Category:
Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters
In an
article published on arXiv.org, Andy Haverly of the Rochester Institute of Technology has proposed a radical solution to global warming. His idea is to detonate an 81 Gt nuclear bomb three kilometers beneath the Kerguelen Plateau in the Southern Ocean.
By way of comparison, an 81 Gt bomb would be 1600 times larger than the
Tsar Bomba, the largest nuke ever exploded to date.
According to Haverly's calculations, the explosion would pulverize 3.86 trillions tons of basalt, which would in turn then soak up 1.08 trillion tons of carbon dioxide. That's about 30 years worth of carbon dioxide emissions.
As for safety:
Nuclear explosions are inherently unsafe. They release vast amounts of uncontrolled energy. However, by detonating this nuclear device in a controlled environment we can minimize the impacts. By detonating this nuclear device in a remote location deep in the ocean, the only expected effect on humans is from nuclear radiation. First, this comes in the form of surface radiation and fallout. Because this explosion is so remote and can be timed favorably with the weather, there is little to no expected loss of life from the immediate radiation effects. The long-term effects of global radiation will impact humans and will cause loss of life, but this increased global radiation is “just a drop in the bucket”. Every year, we emit more radiation from coal power plants and we have already detonated over 2000 nuclear devices. Adding one more bomb should have minimal impact on the world.
An interesting idea, but I wonder if we would then be exploding one of these things every thirty years?
During the 1950s and 1960s, a number of women were given the title of "Miss Uranium."
I don't think there was one organization awarding the title. Instead, I think various local entrepreneurs held separate 'Miss Uranium' pageants. Or they didn't even bother with a pageant and just declared a model to be 'Miss Uranium'.

Toronto Star - June 11, 1968

Cleveland Plain Dealer - Aug 26, 1951

Toronto Star - Nov 4, 1953
One of the stranger model train cars sold by Lionel is its "Toxic Waste Car," which it introduced in 1956 . From the product info:
Congratulations! Your Lionel railroad has won the government contract to safely remove toxic waste from your friendly local nuclear power plant for transport to remote dump sites located all across the continent. The simulated toxic waste load is held in two containers from which an ominously radiating light flashes on and off whenever the track is energized.
Over the years, Lionel has made various design changes and tweaks to the Toxic Waste Car. For instance, in 2007 it turned it into the "Area 51 Alien Radioactive Flatcar."
More info:
tcatrains.org
May 1955: Seven "typical American women" crouched in a trench 3500 yards from an atomic-bomb test in the Nevada desert. They did it to "demonstrate to other women that civilians can survive an atomic blast, if they take proper precautions."
The best reaction to the blast came from Mrs. Grace Doebler of Tucson, Ariz.: "I'd like to do it again, with a bigger one."

Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin - May 5, 1955
May 1955: Food tasters sampled a meal of French fries, vegetables, strawberries, chicken pot pie, cod fish fillets, and orange juice taken from a freezer buried 1,270 feet from an atomic bomb blast. While all the food was deemed edible, they said the orange juice and pie were noticeably "off flavor."
It's unclear why the food tasted off. Radiation shouldn't have changed the taste of the food. It was probably because they were told where it was from and their expectations led them to believe it tasted different. The researchers should have conducted a blind taste test.

Tampa Bay Times - May 11, 1955

Reno Gazette-Journal - May 12, 1955
Back in 1947, kids could get an "atomic bomb ring" by sending in a boxtop of Kix cereal plus 15 cents. The ring allowed them to observe flashes of light caused by polonium alpha particles striking a zinc sulfide screen. Although one had to be in a fully dark room, with dark-adapted eyes, to see the effect. That's actually a pretty cool toy for a cereal promotion.
I think the ring may have been similar in principle to the cheap geigerscopes that used to be sold to let people search for uranium in their backyards (
see previous post).

San Francisco Examiner - Feb 9, 1947
Click to enlarge

image source: orau.org
Physicist Samuel T. Cohen is credited with inventing the
neutron bomb — a nuclear weapon designed to minimize blast damage but maximize the release of radiation, so that it would kill people but preserve infrastructure.
Cohen later came up with the idea of a neutron radiation wall. This would be a wall of ionizing radiation that would kill anyone who passed through it. He suggested that Israel could build a neutron radiation wall along its border to protect itself from invasion.
He described how this wall would work in a
March 1984 article in Reason magazine:
What I am suggesting is the construction of a border barrier whose most effective component is an extremely intense field of nuclear radiation (produced by the operation of underground nuclear reactors), sharply confined to the barrier zone, which practically guarantees the death of anyone attempting to breach the barrier...
Briefly, this is how such a barrier scheme would work:
During peacetime, the reactors (employed underground, for protection and safety) are operated on a continual basis, as are our power reactors. The neutrons produced by the fission reactions escape into a solution containing an element that, upon absorbing the neutrons, becomes highly radioactive and emits gamma rays (very high energy X-rays) at extremely high intensity. The radioactive solution is then passed into a series of pipes running along the barrier length in conjunction with conventional obstacle components—mines, Dragon's Teeth, tank traps, barbed wire, etc. To the rear of the pipes and obstacle belts is a system of conventional defensive fortifications. (The obstacles, the firepower from the fortifications, and tactical air power all serve to impede the rate of advance of the attacker, increasing the attacker's exposure to the gamma radiation. Vice versa, by quickly incapacitating the attacker, the radiation serves to make it difficult, or even impossible, for the attacker to remove the obstacles and assault the fortifications.) The width of the entire defensive system need be no more than a few miles.
The gamma ray field in the immediate vicinity of the obstacle zone readily can be sufficiently intense that several minutes' exposure will produce incapacitation and ultimately death. However, at a distance of, say, 1,000 yards from the pipes, the radiation intensity is so reduced that people are perfectly safe. In fact, a person could stand all day at this distance without putting himself in jeopardy.
Physicist Cristjo Cristofv claimed that his cocker spaniel, Bijou, could not only detect nuclear fallout but also "changes in the atmospheric electrical field" caused by nuclear explosions halfway around the world.
Certainly a dog like that would be worth at least $10 million. Or so he claimed when the dog died as a result of a bad reaction to medicine given to it by a vet.
Cristofv eventually dropped his lawsuit against the vet due to unexplained "security reasons."

Peninsula Times - July 30, 1965

Chicago Tribune - July 30, 1965

Akron Beacon Journal - May 25, 1966