Slashdot Mirror

"We'd have to wear gas masks when we went outside, because of air pollution."

You can thank American Government pollution laws for that not happening. Go to a major city in China; there, you'll DEFINITELY need gas masks to deal with pollution, especially near those "free enterprize" zones where pollution is not regulated. China has 7 of the world's most polluted cities. Proof: http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/nts40287.htm

Oh and recently, Exxon-Mobil Corporation announced that peak oil will happen in 5 years. Proof: http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=mj0 5cavallo

Also, for a good miniature end-of-the-world scenario that happened, go read up on Rapa Nui, aka Easter Island.

This is not a joke. We're running out of oil and the oil companies are admitting it. At least let the truth get told and stop modding it down!

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=mj0 5cavallo

Oil: Caveat empty

By Alfred J. Cavallo
May/June 2005 pp. 16-18 (vol. 61, no. 03) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Without any press conferences, grand announcements, or hyperbolic advertising campaigns, the Exxon Mobil Corporation, one of the world's largest publicly owned petroleum companies, has quietly joined the ranks of those who are predicting an impending plateau in non-OPEC oil production. Their report, The Outlook for Energy: A 2030 View, forecasts a peak in just five years.

In the past, many who expressed such concerns were dismissed as eager catastrophists, peddling the latest Malthusian prophecy of the impending collapse of fossil-fueled civilization. Their reliance on private oil-reserve data that is unverifiable by other analysts, and their use of models that ignore political and economic factors, have led to frequent erroneous pronouncements. They were countered by the extreme optimists, who believed that we would never need to think about such problems and that the markets would take care of everything. Up to now, those who worried about limited petroleum supplies have been at best ignored, and at worst openly ridiculed.

Meanwhile, average consumers have taken their cue from the market, where rising prices have always been followed by falling prices, leading to the assumption that this pattern will continue forever. In truth, the market price of crude oil is completely decoupled from and independent of production costs, which average about $6 per barrel for non-OPEC producers and $1.50 per barrel for OPEC producers. This situation has nothing to do with a free market, and everything to do with what OPEC believes will be accepted or tolerated by the United States. The completely affordable market price--what consumers pay at the gasoline pump--provides magisterial profits to the owners of the resource and gives no warning of impending shortages.

All the more reason that the public should heed the silent alarm sounded by the ExxonMobil report, which is more credible than other predictions for several reasons. First and foremost is that the source is ExxonMobil. No oil company, much less one with so much managerial, scientific, and engineering talent, has ever discussed peak oil production before. Given the profound implications of this forecast, it must have been published only after a thorough review.

Second, the majority of non-OPEC producers such as the United States, Britain, Norway, and Mexico, who satisfy 60 percent of world oil demand, are already in a production plateau or decline. (All of ExxonMobil's crude oil production comes from non-OPEC fields.) Third, the production peak cited by the report is quite close at hand. If it were twenty-five years instead of five years in the future, one might be more skeptical, since new technologies or new discoveries could change the outlook during that longer period. But five years is too short a time frame for any new developments to have an impact on this result.

Also noteworthy is the manner in which the Outlook addresses so-called frontier resources, such as extra-heavy oil, "oil sands," and "oil shale." The report cites the existence of more than 4 trillion barrels of extra heavy oil and "oil sands"--producing potentially 800 billion barrels of oil, assuming a 20-25 percent extraction efficiency. The Outlook also cites an estimate of 3 trillion barrels of "oil shale." These numbers have figured prominently in advertisements that ExxonMobil and other petroleum companies have placed in newspapers and magazines, clearly in an attempt to reassure consumers (and perhaps stockholders) that there is no need to worry about resource constraints for many decades.

However, as with all advertis

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=mj0 5cavallo

Oil: Caveat empty

By Alfred J. Cavallo
May/June 2005 pp. 16-18 (vol. 61, no. 03) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Without any press conferences, grand announcements, or hyperbolic advertising campaigns, the Exxon Mobil Corporation, one of the world's largest publicly owned petroleum companies, has quietly joined the ranks of those who are predicting an impending plateau in non-OPEC oil production. Their report, The Outlook for Energy: A 2030 View, forecasts a peak in just five years.

In the past, many who expressed such concerns were dismissed as eager catastrophists, peddling the latest Malthusian prophecy of the impending collapse of fossil-fueled civilization. Their reliance on private oil-reserve data that is unverifiable by other analysts, and their use of models that ignore political and economic factors, have led to frequent erroneous pronouncements. They were countered by the extreme optimists, who believed that we would never need to think about such problems and that the markets would take care of everything. Up to now, those who worried about limited petroleum supplies have been at best ignored, and at worst openly ridiculed.

Meanwhile, average consumers have taken their cue from the market, where rising prices have always been followed by falling prices, leading to the assumption that this pattern will continue forever. In truth, the market price of crude oil is completely decoupled from and independent of production costs, which average about $6 per barrel for non-OPEC producers and $1.50 per barrel for OPEC producers. This situation has nothing to do with a free market, and everything to do with what OPEC believes will be accepted or tolerated by the United States. The completely affordable market price--what consumers pay at the gasoline pump--provides magisterial profits to the owners of the resource and gives no warning of impending shortages.

All the more reason that the public should heed the silent alarm sounded by the ExxonMobil report, which is more credible than other predictions for several reasons. First and foremost is that the source is ExxonMobil. No oil company, much less one with so much managerial, scientific, and engineering talent, has ever discussed peak oil production before. Given the profound implications of this forecast, it must have been published only after a thorough review.

Second, the majority of non-OPEC producers such as the United States, Britain, Norway, and Mexico, who satisfy 60 percent of world oil demand, are already in a production plateau or decline. (All of ExxonMobil's crude oil production comes from non-OPEC fields.) Third, the production peak cited by the report is quite close at hand. If it were twenty-five years instead of five years in the future, one might be more skeptical, since new technologies or new discoveries could change the outlook during that longer period. But five years is too short a time frame for any new developments to have an impact on this result.

Also noteworthy is the manner in which the Outlook addresses so-called frontier resources, such as extra-heavy oil, "oil sands," and "oil shale." The report cites the existence of more than 4 trillion barrels of extra heavy oil and "oil sands"--producing potentially 800 billion barrels of oil, assuming a 20-25 percent extraction efficiency. The Outlook also cites an estimate of 3 trillion barrels of "oil shale." These numbers have figured prominently in advertisements that ExxonMobil and other petroleum companies have placed in newspapers and magazines, clearly in an attempt to reassure consumers (and perhaps stockholders) that there is no need to worry about resource constraints for many decades.

However, as with all advertisements, it's best to read the fine print. ExxonMobil's world oil production forecast shows no contribution from "oil shale" even by 2030. Only about

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=mj0 5cavallo

Oil: Caveat empty

By Alfred J. Cavallo
May/June 2005 pp. 16-18 (vol. 61, no. 03) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Without any press conferences, grand announcements, or hyperbolic advertising campaigns, the Exxon Mobil Corporation, one of the world's largest publicly owned petroleum companies, has quietly joined the ranks of those who are predicting an impending plateau in non-OPEC oil production. Their report, The Outlook for Energy: A 2030 View, forecasts a peak in just five years.

In the past, many who expressed such concerns were dismissed as eager catastrophists, peddling the latest Malthusian prophecy of the impending collapse of fossil-fueled civilization. Their reliance on private oil-reserve data that is unverifiable by other analysts, and their use of models that ignore political and economic factors, have led to frequent erroneous pronouncements. They were countered by the extreme optimists, who believed that we would never need to think about such problems and that the markets would take care of everything. Up to now, those who worried about limited petroleum supplies have been at best ignored, and at worst openly ridiculed.

Meanwhile, average consumers have taken their cue from the market, where rising prices have always been followed by falling prices, leading to the assumption that this pattern will continue forever. In truth, the market price of crude oil is completely decoupled from and independent of production costs, which average about $6 per barrel for non-OPEC producers and $1.50 per barrel for OPEC producers. This situation has nothing to do with a free market, and everything to do with what OPEC believes will be accepted or tolerated by the United States. The completely affordable market price--what consumers pay at the gasoline pump--provides magisterial profits to the owners of the resource and gives no warning of impending shortages.

All the more reason that the public should heed the silent alarm sounded by the ExxonMobil report, which is more credible than other predictions for several reasons. First and foremost is that the source is ExxonMobil. No oil company, much less one with so much managerial, scientific, and engineering talent, has ever discussed peak oil production before. Given the profound implications of this forecast, it must have been published only after a thorough review.

Second, the majority of non-OPEC producers such as the United States, Britain, Norway, and Mexico, who satisfy 60 percent of world oil demand, are already in a production plateau or decline. (All of ExxonMobil's crude oil production comes from non-OPEC fields.) Third, the production peak cited by the report is quite close at hand. If it were twenty-five years instead of five years in the future, one might be more skeptical, since new technologies or new discoveries could change the outlook during that longer period. But five years is too short a time frame for any new developments to have an impact on this result.

Also noteworthy is the manner in which the Outlook addresses so-called frontier resources, such as extra-heavy oil, "oil sands," and "oil shale." The report cites the existence of more than 4 trillion barrels of extra heavy oil and "oil sands"--producing potentially 800 billion barrels of oil, assuming a 20-25 percent extraction efficiency. The Outlook also cites an estimate of 3 trillion barrels of "oil shale." These numbers have figured prominently in advertisements that ExxonMobil and other petroleum companies have placed in newspapers and magazines, clearly in an attempt to reassure consumers (and perhaps stockholders) that there is no need to worry about resource constraints for many decades.

However, as with all advertisements, it's best to read the fine print. ExxonMobil's world oil production forecast shows no contribution from "oil shale" even by 2030. O

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has a great view of early Soviet nuclear work at Mayak starting in the late 1940's
http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=so9 9larin

"expensive apparatuses were more valuable than the people who operated them"
"it was common to clean up spills of radioactive solutions by hand. It seems strange now, but the possibility of spills was not anticipated, and there was no way to collect spilled solution safely. We had only wash cloths, buckets, and sometimes, rubber gloves. We collected the spilled solution and poured it into big glass bottles--it was a very expensive compound and we were expected to recover every drop."

"leaks happened there they sometimes lost as much as three tons of highly radioactive product. To collect those spills with wash cloths was impossible."

"several hundred kilograms of freshly irradiated nuclear fuel got stuck--men from everywhere in the plant were called out, and one after another they used long steel rods to push the elements into the apparatus. The only protection they had was cotton overalls and gloves"

Enjoy

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=so9 9larin

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has a great view of early Soviet nuclear work at Mayak starting in the late 1940's
http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=so9 9larin

"expensive apparatuses were more valuable than the people who operated them"
"it was common to clean up spills of radioactive solutions by hand. It seems strange now, but the possibility of spills was not anticipated, and there was no way to collect spilled solution safely. We had only wash cloths, buckets, and sometimes, rubber gloves. We collected the spilled solution and poured it into big glass bottles--it was a very expensive compound and we were expected to recover every drop."

"leaks happened there they sometimes lost as much as three tons of highly radioactive product. To collect those spills with wash cloths was impossible."

"several hundred kilograms of freshly irradiated nuclear fuel got stuck--men from everywhere in the plant were called out, and one after another they used long steel rods to push the elements into the apparatus. The only protection they had was cotton overalls and gloves"

Enjoy

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=so9 9larin

Suitcase nukes exist, sort of. While it's not quite something you'd carry in a suitcase, the Special Atomic Demolition Munition was a 1-kiloton nuke that weighed about 68 kilograms. You're not going to carry it in your suitcase unless you're He-Man, but you could certainly fit into the trunk of your car, even a French one ;) However, the odds of a terrorist group being able to build a nuke this small are fairly minimal without being handed the design by somebody else.

The resources and experience required to build a nuclear weapon are also somewhat less than is commonly believed; this article on the former South African nuclear program gives some idea of the minimum budget required for the job from scratch- tens of millions of dollars, but not hundreds. I should add that I'm highly skeptical that any terrorist group could coordinate this kind of money and people, in secret, for long enough to pull such an accomplishment off.

Finally, uranium, even enriched uranium, or plutonium is pretty hard stuff to detect; they just don't emit very much radiation until you push them into a critical mass! Bruce Schneier's blog links to an extensive report on the topic; he also links to news reports about how the detectors they have bought detect so many false alarms as to be essentially useless. Maybe the three-letter agencies have something better (for instance, looking for chemical traces of radioactive material rather than radiation itself), but if it is it's kept pretty secret.

Still, you're basically right. Terrorists aren't going to be whipping up nukes to send through the mail any time soon.

Apparently you can't read your own links. You state:

Iraq rebuilt the plant without outside assistance in 1988

Your article states:

Project 182, relating to the construction of a research reactor, foresaw the construction of an indigenous research reactor to replace the capability that would have been provided by the Osirak (Tamuz-1) research reactor. This project originated in 1984/85 after the breakdown in Iraq's negotiations with France for the rebuilding of the Osirak reactor. The Project 182 reactor was intended to be a natural uranium - heavy water type, similar to the Canadian NRX reactor. When the project had become more defined, in 1987 and 1988, studies concentrated on the design of the reactor core. As this work progressed it was recognised that considerable IAEC and foreign resources would be needed to bring the project to fruition. In mid-1988, while still in the study phase, the project was allowed to lapse due to lack of available resources - a consequence of the higher priority given to the needs of the EMIS enrichment program.

For more details on the Iraqi program and how close it actually came (which gives a nice summary of the difficulties in the process - a whole lot more than the Beeb gave, at least), I recommend this article from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Nice straw man. I'm not asserting anything about good/bad, and it so happens I'm not arguing my personal values either. I'm making a claim about what I think is the objective reality of the opinion people (Americans) have of the LDS church; that a lot of people find (or found) those current and former practices of the LDS church extreme or offensive, in contradiction to the post to which I responded. Because it's a claim about objective reality, it's subject to verification (if someone wants to do the work). I've backed my assertion with external references to some evidence that supports my claim. If you've got evidence that polygamy is "acceptable" in the U.S., let's see it. ("acceptable" means "tolerated by at least a big plurality of the Americans.) Evidence might persuade me that I'm wrong about what I think a lot of Americans think about polygamy.

...just because Frist is pandering...

That's exactly my point! Senator Frist is trying to link gay marriage to polygamy (and other things with high negatives in U.S. culture) because polygamy has much higher negatives among the general populace than does gay marriage.
QED.
The observation of Senator Frist's action is not based on what you or I think about either polygamy or gay marriage or their relationship or lack thereof, it's an observation of what a leading politician thinks will work to sway opinion to his side on the issue.

It seems that what I'm trying to communicate just isn't "coming in". I'm *not* trying to change anyone's personal opinion of any LDS doctrine or former doctrine, pro or con, nor am I trying to characterize those practices. I'm trying to express my sense of what the general sentiment of my fellow Americans is towards certain practices or former practices that Americans generally found to be extreme or offensive.

To give you some practice, here are some other similarly structured statements that I think are also true.

• In 1860, a great many Southerners supported slavery, or politicians who did so.
• Now, most people in the U.S. thinks slavery is reprehensible
• People were hanged in the American colonies for preaching a different variety of Christianity than was approved by the local government.
• Until the attack on Pearl Harbor, many Americans favored isolationism and opposed U.S. involvment in World War II.
• Most voters preferred Al Gore for president in the 2000 presidential election.
• Some Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions for religious reasons, even when it may save a life.
• There seems to be a correlation between fear of death and unwillingness to be an organ donor.
• Most Americans don't consider horses to be food animals.
• During the American Revolution, some colonial leaders thought that the British were using germ warefare against them.

NERVA was the 1960s. What you are looking for is TIMBERWIND.
http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=ja0 3rogers_014
Google "TIMBERWIND nuclear" and I'm sure you'll be uber-happy.

It is NOT working. It will NOT work correctly. NEVER. Some useful links: Article here
This one even dates before you're born (apparently, otherwise you'd be intelligent enough to make the difference between politics and science)
And here
If you can read more than 5mn in a row:
Here too

So what does the Doomsday clock say about this? I'll put my money on five minutes to (it's currently at seven minutes to, and i think the closest we've ever been was two minutes to in 1953).

I'm afaid you're wrong.

http://www.unicef.org/graca/patterns.htm

"Patterns in conflict:
Civilians are now the target"

"Civilian fatalities in wartime have climbed from 5 per cent at the turn of the century ... to more than 90 per cent in the wars of the 1990s."

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=sep 91lopez

"Not so clean"

'The U.S. strategy of Air-Land Battle closely resembles "total war."'

http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Russia/
http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/USA/

http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/nukenotes/mj03nu kenote.html

The US is working to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons in its arsenal. Your post implies otherwise. I hope the above links help clear up any confusion or misconceptions about US policy that you may have.

"I may have invented Ctrl-Alt-Del, but Bill Gates made it famous"

<a href="http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/200 1/05/29/ke052901s30057.htm">Uranium plants harm ozone layer</a>
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1319386. stm">Chernobyl children show DNA changes</a>
<a href="http://www.thebulletin.org/">The Bulletin</a>

Uranium plants harm ozone layer
Chernobyl children show DNA changes
The Bulletin

Not really. Weapons larger than 100 kilotons generally create a firestorm larger than the lethal blast radius. Think Dresden^2, hurricane-level winds etc. That pretty much cleans up the city of everything, including radioactive material.

Of course rebuilding the city might not be much easier than building it from scratch elsewhere...

For reference, see City on Fire

--

"Nuclear is a general term for weapons that release energy from nuclear reactions. Atomic refers to the earliest and least sophisticated weapons, which use nuclear fission."

All atomic weapons are nuclear, but not all nuclear weapons are atomic is to all apples are fruit, but not all fruit are apples.

At midnight, the world goes boom.

The Doomsday Clock, probably the major herald of nuclear danger, was set between 3 and 6 minutes 'till midnight for most of the 80s. It was judiciously set back as far as 17 minutes 'till midnight in the 90s.
And now, with recent world events, the clock was again set to 7 minutes 'till midnight on Feb 27, 2002.

Here is how/when/why the board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists decides to change the minutes to midnight.

At midnight, the world goes boom.

The Doomsday Clock, probably the major herald of nuclear danger, was set between 3 and 6 minutes 'till midnight for most of the 80s. It was judiciously set back as far as 17 minutes 'till midnight in the 90s.
And now, with recent world events, the clock was again set to 7 minutes 'till midnight on Feb 27, 2002.

Here is how/when/why the board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists decides to change the minutes to midnight.

At midnight, the world goes boom.

The Doomsday Clock, probably the major herald of nuclear danger, was set between 3 and 6 minutes 'till midnight for most of the 80s. It was judiciously set back as far as 17 minutes 'till midnight in the 90s.
And now, with recent world events, the clock was again set to 7 minutes 'till midnight on Feb 27, 2002.

Here is how/when/why the board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists decides to change the minutes to midnight.

I worry about more than that, I worry about the closing of space for generations!

But in reality, space does not clear after an explosion near our planet. The fragments continue circling the Earth, their orbits crossing those of other objects. Paint chips, lost bolts, pieces of exploded rockets--all have already become tiny satellites, traveling at about 27,000 kilometers per hour, 10 times faster than a high-powered rifle bullet. A marble traveling at such speed would hit with the energy of a one-ton safe dropped from a three-story building. Anything it strikes will be destroyed and only increase the debris.

With enough orbiting debris, pieces will begin to hit other pieces, fragmenting them into more pieces, which will in turn hit more pieces, setting off a chain reaction of destruction that will leave a lethal halo around the Earth. To operate a satellite within this cloud of millions of tiny missiles would be impossible: no more Hubble Space Telescopes or International Space Stations. Even communications and GPS satellites in higher orbits would be endangered. Every person who cares about the human future in space should also realize that weaponizing space will jeopardize the possibility of space exploration.

and

These satellites are already at increasing risk from space debris. At any moment, only about 200 kilograms of meteoroid mass are within 2,000 kilometers of the Earth's surface. But within this same altitude range are roughly 3 million kilograms of orbiting debris introduced by human activities, most from about 3,000 spent rocket stages and now-inactive satellites. Most of the approximately 4,000 additional objects several centimeters in size or larger resulted from the fragmentation of more than 120 satellites.

That's from Bullitin of the atomic scientists. link

Actually the Soviet Union did use nukes for mining and creating canals... Check out this link (scroll down to the bottom.)

What's tough is that Chernobyl-induced cancer cases amount to an increase of between 0.004% and 0.01% above the baseline rate of cancers (the exact number is subject to dispute, but is commonly agreed to lie in this range). Thyroid cancer rates are the only ones observed to have increased after Chernobyl, with an increase of 0.9% for the adult population as a whole and 5% for children under 14. Thyroid cancer is very treatable and has a mortality rate of 0.7%, so 100,000 excess cases of thyroid cancer would cause only about 700 deaths.

Some anti-nuclear activists assert that these numbers dramatically underestimate the number of deaths due to Chernobyl because they want to count as Chernobyl deaths the number of abortions (frequently estimated at 50,000-100,000) performed on frightened mothers throughout Europe in the wake Chernobyl. I hadn't seen the anti-nuke crowd join the pro-life movement before this.

According to the UNSCEAR, the only long-term effect that's been seen is an increase in thyroid cancer. They were surprised to see no increase in leukemia, whose connection to exposure to radiation is well documented and well understood.

The exact toll of the Chernobyl accident may never be known. Determining which cancers are caused by fallout and which by other causes is not possible and the numbers are so small as to be statistically uncertain. Perhaps the WHO number of 3500 deaths that I cited was low by a factor of two or three (another estimate, published in the anti-nuke Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, puts the toll at 6000 and rising as of 1996), but there's no credible estimate that puts Chernobyl't toll within a factor of five of Hiroshima.

sorry, the link did not work properly. It is here

You are WAY off.

But in reality, space does not clear after an explosion near our planet. The fragments continue circling the Earth, their orbits crossing those of other objects. Paint chips, lost bolts, pieces of exploded rockets--all have already become tiny satellites, traveling at about 27,000 kilometers per hour, 10 times faster than a high-powered rifle bullet. A marble traveling at such speed would hit with the energy of a one-ton safe dropped from a three-story building. Anything it strikes will be destroyed and only increase the debris.

With enough orbiting debris, pieces will begin to hit other pieces, fragmenting them into more pieces, which will in turn hit more pieces, setting off a chain reaction of destruction that will leave a lethal halo around the Earth. To operate a satellite within this cloud of millions of tiny missiles would be impossible: no more Hubble Space Telescopes or International Space Stations. Even communications and GPS satellites in higher orbits would be endangered. Every person who cares about the human future in space should also realize that weaponizing space will jeopardize the possibility of space exploration.

and

These satellites are already at increasing risk from space debris. At any moment, only about 200 kilograms of meteoroid mass are within 2,000 kilometers of the Earth's surface. But within this same altitude range are roughly 3 million kilograms of orbiting debris introduced by human activities, most from about 3,000 spent rocket stages and now-inactive satellites. Most of the approximately 4,000 additional objects several centimeters in size or larger resulted from the fragmentation of more than 120 satellites.

That's from Bullitin of the atomic scientists, the article is talking about the impact of SDI defense on increasing the danger but the general problem exists even without the additional clutter from ABM technology.

This is what "The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" has to say int the January issue:

"Putting aside the controversy surrounding security at U.S. nuclear power plants, a would-be dirty bomber faces a Herculean task. A spent fuel rod weighs about 28 kilograms, with 36 rods weighing more than a metric ton. Heavy shielding and remote controls are required in their handling, because each rod exposes anyone standing nearby (within a meter) to a lethal dose within seconds. ... "

There you go:
http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2004/jf04/jf04ko ch.html

This is more related to the Padilla case but never mind, to achieve the same impact one would have to deal with similar issues I guess.

This article at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist discusses the effects of firestorms and how one could be expected to behave within a city. Granted, the author is writing about a 300-kiloton weapon being detonated over the city, but you get the drift.

I guess Sally Ride and the Bulletin of the Atomics have no clue either.

http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2002/so02/so02pr imack.html.

They might be right or they might be wrong, but my statement is not ill-informed or fanciful.

The scientific community was indeed giving the lie to BushCo's claims about WMD long before the war. Apparently you weren't paying any attention. And neither was much of anyone else, major media included.

And "after the fact?" Responses are by nature "after the fact," that's just the way it is, Sparky.

As for "before the election," what do you want them to do, sit on this stuff until after the election? That makes no sense, and besides, altering the release date to a time that would serve a political agenda would be a political act, which is exactly what you're claiming they're doing. I guess they're damned if they do, and damned if they don't, eh?

The facts are pretty straight I think. A reasonable quantity of Pu 239 (a little bit over its critical mass which is around 250 grams) will generate enough heat to boil water...

If you get the stuff to fission, of course it will boil. Otherwise, you need a large chunk of Pu-239 larger than a softball. That's quite a bit more than 250 grams.

Note that Pu-239 is (or at least was) used as the main type of fuel in some types nuclear reactors like the fast-breeder ones.

Pu-239 is a main component because of how easily it fissions, not how radioactive it is.

1) They are extremely messy. The spent fuel contains very radioactive elements - check www.hanford.gov to see why the US is spending billions of dollars in a project to get rid of just a couple of thousands of tons of radioactive material.

The U.S. outlawed fuel reprocessing. Of course we have a waste problem. If it was properly reprocessed, we wouldn't have so much trouble.

2) These materials are very dangerous if they reach in the wrong hands. You know what I mean by that.

Why... you're right! Osama Bin Laden might hire nuclear scientists capable of understanding how to properly shape the initiation charge and make it explosive! We wouldn't even notice him testing a 10 megaton nuke! In fact, the only thing stopping him is our refusal to give him Pu-239!

Err... wait a minute. Isn't uranium 235 pretty common?

3) They are very hard to build, operate, and dissasemble.

The shocker of the century folks.

4) A single operational mistake might have disastrous consequences.

And that's exactly why a single coal plant kills more people every year than all the nuclear plants ever created. Umm.. that didn't come out right. What I meant to say is that a meltdown of a reactor might kill the hundred or so people near the reactor. Which is much worse than the coal plant that killed 3500 people in one week (London, 1952). Err...

Hey, wait a minute. How come there are 400+ consumer reactors, about 550 research reactors, and about 100 naval reactors in operation and the worldwide death toll is still lower than a single coal plant?

Did I mention that no new nuclear reactors were built in US after the 70's?

Did I mention this should change? The older reactors are dirtier, more dangerous, and less efficient than modern designs.

Really? Simple mental exercise: every human has a average daily intake of 2 picograms of Ra-226. That's OK, since the lethal limit is 8,000 times more than that. Now, you let me know what would happen if you would take (by breathing for example) 0.1 micrograms of Ra-226. Not grams, not miligrams but micrograms. Exercise left to the reader...

Well, let me see. You inhale a micro-gram (or even a milligram) and you're chances of lung cancer go up significantly. And then... maybe you die (eventually) or maybe you don't.

The stuff isn't exactly hemlock, you know. Asbestos can do just as good of a job.

In any case, what does Radon have to do with nuclear fission? Fission reactors don't use radon or radium. (India's reactors apparently use Thorium, but that's their decision.)

Ha, while that is true for the Earth as a whole, it might add politically significant amount of uranium isotopes to some dude's backyard in Florida and that counts 100x more than all the output of coal plants combined globally.

Did you know that uranium is one of the most common substances on Earth? You probably already have some in your backyard. Raining some from an engine would NOT increase it by that much. It certainly wouldn't kill you in the time it takes for the nuclear energy commission to clean up your neighborhood.

Did you know that old style X-Ray machines would give you up to 10 REMs of X-Ray radiaition per X-Ray? Modern digital machines give off only about 10-100 millrems, but if you are older than 15 you may have had an X-Ray from an older machine.

You'll note BTW, that it did not instantly kill you or cause your skin to melt. In fact, doctors considered it quite safe as long as they made sure not to give you too many X-Rays.

When it comes to nuclear power, the real dangerous stuff is the heart of a very large reactor. Older reactor designs would keep hundreds of pounds of material under pressure so that they could produce large amounts of power. In the case of a melt-down and boiler explosion, a lot of hard radiation would be exposed to people near by. (And I mean people within about half a mile. Radiation falls off at the same rate as light, so give it just a little distance you won't get any more than you would from your CRT.)

Here's the upside about the "hard stuff". It doesn't last. In order to be energetic enough to kill someone, it has to have a very short half-life. Within an hour, a reactor's core has already lost much of its most potent stuff. Within a few days it may even be safe enough to approach. Within a month they could cement over it and forget it existed.

I should probably mention that modern reactors can't have a boiler explosion like Chernobyl. Those designs were deemed unsafe long before the incident, and were decommisioned here in the US. Chernobyl OTOH, was built with *decreased* safety precautions because the Russians thought they were unnecessary. Contrast that to Three Mile Island which shut down exactly as it was supposed to.

Some interesting statistics for you. Currently, there are ~500 nuclear reactors in the world, plus the 50+ used by US Navy Vessels (8 on the Enterprise alone, 2 on a standard Nimitz carrier, and 1-2 on each nuclear sub), plus about 550 research reactors operating worldwide. Nuclear reactors are well understood things at this point.

I must admit that from what you are describing the engine would look completely different from what I have seen in some old magazines, it must be some completely new concept, if you have some links to sites (with pretty diagrams for ignoramuses) I would appreciate.

Wikipedia explanation of various proulsion methods

NERVA and GCNR engine descriptions

You're probably thinking of NERVA engines. NERVA engines would melt off the back of a rocket and drop from the sky like a rock (a very heavy rock) if they were to melt-down (although they run pretty close to melt-down normally). Gas Core Nuclear Rockets (GCNR) use a uranium plasma vapour for heating the propellant. This is in many ways easier to contain in an emergency than a tradiational nuclear pile.

BTW, I should probably point out some of the safety features of nuclear rockets. For one, they have more power, so they can be built of more traditional and well understood materials. Many chemical rockets go for exotic composites to keep weight down. The other advantage is that the fuel is what cools the engine. In the case of a runaway nuclear reaction, the turbopumps can deliver more fuel to cool the reactor

Coal's been in use for far longer than Uranium and Plutonium

And a single plant today *still* kills or poisons more people than all the nuclear plants that have ever existed.

To compare the number of people killed at this point is risky (and irresponsible) as your sample size for the latter of the two is far, FAR too small.

That's a difficult statement to make. Currently, there are ~500 nuclear reactors in the world, plus the 50+ used by US Navy Vessels (8 on the Enterprise alone, 2 on a standard Nimitz carrier, and 1-2 on each nuclear sub). In addition, there's about 550 research reactors operating worldwide. That's about as good of a sampling as we're going to get. (More info here.)

I'm not saying that we should shut down all the coal and oil plants overnight and replace them with nuclear. Such a rush would be irresponsible at best. Instead, we should be slowly scaling up and improving our use of nuclear power instead of shutting down the reactors without replacements (which tends to result in problems like California's rolling blackouts, or Wisconsin's summer brownouts).

A release has dire consequences- ones you keep downplaying just because few have been killed.

Just about every industrial accident has dire consequences. That's a fact of life. Considering the number of operating reactors, and the relatively few accidents that have happened, I'd say nuclear power has had a pretty thorough shake-down. The few accidents that have occurred have ranged from best case (TMI), to worst case (Chernobyl) and a few in between that have produced interesting info (Fermi I Breeder Reactor).

The truth is that nuclear power is an industrial operation that deals with tons of potentially dangerous chemicals. In the event of a catastrophe, people will die. There's no changing that. However, the number of people who die will not be significantly more than any other comparable industrial accident. Thus, similar safety precautions are taken and have to date shown to be effective.

Worst case scenarios such as the China Syndrome have been shown to be wholly incorrect and based on bad science. Similarly, winds do not carry radiation as many have feared. They can carry small radioisotope particles which present a mitigable danger. Larger chunks and heavier isotopes are simply too heavy to be carried by winds (or at least very far).

I will admit some selfishness, however. While we can continue poisoning ourselves with coal and oil here on Earth, we simply can't make it to space on those technologies. There just isn't a great enough energy to mass ratio in those or other "socially acceptable" technologies. The ONLY way we're going to be able to colonize other planets, or take frequent trips to the moon, is by use of nuclear technology. In many ways, this is the safest application of all. Rockets would be launched over the seas, have their materials packed in survivable containers, and designed to burn their fuel at a rate that would normally be considered a melt-down. You can't have a melt-down if it's already melted (or gaseous)!

Once in space, the amount of radiation and nuclear material expelled simply can't compare to the amount put out by the Sun or contained in Asteroids and Meteorites.

A lot. Of course, if you want to split hairs those weren't sold. They were given. The US has an appreciable portion of its nuclear arsonal in the hands of alies, on bases run by alies, and under the launch athority of alies. That was the entire point of the MLF (multilateral force)... and was implemented to a greater or lesser extent in the 1960s.

Then there's the nuclear capability of Israel.... can't imagine where that came from.

So the total is in the thousands of warheads. Any other questions?

• Print every single bit of information the whole world produced last year.
• Copy all of the output four times.
• Replace all this paper by TNT...

When Chinese worked on U.S. government atomic warheads, China soon had a design very much like it. Now that Microsoft is showing its source code, does that mean that there will soon be a Chinese version of Microsoft Windows, not owned by Microsoft?

Will Bill Li soon be the richest man in the world and complain about governments stifling innovation? Will Bill Gates then say that it doesn't really matter?

Actually, not quite. While good figures for Chem/Bio are a bit harder to find, at least where it comes to Nukes the Russians are well ahead of the US, at least according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. We've built more in total, but dismantled many as they became obselete.

According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists the US was also very good at hiding WMD

According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists the US was also very good at hiding WMD

Who would you trust? How about The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists?

I amazes me how often the bureaucrats in the Intelligence Comunity ignore what they already know.

The nth Country Expiriment proved that once knowlege is available to the public, and similar results can be obtained without knowlege of the methods used in previous successes.

If this grad student could compile this information, then so could sombody else, and it's probable that sombody already has.

This information should be used to point out the weaknesses inherent in our infrastructure, and show where this infrastructure needs to be diversified. IMHO, attempts to improve security by centralizing comunications and power distribution are doomed to failure, and will only make us weaker. Micro supliers and home based power generation would make terrorist attacks against the power grid inconsequential. The weaknesses in comunications infrastructure can probably only be cured by creating a third alternative (community high-band?) to the cablemodem and telephone company monopolies on delivering service.

I also don't agree with him lying the the nations of the world either (esspecially in a way that makes them feel as though they are in mortal danger)

Name ONE nation that didn't believe that Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction. If you can, provide a link to where they stated it.

According to our own legal system, if I tell someone to kill you, and they do, then I am guilty of murdering you, regardless of whether or not I'm even on the same planet as you, and it would be accurate to say that I murdered you. In the same way, if Osama bin Laden tells some guys to kill people, and they do, then he is guilty of murdering them, and it would be accurate to say that Osama bin Laden murdered those people.

I was patronizing you.

Actually it was stated by, "a former UN Assistant Secretary General, Denis Halliday"

Correct... With information coming from ... THE IRAQI GOVERNMENT. And I quote:

The problem with many of the most frequently cited studies is that they rely primarily on official Iraqi information sources. The 1995 FAO study contains a table reporting more than 500,00 deaths among children due to sanctions, but the source for these figures is the government of Iraq.

The study also contains an estimate by the Itaqi Ministry of Health that 109,000 people died annually because of sanctions, but it observes that the study's investigators "had no way of confirming this figure."

See here also.

You would believe the Iraqi government after the Iraqi Information Minister? Are you nuts? I suppose the Iraqi military is going to slaughter us now...

Innocent times like the good ol' 50s...

I thought that was pretty funny as well. The internet was developed as part of an effort to build a communications network that could survive a nuclear attack by the Soviets. Ah...the good old days, when the nuclear clock stood at a few minutes to midnight, and sensible people lived like there might be no tomorrow.

The most powerful bomb of which I'm aware was a 50 or 58 MT bomb (depending on the source) on Novaya Zemlya.

"The world's most powerful hydrogen bomb was detonated on the 30th of October 1961 [over Novaya Zemlya]. The bomb had an explosive force of 58 megatons, or almost 6,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. The bomb was dropped by an aircraft, and detonated 365 metres (1,200 feet) above the surface. The shock wave produced by this bomb was so powerful, it went thrice around the earth. The mushroom cloud extended almost 60 kilometres into the atmosphere."

Links:

George Washington University
The Bulletin
Bellona Foundation

And just how was the surrounding water ignited in the Fusion reaction? As I say...links please.

Naturally it's actually http://www.thebulletin.org/.

Kris

Let me see if I have this straight.

The government that brought us arms sales to Iran's Ayatollah, supported al Queda et al when it was Russia they were fighting, funded CIA-trained death squads in South America, that has killed a million-plus Iraqi children with their embargo (and noted "we think the price is worth it"), who have so far provded Turkey with $15B (yes, billions) worth of weapons and training to fight the Northern Kurds (who the U.S. claims to be protecting from Saddam) ...this is the same government which claims to want to protect my child (yes, I have one) from the implication of violence?

If I want to keep my daughter away from violence, I think my best bet is to turn off the nightly news and give her permission to skip history class.

It's certainly possible that humanity could destroy itself and/or the world with any one of hundreds of new technologies, but the odds are worse than they were in the days of the Cuban missile crisis, and we pulled through that one. Maybe you should check the Doomsday Clock next time, folks.

Err, no. If you just happen to read any news then first "weapon inspectors were forced out" by UN/US before desert fox bombing and second there are no high-grade centrifuges never found. And the biggest problem is with delivery systems, Iraq just does not possess anything like that. They havent *ever* had anything more than Scud B which is little short for attacking USA :P
And then of course nobody cares about North Koreas existing nuclear weapons and delivery systems... grr, its dangerous to mess with real powers.

Don't forget to follow the money. This is a "nonprofit" that takes foundation money. Of course foundations never come out and say "we're all a bunch of Leftist Europhiles living off the wealth of our 19th century ancestors who were capitalists so we're full of guilt and think socialism is just grand even though we like fancy things that people living in real socialist countries could never have". Instead they say they promote "social justice" and crap like that.

So, they may not be crackpots, but they are lapdogs of the Left who know where the money comes from, how to please the money, and how to say the right things so the money won't stop coming. Go ahead and mod me down or mod me "Funny" if you like, but a lot of you out there have experienced it first hand, and know I'm right.

Many people think that only Luddites could oppose more nuclear power because they're afraid of technology. I'm not afraid of technology, I'm afraid of the ineffectiveness of a handfull donut-eating security guards at each of hundreds of sites. Carefully read this and this and then think again about your plan to save a few German birds.