A VAST AND FRIGHTENING MASS

Time's Garbage also contains the statement that 190,000 tons of nuclear wastes will have accumulated by the year 2,000. That figure is presumably arrived at by including the low level waste (which is easily disposed off and applying Carter's policy of no reprocessing, which would quintuple the volume of wastes to be disposed of. Time's figure is exaggerated by a factor of more than 10.But assume this bloated figure were correct; what would the volume of this vast and frightening mass of wastes be?A cube about 120 ft on a side. We know of no other waste that, by the year 2,000, would occupy such a tiny volume. The garbage published as Time magazine will fill it in about 8 months.

Another widely circulated half-truth concerns the deferred or even canceled orders for nuclear plants, allegedly because utilities have found them unreliable. Yes, a number of plants have been deferred and even canceled; but to check the reason, one must ask how many of them were replaced by orders for coal-fired (or other) power plants. Answer: Not one. Whatever the reason, it had nothing to do with the deferred or canceled plant being nuclear.

You get the logic? Steam-driven ocean liners are unsafe, uneconomic, unreliable and unnecessary. Proof: Neither Kansas, nor Colorado, nor Paraguay, nor Luxembourg have ever ordered any.