… Yucca Mountain radioactive storehouse…

Before George Bush Part II was elected (the first time), he opposed the creation of the Yucca Mountain mega-site. Less than one year after he took office, he approved its creation.

Yucca Mountain is the official dump site for all the long term radioactive waste in the United States located in the Nevada desert. It is supposed to be our “long term” solution to the problem of using nuclear fission to produce energy.

Nuclear energy production yields radioactive waste with very long half-lives. By long, I mean hundreds of thousands of years. When the EPA had to create a mandate to manage the Yucca site, it had to be put into effect for a term of one million years.

One million years!!!!

The site will remain toxic to all life for thousands of years and the government has tried to figure out a way to warn future generations and keep them far away from the contaminated radioactive “death zone”. In designing a warning sign that will withstand tens of thousands of years and still be understood by future civilizations, scientists involved with the project have some pretty tough limitations to overcome:

1. The physical materials used should have “little value,” so the markers themselves are not stolen.
2. It should be “non-linguistic” so it is not rooted in any particular culture or language.
3. The markers should convey a sense of “danger, foreboding, and dread.”
(from:lasvegasnow.com)

Some of the ideas that have been discussed include placing fields of inverted cones or spikes scattered across the site. I particularly like the sound the suggested “foreboding blocks”.

The idea of creating something now with the intention of scaring off future generations is destined to fail. Humans are curious creatures, and any strange looking objects sitting on top of a distant mountain are destined to attract a crowd … and maybe even a devout following.

One viable option would be to create and recruit a designated order of society charged with warning future generations against the dangers of Yucca Mountain. This could be done using the examples of the major surviving ancient religions as a model. Our government could fund the project initially (to atone for creating toxic waste that survives for eons in the first place). With an emphasis on self preservation and self sufficiency, it might survive for a while.

Simply creating a sign in sculpture or vague pictograms won’t cut it.

The information needs to evolve over time with the surrounding society. That is one thing our governement doesn’t really get.

Oh well … just hang a sign out and put up some pokey stuff that looks like cool post modern art from the 1980’s. That will keep the frog men in the year 37548 away!