Re: The Kitchen Table Atom Bomb...review

["Franz Schoenhofer" <franz.schoenhofer@CHELLO.AT>]

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----

Von: AndrewsJP@AOL.COM <AndrewsJP@AOL.COM>

An: newsonline.errors@bbc.co.uk <newsonline.errors@bbc.co.uk>

Cc: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>

Datum: Donnerstag, 13. Juni 2002 20:13

Betreff: The Kitchen Table Atom Bomb...review





>You say in this report:

>

>   'The report adds: "Even if the device, when detonated, did not produce a

>significant nuclear explosion, the explosion of the chemical high

explosives

>would disperse the plutonium widely."

>

>   'So much of the stricken city would remain uninhabitable until

>decontaminated, which could take years. '

>

>Please note, aside from the fact that such a weapon will not provide a

>nuclear explosion for a variety of physical reasons, that the standard

method

>for recovering from widespread plutonium contamination in buildings and

>streets is to simply paint it, then clean up the paint.  This is relatively

>clean and quick; not the scenario you propose.  This technique is slightly

>more difficult in tomato fields and on snow and ice, but the process still

>works.

------------------------------------------------------------------



To clean up plutonium contamination is most probably almost routine for the

army. Remember the accidents at Thule, Greenland and Palomares, Spain?

Plutonium was spread widely because airplanes crashed and plutonium bombs

were destroyed. Maybe the plutonium was not so finely dispersed as it might

be when detonated "properly". People still live in the areas affected.



Another good experience is the use of explosives to detonate nuclear bombs

to look whether a chain reaction would be started - they were called "Safety

Tests". The USA has conducted such tests - of these I know almost nothing.

Great Britain has done it at Maralinga and as far as I know, efforts for

cleaning up are still going on, or at least the battle, who will pay for it.

France has done it at Mururoa and of this I know quite well, because one of

the most important tasks of my "Terrestrial Group" in the framework of the

International Mururoa Study, conducted by the IAEA, was to check the areas

for contamination, where the atmospheric safety tests had been conducted. I

have to admit, that those areas are uninhabitable, so the decontamination

criteria have not been so strict as they probably would be for Manhattan,

but we could show, that there was practically no possibility for people

visiting those areas to incorporate enough plutonium to suffer from it: The

large particles with enough plutonium in them could not be resuspended and

therefore not inhaled. The smalls which might get airborne contained to

little plutonium, so no harm was to be expected from inhalation. So I was

twice in an area with "a lot" of plutonium on the ground without any

protective clothing - except for plastic overshoes in order not to

contaminate the laboratory(!) and I have not suffered any illness, nor have

the friends in my group. Therefore not even the dispersal of some dozens of

gramms of plutonium (where to get them from?) would in my opinion not do any

harm, at least not in the long term. Gamma-emitters like Cs-137 or Co-60

would do even less.



Best regards,



Franz





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