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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
by watmough 15y 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 15y agoI 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 15y agoAFAIK 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.