--- On Sep 08, Eric Blossom apparently wrote ----------------------------------
(Conventional explosives could also cause a billion or more dollars worth of damage to a major wafer fabrication plant, of course, but the manufacturing capacity could be shifted to other plants in a matter of months. Some major short sale opportunities, but not nearly what a nuke could do to a _region_, in terms of direct blast effects, fallout in surrounding city blocks (tens of square city blocks, at the least, esp. give OSHA standards, etc.), and the sheer panic effect.)
On of my favorite analyses of a similar scenario is contained in "The Curve of Binding Energy" by John McPhee (available at your local Borders or Barnes and Noble). He basically interviews a high energy physicist and works out the back of the envelope calculations on yields, where to get the plutonium, where and how to place the device, etc. A key point was that a high efficiency device is not required. A dirty 1.5 kiloton gadget placed on the 40th floor of the World Trade Center takes out one tower and kills a shit load of folks in the adjacent tower. Includes other rules of thumb such as "one kiloton of explosives vaporizes one kiloton of matter". YMMV, don't try this at home kids, etc, etc.
Destruction by a nuclear blast is most likely not even the issue here. Using a relatively small amount of plutonium (ie. not even enough to produce a critical mass) and enough explosives to blast this into the atmosphere you can kill a (very) large number of people over a relatively small amount of time due to plutonium toxication. These devices are the real "dirty gadgets", not really expensive and therefor perfectly suitable for terrorist organisations. But what a dreadfull way to die... --- and thus sprach: Eric Blossom <eb@comsec.com> ----------------------------- Ciao, Unicorn. -- ======= _ __,;;;/ TimeWaster on http://www.IAEhv.nl/users/hvdl ============== ,;( )_, )~\| A Truly Wise Man Never Plays PGP: 64 07 5D 4C 3F 81 22 73 ;; // `--; Leapfrog with a Unicorn... 52 9D 87 08 51 AA 35 F0 ==='= ;\ = | ==== Youth is not a time in life, it's a State of Mind! ========