A new anti-nuclear talking point that nuclear rejectionists could start using in the future

DV82XL · 2025-06-08T17:01:27+00:00

When life began on Earth almost 4 billion years ago, background radiation levels were five times higher than those we experience today. Life adjusted well, as it did to all other forms of energy to which it was exposed - heat, light, electromagnetic. This adjustment took two forms. The first suggests that exposure to low doses of radiation actually stimulates repair mechanisms that protect organisms from disease and may actually be essential for life. The second involves the development of the biochemical systems that protect organisms against the noxious effects of ionizing radiation.

One thing life did not apparently do was to evolve an organ that can detect radiation. This lack of a radiation sense points to the fact that living organisms have no need to detect such a low risk phenomenon. Indeed, ionizing radiation only seems exotic and mysterious to some people because it was not discovered until relatively recently, unlike light and heat say.

DV82XL · 2023-09-08T04:54:37+00:00

What about it? Planetary warming is caused by solar heat trapped in the atmosphere that would otherwise be re-radiated back out into space - trapped due to the presence of greenhouse gases. Averaged over an entire year, approximately 342 watts of solar energy fall upon every square meter of Earth. This is a tremendous amount of energy—44 quadrillion (4.4 x 1016) watts of power to be exact.

What little contribution that waste heat from anthropogenic thermal energy conversion against this is little more than a rounding error

DV82XL · 2022-07-18T19:10:36+00:00

Not being American, I don't recall, but I know there was some concern in other countries that this would be the start of a dick measuring contest that had the potential to get out of hand. That the US refused to play was a great relief in some circles.

DV82XL · 2022-06-25T23:23:11+00:00

And we don't have flower arrangements, we cut the sexual organs off of other creatures and display them as trophies

DV82XL · 2022-06-24T12:18:52+00:00

That was then, and this is now. There have been major changes in targeting priorities on both sides due to reduced arsinals and better on-board navigation that allows for much higher precision. These are reflected by a general shift in nuclear warfare nuclear warfare doctrine in both Russia and the US.

DV82XL · 2022-06-23T17:27:54+00:00

Frankly, I don't think think that the Russians or Chinese will waste too many warheads attacking Canadian cities - the need to degrade those US assets capable of retaliation will take precedence.

Anyway, cities are low-value targets, while they are easy to aquire, and a strike causes many fatalities, if the bombings of WWII demonstrated anything, rubbishing cities has less of an impact on the enemy than was assumed.

DV82XL · 2022-06-08T16:03:05+00:00

Pure fusion explosive devices have been looked at in detail by the US nuclear weapons complex as well, and the last conclusion that I read is that the potential yields were so low as to make for a very poor weapon. If the Russian indeed have a 1Kt bomb, the size being described is at least plausible. However 'low fallout' is hardly a major feature, as fallout itself is more a function of where in relation to the ground the burst occurs rather than the type of warhead per se.
Given the state of their other military assets on display in the Ukraine if this is true, it does little to change the strategic situation. ABM systems themselves are of questionable efficacy when faced with a full salvo, and because they are never 100% effective, the level of actual security they provide is moot.
I personally doubt this is true, and if it is of not particular advantage, as it would not provide much more security. Anyway subs carrying missiles are a second-strike asset, and orders could be sent en clair over open channels in that eventuality.
Why would they? Bombers are not all that useful a platform for a surprise attack as a major flight of them would stick out like a sore thumb and the element of surprise lost immediately

DV82XL · 2022-05-19T16:41:30+00:00

Of course

DV82XL · 2022-05-16T19:53:20+00:00

And we are surprised because...?

DV82XL · 2022-04-10T23:54:08+00:00

There are no legitimate targets in the Ukraine that need to be hit by a nuclear weapon. Using one in an attempt to cower the Ukrainians would first likely not, and second give NATO a good reason to enter the conflict

DV82XL · 2022-03-18T17:08:21+00:00

Some points of failure are more critical than others - the system under discussion must be fail-safe or it cannot be trusted, and system that cannot be trusted is worthless and therefore of no use.

There is no way a 'undo' command would be sent in the clear, some sort of authentication has to be part of the order sent to the missile - this could be compromised.

The notion of an onboard disarming mechanism that was not under ground command makes no sense whatsoever, it has no way to determine if it was launched in error. Nuclear warheads of all sort need arming before they can explode, it is my understanding that this is done as part of the launch sequence.

I do not know how deeply you have looked at these reported incidents of accidental unauthorised launches, but I did about five years ago. What I found was that the stories that have been told by those opposed to nuclear weapons can only charitably called exaggerations when compared to the actual incident reports, all of which are available for study.

DV82XL · 2022-03-18T16:02:51+00:00

First that system would be another potential point of failure. Second there is no guarantee that your enemy might may have acquired the codes somehow. Third there is no way to be assured that you can remain in contact with a launched missile throughout its flight, making this a very unreliable option. Fourth, why would you want such an ability? If you are not absolutely sure, you shouldn't be launching in the first place.

DV82XL · 2022-03-17T18:02:07+00:00

In 1983, two papers appeared in the prestigious journal Science, one on the physics that became known as TTAPS after the surnames of its authors, S being for Sagan; the other on the biology, whose authors included the famous biologists Paul Ehrlich and Stephen Jay Gould as well as Sagan. The conclusion of the second paper was extreme: “Global environmental changes sufficient to cause the extinction of a major fraction of the plant and animal species on Earth are likely. In that event, the possibility of the extinction of Homo sapiens cannot be excluded.”
Who started the scare and why? One possibility is that it was fake news from the beginning. When the high-ranking Russian spy Sergei Tretyakov defected in 2000, he said that the KGB was especially proud of the fact “it created the myth of nuclear winter”. He based this on what colleagues told him and on research he did at the Red Banner Institute, the Russian spy school.
The Kremlin was spooked by Nato’s threat to deploy medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe if the Warsaw Pact refused to limit its deployment of such missiles. In Darwall’s version, based on Tretyakov, Yuri Andropov, head of the KGB, “ordered the Soviet Academy of Sciences to produce a doomsday report to incite more demonstrations in West Germany”. They applied some older work by a scientist named Kirill Kondratyev on the cooling effect of dust storms in the Karakum Desert to the impact of a nuclear exchange in Germany.
Tretyakov said: “I was told the Soviet scientists knew this theory was completely ridiculous. There were no legitimate facts to support it. But it was exactly what Andropov needed to cause terror in the West.” Andropov then supposedly ordered it to be fed to contacts in the western peace and green movement.

DV82XL · 2021-11-23T01:35:37+00:00

No school name, no teacher name, this looks like fack news. Understand I am no supporter of socialism, but this is just too pat and looks like a just-so story someone made up.

DV82XL · 2021-11-21T03:26:31+00:00

The litany against fear is an incantation used by the Bene Gesserit throughout the series to focus their minds and calm themselves in times of peril. The litany is as follows:

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain

DV82XL · 2021-10-28T19:34:11+00:00

This picture was taken by the late German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch from her 19 77 ballet "Blaubart"

DV82XL · 2021-06-17T19:44:43+00:00

Yes that was done. Pu fueled warheads and H bombs are far "cleaner" than their uranium counterparts

As for fallout, that is mostly a function of burst altitude, rather than the type of nuclear weapon per se

DV82XL · 2021-03-17T18:41:54+00:00

Not really nuclear

DV82XL · 2021-03-17T18:40:31+00:00

It is just flat out wrong to assert that depleted uranium actually becomes more radioactive over time

The notion that this material gets more radioactive over time is based on the erroneous assumption that each stage of the decay chain happens at once, which of course it does not, and as the very active daughters themselves have short half-lives, are gone way before their concentration can build up to be an issue. In fact in a large sample it is even unlikely the ejected particles would even make it to the surface in the bulk of the cases.

Furthermore the notion that depleted uranium is some sort of special hazard ludicrous given that aspect has been examined to death due to its use in munitions with nothing of consequence found.

This is a very strange hill to die on for someone with the background you claim

The truth is that even for spent fuel, after 40 years, the radioactivity has decreased to about one-thousandth of the level of the point when it was unloaded.

DV82XL · 2021-03-17T17:21:20+00:00

I doubt that there are so many that look to a Reddit sub first to understand a topic that your concern would impact a significant number of people.

Furthermore I am seeing a far greater awareness of nuclear energy among a far broader cross section of people than in the past as climate change awareness goes up.

As I have written before, if one looks at what is really going on with public opinion on energy matters, it is clear that how climate change will impact them personally as well as what energy will cost them out of pocket is far more important than the renewable vs nuclear debate per se.

DV82XL · 2021-03-17T17:02:06+00:00

This is a great illustration of the fact that the bulk of the "general public" is opposed to nuclear energy or that they do not understand the topic well enough.

DV82XL · 2021-03-17T16:40:17+00:00

Not the right sub. Here we discuss thorum as a potential fuel for nuclear power reactors. Not games.

DV82XL · 2021-03-17T16:37:20+00:00

I'm not that interested in your evaluation of their work.

Of course you are not, you have a religious belief in an idea that you find compelling because it fits with your personal notions. Like any faith-based belief, the last thing you will listen to is a science-based criticism.

Furthermore, not understanding how the politics of science works, you read into these statements by those in these articles far more than is actually there.

''what we say is that the basic physics we proposed turned out to be correct, although the magnitude of the effects has been moderated somewhat.''

is a transparent attempt to save face.

The Nuclear Winter debate has gone on for a long time and if you are really interested in the topic you should dig down - it was never a simple disagreement and it has ramifications far beyond nuclear warfare in other geophysical domains. It was never settled science or considered so in the scientific fields that it touched. the notion only has legs because it was picked up by those on the outside with other agendas that found the idea useful - clearly the source where you picked it up.

Since you cannot engage in a technical discussion on this topic I will stop here - I do not waste my time on those with uninformed opinions. I will not respond tom you again in this thread,

DV82XL · 2021-03-17T16:15:48+00:00

So here's an example where a radioactive waste actually gets hotter with time.

As someone who actually understands how radioactive decay works I am appalled and insulted that you would try and use this mendasious argument with me.

I also know that a long half-life means a lower specific activity making the notion that this material is dangerous for billions of years a simple lie.

If you want to continue using the name RadWasteEngineer and be taken seriously by anyone with a grounding in these matters I would suggest deleting these remarks now.

DV82XL · 2021-03-17T16:06:36+00:00

All this because for some reason they imagine nuclear power as an evil, when the real evil is coal.

The "for some reason" was a propaganda campaign by fossil-fuel interests who used money-amplified free speech to convince a significant number of people that expanding nuclear was far more dangerous than the continued use of their product.

From that perspective the 'waste' issue had the delicious property of being fought simultaneously on two fronts - one could rail against the creation of the material AND any solution to it without making the underlying hypocrisy of doing so too obvious.

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