I haven’t blogged much at all this month of December (with the exception of adding a new page to the blog for venture capitalists to gloss over). However, I figured I would close-out this year by re-iterating my stance on “things nuclear”, especially since I’ll be in attendance at ND2013.

For those who are concerned about “things nuclear”, you need to know that the term “thermonuclear” is in reference to fission-fusion and it requires plutonium.

To produce plutonium, assuming you have a nuclear reactor conducive to plutonium production, you would enrich uranium to 3%-5% U-235. An IAEA report says Iran is enriching uranium to 20%, which is proof that Iran is not attempting to produce plutonium.

The United States does not have any neutron bombs. The US had removed neutron bombs from their arsenal of nuclear weaponry of service and had them disassembled over twenty years ago.

Even the most naive of all novices should be able to utilize deductive reasoning [but they don’t]:

1. It is not possible to build a nuclear warhead in excess of 15 kt.
2. The US produced a 1 kt 8″/203 mm ERW (Neutron) AFAP and a 10 kt Lance ERW.
3. The 8″/203 mm ERW was never deployed. It remained in storage at Seneca Army Depot until all 550 warheads were transported to the Pantex facility and disassembled back in 1989.
4. The Lance ERW warhead was also in storage at Seneca Army Depot until 1986 when 56 warheads were deployed to Germany under a Top Secret operation.
5.  The Lance was subsequently withdrawn in 1990 and all 300+ warheads were transported to the Pantex facility and disassembled.
6.  The M5 Lance Main Missile Assembly has been removed from service and destroyed as have all of the launchers.

The only country currently known to have neutron warheads is Russia which has about 3,000 warheads in the 1 kt to 10 kt range for tube artillery and missile artillery.

It is now believed that China has neutron weapons since that idiot Bill Clinton gave China the “football”–and gave North Korea two plutonium producing nuclear reactors and gave Russia two Cray Super II computers.

The “football” is not the football the president carries around–it is a system of linear implosion. Linear implosion is the method of implementation for miniaturizing weapons.

How much smaller can you go?

3.5 kg of plutonium in a canister with an external diameter of 6″ (155 mm) weighing about 38 pounds with a nominal yield of about 0.03 kt.

You also use to have what were known as backpack nukes. They’re designed for cratering. The US removed theirs and dismantled them back in 1986. Their utilization can be viewed as a maneuver for prohibiting any further advancing of an armored vehicle.

You do realize that an armored vehicle cannot traverse a slope that’s greater than 30°, right?

I have repeatedly stated that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program and I’m asking you all, that want to state otherwise, to provide me with evidence showing the technical, ordnance, missile, maintenance, security, storage, communication, transportation, support or administrative infrastructure.

Let’s take this approach: Which country, Pakistan or India, has thermonuclear weapons?

Answer: Not Pakistan. Thermonuclear weaponry requires plutonium and Pakistan has none.

Since Pakistan only has uranium, what is the largest possible warhead Pakistan could possibly build (in theory)?

Answer: 60 kt.

In reality, not theory, what is the largest uranium warhead ever made?

Answer: 40 kt (by the French). This, of course, is most unfortunate because Pakistan no longer has any B-57F bombers, so Pakistan has no possible means to deliver a 40 kt uranium warhead. Something that monstrous will not fit on a missile.

All of Pakistan’s nuclear warheads are in the 0.01 kt to 10 kt range. Pakistani F-16s could probably carry a 20 kt warhead. Pakistan has mostly 8″/203 mm double-gun artillery rounds and some short-range missile artillery in the 1 kt to 10 kt range. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is defensive, not offensive like that of the United States.

But, let’s not end today’s lesson on “things nuclear”. What about the oxygen bomb?

People need to understand that fission of any atom produces 180 million electron volts (MeV) of energy. It doesn’t matter which atom: uranium, plutonium, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, iron, aluminum….you name it.

The difference between fissile material and non-fissile material is that fissile material self-sustaining.

Eventually, the world will acquire the technology to produce sufficient energy to fission in any atom and maintain a cascading reaction that leads to the nuclear explosion.

I’m pretty sure people will be thrilled about that.

Nuclear weapons–all of them–generate an electromagnetic field although the strength, intensity, duration and size [scope] of the field are related to the size of the warhead and the altitude at which the warhead is detonated. Physics dictates that the largest possible yield of a uranium-based nuclear device is 60 kilotons. Only one country has built a large-yield uranium-based nuclear weapon and that was France who, for a brief period, had uranium-based warheads with a 40-kiloton yield.

Iran has no plutonium nor any means to produce plutonium nor acquire any plutonium not to mention that the design of such weapons mandates that they be tested to see if the design is indeed functional.

In any event, in order to damage a large region of the United States it will take a 400 kiloton warhead and the only possible way to get 400 kilotons is through fission-fusion using plutonium. A simple plutonium fission weapon is limited to a maximum yield of 200 kilotons. No country has ever produced a plutonium fission warhead that humongous.

There are only six countries with warheads in excess of 400 kilotons: Israel, Britain, France, Russia, China and the United States.

I was pondering on two possible categories of scenarios or events, on the scale of being classified as “catastrophic”, one being “nuclear winter”.

“Nuclear winter” could be caused by a Toba-like volcanic explosion or several volcanoes out-gassing (in the last 30 years such events have caused small decreases in temperatures but not enough to affect the food supply globally or even regionally), and then an asteroid impact. Something similar to what impact Meteor Crater would be enough.

In all of those events, you have to factor-in that with particulate matter being hurled into the atmosphere, which then blocks ultraviolet radiation, this is what causes Earth to cool, in addition to blocking sunlight. Note that this only has to last for several months in order to cause the demise of 70%-80% of the population on Earth.

Let’s say in June, a small near-Earth asteroid strikes, throws up debris, the Earth cools, sunlight is blocked. Your harvest, for that year, globally, is destroyed, even though, meteorologically speaking, everything returns to normal by October or November. Since the world doesn’t have food saved up to feed 6.6 billion one meal per day, that means a lot of people will die. Now suppose that asteroid were to strike after the harvest, say in October or later, then it really wouldn’t be that big of a deal–unless it was large enough to cause a “nuclear winter” effect to last through the following planting and growing season).

The other event is an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP). As I’ve stated before, all nuclear warheads produce EMP as a matter of course, but the intensity and duration of the EMP field are related to a warhead’s yield. If you happen to be within 400-500 meters of a 1 kt ground-burst, then objects such as your cellphone/smartphone and iPod® are gonna die. I’ll re-iterate that I’m talking about fission-fusion warheads with yields that are greater than 400 kt (kilotons) and are detonated in the upper atmosphere at altitudes between 30-90 miles. Detonate something like that over Knoxville, Tennessee and you won’t even kill one person from the blast–or the radiation–but you will have just sent the entire Eastern US into the Stone Age for up to a century.

You cannot limit the effect to just one country unless you’re targeting a very small area.

It’s a simple matter of eighth grade spherical geometry:

S =(9.848 x 10^7) * h / (3.960 x 10^3) + h

Where:

S = Surface Area (in square miles) of Earth seen at a particular height

h = The height in miles of the object above the Earth’s surface

Plug in the numbers and calculate. A 450 kt warhead detonated at 35 miles, then

S = (9.848 x 10^7) * 35 / (3.960 x 10^3) + 35

S = 3,446,800,000 / 3,995

S = 862,778 miles

The continental US is 2,959,064 square miles, so three well-placed 450 kt warheads would do the trick.

Although it’s possible for the latter event to happen, it’s highly unlikely. But, in regards to EMP, it is more likely that a large X-Class solar flare, accompanied by a massive proton storm, to occur. You see, in a nuclear weapon you have x-rays, gammas and neutrons ionizing everything to create the EMP field. With an X-Class solar flare, it’s ultraviolet rays and x-rays and then there are the protons. That, in itself, will send the Northern Hemisphere back into the Stone Age. I wouldn’t consider Eastern Europe a geographic safe haven, but Eastern Europe wouldn’t be affected even half as much badly as the United States since there are still many people in Eastern Europe without electricity, without telephones and without all the assortments of electronic devices that use transistors and/or microchips.

It really serves little purpose to live in a country that’s so dependent on technology.

Don’t believe me? Let’s throw Afghanistan into this so I can build a better example for you all to [hopefully] comprehend.

When the Afghan government asked the Soviets to protect them, the Soviets easily defeated all three armies in short-order: the coalition of tribes from the Northwest, the coalition of tribes from the North and the coalition of tribes from the South (the Taliban came from this group).

For the Soviets, the conflict goes from High-Intensity (the rapid border-crossing and the race to intercept and destroy all three armies marching on Kabul) to Medium-Intensity. Seven years into the foray, the Soviets finally realize that the only way they can possibly win is by invading Pakistan. The Soviets aren’t willing to do that so they formulate an exit strategy and they are gone three years later.

Currently the US is in a similar situation.

The US enters as a Light-Intensity conflict, escalates to Medium-Intensity conflict and about seven years later, the US then realizes that the only way to win is to invade Pakistan. The US isn’t necessarily willing to do that, so now it has formulated an exit strategy.

However, the US has a technological advancement that the Soviets didn’t have, namely “drones”, and that allows it to “invade” Pakistan without actually invading Pakistan but that is not enough to get the job done.

You have to understand that the terrain there on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is formidable. I’m talking about the foothills of the Himalayan mountains. Utilizing vehicles is useless. You would need troops on the ground, a bare minimum of around five infantry divisions, and just moving through the mountains would be a logistical nightmare, in part because Americans are hampered by technology and overly-dependent on it to the point they are incapable of functioning without it.

With respect to EMP, there’s no such thing as M.A.D. between the United States and Russia.

The Russians, like all East Bloc countries, have one hand in the 18th century, the other hand in the 19th century, one foot in the 20th century and the other foot in the 21st century. As I’ve mentioned earlier, there are millions in Eastern Europe who do not have electricity or telephones or even running water.

Shall I repeat that again for you?

EMP, whether it’s from a nuclear warhead or the Sun, would harm Eastern Europe but not to the extent that it would harm the United States–it would destroy the United States–300 million Americans would be dead in less than twelve months. By comparison, 125 million to 130 million Russians would survive and 20 million out of 23 million Romanians would survive.

I know there are quite a few idiot scientists out there but longitudinal electromagnetic waves do not exist. I don’t care what some idiot scientists say. Idiot-ass scientists are the same mawfuckas who once said that there was such a thing as cold fusion.

Nonsense such as that is derived from here…

People are confusing scalar waves with longitudinal electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic waves always travel in a plane that’s perpendicular to the direction of propagation. That is why electromagnetic pulse (EMP) exists. Those waves are transverse or transversal.

If you want to see longitudinal waves then take a look at sound waves since they are longitudinal. That dumb, Nikola Tesla-idolizing moron published his “theory” what—twelve years ago?

It wouldn’t surprise me the least bit if a good number of people who would agree with Meyl are the same natural-born retards who sit in front of computers all googly-eyed as they study “climate change” simulation data and projections while masquerading as PhD candidates at the many “fine institutions of higher learning” some of your kids may or may not be attending. I only wish that other people would realize that these idiotic “scientists” are nothing more than charlatans–“climate scientists”, “computer scientists”….

Bad science is bad science, no matter the credentials.

More than likely, I’ll be crossing paths with a few well-regarded [meaning they papers that have been “published”] PhDs at ND2013 in March.

What an outcome that will turn out to be…if it goes that route…

-Desmond (DTO™)