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To: null and void
Strangely enough, so is a power plant.

The reactions inside a power plant are tightly controlled and moderated. Not like the nuclear explosions within a nuclear weapon that are out of control.

Here are the mass comparisons. Will use an estimated nuclear fuel mass for Fukishima at around 791 tons roughly. That is only the total in reactors 1-4 which includes the entire spent fuel pool contents. Worse case scenario where everything goes up in 1-4.

Now what is the mass of the nuclear fuel within a nuclear warhead ? The most powerful pure fission bomb used 60 kg of uranium to yield a 500 KTon blast. It was called the Ivy King. Shall we use that as the standard mass of fuel in a warhead exploded in the ocean ? So how many kg are in one ton ? About 907. So the total mass of nuclear fuel in Fukushima 1-4 is equal to roughly the mass of the nuclear fuel found within about 12,000 of our example nuclear warhead. And since a lot of that mass was converted to energy, we could roughly say 791 tons of nuclear fuel is approximately equal to the non-energy converted nuclear fuel in 18,000 warheads.

So lets say Fukushima so far has only given up 4 % of its #1 to #4 inventory. That would be roughly 25-30 tons of fuel. We had three reactors meltdown that contained 257 tons of fuel. And we have had reported fires in the spent fuel pools. Not to mention fuel blasted away in the explosions. Everything eventually ends up in the ocean one way or the other. So we are figuring about 10 % of the reactor fuel of # 1-3, minus what was burned or blasted out of the spent fuel pools of # 1-4. That would give us the nuclear non-energy converted fuel for 720 nuclear warheads, conservatively speaking. And that happened over a 2 1/2 year period. Much quicker then over a few decades.

This was done in haste so please double check if you can.

37 posted on 08/10/2013 6:48:19 PM PDT by justa-hairyape
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To: justa-hairyape

Used short tons above, not long tons.


38 posted on 08/10/2013 6:50:19 PM PDT by justa-hairyape
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To: justa-hairyape
They have been reported to be 528 total above ground nuclear tests from 1945 to 1996. The ocean tests I think are all classified as above ground and not underground. And many of those above ground tests occurred over ground a longs ways from the ocean.

Table of Known Nuclear Tests Worldwide: 1945-69 | 1970-96

39 posted on 08/10/2013 7:02:53 PM PDT by justa-hairyape
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To: justa-hairyape
Your numbers, as far as they go, look to be in the right ballpark.

I still argue that the amount introduced to the larger environment is much lower than from the above ground tests.

The explosions at Fukishima were chemical explosions, mostly hydrogen gas burning to water. They simply weren't hot enough to vaporize any significant amounts of the metals and concrete in the reactor.

By contrast the nuclear explosions happen at such very high temperatures they directly vaporized anything within hundreds of yards, then heavily irradiated that vapor rendering it highly radioactive and and spreading it far and wide. To get an approximate idea of the mass involved, lets assume the average fire ball was 600 meters in diameter (a W-88 at 350kt yield), and it was on rock and soil. That gives a fireball volume of about 375,000 m3. Let's say half the fireball was "wasted" on the air, i.e. a surface blast. That gives a vaporized crater volume of about 185,000m3. Let's further say that the bomb is only about 55% efficient at vaporizing rock, and further de-rate the initial volume vaporized down to 100,000 m3, just for easy math...

Picking an average rock density of 2.5 g/cm3 gives us 2,500,000 g/m3 or 2500 kg or 2.5 metric tons/m3

Times 100,000m3 gives us 250,000 tons of intensely radioactive fallout per blast. Roughly 450 blasts before the test ban treaty in 1962 gives us a billion tons or so.

That's not counting anything sucked in from the surrounding countryside, nor any seawater pouring into the craters, nor any gasses "vented" from numerous underground tests.

That sounds like a lot.

It IS a lot, but we're still here, aren't we?

42 posted on 08/10/2013 8:10:33 PM PDT by null and void (Frequent terrorist attacks OR endless government snooping and oppression? Soon we'll have both!)
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