
We don't have enough nukes (Data visualization) - dirtyaura
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/how-i-learnt-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb/
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dtap
I think he doesn't have a full understanding of nuclear fallout. Yes, a nuke
will vaporize 14.9 km^2, but it will render a much larger area unlivable.
Also, many people will die in the following months from radiation poisoning.
There is also the possibility of nuclear winter.

~~~
marvin
That is an unfounded claim. According to Nuclear War Survival Skills (a
downloadable book on the construction of improvised fallout shelters), nuclear
fallout remains _directly_ lethal only for two weeks. This is the kind of
fallout produced from a detonation where the fireball touches the earth. After
this period, radiation from the fallout is weak enough that it is safe to move
about for a limited time each day. A nuclear detonation in the air produces
much less fallout, and it will be diluted over a much larger area unless there
is precipation.

Any discussion beyond this is guesswork..as far as I know we have never really
studied this stuff. It would be interesting if someone could point out that
I'm wrong. The following article claims that the number of birth defects and
cancer-related deaths from the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings are too small to be
seen in the (admittedly sparse) data collected.

I think it's a good idea to study the traditional notion that nuclear war is
so extremely destructive. The subject seems to be a voluntary intellectual
wasteland - no one ever wants to find out how things _really_ would work, only
quote the canonical belief that any nuclear war would cause huge amounts of
deaths from cancer, birth abnormalities, barren fields, genetic mutations and
nuclear winter.

What such a war would do to _society_ is an entirely different matter, but
this is almost never discussed.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_I think it's a good idea to study the traditional notion that nuclear war is
so extremely destructive._

I love the word "traditional". As I was saying to my wife the other day, on
the occasion of the passing of Les Paul, "it's amazing how many of the
inventors of our ancient and venerable traditions were still walking around as
of last week."

In this case, the "traditional notion" that nuclear war could destroy all of
life of earth dates back only to the 1960s, was by no means universally
accepted, and still _is_ not universally accepted. Nuclear survivability has,
for obvious reasons, always been of intense interest to our political leaders,
and I assure you that the subject is _not_ an "intellectual wasteland": There
are reams and reams of research on it. Much of it is classified, of course.

And talk of "what will happen after the nuclear war" used to be popular --
witness all those movies and bomb shelters and plans made during the 1950s and
early 1960s, when people held the then-quite-reasonable belief that nuclear
war was _inevitable_. But then the popular notion of global nuclear
annhilation took hold -- probably because, like quite a few "traditional
notions", it contains a big grain of truth. Perhaps it is hard to kill the
whole world in a nuclear war. But it's not so hard to kill _my_ whole world. I
can give you a target list of eight cities, all of which contain major US
research universities, which (if bombed) would destroy, say, 95% of all the
people I've ever known. In a full-scale nuclear exchange involving the United
States, odds are that _my_ world would be destroyed. (I, personally, am
_incredibly_ likely to die in the initial blast wave, as I live down the
street from the Route 128 tech corridor, home to companies like Raytheon.)

So maybe a person who lives in the New Guinea highlands really can afford to
laugh at the prospect of the post-apocalypse. (May we never know.) But those
of us who live in Boston, San Franci, New York, or Washington can't. Because,
for us, bombing all four of those cities _would_ be an apocalypse.

~~~
fuzzmeister
In a full-on nuclear exchange, it would be much more than major cities getting
attacked. I live about 5 miles from Lincoln Labs and about 6 miles from
Raytheon, so I'm screwed anyway. But, every ICBM installation, every port, and
every military base would also be attacked in such a situation. I'd love to
see some specific data on it, but I'd bet when you add those targets to the
major cities, the vast, vast majority of the US population wouldn't fare too
well.

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windsurfer
One Trident submarine can stay at sea for up to two years without refueling.
It can produce it's own recycled water, and produces little to no waste. It is
only limited by food, since it is powered by a nuclear reactor.

Each submarine is armed with 24 (nuclear) Trident II long-range ballistic
missiles, each one able to hit almost anywhere in the world. Each one of these
missiles can be launched from underwater at a moments notice. In mid-flight,
each missile can split up into 12 individual bomblets, each of which is
capable of wiping out a city.

One submarine, which is manned by less than 200 men, could destroy 288 major
cities in half an hour from anywhere in the world. That's a frightening
thought.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
It is a frightening thought.

We have technology that can keep 200 men alive for over two years, including
all of their needs for food, air, water, electricity and such, and yet we're
still getting around by burning old plants from millions of years ago.

~~~
georgekv
That would be because nuclear power generation is still a bogeyman in some
people's minds.

Just imagine the true "green revolution" that could be brought about with a
few hundred more nuclear plants in the US alone.

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jhancock
To make it cost effective, the U.S. has to stop making enemies. Do you know
how much it will cost to secure a few hundred nuclear power plants from people
willing to blow themselves up?

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elai
As much as 200 more low security prisons? 20'000 federal employees (to be
generous) is peanuts to a project of that scale. How many attacks have there
been on power plants anyway? You cant make modern designs go boom, just melt.

~~~
jhancock
I certainly hope your right that modern nuke plants are safer. But the general
public responds more to security theater than real security.

As to "how many attacks have there been"? Well, it only takes one successful
one. How many successful (reached their ultimate goal) airline highjackings
have their been?

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mmphosis
"Yup. Thanks for all the feedback. I’m going to redraft the image with
radiation, fallout, nuclear winter, failure rates, poisoned water supplies,
crop deaths, deformed babies, and cancer all factored in. After I’ve had this
stiff drink…"

~~~
yannis
How about looking it also from another angle. How many missiles do you need to
wipe out all the big Cities and capitals of the world. Probably only one
missile per City. Given +- 200 countries and that is the end of civilization
as we know it. From there onwards whoever survive will have to compete like
cockroaches to continue living.

~~~
lhorie
If you read the whole thing, you'll see he calculates that too: "99293 heavy
duty nukes required to wipe out world's city dwellers, we have 10227".

~~~
yannis
I have read the article and my point was different. I said .. and civilization
as we know it will end. I used my elementary school maths. The current number
of countries in the world are 192, since some of them have two capitals I
rounded the number to 200. His statistics for London showed that 1 warhead was
enough to wipe it out and London is spread out unlike Singapore or Hong Kong.
As per my calculation 200 missiles are more than enough to destroy our current
civilization.

~~~
lhorie
I'd imagine nuking Washington wouldn't change the US as a whole (perhaps you'd
get another post-9/11 terror obsession, but I'd think the economic
infrastructure would still remain rather intact).

I think number of capitals isn't a very good measure of economic
infrastructure: Monaco has some 30k people, but a non-capital city like Sao
Paulo has 11 million.

One could say "ok, let's drop Monaco and nuke Sao Paulo then", and then maybe
nuke Boston and Sydney too while we're at it. But you're going to run out of
bombs way before you run out of large cities.

~~~
cschep
Morbid, but true.

If a nuke truly hit the ground in D.C., I can't help but shudder at the
thought of the hysteria that would ensue though. Post-9/11 hysteria would look
like rational behavior in comparison.

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tetha
Mh, just wondering: What about 'creative' nuke usage? Basically, I am thinking
about not dropping a nuclear bomb on, say, Berlin, but rather using bombs to
create major disasters, like tsunamis (either by setting off the bomb in an
ocean, or by destroying almost collapsed landmasses, which would then drop
into the water and cause monster-waves), or by abusing tectonic knowledge and
nukes to create major earth-quakes? Is such thing efficient enough to be
reasoned about when trying to calculate the overall killing power of all
nuclear weapons?

~~~
njharman
You sir, should study to become a super-villian.

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ams6110
The doctrine of the cold war was MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction. But the
point wasn't that we had enough weapons to totally eliminate each other's
populations, it was that we could totally destroy each other's economic and
governmental infrastructure.

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pixcavator
Just one correction: Non Nuclear Proliferation Pact has nothing to do with
reduced stockpiles.

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tel
I love how this post incidentally highlights the differences between
science/statistics and information-centric graphic design and then shows how
easily they become unified when you just touch the "scientific method" even
tangentially.

We can all argue about his model now and think critically about the threat of
nuclear suicide due to a simple hypothesis, curious data, and some nice
visualization to communicate it quickly.

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andreyf
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter>

Also, I think three well placed nukes in the US could guarantee the collapse
of American civilization. Always remember - if the trucks stop driving, it
ain't long 'till everybody starves.

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rriepe
How does this article get so in-depth without mentioning a nuclear winter?

The real fear of nuclear war is societal collapse, radiation being everywhere,
and the ensuing nuclear winter, which (according to some) could wipe out
humanity. Not the direct blasts.

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tezza
Everything is even better. There is no way that the numbers will be as high as
the (excellent) analysis suggests:

\---

* This presumes all parties collaborate to destroy mutually exclusive regions (unlikely)

* Multiple nukes will be launched at particular sites to avoid countermeasures

* Some of those countermeasures will be effective

* The main targets of nukes will be nuke launching sites, which will cut down the retaliatory nuking

* Nuke launching sites are not in populated cities (generally)

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pbhj
_"The main targets of nukes will be nuke launching sites [...]"_

Probably not. If USA takes one in the eye (Washington DC) from Russia then
they want to hit Moscow immediately after to show that a) we're fighting back,
stop now if you don't want to end the world, b) everyone will notice and
possibly you might cut off the head before further damage is done.

Yes silos will be a priority target, but not necessarily above major cities.

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sgoranson
Clearly this guy has never played CivIII.

~~~
duncanj
Civ III taught me that cruise missles are worth more than nukes, are cheaper
to build, and don't set the world against you for using them.

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vijayr
OK, are we supposed to feel happy that we can _only_ kill less than 1% of the
world's population with the available nukes or feel sad that we have spent so
much time, energy and money developing weapons, just one of which can
completely wipe out everything in a full 15 sq km area?

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physcab
Well, ok. I don't think nukes were developed to wipe out humanity. They were
developed to cause the utmost amount of destruction to a single point of
interest. I don't think Iran wants 1000 nukes. I think they want one, so they
can aim it at the Saudia Arabia oilfields.

~~~
far33d
They want one so they can assure israel won't fire theirs first.

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three14
Believe it or not, Israel already has sufficient reason not to fire theirs
first. Try a thought experiment - what would happen to Israel if they did?

The only way I can imagine Israel getting away with dropping one on Iran is if
Iran continues developing nuclear technology.

~~~
theoneill
When I try that thought experiment, this is what happens:

1\. The mother of all PR/lobbying campaigns successfully preserves US support.
Especially since it would already be underway before the attack.

2\. Nothing changes, except there's now a big radioactive hole somewhere.

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yread
The thing is that even though we have like 10k warheads we have a much more
limited amount of missiles, so we wouldn't be able to deliver them. On the
other hand if we wanted to wipe out only cities bigger than 2 000 000 it would
be ok: theres only 200 of them

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cwan
The data visualization is pretty well done and convincing. That said, I think
the concern about nukes that most people have is less about the possibility
that it will wipe out civilization but instead, a bit more selfish -
themselves/ourselves.

~~~
kschults
It's convincing, until you realize that the author is treating nukes as just
really big bombs. If he's only looking at the area of total destruction, then
he should be counting all explosives, since that's ignoring where the real
deadliness of nuclear weapons lies.

First off, the heat wave let off will be lethal at a much larger radius than
where it will cause total destruction. Total destruction means that everything
is gone: buildings, cars, people, anything that was there will be
unrecognizable/gone. For a nuke, this is a very small part of the destruction
caused. The fallout and radiation will carry much much farther than that. If
you tried, you could probably cover the entire earth with fallout with fewer
than 100 strategically placed nukes.

It's not beyond belief that ten thousand would both cover the earth with
concentrated radiation, and cause enough fallout to create nuclear winter.
Volcanic explosions are often enough to affect sunsets on the other side of
the world. If we exploded nuclear weapons all over the world, there'd be
enough debris in the air to block out the sun, causing a significant
temperature drop, and killing plants around the world. Scratch the global food
supply, and we're all toast.

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justin_vanw
Radation, disruption of food production, nuclear weather effects (nuclear
winter or whatever), disruption of medicine production, disruption of police
protection. These will kill far more than the actual explosions.

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ivankirigin
First two comments here and first one there are right: fallout.

I don't have a source, but I've been told that we at one point had enough
nukes to kill everybody a few thousand times over.

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raquo
I wonder how much _time_ is needed to launch all these missiles. They aren't
all in ready state in a silo, are they?

~~~
moe
I'd think that those which are not in immediate ready-state are probably
stored very near a silo or hangar. Simply because it doesn't make much sense
to store a nuke very far from a location where it could be used (except when
that nuke is heading for disassembly). Consequently I wouldn't be surprised if
it was merely a matter of hours (minus the odd dud)...

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xtho
Obviously the author wasn't born yet when the cold war was still going on.

