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From: orb@whuts.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.sci,net.bio
Subject: Re: Plutonium
Message-ID: <708@whuts.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17-Apr-86 12:32:30 EST
Article-I.D.: whuts.708
Posted: Thu Apr 17 12:32:30 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Apr-86 10:45:53 EST
References: <358@drutx.UUCP> <1063@whuxl.UUCP> <2384@jhunix.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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Xref: watmath net.politics:14939 net.sci:734 net.bio:381

> >... there is the
> >danger (seldom mentioned) of scads of plutonium being released throughout
> >the Earth from the destruction of the other side's nuclear weapons.
> >Those weapons contain about 100,000 pounds of plutonium.
> >Just a few pounds of plutonium could kill everyone on earth.
> > 
> >          tim sevener  whuxn!orb
> 
> Certainly nuclear weapons are dangerous (understatement of the decade) but
> I am tired of hearing statements that a few pounds of plutonium can kill
> everyone on Earth.  This was gone over recently in net.columbia.
> (Note:  I am cross-posting this to net.sci and net.bio.  Would someone there
> please give me some references that would tend to confirm or refute Mr.
> Sevener's statement on the toxicity of plutonium?)
> -- 
> Kenneth Arromdee
 
A few pounds of plutonium *IF* properly distributed in tiny specks to
everyone's lungs could indeed kill everyone on Earth.  Plutonium is
incredibly toxic stuff.  However it would be practically impossible
to distribute a mere few pounds of plutonium in such a way that it
*would* kill everyone on Earth.  My point there was to show the
incredible toxicity of plutonium which is awesome.
 
When we are talking about the likely effects of shooting down thousands
of nuclear warheads however we are NOT talking about a few pounds of
plutonium - we are talking about a figure on the order of one hundred
thousand pounds of plutonium.  Moreover, we are talking about the
probability that the plutonium in thousands of nuclear warheads will
be widely dispersed throughout the planet and the atmosphere at many
levels as nuclear warheads are being destroyed at the boost phase of
missile launching when they are relatively low in the atmosphere,
high in the atmosphere and then again on reentry into the atmosphere
and finally just before hitting their intended targets in the US.
Now what do you suppose will be the effects of that?
Logic tells me that it will disperse deadly plutonium *everywhere*.
I have no scientific certainty or studies to back this up, it is
simply sheer common sense.  It is certainly a possibility worthy
of scientific study.

Just as it was worthy of study to consider fallout effects from
nuclear blasts and climatic effects of large-scale nuclear war.
The myopia in regards to considering these possibilities was
painfully illustrated in the history of the Atomic Energy Commission's
statements on radioactive fallout.  It wasn't until the unfortunate
Japanese fishermen on the "Lucky Dragon" got radiation poisoning
from an atomic test tens of miles away that the AEC finally
admitted that radioactive fallout doesn't just "drift in the
upper atmosphere" forever.  Similarly it took scientists discovering
strontium-90 in samples of mother's milk and baby's teeth for
the nuclear warriors of doom to admit that atmospheric nuclear
tests endangered human health throughout the world.
           tim sevener   whuxn!orb