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Sorry, this is so absurd it is pitiful. Nuclear waste wrapped in high explosives will kill nobody except for those close enough to the blast to die from that. The waste itself will not kill anyone. Here is why:

1) Nuclear waste safe enough to handle by a bombmaker will be low level waste. Thus a person would have to be exposed to it for years before even a possibility that the exposure could cause cancer.

2) Nuclear waste distributed by a non-nuclear blast will be in fairly large particles relative to the size that need to be inhaled to cause cancer. If you can't inhale it, you won't get the exposure.

3) Using radioactive detection gear, cleanup crews will be able to find, bag, and transport to a disposal center 99.99 percent of any waste at the detonation site.

I have often found it amazing that otherwise highly intelligent and educated people can make such specious claims when it comes to fields outside their expertise. A radiological bomb is just another terror weapon. In some ways, if they are going to do anything, I really hope they do use it. Not only will it kill fewer people than dozens of alternatives, it will help educate the american people about radioactive waste as we clean up the bomb site.

One thing i have learned in my (long) life of 27 years is that you can never have too much knowledge and/or you can never be TOO prepared.

To accomplish either of these you must weigh all possibilities, no matter how remote. I would rather have all of this knowledge(some good some bad) then to have not had this thread at all.

I hate to say it but if a bomb such as this dirty one comes along neither you nor I can predict what will happen.

Last time I checked an extensive study has not been performed on such a scenario.

>Sorry, this is so absurd it is pitiful.

Well Vauss, I truly hope that if this bomb threat is real and this dirty bomb is destined to go off in America, that it goes off just outside your door and stays far away from less obnoxious people, specifically me.

Incidentally, would you mind pointing me to exactly what I said in this thread that you responded to here?

I tend to agree...this kind of radiological bomb sounds a lot worse (and yes it would be extremely bad for any bomb to explode) then it would actually be to clean up after. Unless it were a tractor trailer sized weapon, the effects would be limited to a couple square miles at absolute best of probably low level nuclear waste conamination. Ugly, but cleanable.

But what a terror weapon! In the right place, a city would stop and everyone would run for the exits, killing more in the panic on the way out then would be killed by the bomb.

And that has to be the point...terror. The ignorance and misinformation about radiation would make the terror effect afterwards much more potent then the blast itself.