I have been preoccupied by the wastes produced by extracting electric energy from rods of plutonium in nuclear plants. I have never been able to understand why too few are concerned with the "safe" disposal of "spent" nuclear materials. Burying them in a mountain in Arizona (few people live there) or shooting them out into space seems to be alternatives to dropping them in ocean deeps where only the sea life will suffer. What is wrong with this reasoning is that once begun, the use of these materials follows us beyond their capacity to generate that electricity which is so much part of our lives. Radioactivity is unseen but stays there practically forever and is unquestionably toxic.
The news that there was a TVA fly-ash pond that broke through a retaining wall and sort of killed the town below that pond awakened me. I have spent my time railing against the wrong target. What I have missed and, perhaps you too, are that there are other ponds that carry wastes and these wastes sit there for we do not have any idea of what to do with them. Yet, we continue to pursue the same practices that hurt us all just because we started to use the "waste pond" practice years ago as an expedient and efficient solution to the accumulation of animal manure and the fly-ash from coal fired plants that produce electricity. The manure thing cannot be ignored because the towns near them become empty - the smell, you know. The fly-ash was of no concern because nothing happened until last Monday when the retaining wall in the dam gave way and that toxic metal infested waste from burning coal spread over whole communities. Pollution may be many things.
Like spent nuclear materials, animal wastes and burned coal ash have to be put someplace. We would really not want to dump them all down in the ocean nor would we want to shoot them past the stratosphere where they would become satellites and road (sky) blocks for space travel. We have already begun polluting the space above us.
This dumping of coal wastes is just a reminder that we have done little or nothing to produce the much needed and wanted electrical power by means where there would be little or no waste products. Are we really correctly treating human wastes? If I remember, methane is produced by any animal waste. You and I are great sources of pollution.
Reminder: Wind-mills produce no waste. Reminder: Solar Energy produces no wastes. Reminder: Hydrogen produces a little heat and water. Reminder: Hydro-electric dams reduce the flow of rivers but produce no waste.
The TVA fly-ash pond failure is a wake up call for us all. The waste we produce is choking us and our intelligence is insulted. We are blind to our primitive approach to confining wastes. We could convert them and make them useful and even become profitable. Ancient civilizations rose and fell leaving their refuse for us to paw through and we call that, history. What will history say about us?