[extropy-chat] Suitcase nukes (was: let's say)

[J. Andrew Rogers]

Mike Lorrey:
> Industry doesn't disperse highly concentrated plutonium. The radiation
> from plutonium is of such high energy that it quickly destroys lung
> tissue when inhaled, leaving that which survives to develop cancer.
> 
> Plutonium is a much different animal than depleted uranium (or even
> undepleted).


Studies of populations in locales where uranium is concentrated and
dumped as a side-effect of industry show no significant health impact. 
I was not really trying to assert that there was such a threat
associated with uranium.

Thorium, which is concentrated and dumped in similar quantities, does
correlate with a statistically significant increase in cancers and other
symptoms of DNA damage, and has a similar risk profile as plutonium. 
But even in populations that have an unhealthy exposure to thorium
particulates, the overall increased mortality is still largely
background noise compared to other common mortality risks even with
order of magnitude increases in mortality from various types of cancer
and similar associated with thorium exposure.

I agree that uranium is a poor model for plutonium exposure, but thorium
makes a pretty good analog and that too has been dumped en masse and
there are significant studies of thorium particulate exposure.


j. andrew rogers