Disposing Nuclear Waste in Ocean Trenches

It seems to be a perennial suggestion: lets put our most hazardous wastes into the deepest sea trenches. There, they will be drawn down into the Earths mantle well away from children and other living things. Usually, people are referring to high-level nuclear waste, which can be dangerous for thousands of years. This is why the design for the proposed waste facility at Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, is so incredibly stringent. The concept is relatively sound. Just put your barrels of waste in a trench - well dig a hole first, just to be tidy about it - and down they inexorably go, never to bring harm to humanity again. At 1600 degrees Fahrenheit, the upper mantle isnt hot enough to alter the uranium and make it nonradioactive. In fact, its not even hot enough to melt the zirconium coating that surrounds the uranium. But the purpose isnt to destroy the uranium, its to use plate tectonics to take the uranium hundreds of kilometers into the Earths depths where it can naturally decay.   Its an interesting idea, but is it plausible?   Ocean Trenches and Subduction Deep-sea trenches are areas where one plate dives beneath another (the process of subduction) to be swallowed up by the Earths hot mantle. The descending plates extend down hundreds of kilometers where they are not the least bit of a threat. It isnt completely clear whether the plates disappear by being thoroughly mixed with mantle rocks. They may persist there and become recycled through the plate-tectonic mill, but that wouldnt happen for many millions of years.   A geologist might point out that subduction is not really secure. At relatively shallow levels, subducting plates become chemically altered, releasing a slurry of serpentine minerals that eventually erupt in large mud volcanoes on the seafloor. Imagine those spewing plutonium into the sea! Fortunately, by that time, the plutonium would have long since decayed away. Why It Wont Work Even the fastest subduction is very slow - geologically slow. The fastest-subducting location in the world today is the Peru-Chile Trench, running along the west side of South America. There, the Nazca plate is plunging beneath the South America plate at around 7-8 centimeters (or approximately 3 inches) per year. It goes down at about a 30-degree angle. So if we put a barrel of nuclear waste in the Peru-Chile Trench (never mind that its in Chilean national waters), in a hundred years it will move 8 meters - as far away as your next-door neighbor. Not exactly an efficient means of transport.   High-level uranium decays to its normal, pre-mined radioactive state within  1,000-10,000 years.  In 10,000 years, those waste barrels would have moved, at maximum, just .8 kilometers (half a mile). They would also lie only a few hundred meters deep - remember that every other subduction zone is slower than this. After all of that time, they could still be easily dug up by whatever future civilization cares to retrieve them. After all, have we left the Pyramids alone? Even if future generations left the waste alone, the seawater and seafloor life would not, and the odds are good that the barrels would corrode and be breached. Ignoring geology, lets consider the logistics of containing, transporting and disposing of thousands of barrels each year. Multiply the amount of waste (which will surely grow) by the odds of shipwreck, human accidents, piracy and people cutting corners. Then estimate the costs of doing everything right, every time. A few decades ago, when the space program was new, people often speculated that we could launch nuclear waste into space, maybe into the sun. After a few rocket explosions, nobody says that any more: the cosmic incineration model is infeasible. The tectonic burial model, unfortunately, isnt any better. Edited by Brooks Mitchell

Causes Of Infidelity Essay - 1519 Words

Infidelity: Why Do People Cheat? Introduction Infidelity is defined as the act or fact of having a romantic or sexual relationship with someone other than ones husband, wife, or partner (Merriam-Webster.com). Although, this is the standard definition of cheating, the subject can hold different meanings to different people. One may feel betrayed by their significant other when only an emotional connection is made with someone outside of the marriage, while another person may not see this as cheating at all. Some feel that a person is only guilty of infidelity if there is sexual involvement. Regardless of the differences of opinions, when one person in a relationship loses the trust of their spouse due to infidelity,†¦show more content†¦In simpler terms, it is human nature to meet, mate and procreate. In an article entitled Why She’s Gotta Have It, Lonnae Parker and Dr. Shirley Glass explain that as humans, we should not expect to feel predisposed to be monogamous. Instead, they report that â€Å"early inf atuation, enchantment and a sense of swinging from the chandelier with a brand-new lover are nature’s sneaky ways of getting us to hook up often enough to make babies†. Additionally, they report that chemistry gives a euphoric experience and inhibits cheaters to get caught up in the moment of romance with the belief that this feeling will never go away. Unfortunately, all too often it does. Adding to the productive pull of nature, hormones also play a vital role in programming the human brain to reproduce and many times desire more than one mate. These desires can fundamentally correlate with levels of testosterone, which are generally higher in men than in women, in turn giving them a higher sex drive than women. The sex related hormone dominating more so in women, tends to be oxytocin, which is related to nursing offspring. However, these levels can vary extensively as can the sexual desires in men in comparison to women. 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The Butterfly Effect Case Study Free Essays

The Butterfly Effect Case Study How Narrative Is Used In The Butterfly Effect To Add Enjoyment For The Audience Narratives are used in â€Å"The Butterfly Effect† to add enjoyment for the audience in a number of different ways. â€Å"The Butterfly Effect† released in 2004 after 7 years being made, produced and recorded. This all began in 1997 and was a time consuming piece to begin with. We will write a custom essay sample on The Butterfly Effect Case Study or any similar topic only for you Order Now The writers and directors â€Å"Eric Bress† and â€Å"J. Mackye Gruber† who previously written â€Å"Final Destination 2† which took in an average of ? 0,000,000 which shows that these two directors can write good story line making â€Å"The Butterfly Effect† and sure loved film. This can be justified by knowing and researching that â€Å"Final Destination 2† was nominated for four awards 2 of which were in â€Å"Best Story Line† in 2003 and 2004. This film has many institutions that have been used to represent this film. Using multiple institutions like this is commonly known as a synergy or a conglomerate. This institute behind the film are â€Å"Icon†, â€Å"Warner Brothers†, â€Å"Newline Cinemas† and also â€Å"Film Engine Benderspink†. The producer â€Å"Chris Bender† who was newly producer for film like â€Å"The Hangover† and â€Å"I Am Number 4† Has made a big impact on the film â€Å"The Butterfly Effect† Also The other producers that have been producing the film alongside Chris Bender are as followed. A. j. Dix, Anthony Rhulen and JC Spink. These 4 producers up-to-date have never worked on the same film before The audience expectations are multiple genres of the film. Firstly a mystical type of film. This is given by the case of the DVD when we see the several layers of pictures that end up to a butterfly hence â€Å"The Butterfly Effect†. These layers are filled with the main star of the film, â€Å"Ashton Kutcher† and close ups of the human skull. This makes it look like there are problems with the mind and the physiological problems that this film or character is facing. Also another one is the fact that the people believe they are going to watch a film for all ages. But the 15 certificate was deserved for the twisted story line that this film is going on. Also whilst reading a review on IMDB. COM I have found out that people bought this film and watched this because they believed that it was going to be a calm film due to the name butterfly, which is one of the only animals that couldn’t hurt anything. But the twisted story line kept their eyes glued to the television and couldn’t stop watching. Narratives are used in the film; firstly we have todorov’s theory which basically changes something that should be causing and equilibrium. This works well in the film because with â€Å"Evan’s† childhood blackouts stick with him due to his family history, for example his father before him experiencing black =outs and went insane because of it. after this event, 7 years later the blackouts return but this time instead of ignoring them he goes to see his childhood sweetheart â€Å"Kayleigh Miller† who ends up committing suicide as soon as â€Å"Evan† begins changing part of the equilibrium. Changing the blackouts to bring Kayleigh back to life by stopping her father abusing her and changing the video camera moment to something different. This causes several equilibriums and continues for most of the film. This all ends after killing Kayleigh with dynamite as he visits the blackout a second time. This allows him to end the film and also the equilibrium in two possible ways. One is to return as a baby killing himself inside his mother’s womb, or secondly going back to a party that he first met Kayleigh and telling her that he never want to see or have anything to do with her ever again. This causes everybody’s life to be happier and on the downside he can choose never seeing Kayleigh again or killing himself. Until the present day when finishing college seeing Kayleigh walking along the street and begins to following. Causing the equilibrium to finish for good. The DVD case shows several layers. As the layer starts as a skull showing problems that hurts everyone in everything that he does. Then ends up as a butterfly with the problems coming to end and never hurting anybody else. Or in fact Kayleigh Antony Scott 12TJI How to cite The Butterfly Effect Case Study, Free Case study samples