Re: Scientist Warns of After Effects of Nuclear Testing

[Sarah Hoover <shoover@lanl.gov>]

Look what he's doing over lunch.....!!!!!! Sarah

At 02:19 PM 8/10/98 -0500, you wrote:
>"In the estimate of Academician Sakharov, a one- kiloton nuclear charge
>exploded in the atmosphere causes the death of  50,000 people in a chain
>of generations..."
>
> Well, since there was a number given, I couldn't resist.  (although I'm
>sure there'd be an emphasis on the "estimate" if the facts are presented)
>gopher://wealaka.okgeosurvey1.gov:70/00/nuke.cat/nuke.cat.under.construction
>gives a list of all known weapons tests.  Since it's lunchtime, I did some
>ROUGH work and  pulled out atmospheric, barge, air, and tower shots, removed
>< and > symbols, used the lower values in most ranges, assumed that <1000 kt
>was 100 kt , and came up with well over 300,000 kt of testing in the
>atmosphere (the real number's >10% larger, but what the hell, some barge
>shots may have been totally subsurface).
>
>(50,000 people per kt) x (300,000 kt) = 1.5 E10 people that will die from
>weapons testing.   So, how many years of world population since 1945 do we
>have to reach 1.5E10?  : - )))  Assuming all the deaths are from cancers,
>what percentage world-wide die from cancer-related causes?
>
>I LOVE it when they give real numbers!
>
>Brian Rees
>brees@lanl.gov
>
>
>************************************************************************
>The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
>information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html
>
>
************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html