Comment by ziddoap

Comment by ziddoap 2 days ago

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Steel without nuclear contamination is sought after, and only available from pre-war / pre-atomic sources.

The analogy is that data is now contaminated with AI like steel is now contaminated with nuclear fallout.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel

>Low-background steel, also known as pre-war steel[1] and pre-atomic steel,[2] is any steel produced prior to the detonation of the first nuclear bombs in the 1940s and 1950s. Typically sourced from ships (either as part of regular scrapping or shipwrecks) and other steel artifacts of this era, it is often used for modern particle detectors because more modern steel is contaminated with traces of nuclear fallout.[3][4]

umvi 2 days ago

> and only available from pre-war / pre-atomic sources.

From the same wiki you linked:

"Since the end of atmospheric nuclear testing, background radiation has decreased to very near natural levels, making special low-background steel no longer necessary for most radiation-sensitive uses, as brand-new steel now has a low enough radioactive signature"

and

"For the most demanding items even low-background steel can be too radioactive and other materials like high-purity copper may be used"

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  • sergiotapia 2 days ago

    reading stuff like this makes me so happy. no matter how fucked up something may be there is always a way to clean right up.

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    • shreddit a day ago

      I wouldn't be so optimistic. The thing you call "way" is actually just time. Yes, anything humanity does (good or bad) will fade with time. But do we have the amount of time to clean up X (and i don't refer to X as in "formally twitter")?

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      • shmageggy 19 hours ago

        This is (one of the many) reasons why I care primarily about biodiversity and preventing as many human-caused extinctions as we can. Those are a permanent loss to the beauty and complexity of the universe built up over millions of years, and they are permanent and irreversible.

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    • felbane 2 days ago

      glances nervously at atmospheric CO2

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      • genewitch 2 days ago

        the easiest solution is growing dense vegetation including trees, then using that for things[0] or burying it until we have a better mitigation strategy for atmospheric carbon.

        Another solution, and one that, if i weren't such a lazy, is ocean based carbon binding. You can run electricity directly through ocean water and precipitate the carbon out as calcium carbonate, which is both: useful to humans as is and after processing; and useful to the coral reefs and crustaceans/mollusks or whatever in the oceans.

        If anyone wants to kick me about a million US dollars, i can make a POC on a used barge with solar panels and as much recycled material as possible, and have that just run off the coast of florida or something. I figure the total cost to get a barge is around a quarter million, all-in[1], the electronics and seawater stuff is about another $150-200 thousand, and the rest is mine for the idea and the lawyers' to get this approved and left alone to do the research.

        [0] burning it for heat is fine, as the net CO2 levels will remain constant, but i mean things like houses and boardwalks and boats, furniture, and so on.

        [1] could be more, now, the last time i was researching seaworthy barge costs it was between $100,000 and $200,000. I'm hoping there's someone that can donate the barge so i can make the rest more fit for purpose - redundancy, better solar, better mppt, better batteries, better materials for the electrodes (it takes platinum and titanium iirc, i haven't looked at my documents for a long while.)

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      • heavensteeth a day ago

        The earth will recover. We may not, but earth will.

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