The Living Will Envy the Dead (Letter to Arthur Doucette from Russell Hoffman)
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 22:56:59 -0700
From: "Russell D. Hoffman" <rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com>
Subject: The living will envy the dead.
To: Arthur Doucette <ADoucette@Atl.carreker.com>
Hi Arthur,
Thanks for your recent letters. The actual presentation was about 4 minutes, I think. I have a tape. I have to transcribe it.
As to the Sat Even. Post article from 1959, I read your comments disagreeing with my analysis, but want to reread them a few times and think about it some more (I was actually at the CCC meeting when I read them) before responding. Are you especially eager for me to post it or send it to the NKS list, or was it not that big a deal? You know what officials I sent it to if you wanted to tell them your differences of opinion. I want to answer your comments, but you'll have to give me a few days to think about it. That letter, and this one, too (shown below) surprised me.
At Chernobyl, the vast majority of the pollutants remain in the plant. I've heard various numbers for how much of the core melted. Who knows? And who knows what was lost? But in any event, even with the fire, most of what was lost probably stayed fairly local. If you vaporize it all into the atmosphere around the world like what any fair-sized asteroid would do, and especially if you take everything at the plant -- at SONGS, for example, all the waste from two operating nukes and one closed one, well, you've got a big mess. A thousand Hiroshimas at least, a million. More. I lost count. (Note: Some of UNIT I's nuke waste may have been carted elsewhere, to be a target somewhere else. I'm not sure of its exact current status. Like I said, I've lost count.)
Well, either way, that's a lot of waste that was supposed to be contained to 99.9999% or something of perfection, being instead, totally spread around the environment. We always worry about a big Earth-killing asteroid, but a nuke-killing sized one actually hitting a nuclear power plant, nuclear waste dump, or other nuclear facility, is probably statistically far more likely.
Will it kill everyone? Absolutely every blessed one of us? Every living soul, even those far, far away, and those who drink bottled water? Hell, maybe not, Arthur -- but do you really want to find out?
The living will envy the dead.
Sincerely,
Russell Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA
At 02:37 AM 6/14/01 -0400, you wrote:
Russell,
What was their reaction to your speech?
also could you expand on this paragraph, particularly the All life on earth/there's that much poison part?
Most asteroid impacts are localized dangers, until one enters the world of nuclear power plants, where an asteroid would spread lethal radiation such that ALL LIFE ON EARTH would be extinguished, should it land on San Onofre (yes, there's THAT MUCH poison at that one plant). But it can happen. And if we don't close the plants AND BURY THE WASTE deep within the earth, sooner or later it WILL happen.
Regards
Arthur
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First posted June 14th, 2001.
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