Fighting nukes with nukes...

[Thunderstruck]

Well actually, just one nuke. A nuclear bomb that is. I made a post in a thread on LBN I thought I'd x-post here for wider discussion because I'm really curious about it.

I know this is probably going to piss some people off and that's not my intent. But maybe it's an option...

Since the area is wrecked anyway and has been evacuated, would it be feasible to drop a nuclear bomb on the Fukushima power plant? Couldn't that consume the nuclear material and leave the area evetually habitable just like Nagasaki and Hiroshima are today?

[Poll_Blind]

1. I believe it would be a double-whammy, turning the nuke plant into world's largest dirty bomb.

In other words, it would not necessarily destroy any of that material.

My suggestion is to think bury not blow up.

PB

[shraby]

2. Bite yer tongue! It would spread the material wide and far. The

bombs of Nagasaki and Hiroshima weren't nearly as powerful as they are today. It's not like creating a back-fire to fight a forest fire. This is a whole different breed of cats.
Think a little deeper than what your post represents.

[Thunderstruck]

4. Well, I have thought that deep. But not having a benchmark, like your observation

that the bombs today are much more powerful, is the reason I asked. Thank you for your post. :)

[EOTE]

3. That suggestion doesn't piss me off.

Baffles the senses is more like it.

[Thunderstruck]

5. No reason to be insultinig. It's just a general discussion question.

[EOTE]

9. I wasn't trying to be insulting.

But I'm really perplexed as to where you got this idea. It's about as counter-intuitive an idea as one could come across. Nuking this area would turn a mega-disaster into a hyper-disaster. Nuclear bombs really aren't very good for solving problems unless you live in a Michael Bay movie.

[Thunderstruck]

11. Look, I'm not an expert on nuclear energy. I asked a simple question

Nagasaki and Hiroshima are bustling cities today. That is the benchmark that I was using in my musing about how to resolve the situation. I realize there's a lot of material there. But my thinking was that, YES, it would be bad but it would be bad temporarily, not permanently as Chernobyl has so far been.

Jesus Christ.

[EOTE]

12. Sorry, I wasn't aware I was talking to THE Jesus Christ.

Listen, I don't expect you to be terribly knowledgeable about nuclear power. But I get a good laugh at the hubris of people who are aware of their limitations, but still think they can make valuable contributions to an epic disaster by throwing out wild ideas. Nuclear bombs do all their damage pretty much in a few seconds. Nuclear fuel for reactors release their energy over a far greater period of time and they do it using magnitudes of order more fissile material.

There are many things I know very little about. But I tend not to engage in armchair quarterbacking about those things.

[Thunderstruck]

13. Ok. Buh-bye.

[EOTE]

16. Goodbye. I'll be sure to call you if I ever need a carpenter.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[backscatter712]

6. That would just make things a thousand times worse.

All the radioactives in the reactor cores and the spent fuel rod pools would be vaporized and scattered to the four winds, contaminating large areas and making them completely uninhabitable, and becoming a health hazard for the entire planet. It will make us pine for the good ol' days when we only had Chernobyl to worry about.

This is an incredibly stupid idea.

The thing to do is wait until the workers can get power restored to the site (they're allegedly close to accomplishing just that), then using that power to fire up several new heavy-duty pumps that are already on site, courtesy of the U.S. Army. Once those pumps are online, then proper cooling can be restored to the reactors, and decent quantities of water can be pumped into the spent fuel rod pools.

[Thunderstruck]

8. Is it completely necessary to use the word "stupid" in response

to a simple question?

And I believe the power option is for reactor #2. That still leaves three other problems.

[shraby]

18. Here is another thought for you to chew on. Why do you

think they are having such a hard time to find a storage place for nuclear plant waste..not only the spent fuel rods, but the contaminated paper suits, masks, worn out tables, metals from replaced sections of water pipes, and a whole panoply of different kinds of waste? Because some of the material has contamination that will last for hundreds of thousands of years.
They can't even agree on how to mark the place stuff is stored in case people don't know what is there 2000 years from now. Imagine that stuff scattered to the four winds and deposited where people live because they used a nuke bomb to nuke the plants.

[drm604]

7. The suggestion doesn't piss me off

as I know you meant well but, as others have already said, it's probably not a good idea.

[Thunderstruck]

10. Thank you for your polite response.

[Cali_Democrat]

14. Interesting proposal

to say the least

[Skidmore]

15. Why is the first answer for a difficult problem always to nuke something?

We saw this during the BP oil disaster. People wanted to nuke the well. Hollywood has to come up with better plots in disaster movies other than the ole nukin' the source of disaster one.

[Old and In the Way]

17. Put me down as "don't know, but probably not a good idea".

Something needs to happen to stabilize these reactors. Dumping water on them doesn't seem to be doing the trick....will getting electricity online get the pumps going or are they damaged beyond repair? Can't think that the continuation of the problem is a better option and might waste more of the island should it continue for a long time - is dumping concrete to deal them, like Chernobyl, an option? If nuking them is the last resort, I guess it will be Japan's decision to make...the very idea of detonating another nuke on Japanese soil is something that the Japanese public might have a problem with, even if it were a solution that the experts believe might the only real option. And given the track record of experts in the nuclear power industry, I'm not sure we can trust their recommendations. The idea of using a nuclear weapon to deal with the problem of 'good' nuclear energy gone bad, is the ultimate in irony, I think.

[Thunderstruck]

19. You may be Old and In the Way but I love you! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you...

for a very polite and reasoned and conversational reply to my OP. I was just about to delete it and you really showed me that there are some nice, reasonable, understanding, respectful, and conversational people to make being here as rewarding as it mostly is.

"The idea of using a nuclear weapon to deal with the problem of 'good' nuclear energy gone bad, is the ultimate in irony, I think." Indeed. I said as much in an LBN thread. I was just thinking of a way that would consume the nuclear fuel and leave the area only temporarily uninhabitable and not semi-permanently as with Chernobyl and nearby Pripyat. I know it would be very nasty but maybe they could actually end the crisis and perserve some measure of a future for those that live in that part of Japan.

Thanks again, Old and In the Way, which you would never be for me. :)

[Old and In the Way]

22. Sometimes, you need to wear radiation-grade flame suit to post here.

:-)

There may not be a lot of experts commenting, but that doesn't mean we don't have opinions. I really didn't take your question as a flame-bait...it's a solution that I hope we never have to take seriously. If we do, we'll know that the situation has gone way past the point of conventional remedies to deal with the problem.

[LeftinOH]

20. It sounds very 1980s. n/t

[octothorpe]

23. OMG, ARE YOU DR.EVIL OR SOMETHING?

I can't say for sure since most my nuclear engineering education is what I got in 1st grade, but I'd guess it probably wouldn't help and might make things worse...

[Spike89]

24. Honest question, but poor idea

The big difference between the bombing of cities during WWII and bombing a site full of radioactive waste is that the cities what was thrown up into the air was dirt, dead people, flaming house parts, etc. The only radiation was from the bomb itself. Dropping a nuke on a huge stockpile of radioactive material would only add more radiation to the equation and ensure dispersal of the materials virtually worldwide.
There is absolutely no indications that nuclear devices "destroy" or cancel radiation, all indications are they do exactly the opposite. It is akin to helping drowning victims by spraying them with water hoses.
Don't get too down about having your idea ridiculed, but unless you've heard from credible sources that the plan is being seriously considered, it probably isn't a good idea. I know experts aren't the only ones with solutions, but they almost always have more information. There is absolutely no indications that the best minds and ideas are'nt being put to use in this case.
Someone else in another thread was outraged that they hadn't run hoses into the cooling ponds rather than dropping water from helicopters. In a way, that idea was (and is) totally pointless because the problem isn't that there aren't pipes/hoses already in place, but that there aren't pumps on site capable of moving the water needed.
The people on the scene have the most/best information and they are the ones that also know the most likely effects of various actions (such as, does radioactivity cancel out?). Of course, even experts make mistakes, but their odds are better than those of us who don't really know enough to ask the right questions.