Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!princeton!allegra!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!orb
From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.sci
Subject: Nuclear power and Ecology: re to Ng1
Message-ID: <1178@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17-Jul-86 14:35:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: whuxl.1178
Posted: Thu Jul 17 14:35:46 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Jul-86 01:33:30 EDT
References: <450@meccts.UUCP> <524@gargoyle.UUCP> <351@argus.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany
Lines: 36
Xref: watmath net.politics:17448 net.sci:1288

> > Do you mean to say you'd be perfectly happy to see Qaddhafi
> > with nuclear reactors and Libya swarming with nuclear scientists and
> > engineers?  Or Khomeini or Assad or your favorite mad dictator?
> > Richard Carnes
 
> Frankly I'd rather that they use nuclear explosives than conventional
> ones.  Nuclear explosives are far larger, easier to detect, expensive,
> and less likely to go off correctly, than conventional explosives.
> Furthermore, a lot of conventional explosives is needed to set off
> a nuclear explosive, thus further depleting terrorist resources.
> 
> And if they do use it we have the perfect excuse for blowing them
> off the map.             (:->
> 
> Kenneth Ng:
 
This illustrates perfectly the ludicrous nature of some pro-nukers
ignorance of ecology or the very dangerous effects of nuclear bombs
or nuclear wastes.   Sure, nuclear bombs are exactly like conventional
bombs if you wish to ignore total destructive capacity (as we all know
just *one* very small bomb by today's standards blew up the entire city
of Hiroshima), heat effects, the possibility of starting a firestorm,
radioactive fallout and EMP effects. (It has been estimated that just
one moderately sized nuclear explosion above St. Louis could cause
an EMP effect which would wipe out computers over 70% of the US-
see "Fate of the Earth" by Jonathan Schell for details.  His info 
comes from a report by the Office of Technology Assessment)
 
It sounds like Kenneth still lives in the days when the AEC assured
everyone that fallout would never fall to Earth, that strontium-90
was no problem since it only penetrated half an inch, before anyone
even *knew* there was such a thing as an EMP effect,etc,etc,etc.
 
Statements like the above hardly enhance Kenneth's credibility with
any thinking person.
                    tim sevener  whuxn!orb