questions on nuclear warfare contamination

[almifkhar]

i have been reading on low and high intensity nuclear warfare and there are some things i don't understand.

1. if these kinds of weapons are used in a conflict, how long does it effect the land, air, water, and living beings?
2. does this kind of fallout effect the environment and peoples say 500 miles away?
3. how do they go about cleaning this up? is there a way that it can be cleaned up?
4. what do they do with the contaminated stuff that they clean up?
5. is there any kind of difference (meaning how they effect the environment and living beings) between these two types of warfare?

if anyone has read up on this i would greatly love to read where you got the information.

 

[Engyo]

i have been reading on low and high intensity nuclear warfare and there are some things i don't understand.

Almifkhar -

I will answer the best I can:

1. if these kinds of weapons are used in a conflict, how long does it effect the land, air, water, and living beings?

That would depend on the specific weapon used, how it was used, the prevailing weather conditions at the time, and many other factors.

2. does this kind of fallout effect the environment and peoples say 500 miles away?

This depends on prevailing winds and where the weapon(s) is(are) when detonated (whether underground, at ground level, or airborne). The type of material in the bomb also makes a difference here.

3. how do they go about cleaning this up? is there a way that it can be cleaned up?

Generally, not very well. There are things which can be done, but it is usually a mess for a long long time.

4. what do they do with the contaminated stuff that they clean up?

Bury it or incinerate it. There has been some talk of lofting it into space and then sending it into the sun, but we could not currently do that easily.

5. is there any kind of difference (meaning how they effect the environment and living beings) between these two types of warfare?

This one I am not too sure of, other than low-yield weapons are not as harmful for as long as high-yield ones.

if anyone has read up on this i would greatly love to read where you got the information.

Mostly from lots of sci-fi writers in both fiction and non-fictional works.

 

[almifkhar]

ok on the clean up. wouldn't burning it just create more contaminatin? over time the barrels would seep open i would think which would make things be right back to square one. sending it to the sun? now that one to me seems like a real bad idea. real bad. sounds like the people who decided to create such things didn't think things out and the result is a real big mess.

 

[Sunstone]

In a physics class I took many years ago, I recall I learned that some of the radioactive isotopes produced in a nuclear blast had half lives of 10,000 years.