Interactive Edition of the Nuclear Notebook

Lasrick writes The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has just launched a very cool interactive graphic to go with their famed Nuclear Notebook, the feature that tracks the world's nuclear arsenals. Now you can see at a glance who has nuclear weapons, when they got them, and how those numbers compare to each other. A short introductory video gives some background on the success of the Notebook, which has been tracking nukes since 1987.

Comments

Lost focus

[Anonymous Coward]

It's interesting to me that, with nuclear stockpiles at a tiny fraction of their peak, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has tried to stay relevant by talking about climate change.

Re:Lost focus

[invictusvoyd]

The tiny fraction can still wipe out the human race

Re:Lost focus

[stooo]

The tiny fraction can still wipe out the human race many many many times.
We still need to ban nuclear weapons.

Re:Lost focus

[ShanghaiBill]

The tiny fraction can still wipe out the human race

They could certainly wipe out many urban population centers, and kill billions of people. They would also cause major economic disruption, and a collapse in trade that may kill billions more. But wipe out? No way. There are plenty of people living self sufficient lives in remote areas. There are many more people that have food reserves that they can live on until agriculture is revived. Many areas of the world, including most of the Southern Hemisphere, would not even be targeted in any reasonable scenario. Nuclear arsenals are much smaller than they were decades ago. There are far fewer warheads, and they are smaller and cleaner. A nuclear war with today's arsenals is not going to wipe out the human race.

Re:Lost focus

[Penguinisto]

The tiny fraction can still wipe out the human race

Maybe, but that would depend on the location, timing and distribution of those explosions. If the balloon went up in 1987, yeah, the human race would pretty much be fscked. Nowadays, I'm not so sure that would be a given, considering that a not-insignificant percentage of those weapons would be destroyed in their silos, are undergoing maintenance at any given time, would fail to detonate completely or cleanly, or a whole host of other factors (and if either the US or Russia abstain from the exchange, then all bets are off as to the doomsday factor entirely.)

Re:Lost focus

[Anonymous Coward]

Ban nuclear weapons, and you bring back the World Wars. WWI left some 38 million dead, WWII killed around 70 million. As grim and pointless as the proxy wars of the Cold War were, they pale in comparison to those numbers. The Korean War left maybe 3.5 million dead, Vietnam maybe 4 million. I won't pretend to offer statistics for the various other third world conflicts between 1945 and the 1990s, but at least those two wars should show that they're on a completely different scale, even with the technological advancements over WWII. There was a lot of dumb, unneccessary fighting going on during that time period, but that's pretty much true of any time period.

I like nukes. They end and prevent world wars. We currently live in the most peaceful time in human history, despite having a larger population than any other time. That's got to tell you that we're getting better. Ban nukes, and we lose all that progress.

Re:Lost focus

[invictusvoyd]

wipe out the human race many many many times.

Once is good enough !

Re:Lost focus

[Yomers]

Wanna bet?

Re:Lost focus

[Dragonslicer]

The tiny fraction can still wipe out the human race

They could certainly wipe out many urban population centers, and kill billions of people. They would also cause major economic disruption, and a collapse in trade that may kill billions more.

Unless the number of each of those "billions" is only 2, then that's just about the entire human species.

Re:Lost focus

[ShanghaiBill]

Unless the number of each of those "billions" is only 2, then that's just about the entire human species.

Except that it wouldn't be. The people in remote rural areas would be the most likely to survive the initial blasts. They would also be the most likely to survive the ensuing economic disruption. If all the nukes in the world were detonated in maximum casualty producing air bursts, they would destroy about 0.2% of the Earth's land area. Air bursts produce minimal amounts of fallout. If they were detonated in sub-surface bursts (to destroy underground silos) the fallout would be worse, but would still mostly be contained in the ground locally, and almost no one would die in the initial bursts. Today's nukes are more efficient and cleaner than the WWII era bombs. They produce far less fallout for a given yield.

Even within target urban areas, there would be survivors. Some people in downtown Hiroshima, and many more in Nagasaki, survived the blast, and the radiation, and went on to have children and grandchildren. Most people in Hiroshima didn't die from the blast or the radiation. They died in the firestorm. But Nagasaki was mostly made from stone, instead of wood like Hiroshima, so there was no firestorm, and many more people survived there despite the bomb being nearly twice as powerful.

If people 200 meters from ground zero can survive, I am sure someone on New Zealand's South Island, 5000 km from the closest impact, will be okay.

Re:Lost focus

[CrimsonAvenger]

Unless the number of each of those "billions" is only 2, then that's just about the entire human species.

If 90% of humans were killed in a nuclear exchange (or any other mass death event), we'd still have a population considerably higher than it was 2000 years ago.

If 99% of humanity were killed, we'd still have a population considerably higher than it was 3000 years ago....

Re:Lost focus

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's try it and see what happens.

Re:Lost focus

[mrex]

We still need to ban nuclear weapons.

And alcohol. And drugs. And cigarettes. And... well, you get my point. Banning something doesn't make that thing unavailable. This is doubly true in reference to sovereign nations dealing in a world lacking a unified system of enforceable international laws.

The genie doesn't go back in the bottle. We are either going to have to figure out how to get along in a world in which each of us has the capability to destroy all of us, or resign ourselves to the extinction of our species.

Re:Lost focus

[rogoshen1]

One could also make the argument that by preventing smaller wars, you set the stage for larger, more disastrous ones. The 100 years or so prior to WWI set the stage for both world wars.

Trying to suppress instability seems to smooth things over in the near term, but when it does (and it will) blow up, the result is far messier than if things had been left alone to resolve themselves.

Re:Lost focus

[mrex]

The people in remote rural areas would be the most likely to survive the initial blasts. They would also be the most likely to survive the ensuing economic disruption.

This is an extremely naive and optimistic perspective. I'm not here to rain on your parade, but when you're trying to convince people that nuclear war wouldn't be *so bad*, that it's survivable, I feel like maybe I should. Because nuclear war at scale is not survivable. At all. Like, that's the point of it.

I could tell you stuff about how research indicates that a nation needs to lose only a small fraction (~10%) of its working population in order to become permanently logistically non-functional. I could tell you about how

Instead I will just share this one historical anecdote. You remember Chernobyl, right? What a big mess all that was? Well, what most people don't know at all is that we got very lucky at Chernobyl. The tons of enriched fuel that had melted down was only days away from contacting a large pool of cooling water stored beneath. Scientists ran calculations and warned that, should the zircon-and-graphite-clad fuel mixture contacted the water, it would have created an explosion in the range of several megatons. This, the scientists assured us, would have rendered most of western Europe permanently uninhabitable. Even after this pool was drained, there was still a great risk of rendering the entirety of Russia uninhabitable, because the fuel could have melted through the Earth's surface and contacted the water table that feeds all of Russia and a good deal of Europe.

So that's the risk of a single surface blast in the megaton range, and a single plant's worth of fuel pollution. Now understand that, in war, we are talking about potentially thousands of such warheads. Understand that fatal toxicity of plutonium to the human body is at the nanograms-per-kilogram level. Understand that ionizing radiation contaminates and spreads like a contagion. Understand that apex predators like us require whole ecosystems in order to survive that are fundamentally incompatible with a highly irradiated landscape. Understand that, in their last gasps, spiteful empires may deploy doomsday weapons and techniques *specifically* intended to render the planet permanently uninhabitable.

Some people in downtown Hiroshima, and many more in Nagasaki, survived the blast, and the radiation, and went on to have children and grandchildren.

Hiroshima is to nuclear war as a slap upside the head is to a 12 round bout with Mike Tyson.

Re:Lost focus

[Dragonslicer]

I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with your general assessment, I was just taking a cheap jab at your wording. While technically "billions" could be as low as 2 billion, usually it's intended to mean much more than that. Since you said twice that billions would die, "billions" would only need to mean 3-4 billion for it to equal the total human population.

Re:Lost focus

[QuantumPion]

Your post is total hogwash. Just about everything you have said is completely 100% factually false. By "scientists" I assume you are referring to an actor portraying a scientist in an anti-nuclear power propaganda piece.

a) there is no large pool of water directly below the reactor
b) even if the fuel melted into a large reservoir of water, it could not become critical. It is not physically possible without the precise fuel and moderator arrangement present in an in-tact reactor configuration.
c) even if you somehow made the fuel become critical, it could not explode like a bomb. If a fuel mass became critical, it would simply heat up and disperse. Worse case is the heat would cause additional steam/fire to disperse more fission products. Let me reiterate: it is physically impossible for reactor fuel of any kind to produce a nuclear bomb type explosion. Nuclear bombs require extremely precise arrangement with unimaginably creative engineering to function.
d) if the fuel mass reached the water table, all that would occur would be another path for contamination in the local area which was already heavily contaminated. Fission products would not be magically transported throughout the whole continent, nor could an entire continent be made uninhabitable.
e) a power plant contains a couple orders of magnitude more fuel than a bomb. The contamination from a worse-case-scenario power plant accident is much higher than nuclear bombs would be, unless they were some sort of salted enhanced radiation bomb. For comparison, a typical nuclear power reactor creates as many fissions as a nuclear bomb about every 6 hours.
f) radiation does not spread like a contagion. This is just plain FUD.

The only part of your post which was even remotely accurate was about doomsday enhanced radiation bombs or salted bombs. No one has ever designed, built, or tested such a device and they are only theoretical. But theoretically, with enough salted bombs (meaning about 1000 times more than the entire world's nuclear stockpile at the height of the cold war) you could theoretically make most of the surface uninhabitable.

Re:Lost focus

[ShanghaiBill]

I could tell you stuff about how research indicates ...

Rather than "telling us", why don't you provide a citation. Because I think you are full of baloney.

Scientists ran calculations and warned that, should the zircon-and-graphite-clad fuel mixture contacted the water, it would have created an explosion in the range of several megatons.

Please provide a citation for this as well. I would love to read about how fuel concentrated to only 3% U-235 could possibly cause a "megaton" explosion.

Re:Lost focus

[stooo]

The maya civilization died.
The roman civilization died.
The greek civilization died.
The industrial/nuclear civilization will also.

Re:Lost focus

[mrex]

Rather than "telling us", why don't you provide a citation.

Because I'm not writing a thesis, but a comment on the internet?

Please provide a citation for this as well.

Feel free to mark my grade down if you dislike that I didn't show my work, teacher.

Re:Lost focus

[mrex]

there is no large pool of water directly below the reactor

You are THIS totally uninformed, and accusing me of posting "hogwash"?

even if the fuel melted into a large reservoir of water, it could not become critical.

This was not the conclusion of the Soviet scientists and engineers at the time, working with more detailed knowledge than I suspect you are.

even if you somehow made the fuel become critical, it could not explode like a bomb.

Once again, this was not the conclusion of the better-informed Soviet scientists and engineers at the time.

if the fuel mass reached the water table, all that would occur would be another path for contamination in the local area which was already heavily contaminated.

I don't even know what to make of this statement, except that you don't seem to understand what a water table is, as "local area" in reference to one does not make a whole lot of sense.

a power plant contains a couple orders of magnitude more fuel than a bomb.

Granted?

radiation does not spread like a contagion. This is just plain FUD.

You are probably being deliberately being over-literal, but in any event are once again proving a little too determinedly bereft of clue to bother with.

Re:Lost focus

[mrex]

You just named three cultures and then a technology. But do cultures and technologies obey the same "rules"? Lets see:

The fire civilization died.
The copper civilization died.
The electricity civilization died.

Hmmm.

Re:Lost focus

[ShanghaiBill]

You are THIS totally uninformed,

Hot steam is not going to cause a "megaton" explosion. Maybe one ton. Maybe not even that, since it could just vent to the atmosphere.

This was not the conclusion of the Soviet scientists and engineers at the time

Citation?

Re:Lost focus

[Beck_Neard]

We've had nukes for about 70 years, and over half of this time period was spent with world leader's fingers trembling nervously over the launch buttons. The past 30 years have seemed relatively peaceful but is it because of nukes or general worldwide economic progress? Supposing a causal relationship between nukes and peace seems bordering on magical thinking.

Re:Lost focus

[Yomers]

Yeah, just wait a bit until Doomsday vault is full of seed samples, just in case.

Re:Lost focus

[Anonymous Coward]

One could make that arguement, but it's not a compelling one. Sure the wars of 1812 was small compared to WWII, the civil war less so. Even arguing the Napoleonic wars ha an influence on WWI is a stretch. Then you close with - things should have resolved themselves??? WTF does this even mean??? Your contrarian attitude could have been much more forceful if you had made a single valid point.
Allow me to nip this diversion in the bud and get back to the original argument. Well, actually I won't be able to because i am typing on a cheap android tablet that can't handle the bizarre formatting of Slashdot and will soon run out of space. So, suffice it to say that yo7r argument sucks and that having a nuclear weapon is like having a 12" cock.. Everyone thinks they want one, but once you do, you don't get to use it much because nobody wants to fuck a guy with a 12" cock. Believe me, I speak from experience. THIS is why the Chinese will take over the world. Tiny cocks. (And they breed like fuckin rabbits)

Re:Lost focus

[mrex]

Supposing a causal relationship between nukes and peace seems bordering on magical thinking.

I wouldn't totally discount the suppressive effects of mutually assured destruction on conflict between rational powers seeking enlargement of their empires. But those are a lot of qualifiers, and the history of humanity seems to suggest that effective weapons, once developed, will eventually be used.

Re:Lost focus

[Beck_Neard]

> and the history of humanity seems to suggest that effective weapons, once developed, will eventually be used.

Yes and fact is, a lot of international policy is currently based around the assumption that nukes are no deterrent to direct confrontation. The US/Israel reaction to N Korea and Iran's nuclear program, for instance. Or the very real threat of nuclear terrorism via stolen warheads. MAD isn't a principle that applies here.

Nuclear weapons are more relevant than ever and even though Russia may not want to use them, there are a lot of people who do.

Re:Lost focus

[GoddersUK]

Yes, I'm sure Ayatollah Khamenei and Kim Jong Un will join in with the ban and won't begin plotting the obliteration of civilisation. The reality is, even if the US, Russia, UK, China, France, India and Pakistan all claimed to have decommissioned their nukes we wouldn't know for sure. The state that secretly hasn't may gamble they're the only one and use them. And then you have states like Israel that probably have nuclear weapons but will neither confirm nor deny it. No, we're safest keeping a nuclear stalemate balanced between the major power blocs with the majority of the nuclear armed states openly so.

FWIW, out of the states listed above (excluding Iran and NK, but including Israel) I'm not most worried about east-west relations; it's the two states that are less than friendly with each other but share a large land border with sporadic violence between them (one of which could, not inconceivably, have an Islamist government at some point in the future) that make me most jittery (on the plus side they're probably only interested in nuking each other and neither of them are near me). Israel don't worry me too much because all the countries they're likely to want to nuke are close enough to Israel to make that a very unattractive option. Iran and NK are the wildcards - NK in particular because they're already almost totally isolated from the rest of the world and I doubt Kim Jong Un gives enough of a rat's arse about his people to care if they get atomised.

Re:Lost focus

[Anonymous Coward]

We are humans, we kill each other and have since there were more than a small handfull of them. what makes you so sure that smaller wars are better for us? after all war could be seen as one form of population control.

Re:Lost focus

[Anonymous Coward]

hey, feel like giving me fridays lotto numbers?

you seem to be able to predict outcomes with out taking into account alot about our environment.. Yes people live self sufficent, but to assume that the southern hemisphere wouldnt be affected is just ignorance. With the combination of the Jet Stream and the Oceanic Currents, there is a tipping point where the ammount of nuclear material released will cause perment harm to the global ecosystem. I am not a nuclear scientist so i dont know that tipping point but it would seem with the ammount that russia or america SAYS they have it is entirely possible.

Re:Lost focus

[mrex]

MAD isn't a principle that applies here.

Increasingly anywhere. MAD has always had the attribution problem, and it snowballs with proliferation. :\

Re:Lost focus

[Anonymous Coward]

One could make the argument that suppressing Pirates leads to wars.
Look at all the wars that have happened since the end of the age of Pirates!

And then we had relative peace but Somali and African pirates.. Then we started a crack down on them and now look at Russia and the Ukraine!

Re:Lost focus

[stooo]

Yep, but a lot of knowlege and technology got lost by the desappearing civilizations (often to be found again much later...)

The knowledge of nuclear weapons will fade with time when governments break up and people will worry with survival.

Re:Lost focus

[mrex]

The knowledge of nuclear weapons will fade with time when governments break up and people will worry with survival.

That's a very thin limb upon which to base so much.

A txt file

[invictusvoyd]

could be better tha this dumb app . I dont know why people like dumb apps . People are forgetting how to read data ..

Re:A txt file

[GrooveNeedle]

You're assuming people ever knew how to read data. Every day I'm reminded that they don't.

Re:A txt file

[Anonymous Coward]

You do understand that their doomsday clock was set up with rules as to what the display shows...and yes, we've always been under the threat of nuclear annihilation since two opposing countries got the bomb. We're farther away than we were during the 80's thank $DIETY, but there are a lot of people still pointing weapons at each other.

'Impartial' has nothing to do with it. Reality isn't 'fair and balanced'.

This is completely bogus!

[MagickalMyst]

It shows nothing with respect to Israel's nuclear arsenal.

Mordechai Vanunu would be disappointed!

Re:This is completely bogus!

[tatman]

The map had Israel colored orange but did not have their map at that bottom.

Re:This is completely bogus!

[mr.mctibbs]

Did you move the slider at all? It is in fact noteworthy that the page shows Israel has nearly doubled the size of its nuclear arsenal since worldwide arsenals peaked in '86. Likewise, it's worth noting that Israel is *not* a member of the NPT.

Re:This is completely bogus!

[Penguinisto]

Did you move the slider at all? It is in fact noteworthy that the page shows Israel has nearly doubled the size of its nuclear arsenal since worldwide arsenals peaked in '86.

Given the neighborhood and Iran's intent to make their own nukes, can you blame them?

Likewise, it's worth noting that Israel is *not* a member of the NPT.

...so who would they sell the tech to? Sometimes it makes no sense to bother with something when you're not liable to violate its precepts.

Re:This is completely bogus!

[Rob Riggs]

Given the neighborhood and Iran's intent to make their own nukes, can you blame them?

Uh... you know *why* Iran wants nukes, right? It is precisely because a nearby military rival has them. Israel is right to be scared by that prospect, but they will only have themselves to blame in the end. I don't see things working out well for that area of the world long term.

Re:This is completely bogus!

[Dragonslicer]

Uh... you know *why* Iran wants nukes, right? It is precisely because a nearby military rival has them.

That's not what Iran says.

Re:This is completely bogus!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you move the slider at all? It is in fact noteworthy that the page shows Israel has nearly doubled the size of its nuclear arsenal since worldwide arsenals peaked in '86. Likewise, it's worth noting that Israel is *not* a member of the NPT.

India and Pakistan are not members either, their arsenals have nearly doubled in the past 5 years, and both have larger arsenals than Israel.

Re:This is completely bogus!

[Penguinisto]

Uh... you know *why* Iran wants nukes, right? It is precisely because a nearby military rival has them.

...the same "nearby military rival" that Iran has repeatedly threatened to wipe out of existence. If anything, it's a huge argument against ever letting Iran get hold of the effing things.

Ob. Lehrer

[Anonymous Coward]

First we got the bomb, and that was good,
'Cause we love peace and motherhood.
Then Russia got the bomb, but that's okay,
'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way.
Who's next?

I read that wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nuclear Notebook", as in notebook computer, is what my brain saw. It would be even more uncomfortable than my previous laptop*, but the battery life would be amazing.

* An old Gateway MX7515 from when I started college in '06. It would have produced less heat and noise if it ran on an internal combustion engine. Part of my left leg still doesn't grow hair.

Why is Israel not part of the NNPT?

[iceco2]

6 countries are believed to have held nuclear weapons as of the treay's creation.
Only 5 are recognized as "legitimate" nuclear powers.
Saying if you have them you may keep them but no one else can makes a minimal about of sense. Saying: "everyone who has them except Israel is allowed to keep them" is just plain wrong.

Re:Why is Israel not part of the NNPT?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Because they didn't sign it.

Saying: "everyone who has them except Israel is allowed to keep them" is just plain wrong.

Which just might be why they didn't sign on - and part of why "Israel has had a policy of opacity regarding its nuclear weapons program."

Some things to remember about the NNPT:
  - Not every country in the world is a signatory.
  - Even signatories didn't permanently give up their right to develop nuclear weapons: By the treaty's own terms (section X(1)), they can drop out on three month's notice:

Article X

1. Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other Parties to the Treaty and to the United Nations Security Council three months in advance. Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events it regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests.

Mostly unsubstantiated opinion posing as data

[Anonymous Coward]

The BulletinBoyz are a group of hardcore leftists with no PROOF of the number of nukes in ANY aresenal.

By definition, they know NOTHING about what is happening in any secret lab or what is stored in any secret bunker. They know NOTHING about the actual warheads in any missiles or bombs aboard any ships or subs or in any silos or mobile transporters or in any bombers.

They have absolutely no verified FACTS.

They started out as a bunch of left-wing scientists who were happy to work on "the bomb" as long as it would be used for revenge against Hitler (many were driven from their European homes by Hitler), but not for ANY other purpose (like winning WWII)... so after Germany fell in WWII (but before Japan fell) they turned against the American program (but being hard-core leftists, they and their friends had no problem with nuclear secrets being smuggled to Communist Russia and Communist China). All through the Cold War, these surrender monkeys argued and propagandized against ANY American project which might help the West win, instead pressuring the west to either unilaterally disarm or "freeze" in place to lock-in permanent nuclear supremacy for their beloved Soviet Union.

No thanks. These evil treasonous anti-Western propagandists deserve nothing more than recognition as dangerous propagandists. They have always fretted far more about nukes in the hands of nations not likely to use them than nukes in the hands of nations VERY likely to use them, and as such their "doomsday clock" has always been a joke. When have they EVER freaked out over Pakistani nukes or the Iranian program??? With the crap they churned-out during the 80's youd've thought Reagan and Thatcher were on the brink of blowing up the planet... instead of winning the cold war without firing a shot