The Myth That Nuclear Weapons Can Kill Everyone On Earth-many times over

We should an entire separate thread on people wildly overestimating the effect of EMPs.

 

Because the hot particles released in a nuclear detonation are nothing compared to the hot particles released in a reactor meltdown. A nuke has anywhere from a handful to a suitcase full of fissible material. Nuclear power plants can have tons of it. When a power plant can no longer cool its radiactive load, the material self-heats until it vaporizes itself and anything trying to contain it until it vents into the atmosphere and is carried wherever wind and water take it.

 

Warheads not mounted on delivery vehicles (missiles and bombs) are "in storage" and thus are of no threat.

 

No one is trying to downplay anything.

 

The nuclear fuel in a power plant is only a small fraction of the purity of that in a nuclear weapon. Which is why those weird fears about a nuclear power plant exploding in a nuclear event were always impossible.

 

The material self heats because it’s a critical mass. What happens when it isn’t a critical mass anymore?

 

Not exploding. Melting and evaporating.

A hot particle doesnt have to be weapons grade to kill you if inhaled/ingested.

 

Critical mass is required for a fission detonation. Not for meltdown.

 

You do know that when nuclear fuel melts it also spreads out. In short order, part of that spreading means it deconcentrates and cools rapidly.

 

How do you know they are overestimated? It is your opinion, based upon what? My opinion has been based upon what I have heard scientists say. So, if we get another carrington effect from our star, and given what it did when we witnessed one in the 1800s, what it did to the only communication infastructure that we had, telegraph lines, what do you think it will do to our high tech communication systems? And why are scientists telling us that an EMP from nukes would serve up a similar effect given the number of nukes that would be exchanged? Oh, you know more than they do. And not even a scientist...right? Hey, I tend to listen to these guys, given I am not one either. And they have been saying this for a very long time, and were not paid to say it...so not corrupted by money.

You know, when we got ahold of a russian fighter jet, if I am remembering this correctly, they had done something we did not do, at least at that point. They had hardened their electronics from EMPs. Imagine that. Why? Why waste money on it? With so little money to waste? Well, they were concerned about it.

 

If its sitting on the ground, sure. Most typically, its stored in heavily insulated conditions designed to contain it. This design is applied with the assumption that cooling will be available, which is acheived by perpetually dumping water on it. The problem is that when nukes ruin the power grid, infrastructure and economy, who will be perpetually dumping water on it and how? Eventually the fuel will be confined and insulated as designed, but uncooled. Then its a question of whether its insulation is sufficient to contain it before it evaporates. If not, it will be somewhat contained after it leaks into the ground, cools and resolidifies. If so, it will evaporate into the atmosphere.

However, the fuel is not the only thing thats radioactive. The insulation and equipment also becomes radioactive via proximity to the fuel. As that burns or evaporates, that creates hot particles as well that can radioactively kill when ingested/inhaled.

 

If you are referring to Soviet pilot Viktor Belenko defecting with his MIG-25 Foxbat to Japan in the 1970s the Soviets HAD NOT hardened their electronics against EMP. They were simply still using vacuum tubes in their electronics due to overall backwardness. Vacuum tubes are something like 1,000 times more resistant to EMP than more modern electronics. It wasn't too long ago that the entire air traffic control system in the U.S. still used vacuum tubes.

They EMP would knock out lots of electronic systems across the U.S. but the idea that the "whole United States goes dark" for several decades is probably an exaggeration. The power grid going off as a result of a nuclear attack would probably be of only secondary concern in the event of such a strike,

 

Must be a different incidence. I remember reading a few years ago that the soviets had hardened against EMPs. And it was in an aircraft, military. The source said at that time we had not done this. I don't think someone just lied about it, but being old, I cannot of course recall the source I saw it in. May not have been online since I have always been a great reader of books. May have been on one of the thousands of books I have read in my life, not sure.

Much of our grid is interconnected, and a sufficient emp would take down transformers throughout the grid. And sub stations. I think most of the experts who have studied this agree on what I have said, since I of course must use experts as sources. I am not an electrical engineer nor physicist. But I have heard both speak on this subject over the years of my long life.

If we must wait for such an attack to happen, in order to know for sure, well, that isn't the way we should operate, right? We should assume the worse and work from there, unless something has changed in the way intelligent beings operate.

I am so old this stuff will not effect me unless it happens soon, but I have kids, grand kids and great grand kids to think about. You? Would you roll the dice with their lives by believing we could survive a nuke exchange, and then take that attitude to our pentagon and ruling class? Not me my friend, not me. I have seen once, what happens in utter chaos, which would be a ghost compared to a nuke exchange. I don't want people believing they could survive one, if left on top of the earth instead of in an underground city as our elites and COG would have at their disposal. It is madness, IMO, to even entertain such thoughts. Which is why it "triggered" this old FDR liberal/progressive. Not to be confused with what is called liberalism or progressivism these days, which is a corruption of these ways of thinking, and utter insanity, IMO. Just as conservatism is these days. I don't recognize either one as anything but disconnected from reality ideologies. At least the older kind of these ideologies were at least connected to reality, in parts, but that is no longer the case IMO. Both have disposed of common sense, when the disconnection from reality occurred over time and the money which created it. But as usual, this old man is off topic.

I have said as much as I should say on the topic at hand. I will just end it by saying I am quite alarmed by this new way of thinking on a nuclear exchange, but I have seen it rise over the past few years, even from people in DC. Our earlier leaders and military leadership were much more intelligent, IMO. We have entered into an age of utter madness, and it is growing, and IMO, very dangerous to the continued existence of civilization if not humanity.

 

There was a period of time that the russians used vacuum tubes in their jets as tubes are more resilient to EMP than transistors. Just a fun fact.

 

They didn’t harden their fighters specifically against EMP’s. They used vacuum tubes because they had a **** industry for transistors.

For the EMP effect of a nuke to extend beyond the actual primarya nd secondary effects of a nuke it has to be detonated in space. And even then, it requires a very large detonation to have a widespread effect.

 

They used vacuum tubes because their electronics industry was hyper-dysfunctional.

 

Fascinating and informative article, Dayton. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

 

That might have something to do with it. Hey, I still use tube amps for my guitars! Think I had to replace some of the burnt out tubes with tubes made in russia. lol. Good tubes too. Who woulda thunk it? Yet my grandson got a new amp for xmas, and it has a tube amp setting which surprised me in the quality of tube sound. Still hard to teach an old dog new tricks and I only own tube amps. But then, most of the music I play was recorded using these kind of earlier amps. Still prefer turn tables and albums too. Sometimes progress is not really progress, IMO. But I am digressing...again.

 

the U.S. military routinely hardens much of its communications and control systems against EMP attack. That is a reasonable precaution. It doesn't mean this stuff about "one nuclear weapon sends the U.S. back to the stone age" is actually true.

If there is a large scale nuclear attack on the U.S, we won't be worrying about EMP. we won't be worrying about a nuclear winter, hell we won't even be worrying about things that make us glow in the dark.

Principal concerns are still heat and blast damage. No more, no less, and that is more than enough.

 

I find it amazing how many nuclear scientist there are on this forum!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Most of us can read though.

 

You didn't take into account the firestorms, threat of toxins from destroyed industrial centers, fallout, nuclear winter even if its not a devastating impact a few degrees less globally could mean a loss of crops and the destroyed civilized infrastructure we all depend on in the modern age. It might not kill all life but would still devastate human society as major powers and nations fall to ruin.

 

So what is your point? Are you itching for a nuclear war?

Want to 'bomb them Koreans'? Or those Iranians?

Sounds to me like you are trying your best to unleash America's nuclear arsenal onto someone.

 

If just one hundred 5 megaton nukes exploded at America's 100 biggest cities, our society would be totally destroyed.

same with Russia.

 

Liberals dont need to get their underlovelies in a wad over this. The US, Russia, and China have too much to lose in a nuclear war.