US-INdia nuclear deal

[Ecthy]

Yeah, give it to him!

[Terra Nullius]

AH got it right as usual

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
This deal is sheer lunacy.

...Indian mangoes, considered by connoisseurs to be among the best in the world.

This is utter BS

Compared to SE Asia, sure, but anyone who has ever tried them will tell you.
Queensland pwns India

It just makes you shudder to think intelligent people defend nonsense like this.

... and, we can do you a damn fine deal on those trucking fees.

[Ecthy]

Institutionalists

[Terra Nullius]

Hey! I have not been institutionalised!!!


... yet.

[Terra Nullius]

There's a lot of talk here about Howard's visit to India this week.

I doubt it'll come to much, but there's bound to be some discussion about lifting the uranium embargo.

[Ecthy]

Only institutionalists could whine about the NPT so much and not waste a single thought on those nations' INTERESTs in the distribution of power.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse


Sorry, where is China building up influence in East Asia???

All the major countries of the region are either US allies or China phobic. Just about every country in East Asia fears and wants to contain China. This leaves China with such important and influential friends as the DPRK and Burma. The Pacific is still a US lake.

Its laughable to suggest the United States needs India to balance China. If you believe that you really have no idea of the awesome power and reach of the United States in East Asia. China couldn't even mount an amphibious operation across the Taiwan Straits if it wanted to. It doesn't have the naval power even to do that. That's like only a few miles from their coast. China's army isn't even as well equipped as Saddam's.

Their main weight is economic and this without doubt is growing rapidly. It will take years to translate into military and strategic power.

Influence is not the result of your number of friends, we can even say that your real influence is as much revealed by the number of your enemies than by the number of your friends.
As for the military awesome power and reach of the US in East Asia, it is quite mythical. At least it is not of real use when you listen to the complaints made every quarter by the US about the China behaviour regarding the yuan. China regularly tell you that it is their business, not yours, full stop. In fact, a country with a population of 300 millions which is hardly able to recruit enough soldiers to provide the necessary replacements to a 150000 theater cannot be seriously considered by a country with a 1300 millions population.
Therefore you should refrain from drawing serious consequences of pleasant wargames, as the Pentagone has now understood from the Iraqui experiment.

[germanos]

Originally posted by Geronimo


Nuclear waste doesn't cause any global changes.

How will it not? If Nuclear fission will become one of the main energy sources, nuclear waste dumps will be spread among the earth, each causing concern for their environment.

The quantity of spent fuel is absolutely miniscule in comparison to hydrocarbon waste.

However the quality of danger to the environment is far greater then that of COx, SOx and such. While the latter are part of the basic cycle of the earth's environmental cycles, the first are a primary drive for change/alterations in the existing cycle. No-one has any clue to what concequences that may lead.

Unlike many other kinds of waste the tiny amounts of nuclear waste allow for easier monitoring and it is far more economical to make it chemically inert for the same reason.

Monitoring is all but easy. If the Romans would have had nuclear fission, their dumps would have still needed monitoring. While that could be done now, during the Middle-ages such monitoring has been completely non-existent.
I know little of the inertia you speak of, but if so, the dumping of the stuff in the oceans have set a bad example. If it would have been so easy, why hasn't it been done?

Probably at some point the spent fuel will be of use for various exotic future technologies.

wishfull thinking

So how is nuclear waste a far greater concern?

Because its effects are completely unpredictable, and so far no sensible approach to the waste has been put into effect. At the moment it's being stored above ground and we can't put it anywhere safe.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by DAVOUT


Influence is not the result of your number of friends, we can even say that your real influence is as much revealed by the number of your enemies than by the number of your friends.
As for the military awesome power and reach of the US in East Asia, it is quite mythical. At least it is not of real use when you listen to the complaints made every quarter by the US about the China behaviour regarding the yuan. China regularly tell you that it is their business, not yours, full stop. In fact, a country with a population of 300 millions which is hardly able to recruit enough soldiers to provide the necessary replacements to a 150000 theater cannot be seriously considered by a country with a 1300 millions population.
Therefore you should refrain from drawing serious consequences of pleasant wargames, as the Pentagone has now understood from the Iraqui experiment.

Ironically because of the mistakes of this Administration its enemies are more likely to be found amongst its friends these days.

China looked at what happened in Iraq and Yugoslavia and realised the PLA provided little more than target practice for the 7th fleet.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by germanos

How will it not? If Nuclear fission will become one of the main energy sources, nuclear waste dumps will be spread among the earth, each causing concern for their environment.

So what? global means you can't escape the effects. Even if there was a nuclear waste dump in every 1000 square km area (and we would really only need one site per country) the effects would be zero. Nuclear waste dumps don't even have local effects much less global. Are you assuming that the waste won't be glassified (Vitrification)? won't be in corrosion resistant containers? won't be buried in solid rock? any one of these measures leaves the nuclear waste inert for millions of years when it only takes a few thousand years for the radioactivity to drop to trivial levels.

It takes more than geographically spacing something out for it to be said to have global effects.

Originally posted by germanos
However the quality of danger to the environment is far greater then that of COx, SOx and such. While the latter are part of the basic cycle of the earth's environmental cycles, the first are a primary drive for change/alterations in the existing cycle. No-one has any clue to what concequences that may lead.

nonsense. Not only are these effects very well understood on a theoretical level but we even have the example of the contaminated area around cherobyl (and no nuclear waste issue of any kind on any currently possible scale could even begin to produce that kind of widely dispersed high level contamination) and it's teeming with wildlife. The environment couldn't care less about exposure to radioactivity. It functions normally with or without it.

Originally posted by germanos
Monitoring is all but easy. If the Romans would have had nuclear fission, their dumps would have still needed monitoring. While that could be done now, during the Middle-ages such monitoring has been completely non-existent.
I know little of the inertia you speak of, but if so, the dumping of the stuff in the oceans have set a bad example. If it would have been so easy, why hasn't it been done?

If the Romans had placed nuclear waste in caves in the mountains and sealed them when the caves filled we probably still would not have found them. And if we did the waste would be a fraction of it's original radioactivity, and would simply constitute a historical curiosity. Monitoring can simply be a few low power usage electronic seals. If civilization collapses and monitoring ceases, big deal. It's not like the primitives are going to be able to figure out how to convert the glassified waste into something they could disperse into the environment.

The "inertia" I speak of is "vitrification" a process that converts radioactive waste into chemically inert solid material that is very hard to disperse and if with tremendous effort we manage to disperse it, it doesn't want to react with anything. plants can't absorb it, people can't get it into their systems. The only worry would be radiation exposure from keeping it on your person.

I imagine the stuff hasn't been dumped into the ocean because of rabid opposition to doing so. On the other hand I'm not sure there is any point on dropping it into the ocean where we can't easily get it back later.

Originally posted by germanos

wishfull thinking

Not really. we are still very primitive and there is scarcely any rare substance with unique properties that there is no economic use for. Nuclear waste is radioactive which makes it exotic enough that it's a given there will be some use for it eventually. We could already use it to make low power RTGs for instance.

Originally posted by germanos
Because its effects are completely unpredictable, and so far no sensible approach to the waste has been put into effect. At the moment it's being stored above ground and we can't put it anywhere safe.

The effects are entirely predictable. What part of nuclear waste do you think is not understood?

Storing the waste above ground makes sense because I strongly doubt we are going to need or want to bury the stuff until it is non radioactive material. radioactive material is too scarce for that to make sense for the duration of the time period given. Of course if you don't like it being stored above ground then talk to the ignorant dumbasses who threaten to vandalise every attempt to sequester it away somewhere that isn't above ground.

[Provost Harrison]

Geronimo is right, I would rather take the nuclear option than the fossil fuel option...providing that the plants are run properly (we know how problematic cutbacks and shortcuts and understaffing are nowadays) and the waste is disposed of appropriately. Some of the radioisotopes are nasty, but can be contained...

[GePap]

Lots of interesting ideas...

On India as a counterbalance to China...The Chinese and the Indians both have huge reasons not to be actively hostile, and the rather difficult terrain between the two nations makes the kind of tense hostility seen between India and Pakistan difficult at best. Both India and China have more to gain trading with each other than fighting, and they don;t have many issues to fight about anyways- once the boundary disputes are resolved. India can't help in South East Asia or East Asia, so the whole malrkey of India as some counterweight seems unlikely long term. Add to that that India, while a democracy, has no evengelical pretensions when it comes to its government. It happily deals with any state were there are possible gains, states like Iran, or Syria, of which India is a friend and investor.

On the NPT- Iran and NK both "cheated", fine...but Iran is not yet nuclear and if NKI is, its because we decided to play hardball, and the NK called the US bluff. The US is sending the message that we are not serious about non-proliferation as a principle. instead, non-proliferation is solely about who is our friend and who isn't. Problem with that system? The top dog changes, and when another power is on top, who they like to be nuclear or not will also change, and possibly not to the US's liking. So, if you decide that you are going to start cheating on the NPT too (because as a NPT signatory the US is not supposed to give nuclear technology to non-NPT members), then the US has few legs to stand on when it comes to pointing out why cheating by someone else is bad.

On nuclear energy- India could make a choice, NPT and civilian technology, or do it on your own. That is why the NPT was made, for that very reason-being forced to do it on your own in the consequence of not joining the non-proliferation regime. India had made its choice.

Of course more nuclear power is better when it comes to greenhouse gases. You know what? So is nuclear power for Iran, and yet supposedly, since Iran has so much oil and Natural gas, they obviously should not even be trying to make their own civilian nuclear program....

[Terra Nullius]

On Howard's visit:
Manmohan Singh states India has a shortfall in Ur supply and also looks for approval (of the US deal) from Oz as a member of the nuclear suppliers group.

The Zit states he is "willing to sell, provided proper safeguards are met."

'Proper safeguards' clearly do not include such antiquities as the NPT.

Click here to place a bid on Grannie Howard
Time left to bid: not much I reckon.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Terra Nullius
This is utter BS

Compared to SE Asia, sure, but anyone who has ever tried them will tell you.

Pah.

Thai mangoes are the best.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Terra Nullius
On Howard's visit:
Manmohan Singh states India has a shortfall in Ur supply and also looks for approval (of the US deal) from Oz as a member of the nuclear suppliers group.

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Lips do not unpurse