Table of Contents

Prevention

12. Nuclear Reactor Design Requirments

The only permissible nuclear reactors should be reactors that are capable of sustaining a catastrophic and shattering destruction of the plant facilities, including the reactor core, such as by direct bombardment, without permanently damaging the environment. The main requirement is that the design should enable any pieces of nuclear material to be located and collected after such a catastrophe so that no considerable, lasting radioactivity is irretrievably left in the environment. The environment should be able to be restored to within 5 times its normal, pre-disaster background radiation levels within 1 year of a catastrophic event. Nuclear reactors which do not meet this requirement should be phased out or even actively removed within a time frame not exceeding 30 years.

The same criteria should apply to military reactors, such as those aboard ships and submarines. If anything, these reactors are unquestionably more likely to be catastrophically destroyed than civilian reactors due to their being primary military targets.

Two current reactor designs that appear sufficiently safe are the Modular High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor and the lead-cooled Integral Fast Breeder Reactor system with on-site reprocessing.

Nuclear reactors that do not meet the above safety standards, should not have any critical infrastructures sited on land which naturally sit below 100 feet above mean sea level to prevent against potential tsunamis-related disasters.

0 Comments

13. Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

Genetic engineering in plants and animals, especially small, rapidly-breeding animals (less than 12-month breeding cycles), should be heavily restricted and maybe even banned. Numerous safeguards should be used to prevent the new genetic material from escaping to the environment.

Human genetic engineering should be heavily restricted and, in many cases, banned. Engineering to prevent disease and other ailments would be far more permissible than engineering to develop certain traits to improve the average person.

Crops genetically engineered to produce their own pesticides or even herbicides should be banned. The long-term consequences of such manipulations are negative. It starts an arms race with nature that only makes it more expensive and difficult to achieve the same results in the future.

0 Comments