Message posted by Andre' M. Dall'au on December 23, 2008 at 5:16:36 PST:
Contamination is the residue from fissile material. Since nuclear weapons have a relatively amount of fissile material, the underground detonation captures all of the material so that none escapes to the atmosphere. Remember, contamination is radioactive material in an undesired location which is different than radiation which is the emission of energy. Contamination is what gets on your shoe from what dogs leave behind; radiation is the smell. That is why Cherenobyl was so bad. The tons of radioactive material that was expelled into the atmosphere went EVERYWHERE (unlike TMI that had none). That was based on a VERY bad design (unlike anything in the west - although one was planned for Cuba) and operational standards that were completely unacceptable, so (once again) using that accident to pass judgement on nuclear power as a whole is plain stupid.
In Reply to: Re: Interesting clip on YouTube posted by Swede on December 22, 2008 at 23:06:16 PST:
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