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While the fireworks lit up the sky and the annual bottles of bubbly were flowing, here at doomsday central, I familiarised myself with nuclear fission. There's no escaping this grim prediction. The future has already been written.
While we were worrying about the relative few, someone has been planning a terrifying necessity.
It's time to get comfortable with the leap in technological advances in radioactive materials. There's no need to go mining resources like peasants. We can produce a virtually limitless supply from the oceans. It's not like they're getting any smaller.
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In 1938 German and Austrian-Swedish phycisits discovered the ability to split the atom. A process we know as nuclear fission where we take heavy nuclides and generate an exothermic reaction in living cells. Nutrons and protons in the nucleus of the cell, undergo a process called transmutation. This is how our sun and stars were born and is universally feared.
The memories of radioactive reactrors, electron emission, particle accelerators and colliders. Meltdown, cleanup crews. Gamma rays, unwanted depleted uranium, nuclear winters, geiger counters.
These are highly emotive to our generation.
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Nothing instills terror quite like the sheer magnitude of annihilation at the hands of atomic weapons of mass destruction. Then there's the horrors of fallout, black rain and radiation, that causes mutations deep within the bone marrow. We tested the effects but still proceeded to build arsenals.
Despite disasters such as those in Chernobyl and Fukashima, there are nearly 450 reactors actively providing nuclear power today.
660m below the New Mexico waste isolation pilot plant in the Nevada desert, lies the transuranic leftovers from making 2,150 American weapons, below the yucca mountains
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We all knew the day would come. If we are to survive climate change, deforestation and the sheer scale with which we are draining the little of what is left from what this planet has to offer, have forced us into a corner.
A new generation of reactors using molten salt, water, steam and pressure are here. Europe's most polluted town, Copsa Mica in Transylvania, has blackened it's final face.
We have the technology to take other materials, that can absorb neutrons and fuel efficient reactors, seemingly without end. Waste can be repurposed leaving the minimal hazards possible.
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Frankly, the best option is to get comfortable and enjoy the ride. Get a decent job in a growing market. No doubt there's every chance, they'll have accomodation in the vicinity. At least that way you will have little knowledge and time to panic. It's surviving nuclear excursions that is the thing to worry about.
Ventures to reach out into distant space use this energy principle. Satellites and telescopes floating in orbit need nuclear technology.
We harness the very force with which the universe was made, to return to it.
Nobody plans an accident. But we can take the opportunity to be safe.
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IDEAS CURATED BY
Psychologist Qualified/experienced chef Former Customer service mngr. Dangerous FLT driver. Time traveller Kitchen Table Surgeon. Investigative journalism I don't Shitter Psychotherapist Mind meddler World class sleepy head.
CURATOR'S NOTE
2022. Take a peek at the future
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