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Nuclear Waste, and Colour Changing Cats

posted by martyb on Sunday August 27 2017, @08:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the How-About-Colour-Changing...People? dept.

tonyPick writes:

Recently on Last Week Tonight John Oliver discussed the problem of nuclear waste storage, which despite a number of attempts to designate a central storage site is still stored in "temporary" sites throughout the US.

The idea of a central nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain was raised again. However one additional problem, highlighted by a consultation in 1981 by the US Department of Energy, was how to design radiation warnings which could be understood tens of thousands of years into the future even though language, culture, and iconography may undergo significant changes.

And on that note, here's an old guardian article on how colour-changing cats might be the solution.

In 1984, writer Françoise Bastide and semiotician Paolo Fabbri suggested the answer could lie in breeding animals that "react with discoloration of the skin when exposed" to radiation. "[Their] role as a detector of radiation should be anchored in cultural tradition by introducing a suitable name (eg, 'ray cat')."

And following up on that is the project The Ray Cat Solution, in conjunction with Bricobio, the Montréal biology maker community:

New Hampshire Institute of Art's Type 1 class has joined forces with Bricobio and The Raycat Solution to help insert Raycats into the cultural vocabulary.

While Bricobio works towards genetically altering cats so they change color when in the presence of radioactive material, the NHIA Type 1 class is working to insert the idea that if a cat changes color, that space might be dangerous to others.

There is an associated film on the subject on Vimeo.

Originally spotted through the 99% Invisible Episode "Ten Thousand Years"

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by tonyPick on Sunday August 27 2017, @11:34AM (2 children)

    by tonyPick (1237) on Sunday August 27 2017, @11:34AM (#559791) Homepage Journal

    Saw that piece in forbes earlier in the week, and thought it completely missed the point of the Oliver show, It spends a lot of time defending points that Oilver didn't make, and doesn't address the central issue, which is that the consensus for the past 50 years or so has been that the US needs a reliable long term storage facility, but hasn't got around to actually building one yet.

    Actually this comment on HN put it better than I could: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15108364 [ycombinator.com]

    John Oliver's point--which I will note had absolutely nothing to do with the safety of nuclear sites despite this article going off the path to defend them--is that while we have a strategy to store nuclear waste (with a designated national site for doing so), we haven't actually executed on that plan after many decades. His piece was not "anti-nuclear", and if someone wants to show that his arguments are wrong they also would be flying in the face of the scientists who put together the national plan.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 27 2017, @12:11PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 27 2017, @12:11PM (#559805) Journal

    is that while we have a strategy to store nuclear waste (with a designated national site for doing so), we haven't actually executed on that plan after many decades.

    And blaming government for "waiting" rather than NIMBYism. We haven't executed on that plan because a small special interest group with a strong interest gets further than a general public with a diffuse interest. I think it'll take a significant waste leak event before that changes. Oh well.

  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday August 28 2017, @12:46PM

    by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Monday August 28 2017, @12:46PM (#560196) Homepage
    The forbes piece is also hyperbolic to the point of error: "uranium, the heaviest element on Earth prior to 1940" (where "heaviest" is a link to a page on density).

    Uranium has a density of ~19.0 g/cm3. Platinum has a density of 21.45 g/cm3, Iridium 22.56 g/cm3, Osmium 22.59 g/cm3, Rhenium 21.02 g/cm3, even Tungsten's 19.25 g/cm3 and Gold's 19.30 g/cm3. These predate the synthesis of neptunium and plutonium by over a century.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves