Let me help you with that. Jacques is correct in his description of activity. I just checked my radiation detection text book to make sure (that would be embarrassing wouldn't it!)
However, "lethal" is a bit of an ambiguous term when applied to the waste from the nuclear power generation. After cooling down, the fuel assemblies will most certainly be emitting ionizing radiation that will be detectable for hundreds of thousands of years, as you suggest. This does NOT mean it is "lethal" for this time period. UNLESS you open one of the assemblies and make an industrial waste smoothie. Most of the long lived isotopes contained in the assembly will be deadly as heavy metals. So there is still danger, but it is easily manageable, just like the waste from many other industrial processes (like making solar panels, or batteries for hybrids for instance).
Hate to keep taking issue with your comments, but they are pattently wrong. Using a study of atomic bomb studies and an anti-nuke web site do not constitute science.
Studies Ive read, completely contradict your statements
(http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?artic...) for one. There are others, and I am sure that I will not be convincing you, but I didn't want your voice to be the only one on the issue here.
1. The paper you link to does not discus ingestion. Ever. It clearly described to the dosimetric estimates of gamma and neutron, but no information on metabolic pathways.
I hate to tell you sir, but you in fact do test this every day you breathe, drink and eat. There ARE in fact many natural sources of radioactivity, that we have been eating for quite some time, with never a though of cancer.
However, "lethal" is a bit of an ambiguous term when applied to the waste from the nuclear power generation. After cooling down, the fuel assemblies will most certainly be emitting ionizing radiation that will be detectable for hundreds of thousands of years, as you suggest. This does NOT mean it is "lethal" for this time period. UNLESS you open one of the assemblies and make an industrial waste smoothie. Most of the long lived isotopes contained in the assembly will be deadly as heavy metals. So there is still danger, but it is easily manageable, just like the waste from many other industrial processes (like making solar panels, or batteries for hybrids for instance).