4 ms·

I know what you were trying to say, but "doesn't come close to the radiation released by the thousands of atomic bomb tests" isn't exactly the way to calm peopl

• DanI-S 16y ago
  This is true :) The most significant thing made apparent by this nuclear disaster, personally, has been how carefully authorities are forced to step around an uneducated public and a wild, hysterical mass media. How can we ever have transparency and full disclosure while the press are inclined to behave this way?
  • yummyfajitas 16y ago
    Report all quantities of radiation in Banana Equivalent Doses rather than Sieverts.
• watmough 16y ago
  Is that even true? A bomb might have 100 pounds of nuclear material, fairly efficiently exploded, releasing a lot of energy. A burning, melting reactor might have 100s of TONS of fuel pellets, which can be aerosolized and distributed to the four corners.
  • Peaker 16y ago
    I am no expert, but I think a nuclear bomb exploding converts radioactive isotopes to other less massive/energetic radioactive isotopes, but the resulting material is (often) still radioactive. So I am not sure how efficiency factors in there.
  • brazzy 16y ago
    AFAIK even the most efficient bombs only convert a very small (sub 1) percentage of the fissible material to energy. And (in the case of the over 500 airblasts) "aerosolize" all of the rest 100% and spread it throughout the troposphere, ensuring that the whole world gets its share. While it's true that reactors contain far more radioactive material, they don't typically "aerosolize" much of it - Tchernobyl was pretty much a worst case scenario in that regard, and Fukushima thankfully was not.