus of a Deuterium atom).

Yeah watching it long enough, especially due to the lingering affect of the "smoke" left behind, you can tell that little gem definitely has some very concrete numbers. Since it looks like a slowly revolving sphere of undulating waves (with the smoke). All thanks to the frequency of the radiation and what it emits.

If you look at the beginning you'll notice that the Uranium is clear and has a blue crystal look to it (though it is a metal). As the video slowly moves forward, it gets darker and darker, eventually it turns into Uranium Oxide. Or it looks like that to me, if so then they probably used water to create the reaction.

Yeah we wouldn't want any stray bits of rubber mixing with the uranium and causing a reaction would we? Wait, what??

Or that the aroma is from a plant/animal/sewer you don't expect it to be from.
But who am I telling this, you know how it is, even uranium or arsenic trioxide are "natural ingredients".

APFSDS - Armour Piercing, Fin Stabilized, Discarding Sabot. The American Abrams tankers used to call them 'Silver Bullets' back in the early nineties; maybe they still do. They were made largely out of natural or depleted uranium and they combusted slightly when shot through the air, leaving a faint glowing silvery trail behind. You could see it best at night obviously.

I think that you will find enriched uranium is not plutonium. Also, depleted uranium can't be used to make nuclear weapons explode, so I don't know exactly why you bring it up. To be clear, all nuclear nations main weapons plutonium has been made in a very specific way, a way that is inconstant with power generation. It is exactly because power generation reactor are so costly that they are relatively poor weapons materials creators, the method in which uranium needs to be removed from the neutron flux requires you to shut it down often. It is better to get a small, non-power generation reactor and crank out the plutonium. This is what India did with a small test heavy water reactor (CIRUS reactor). You need a reactor you can quickly turn on and off (and uranium extracted), then chemically reprocess the uranium, let it cool down, then put it back into the reactor. This laborious method is why power generation reactors are poor candidates for weapons material generation and why the current generation of weapons have not been made this way.

IAEA safeguards are important to make sure enrichment centers aren't diverting enriched uranium, sure. Plutonium should also have some safeguards as well, so don't take my words for a lack of concern or action on a world stage, I just believe for most, their concerns are blown way out of proportion to the actual risk.

But to reiterate, the relatively complex process to make weapons ready plutonium is why powered reactors aren't used in for weapons material for any of the worlds nuclear weapons nations, nor have any of the non-nuclear nations which have nuclear power and participate in NPT and IAEA systems been implicated in such actions. If Amory Lovins is the one forming your opinion on this, I would suggest a different source. It is like asking the CATO institute their opinion on climate change. I would consult the IAEA or some respectable international organization known for objective science rather than an anti-nuclear advocate. I, actually, fell for the same supposed expert (Amory Lovins) and was fairly anti-nuclear myself as a result. While there surely is some overlap between weapons technology and reactors, they are separate enough that safeguards can be highly effective. The existence of many nuclear powered states without nuclear weapons gives credence to their abilities. Only those countries who decide not to participate in NPT and IAEA systems have been the players known to developing weapons, most notably North Korea.

IAEA Safeguards: Stemming the Spread of Nuclear Weapons

http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Factsheets/English/S1_Safeguards.pdf

I think he is pessimistic is because energy use is also in growth, usually from coal. When you similarly look at CO2 emissions over the past decade, they aren't going down...every year is a new record. Even in IEA's 450 Scenario, "oil, coal and natural gas — remain the dominant energy sources in 2035"...this is a problem.

I can't find a notable environmental group that endorsees nuclear at all. Like the public, most environmental NGOs don't really make a distinction in reactor types. Nuclear is nuclear is nuclear. From friends of the earth to greenpeace, they are all pretty proudly anti-nuclear, with only local chapters of FoE even remotely interested in revisiting their views.

At any rate, I hope you aren't finding me to be combative or argumentative, I am not the best communicator of controversial issues. But I think climate issues are forcing us into a pretty thick walled box which will be hard to breakout of even in the most optimistic technological factors, which is why even if every single concern people have about nuclear is completely justified, waste, weapons, ect, we would most likely still need to build lots and lots of nuclear to even hope to address climate issues...they are that challenging.

Reactors don't produce weapons grade plutonium? Then where is weapons grade plutonium made? I think you'll find that it's made in exactly the same reactors as there is no real distinction between a reactor used for power generation and weapons generation other than in name.

"Uranium ore contains only about 0.7% of the fissile isotope U235. In order to be suitable for use as a nuclear fuel for generating electricity it must be processed (by separation) to contain about 3% of U235 (this form is called Low Enriched Uranium - LEU). Weapons grade uranium has to be enriched to 90% of U235 (Highly Enriched Uranium or HEU), which can be done using the same enrichment equipment. There are about 38 working enrichment facilities in 16 countries"
http://www.cnduk.org/get-involved/parliamentary/item/579-the-links-between-nuclear-power-and-nuclear-weapons

The point is that continuation of current tech makes it a lot more economical to produce weapons tech, whether that be weapons grade plutonium or depleted uranium (DU). Reactors can cost upwards of ten billion dollars to build, why would a weapons manufacturer want to pay for one of those out of their own pocket when they can have the taxpayer's pay for nuclear power plants that can produce what they need?

"Every known route to bombs involves either nuclear power or materials and technology which are available, which exist in commerce, as a direct and essential consequence of nuclear power"
- Dr. Amory Lovins (from NEIS)

In terms of renewables:, the 'new' renewables only account for about 3% of total energy use, so if that's what he meant then he's not far off. Stats from IEA, however, state that wind has had an average growth rate of 25% over the past five years, while solar has averaged an annual growth rate of over 50% in the same period. So their impact is increasing fairly rapidly. So I'm not sure why he's so pessimistic about them when the IEA is not.

Have environmental groups specifically spoken out against the type of nuclear reactors he is talking about? Which ones?