OT: Nuclear War???

[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.

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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.