OT: Nuclear War???

[Will]

Ah, I didn't think that the free neutrons would have a long-term effect. I thought that of the free neutrons, many decay into a proton + electron + neutrino rather quickly (I seem to remember from high school physics that it's hard to get a free neutron to stick around for more than a fraction of a second), adding to the "one-shot" radiation burst. Then I made the assumption that any neutrons reacting with surface elements would probably make a very short-lived isotope. I'm guessing I was wrong on this.

If I remember right, Uranium fission results in something like Barium and Krypton isotopes, each of which has a rather long decay chain (both in numbers of steps and number of years). It was this that I was saying that fusion bombs would probably be "better" than. Of course, there still will be some radioactive residues, but I thought that it wouldn't linger as long. What would it be that sticks around for so long with fusion? Is it mostly things like C13 -> C14? Are those isotopes then in existence at a substantially higher-than-natural ratio?

[Suicide Junkie]

Free Neutrons have a half life of 11 minutes IIRC.

[NarfsCompIsBack]

And vhat did zey do vith ze ozer havf?! HaHaHaHa!

[Phoenix-D]

TerranC said:

That's a rhetorical question, right?

NK's leader is known to be more than a bit kooky.

Hopefully, the US will have developped sufficient missile defense programs/systems by then; It's not as if NK nukes (if they exist) are high tech, most of them would be scuds with with a plutonium bar attached. But should one hit, it is most likely that the US will retaliate, but not with nukes.

IIRC standard US policy is pretty simple: any large scale use of chemical or biological weapons, or any use of nuclear weapons, gets a nuclear response. Probably a larger one than the initial attack. As pointed out later dirty bombs are pyscological weapons; the actual damage would be minimal.

Biological and chemical weapons are similar. Yes, they are nasty. No, they AREN'T anywhere near a nuke in potency. Not the ones we have now anyway.

An attack with chemicals in a Japanease subway- basiclly the best possible enviroment for such an attack, since its enclosed and has a ventilation system to spread the chemicals for you- only killed about 10 people.

[Randallw]

I stand corrected then. It was just an idea I had.

[Baron Munchausen]

Slick said:
Again, no offense, but even in your example of one of the basic fusion reactions:

D+T->He+n+E

Free neutrons just don't hang around, the free neutron "n" in that equation can/does activate surrounding materials and does create radioactive isotopes.

I say again, that "fusion is clean" is just the public impression. Fission has a very negative public image. People think about Bikini Atoll, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, SL-1, and other accident sites. They don't think (or know that) workers at a coal mine or coal burning conventional plant get more radiation exposure from the naturally occurring Carbon-14 than nuclear plant workers. They don't think/know that, although there have been accidents at nuclear power planets, there also have been accidents at conventional power plants which have resulted in a great many more deaths over the years. What about people who fly in airplanes for a living - they spend many hours at high altitudes above some of the protection of the natural radiation protection. People get killed all the time in non-nuclear industry, but people think that non-nuclear industry is "clean" as well. I don't think that acid rain, smog and industrial waste in the country's rivers is "clean", and they didn't come from nuclear plants.

Fusion is considered "clean" because we won't have to mine fissionable materials from the ground; we can pull deuterium out of the ocean - ocean water is abundant, right? and has an infinite supply of deuterium, right? They also think that the the reaction is Hydrogen -> Helium. I don't see any "dirty" by-products in that reaction (that equation is not correct, by the way, but it is "common knowledge") And Helium is very safe and very clean. We all know that. We put it in our kids' balloons. We inhale it to make our voices sound funny.

I personally think fusion will be a great step foward as well, but I work in the industry. I don't think it will be as safe and clean as its current reputation. Let's put it this way: a fission reactor (with all of its bad publicity) works at (or usually below) temperatures & pressures of conventional power plants. Fusion can only work at temperatures & pressures found in the sun. Safe and clean?

Not carbon-14, that is present everywhere. Actual uranium and thorium are present in most coal in trace amounts, and burning releases it into the atmosphere. It's true that this is a far larger source of radiation than actual nuclear power plants since the standards are so high for nuclear containment and the volume of coal burned is so large. There is also mercury in coal. The mercury content of fish that we are constantly hearing health warnings about is not from some nasty chemical plants dumping mercury. It's from coal-burning power plants.

On the other hand there is simply no possibility of an accident at a coal-burning plant dumping tons on uranium and highly radioactive decay products into the environment. What people are concerned about is not the 'routine' low-level problem, but the worst case problem. The worst case for a nuclear plant is dramatically worse than the worst case for a coal plant.

The 'worst case' for fusion power would be more like coal power. You might get a big 'whomp' if things failed, but tons of highly radioactive and posisonous elements would not be dumped into the environment.

[Baron Munchausen]

Slick said:
At the risk of becoming a pain...

What people are normally oblivious to is that we live in constant fields of radiation. Naturally occurring isotopes exist in the very ground we walk on. Radon is a radioactive gas that comes out of the ground. Concrete contains trace natural uranium and other radioactive nuclides. We are bombarded by cosmic rays from space, and all kinds of radiation from the sun - what do you think gives you that great suntan??? Heck, even your smoke detector in your house has probably somewhere around 1 microCurie of Americium-241. Americium-241 is a decay product of PLUTONIUM-241. Did you know that you have a radioactive decay product of PLUTONIUM-241 in your house; maybe in your kitchen???

And if you have a box of spare 'mantles' for your camp lantern you have some thorium in your house, too. Yes, the glow from those gas-fired camp lanterns is partly radioactive!

Not to mention the radium in 'glow in the dark' clock dials or any other 'glow in the dark' goodies you might have.

And if you are still using a CRT for your computer monitor, you've got x-rays being created right in front of you. Modern CRTs are designed to very high standards, with lead shielding, and carefully tested to not emit more than trace amounts of radiation beyond their internal workings, but the x-rays are still there in any CRT.

[Renegade 13]

Heh, Uranium ain't that bad! Some wells around here are undrinkable, due to the high uranium count. And it hasn't affected me yet....

*falls on the ground, twitching, and muttering incomprehensible gibberish...*

On a more serious note, I read that the decay of Thorium in the ground is the root cause of most of the geothermal heating on the earth. Does anyone know if that's true or not??

[Slick]

Baron Munchausen said:
The 'worst case' for fusion power would be more like coal power. You might get a big 'whomp' if things failed, but tons of highly radioactive and posisonous elements would not be dumped into the environment.

I don't know how you can come to that conclusion since a working fusion power plant is something not yet achieved by science. Who knows what the final Version will be like and what its risks will be? I do know that an accident in which we effectively lose control of a fusioning piece of the sun is not going to be a small thing. The intense radiation in a fusion reactor will generate undesirable radioactive materials (waste) in a similar manner that fission reactors generate rad waste. How much? Who knows... that will be determined after one has been operating for a while; but I would think if one of those things blows, it could spew lots of nastiness, not just residual hydrogen and helium.

----------------
As far as earth's heat source goes, most reputable studies have postulated that there is a contribution from some long-lived radioisotopes in earth's core as well as some frictional heating due to a difference in rotational velocities of the earth's surface relative to the core. As to the exact nuclide(s) heating the earth, different studies have postulated different nuclides.

[TerranC]

NK's leader is known to be more than a bit kooky.

Of course, that's why I replied "that's a rhetorical question right?", as anyone who's been mindful of the news from that region would know better than to ask if the leaders of Norks would be kooky enough to launch nukes.

IIRC standard US policy is pretty simple: any large scale use of chemical or biological weapons, or any use of nuclear weapons, gets a nuclear response.

As I've said before, the US would most certainly retaliate should it ever come under nuclear attack from North Korea, but to strike it down with nukes is just not feasable; the Korean Peninsula is home to 70 million people, more or less, all of whom are looking forward to eventual reunification, if not an immediate reunification. Radiating the northern half won't help that cause very much. Not to mention that Seoul, the capital of South Korea and home to more than 10 million people is only about 110 miles away from Pyongyang, and would most certainly be in the fallout range of any attack on Pyongyang. South Korea is also home to 37000 US troops; many of them around the DMZ and Seoul. Dropping a nuke on the norks and irradiating them along with many South Korean civilians, citizens of a (more or less) pro-US nation would be insane. Dropping a nuke further north won't do any better; fallout from those bombs would most likely reach China or Russia. Any bomb would almost certainly spread radioactive fallout on the Sea of Japan or the Yellow sea, furthering the risk of turning China into a true enemy and/or Japan into an Anti-US nation. Dropping a nuke on the norks would be akin to dropping a nuke on the Syrians to save the Israelites, or on Serbia while trying to conserve the balkans.

An attack with chemicals in a Japanease subway- basiclly the best possible enviroment for such an attack, since its enclosed and has a ventilation system to spread the cheicals for you- only killed about 10 people.

The attack was made by civilians who actually bumbled the attack, where only a few of the homemade pockets of sarin were released and spread successfully. Should a military ever undertake such an attack, with soldiers trained in releasing chemical agents to their most effectiveness, with a more potent form of sarin or any other agent, and with more stockpiles of the agent used befitting any military-style attack, the effects and the death toll would have been far greater.