Global Destruction in 1 Step

Disclaimer: if this post bothers you, please do spend some time coming up with potential countermeasures. The point is to encourage people to think about these types of risk in more detail, so we can implement solutions before the unthinkable happens.

Method
Have you ever thought how easy it is for a nuclear weapon or even a nuclear waste holding Country/ State/ Organisation or group of people to cause destruction all over the planet. Think about it, roughly 29,000 tons of spent uranium fuel rods are stockpiled around the world. How can one use it to cause mayhem?

The only step one has to take is dump it in a Volcano and if accessible a Super Volcano.

Why Volcano
The Volcanoes are not hot enough to melt the nuclear fuel rods.
Lava in the hottest volcanoes tops out at around 2,400˚F and that temp. is not enough to melt zirconium (melting point 3,371˚) that encases the fuel, let alone the fuel itself: The melting point of uranium oxide, the fuel used at most nuclear power plants, is 5,189˚. The liquid lava in a shield volcano pushes upward, so the rods probably wouldn’t even sink very deep. The waste would just sit on top of the volcano’s hard lava dome—at least until the pressure from upsurging magma became so great that the dome cracked and the volcano erupted. And that’s the real problem.

Effect
A regular lava flow is hazardous enough, but the lava pouring out of a volcano used as a dumping basket for nuclear would be extremely radioactive. Eventually it would harden, turning that mountain’s slopes into a nuclear wasteland for decades to come. All volcanoes do is spew stuff upward, during a big eruption, ash and gas can shoot six miles into the air and afterward circle the globe several times. That ash and gas would not be a normal one but radioactive. It would be the equivalent of a nuclear winter. The effects would last for four or five years with crops failing and the whole ecosystem breaking down. Think about the global reaction. People will be forced to go underground for years to come.

Reason
The question is, why would anyone go this far? I can think of many possible motivations, and being psychotic is by no means a necessary prerequisite for wanting to do something like this. There’s this near-universal cultural misapprehension that you have to be crazy to do something horrible. To the contrary. You need only be ambitious, and elitist enough to disregard human lives. The answer is simple, to become a global superpower.

With the right tech, living in conditions of clouded skies for a few years would not be difficult. I’m not talking tech from hundreds of years into the future, but only a couple decades. When you can be on the surface and everyone else is forced underground, it isn’t hard to start establishing global superiority.

Edit to correct tags

[edit on 18-2-2010 by December_Rain]

DR, very interesting. I guess I have been under the naive assumption that active volcanoes were fenced off or guarded somehow?

I'm sure that if you have thought about it, then some militant group has as well. (no offense).

How do you think this could be prevented?

Who's to say material hasn't already been planted?

It almost sounds like a great plot for the next Bond movie.

reply to post by Signals


Only very few active volcanoes are fenced or have sign boards of Danger and none are guarded. There are usually observatories for scientists near zones where there is group of active volcanoes. In layman's words there is nothing to stop anyone from accessing a active volcano practically currently.

How do you think this could be prevented?

It's not practically possible to monitor and guard every active volcano on the planet. The only feasible method would be to control and monitor nuclear material. I'm sure there can be more imaginative methods, this is why I have posted it on ATS to hear other member's views.

Who's to say material hasn't already been planted?

Can't say at all.