I’ve been watching a PBS documentary on dirty bombs and they asserted that a bomb loaded with radioactive cesium (which is apparently fairly easy to get in the old comblock countries) could raise the radioactive levels in a large area to as high as 80 times normal background. Then they asserted that level “could” cause serious health problems.
Could?
So it got me wondering what the background levels in the ol’ Atomic Sister Cities were.
FWIW: Is there still radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Note that this doesn’t directly address the question of whether 80 times background is safe.
So basically all that sci-fi movie stuff about 10,000 years of radiation is BS?
Grossly exaggerated. Also bear in mind that (1) Both cities were hit by airbursts, which don’t generate as much fallout as groundbursts, such as attacks on missle silos and command bunkers; and (2) The two bombs were in the 15-20 kiloton yield range, whereas thermonuclear weapons typically yield hundreds or thousands of kilotons. Plus many thermonuclear weapons are of the 3-stage (fission/fusion/fission) type that are especially dirty.
So in your typical “global thermonuclear war” scenerio, you’re talking about the detonation of millions of kilotons, many as groundbursts that would generate huge plumes of regional fallout extending for hundreds of miles. So while you wouldn’t have a 10,000 year Forbidden Zone deal, you would have extended regions with too much radioactive contamination to be safe to farm for about a century or so.
Kresson H. Kearny -author of Nuclear War Survival Skills. This book may answer some questions. I believe that it is available free at some websites although I can’t remember which one. He was a civil defense guru at Oak Ridge. Lots of interesting stuff.
Google is a wonderful thing - Nuclear War Survival Skills
Granted that it’s possible to make fusion bombs as dirty as you like, isn’t a bang-optimized (technical term, there) 3-stage bomb actually cleaner than a single-stage fission bomb? The idea is to have more complete “burning”, and as with chemical reactions, most radiactive fallout is incompletely “burned” fuel.
quote:
So in your typical “global thermonuclear war” scenerio, you’re talking about the detonation of millions of kilotons, many as groundbursts that would generate huge plumes of regional fallout extending for hundreds of miles. So while you wouldn’t have a 10,000 year Forbidden Zone deal, you would have extended regions with too much radioactive contamination to be safe to farm for about a century or so.
I think in the above scenario, we’d have bigger things to worry about than farming the land… perhaps avoiding the whole “extinction of the human race” scenario comes to mind…
[hijack]
I work in a museum. Not too long ago we got a donation of 1950s and 60s era Civil Defense manuals which were, without a doubt, the funniest things I have ever read.
According to the manuals, keep your windows shut for at least an hour after the Bomb goes off. Vaccuum and dust thoughoughly. Your house is now radiation free. If your pet was outside, give it a bath before letting it in the house. Wipe your feet or leave your shoes outside when entering.
If you’re outside when the Terrible Moment occurs, duck and cover. * Newspaper * is a good sheild if you have nothing else. Go home and take a shower. Throw away your clothes. Don’t worry if you’re vomiting or your hair falls out. This is a natural reaction to stress. You should be fine in a couple of days.
You can build a fall-out shelter on the cheap if need be. Build a box of plywood in the back yard, and surround the base with sandbags. No need to build a door. Just build a Z-shaped opening because * radiation can’t turn corners. * Put a pipe on top to let in fresh air, but put a cone over it so radiation can’t fall in. Stay inside a couple of days, but make sure you bring magazines so people won’t get bored and restless.
[/hijack]
Of course, the effectiveness of these techniques depends on the type of nuclear burst, how far away it is, and wind conditons, but newspaper will stop alpha particles, but so will normal clothing or even the outer layers of your skin. The main problem is if you breath it in or ingest alpha emitting particles somehow. The showering and throwing away your cloths you get rid of radioactive dust on the outside of your body. And a z shaped door would stop some gamma rays, because it is emitted from the radioactive fallout in a straight line; but a door would be a very good thing to keep out radioactive dust. Same thing with the cone over the air pipe; keeps dust from faling in.
A better shelter, that could be built on the cheap, would be to dig a trench - deeper the better, covering the top with plywood, and then cover the plywood with the dirt you removed from the trench - build and z shaped entrance, with a door, and do the air pipes with the cone. Make sure you have plenty of water and canned food available, and wait if out a couple of weeks. Better than nothing.
Back to the OP
80 times background would be dangerous, but assuming you get out of the area quickly you would probably surive. I did find this nifty website that tells you your average radiation exposure
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/trinity/supplement/radiate.html - I got 660 millirems a year, while the maximum allowed for nuclear workers by federal law is 5,000 milirems a year.
au contrare! Most fallout is fission fragments from the splitting of heavy elements. The three-stage designs use fast neutrons from deuterium-tritium fusion to force the fission of a coating of U-238. This allows the use of cheap, common U-238 as a nuclear fuel. It also means that three-stage devices get anywhere from 40-65% of their total yield from fission. Add in the sheer increase in scale- 200 kilotons to 1000 megatons or more, and you’re talking about a LOT more fallout than the weapons that were used on Japan.
I hardly meant nuclear war would be a picnic. I just meant that anyone who did survive the war itself and it’s aftermath would face radiological conditions not much worse than the area around Chernobyl. So the SF “mutants haunting the glow-in-the-dark wasteland” scenerio is way overblown.