Nuclear War: How Bad Would It Be?

[bilby]

I find it interesting that you assume that the primary targets for a first strike would be major cities. That sounds more like Hollywood movie thinking than military thinking

Are you suggesting that an alien invasion would not start by targeting NY, LA, and major international landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, Sydney Harbour, and the Houses of Parliament?

 

[steve_bank]

I remember a cartoon from the 70s.

There is a picture of a Russian speaking at the UN. A bubble from his mouth has the words 'Russian scientists have proven radiation is good for you!'.

A bit of cherry-picking and the bear is right.

I was knowingly exposed to some radiation earlier today, the net effect being beneficial. Dental x-rays.

They used to put a lead blanket over you. I think the current dental machines have a lot less energy.

The context of the cartoon was nuclear war and the Cold War.

Would you get an xray every day for a year? If you did you would likely exceed safety limits. There is a max yearly dosage of xrays that are allowed.

I believe Roentgen had an unpleasant death due to his exposure experimenting with xrays.

The OP si about nuclear war not medical uses. The idea that large scale nuclear war poses no long term radiation issues goes against the data, which includes the long term aftermath of the Japanese bombings.

The exception would be neutron bombs. Neutrons penetrate anything and will destroyy living things without power physical damage to the environment. The ultimate WMD

Neutron bomb - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[steve_bank]

there is a bunker pretty sure to be safe: a boomer.

It's useless for the hideout of the Great Dictator though. He can't get aboard, out to deep water, and submerged quickly enough, unless he's prepared to go completely incommunicado well in advance of starting his attack - which would require an astonishing level of trust that whomever he ordered to start launching would comply, in the absence of the boss breathing down his neck.

There's no need to be incommunicado, satellite uplink while at periscope depth. The sub only goes deep when the shit starts flying--and note that he commands a bunch of shit in case someone tries to disobey.

Subs can be communicated with one way ELF e- VLF. There is a transmitter in the Cascades. When you park there you have to attach a ground strap to your car.

Communication with submarines - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Jim Creek Naval Radio Station - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[steve_bank]

So that was just a long extended way of agreeing with what I wrote?
"To claim that "radiation" is deadly, the type and level of the radiation must be stated for the claim to make any sense."

On the contrary, you inferred on a thread about nuclear war radiation is not dangerous and it is hyped.

I don't agree with you. The usefulness and hazards of radiation in all forms would be another thread.

 

[skepticalbip]

So that was just a long extended way of agreeing with what I wrote?
"To claim that "radiation" is deadly, the type and level of the radiation must be stated for the claim to make any sense."

On the contrary, you inferred on a thread about nuclear war radiation is not dangerous and it is hyped.

I don't agree with you. The usefulness and hazards of radiation in all forms would be another thread.

Where the hell did I "infer" any such thing?

But since you brought it up, residual radiation remaining from a nuclear detonation does not last forever. With time the radiation level will diminish to at or below normal background radiation levels. The "hottest" materials will decay in the shortest time and the least "hot" will take the longest.

And exposure is not only about the the type radiation. It is also about the level of radiation. If you have lived in or visited a building made from granite then you have been exposed to radiation at a level that would trigger several of the radiation alarms in the "vault" where many people work daily at Los Alamos (and maybe trigger radiation alarms at a nuclear power plant, I dunno. I'm not familiar with "acceptable" levels in power plants.). There is a hell of a difference between radiation exposure and "dangerous" radiation exposure.

 

[bilby]

So that was just a long extended way of agreeing with what I wrote?
"To claim that "radiation" is deadly, the type and level of the radiation must be stated for the claim to make any sense."

On the contrary, you inferred on a thread about nuclear war radiation is not dangerous and it is hyped.

I don't agree with you. The usefulness and hazards of radiation in all forms would be another thread.

Nothing is dangerous, and everything is dangerous.

The danger of many things is massively understated by most people; But there are notable exceptions - things whose dangers are seriously overstated by most people.

Taking on the phone while driving is an example of the former; Ionising radiation is an example of the latter.

And the hazard of ionising radiation is typically not overstated when the source is natural. People who are happy to walk around shirtless on a sunny day, and who don't bat an eyelid at long haul flights, would refuse to visit the Fukushima or Chernobyl exclusion zones due to fear of radiation - despite the radiation exposure from visiting those famous sites being lower than that entailed by the other two activities.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Pootey has put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert asa result of criticism by the west of his invasion. For those of you who were not adults in the 80’s, you missed a big debate back then about such things scientifically. The general consensus was that a full fledged nuclear war would cause so many fires that the world would be plunged into a nuclear winter that would effectively wipe out mankind. I was always a bit skeptical of that claim, nor would a nuclear exchange ever involve a nation’s entire stockpile anyways. Since then, we’ve cut our stocks by about half. Still significant, but many are in storage and not deployed. Nevertheless, there is a significant number ready to go at all times. So let’s imag,one a nuclear exchange of a few either ICBM’s or SLBM’s, targeting say the ten largest cities of Russia and the United States and a concerted effort to knock out each other’s nuclear forces. For arguments sake, let’s say 500 nukes on each side go off, or 1,000 total. That may be a lot more than one would likely see in an exchange though. Each side would target silos, bombers, and submarine bases, and there’d likely be some redundant strikes against targets. Maybe though we only need a fraction of that to have the necessary impact, say 125 a piece or 250 total. Really not sure.

What would be the impact Globally?
Obviously millions would die initially in the 20 cities targeted, but what then? What would be the impact on our atmosphere? Would there really be such a huge conflagration as to wipe out agriculture and subsequently all civilization? would fallout be so bad as to utterly destroy our ability to live on the surface of the earth for years? would we lose our protective ozone layer? Could we fix that later?

I’m a bit skeptical that all human life would be wiped out. We are a surprisingly resilient species. Parts of the Southern globe wouldn’t be touched, and may come out of it largely unscathed.

The last similar catastrophe was perhaps the Chicxulub impact at the end of the Cretaceous, but is that really an accurate comparison? That wiped out all animals over 50 kilos, which would encompass most humans.

Let’s keep the answers scientific, not political!

I think a realistic possibility (though still improbable) is the use of large numbers of battlefield nukes, but no strategic ones. For example, Russia and NATO get into a conventional war in Europe (several realistic ways for that to happen), Russia's forces are decimated quickly (also, likely; just the javelins are doing massive damage to Russian forces in Ukraine), then Putin decides to use battlefield nukes, reckoning that:

1. Russia vastly outnumbers NATO on battlefield nukes, and has more advanced weapons which have more versatile battlefield uses. This is because the US stopped developing and making battlefield nukes in the 1980s iirc. and got rid of most it had, Russia continued the development and deployment of them.
2. NATO would not respond to battlefield nukes with strategic nukes due to MAD.

Point 2. is probably true. If so, there is the question of whether the clear battlefield nuclear Russian advantage (1.) trumps NATOs vast conventional superiority; I don't know.

 

[bilby]

Pootey has put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert asa result of criticism by the west of his invasion. For those of you who were not adults in the 80’s, you missed a big debate back then about such things scientifically. The general consensus was that a full fledged nuclear war would cause so many fires that the world would be plunged into a nuclear winter that would effectively wipe out mankind. I was always a bit skeptical of that claim, nor would a nuclear exchange ever involve a nation’s entire stockpile anyways. Since then, we’ve cut our stocks by about half. Still significant, but many are in storage and not deployed. Nevertheless, there is a significant number ready to go at all times. So let’s imag,one a nuclear exchange of a few either ICBM’s or SLBM’s, targeting say the ten largest cities of Russia and the United States and a concerted effort to knock out each other’s nuclear forces. For arguments sake, let’s say 500 nukes on each side go off, or 1,000 total. That may be a lot more than one would likely see in an exchange though. Each side would target silos, bombers, and submarine bases, and there’d likely be some redundant strikes against targets. Maybe though we only need a fraction of that to have the necessary impact, say 125 a piece or 250 total. Really not sure.

What would be the impact Globally?
Obviously millions would die initially in the 20 cities targeted, but what then? What would be the impact on our atmosphere? Would there really be such a huge conflagration as to wipe out agriculture and subsequently all civilization? would fallout be so bad as to utterly destroy our ability to live on the surface of the earth for years? would we lose our protective ozone layer? Could we fix that later?

I’m a bit skeptical that all human life would be wiped out. We are a surprisingly resilient species. Parts of the Southern globe wouldn’t be touched, and may come out of it largely unscathed.

The last similar catastrophe was perhaps the Chicxulub impact at the end of the Cretaceous, but is that really an accurate comparison? That wiped out all animals over 50 kilos, which would encompass most humans.

Let’s keep the answers scientific, not political!

I think a realistic possibility (though still improbable) is the use of large numbers of battlefield nukes, but no strategic ones. For example, Russia and NATO get into a conventional war in Europe (several realistic ways for that to happen), Russia's forces are decimated quickly (also, likely; just the javelins are doing massive damage to Russian forces in Ukraine), then Putin decides to use battlefield nukes, reckoning that:

1. Russia vastly outnumbers NATO on battlefield nukes, and has more advanced weapons which have more versatile battlefield uses. This is because the US stopped developing and making battlefield nukes in the 1980s iirc. and got rid of most it had, Russia continued the development and deployment of them.
2. NATO would not respond to battlefield nukes with strategic nukes due to MAD.

Point 2. is probably true. If so, there is the question of whether the clear battlefield nuclear Russian advantage (1.) trumps NATOs vast conventional superiority; I don't know.

The only situation I am aware of where tactical nuclear weapons are a superior option over conventional weapons is against massed armour.

Ukraine has very few tanks, and certainly not a sufficient number to present an overwhelming force that it would be tactically sensible to target with tactical nuclear weapons.

Add in the massive political damage that use of any nuclear weapon entails, and it just doesn't seem credible that they would be even supplied to the Russian Army elements in Ukraine, much less used by them.

If a panicking forward commander were to use a tactical nuke against a Ukrainian force that had him on the ropes, it would be a massive disaster for Russia. Therefore it seems highly likely that nobody with the authority to supply such weapons to those forward units would have done so - there's simply too much to lose, and nothing to gain.

Mind you, a few weeks ago I could have said something similar about invading Ukraine at all, so perhaps I am giving the Russian military too much credit for basic competence.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I remember a cartoon from the 70s.

There is a picture of a Russian speaking at the UN. A bubble from his mouth has the words 'Russian scientists have proven radiation is good for you!'.

I remember a cartoon from the 80s, a general looking thru a file cabinet asks another general, "Why do we have four nukes pointed at Moscow, IDAHO?"

 

[steve_bank]

So that was just a long extended way of agreeing with what I wrote?
"To claim that "radiation" is deadly, the type and level of the radiation must be stated for the claim to make any sense."

On the contrary, you inferred on a thread about nuclear war radiation is not dangerous and it is hyped.

I don't agree with you. The usefulness and hazards of radiation in all forms would be another thread.

Where the hell did I "infer" any such thing?

But since you brought it up, residual radiation remaining from a nuclear detonation does not last forever. With time the radiation level will diminish to at or below normal background radiation levels. The "hottest" materials will decay in the shortest time and the least "hot" will take the longest.

And exposure is not only about the the type radiation. It is also about the level of radiation. If you have lived in or visited a building made from granite then you have been exposed to radiation at a level that would trigger several of the radiation alarms in the "vault" where many people work daily at Los Alamos (and maybe trigger radiation alarms at a nuclear power plant, I dunno. I'm not familiar with "acceptable" levels in power plants.). There is a hell of a difference between radiation exposure and "dangerous" radiation exposure.

So, radioactive fallout in your studied opinion is indeed a long term hazard? Just to make things clear a yes or no answer.

 

[skepticalbip]

So that was just a long extended way of agreeing with what I wrote?
"To claim that "radiation" is deadly, the type and level of the radiation must be stated for the claim to make any sense."

On the contrary, you inferred on a thread about nuclear war radiation is not dangerous and it is hyped.

I don't agree with you. The usefulness and hazards of radiation in all forms would be another thread.

Where the hell did I "infer" any such thing?

But since you brought it up, residual radiation remaining from a nuclear detonation does not last forever. With time the radiation level will diminish to at or below normal background radiation levels. The "hottest" materials will decay in the shortest time and the least "hot" will take the longest.

And exposure is not only about the the type radiation. It is also about the level of radiation. If you have lived in or visited a building made from granite then you have been exposed to radiation at a level that would trigger several of the radiation alarms in the "vault" where many people work daily at Los Alamos (and maybe trigger radiation alarms at a nuclear power plant, I dunno. I'm not familiar with "acceptable" levels in power plants.). There is a hell of a difference between radiation exposure and "dangerous" radiation exposure.

So, radioactive fallout in your studied opinion is indeed a long term hazard? Just to make things clear a yes or no answer.

??

What do you mean by "long term"?

If the exposure level is still significantly high then it is still hazardous. When the exposure level falls to approaching normal background levels then it is no longer hazardous.

You aren't going to find anywhere that you are not exposed to radiation. What do you consider to be acceptable levels?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

The only situation I am aware of where tactical nuclear weapons are a superior option over conventional weapons is against massed armour.

There are plenty of situations I can think of.

For example, suppose F22, F35, and a bunch of other aircraft operate from an airfield in Poland. It would be very difficult for Russia to get close enough to cause significant damage before the forces in the airfield can respond and destroy the attacker. But what if a rocket launcher fires a barrage of 0.5 kt nukes at the airfield. Some are intercepted, 2 or 3 get through, and all of those advanced aircraft are gone, alongside a bunch of people and any big radars they have.

In general, tactical nukes are pretty good at destroying any sort of fixed facility, airfields, radars, command and control facilities, and so on. Also, in an artillery duel, the side firing nukes has a significant advantage all other things equal - if other things aren't equal, it may compensate for less accuracy. They're also good against large naval targets.

Ukraine has very few tanks, and certainly not a sufficient number to present an overwhelming force that it would be tactically sensible to target with tactical nuclear weapons.

In my scenario, Russia is at war with NATO, and getting demolished. So, they use tactical nukes to compensate.

 

[steve_bank]

An analysis I saw in the 80s of war games and simulations concluded that whichever side started loosing would resort to tactical nukes, leading to the use of strategic nukes.

We detect a missile launch from a Russian silo on a track for the USA. We get on the hot line and Russia does not answer. Or it is Putin who says we didn't launch anything.

Do we.

1. Launch an mediate retaliation or wat to see where it lands.
2. Launch 1 missile
3. Launch a full scale response
4. Its just one missile, do we take it to avoid war and complain at te UN?

You eire the president, what do you do. You have a limited time to decide

This was a real scenario. Russia detected a US science rocket that looked on a track a nuke would take. It was a two stage rocket. The international launch notifications did not filter down through the Russian military. They were minutes away from launching a counter attack before they figured out.

Russia also had a doomsday machine that was active for a while. If communcations were lost and oter automatic dtections a launch occurred.A dead man switch.

Dead Hand - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Dead Hand (Russian: Система «Периметр», Systema "Perimetr", lit. "Perimeter" System, with the GRAU Index 15E601, Cyrillic: 15Э601),[1] also known as Perimeter,[2] is a Cold War-era automatic nuclear weapons-control system (similar in concept to the American AN/DRC-8 Emergency Rocket Communications System) that was used by the Soviet Union.[3] The system remains in use in the post-Soviet Russian Federation.[4][5] An example of fail-deadly and mutual assured destruction deterrence, it can automatically initiate the launch of the Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) by sending a pre-entered highest-authority order from the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Strategic Missile Force Management to command posts and individual silos if a nuclear strike is detected by seismic, light, radioactivity, and pressure sensors even with the commanding elements fully destroyed. By most accounts, it is normally switched off and is supposed to be activated during times of crisis; however, it is said to remain fully functional and able to serve its purpose whenever it may be needed.[6]

Persoanlly who would want to live in post nuclear war.

 

[steve_bank]

So that was just a long extended way of agreeing with what I wrote?
"To claim that "radiation" is deadly, the type and level of the radiation must be stated for the claim to make any sense."

On the contrary, you inferred on a thread about nuclear war radiation is not dangerous and it is hyped.

I don't agree with you. The usefulness and hazards of radiation in all forms would be another thread.

Where the hell did I "infer" any such thing?

But since you brought it up, residual radiation remaining from a nuclear detonation does not last forever. With time the radiation level will diminish to at or below normal background radiation levels. The "hottest" materials will decay in the shortest time and the least "hot" will take the longest.

And exposure is not only about the the type radiation. It is also about the level of radiation. If you have lived in or visited a building made from granite then you have been exposed to radiation at a level that would trigger several of the radiation alarms in the "vault" where many people work daily at Los Alamos (and maybe trigger radiation alarms at a nuclear power plant, I dunno. I'm not familiar with "acceptable" levels in power plants.). There is a hell of a difference between radiation exposure and "dangerous" radiation exposure.

So, radioactive fallout in your studied opinion is indeed a long term hazard? Just to make things clear a yes or no answer.

??

What do you mean by "long term"?

If the exposure level is still significantly high then it is still hazardous. When the exposure level falls to approaching normal background levels then it is no longer hazardous.

You aren't going to find anywhere that you are not exposed to radiation. What do you consider to be acceptable levels?

Thank you for ending my day with a chuckle.

BTW I think there is some cheap land for sale near Chernobyl.

I have a relative who worked at Brookhaven on Long Island. There was an overflow of a radioactive waste tank that went on for years. It is is in the ground, pmats, and abimals. There is also a reservation in Georgia I believe waste contamination spread to the ecosysm.

Here in Washington there is a radioactive underground bloom for Hanford heading to the Columbia River.

There is Rocky Flats in Cplorado. Coors says it uses pure mountain water, it is just up the road.

We know very well what the result of large scale nuclear war will be like. Once it gets into te food can it is there until it decays.

Then there are uranium mine spas where you can pay to sit init for the healthful benifits and bath in radioactive water..

 

[Bronzeage]

I have lived my life in the shadow of the 5th largest refinery in the US, and back when the threat of nuclear war was more credible, we knew Baton Rouge and the surrounding area would be on the A-list of targets. I imagine it still is. My father was a civil engineer and his doctoral research was on foundations for underground structures. His research project could apply to any building with a basement, but since he put the word "fallout shelter" in the title of his thesis, the government paid for all of it. In those days, a lot of public buildings had a sign which indicated it was a public fallout shelter.

I asked him how this worked and he said they didn't.

He had a book titled "Damage Assessment of Thermonuclear Weapons." I found this book fascinating for the detailed report of the effects of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. What was really cool was a damage calculator, which was 3 cardboard wheels pinned at the center. You could dial in the megatons of your bomb on one wheel, the height of detonation on another, and the third wheel revealed information such as crater size and the destruction range, as well as the immediate radiation zone. The book was published in the 1950s, and in 1970, the calculator did not have a high enough scale for the currently available nuclear bombs.

 

[skepticalbip]

So that was just a long extended way of agreeing with what I wrote?
"To claim that "radiation" is deadly, the type and level of the radiation must be stated for the claim to make any sense."

On the contrary, you inferred on a thread about nuclear war radiation is not dangerous and it is hyped.

I don't agree with you. The usefulness and hazards of radiation in all forms would be another thread.

Where the hell did I "infer" any such thing?

But since you brought it up, residual radiation remaining from a nuclear detonation does not last forever. With time the radiation level will diminish to at or below normal background radiation levels. The "hottest" materials will decay in the shortest time and the least "hot" will take the longest.

And exposure is not only about the the type radiation. It is also about the level of radiation. If you have lived in or visited a building made from granite then you have been exposed to radiation at a level that would trigger several of the radiation alarms in the "vault" where many people work daily at Los Alamos (and maybe trigger radiation alarms at a nuclear power plant, I dunno. I'm not familiar with "acceptable" levels in power plants.). There is a hell of a difference between radiation exposure and "dangerous" radiation exposure.

So, radioactive fallout in your studied opinion is indeed a long term hazard? Just to make things clear a yes or no answer.

??

What do you mean by "long term"?

If the exposure level is still significantly high then it is still hazardous. When the exposure level falls to approaching normal background levels then it is no longer hazardous.

You aren't going to find anywhere that you are not exposed to radiation. What do you consider to be acceptable levels?

Thank you for ending my day with a chuckle.

BTW I think there is some cheap land for sale near Chernobyl.

I have a relative who worked at Brookhaven on Long Island. There was an overflow of a radioactive waste tank that went on for years. It is is in the ground, pmats, and abimals. There is also a reservation in Georgia I believe waste contamination spread to the ecosysm.

Here in Washington there is a radioactive underground bloom for Hanford heading to the Columbia River.

There is Rocky Flats in Cplorado. Coors says it uses pure mountain water, it is just up the road.

We know very well what the result of large scale nuclear war will be like. Once it gets into te food can it is there until it decays.

Then there are uranium mine spas where you can pay to sit init for the healthful benifits and bath in radioactive water..

Indeed all those things should be a concern but you didn't seem to notice that people on Long Island are not all dropping dead from radiation poisoning at an early age. Neither are people who live along the Savannah river or in Savannah. How many have died early from radiation poisoning after drinking Coors Beer? Predictions of doomsday are easy but rather meaningless and hyperbolic when the actual data shows that the things predicted are not happening and most of those things have persisted for over seventy years. Radiation contamination is something that should be avoided or cleaned up when found but obviously the effects are nowhere close to your hysterical fear of the problem.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I remember a cartoon from the 70s.

There is a picture of a Russian speaking at the UN. A bubble from his mouth has the words 'Russian scientists have proven radiation is good for you!'.

A bit of cherry-picking and the bear is right.

I was knowingly exposed to some radiation earlier today, the net effect being beneficial. Dental x-rays.

They used to put a lead blanket over you. I think the current dental machines have a lot less energy.

They still use the lead blanket. And note I said cherry-picking.

The exception would be neutron bombs. Neutrons penetrate anything and will destroyy living things without power physical damage to the environment. The ultimate WMD

Neutron bomb - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

No physical damage but they leave behind quite a bit of neutron activation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Subs can be communicated with one way ELF e- VLF. There is a transmitter in the Cascades. When you park there you have to attach a ground strap to your car.

Communication with submarines - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Jim Creek Naval Radio Station - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A sub at periscope depth can talk, but those transmissions can be tracked if someone is above the horizon. A sub out in the middle of nowhere using a satellite link is going to be pretty hard to find. They can also record a message onto a bouy and eject it--the transmitter will be easy to find if you're above the horizon but you put enough delay on it that you're not there when it activates.

 

[Keith&Co.]

An analysis I saw in the 80s of war games and simulations concluded that whichever side started loosing would resort to tactical nukes, leading to the use of strategic nukes.

We detect a missile launch from a Russian silo on a track for the USA. We get on the hot line and Russia does not answer. Or it is Putin who says we didn't launch anything.

Do we.

1. Launch an mediate retaliation or wat to see where it lands.
2. Launch 1 missile
3. Launch a full scale response
4. Its just one missile, do we take it to avoid war and complain at te UN?

You eire the president, what do you do. You have a limited time to decide.

Well, no.
In the described case of a deteriorating diplomatic environment, somebody quite a while ago said, this could lead to nukes. Sorry, sir, but we need to be ready.
There are peopl who gamed it out, gave options to you.
You already decided your over/under, the line thry couldn't and you wouldn't cross.
Seeing the missile, we also know where it came from. We know where the silos are, we know where the mobile launchers park. Someone can tell you if this is coming from Base X and what the likely payload is.

If it's gotten that bad, you already increased
the number of subs at 2SQ,
the security at the bases,
the number of sober pilots.
You loaded the planes and they're on the runway. The command posts are awash with coffee and Monster Energy drinks.

God, i used to hate Minimum Alert Posture. Two hours in a starter's crouch. Knowing if i go pee, THAT will be when they call it away...

Anyway, when and if he twitches, your tripwire is set. He cannot call back a launched missile (no idea where Reagan got THAT idea), so his reply to the fone call is not part of the calculus.
The call should have been an hour ago, from him, as a last chance or else sort of thing. Too far now.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And exposure is not only about the the type radiation. It is also about the level of radiation. If you have lived in or visited a building made from granite then you have been exposed to radiation at a level that would trigger several of the radiation alarms in the "vault" where many people work daily at Los Alamos (and maybe trigger radiation alarms at a nuclear power plant, I dunno. I'm not familiar with "acceptable" levels in power plants.). There is a hell of a difference between radiation exposure and "dangerous" radiation exposure.

There are a couple of incidents that I've read about that seem relevant:

1) Anti-nuke protester that keeps showing up at community outreach events at a nuke plant. One day he sets off the radiation alarms--turns out he's wearing an old radium-dial watch. He got a lot quieter after that.

2) Palo Verde nuclear plant has an exception to radiation limits in it's discharge water. Seems they couldn't comply with the rules because they're using reclaimed sewage water to run the reactor. The water coming into the plant doesn't meet the rules for water going out--radioiodine from thyroid cancer patients. The recover the hottest stuff but some of it ends up pissed into home toilets.