I woke up today wondering about fallout. Wich modern, mostly fusion weapons, it surely cannot be that bad.
The amount of grams of plutonium used before detonating the fusion reaction should be too little to generate the mass histery about fall out, this is not the sixties.
Epistemic status: I only have hunches and have to confirm what I just wrote with facts.
For what it’s worth, most modern fusion bombs actually generate most (e.g. 80%+) of their “yield” from fission—the fusion stage is surrounded by a layer of uranium which is bombarded by neutrons produced in the fusion reaction, causing fission in the uranium and magnifying the yield. So they are pretty dirty weapons. They are at least smaller than the weapons from the 50s and 60s though.
Fusion bombs don’t produce much fallout from airbursts—the worry of fallout is the large-scale use of ground-burst bombs designed to target hardened facilities like bunkers and missile silos. Dirt would then absorb much of the resulting radiation, become radioactive, and get carried by wind.
Thanks for the content.
I woke up today wondering about fallout. Wich modern, mostly fusion weapons, it surely cannot be that bad.
The amount of grams of plutonium used before detonating the fusion reaction should be too little to generate the mass histery about fall out, this is not the sixties.
Epistemic status: I only have hunches and have to confirm what I just wrote with facts.
For what it’s worth, most modern fusion bombs actually generate most (e.g. 80%+) of their “yield” from fission—the fusion stage is surrounded by a layer of uranium which is bombarded by neutrons produced in the fusion reaction, causing fission in the uranium and magnifying the yield. So they are pretty dirty weapons. They are at least smaller than the weapons from the 50s and 60s though.
Fusion bombs don’t produce much fallout from airbursts—the worry of fallout is the large-scale use of ground-burst bombs designed to target hardened facilities like bunkers and missile silos. Dirt would then absorb much of the resulting radiation, become radioactive, and get carried by wind.
And you’re welcome for reading :^).