Tag Archives: nuclear

Geiger counters and Black Swan events

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Now that I have a lot of my mid term plans and supplies done, I’m looking at long term, mobile operations, and “second-order/Black Swan” scenarios.  By that I mean things that can happen, but are not as likely and not worthy of attention until everything else is done.   One of these is a nuclear exchange or a long term loss of grid power (nuclear fuel fires). For that, I still need everything I already talked about but also a way to detect gamma/beta radiation and some type of fallout shelter.

Detectors

There are three types of radiation detectors on the market; new lab grade survey meters, low cost Geiger counters, and government surplus. The problem with the first is expense, to cover the range expected in a crisis would take thousands of dollars. You can’t get a decent instrument that will cover 1 mR to 500 R/hr, the closest I found was Ludlum’s in Texas but they are not really customer focused and you’d need add ons to get the range. Plus it’s expensive.

Amazon/Ebay stuff is usually gimmicky/low cost with a low max rate, usually less than 0.1 R/hr which is OK for things like high school science lab but not for even low levels of fallout. You have no way to know whether or not you’re getting 1 R/hr or a 1000, which is the difference between living and dying.

And then there’s CD surplus. It seems there are large stocks of 60s/70s Civil Defense meters being released into the surplus channels, so one can pick up bargains. BUT, these things have been sitting around for 50+ years with a lot of it inoperable. I was lucky to find this guy:

http://www.uraniumrocks.com/

He has repaired and checked CD-700/715 meters and dosimeters, plus I scored a complete NOS shelter kit:

IMG_1396This covers all bases, from low level to lethally hot AND has the dosimeters. Price was right, too. You need a check source, you can use uranium ore or Peerless lantern mantles which are commonly available.

 

 

OK so what about shelter? Well, that’s one of those things that people just love to debate and go for the overkill solution. Most hard core peppers end up building versions that will ride out a near-miss from a surface burst. Unless you are within 75 miles of a hard target and expect a full up exchange, I’m not sure this is appropriate. Fallout tends to disperse in high concentrations close to the source, and decays exponentially with time. Most people can get by with less protection. The rough rule for exposure is keep the dosage to less than 125 rads in a month,  and it’s probably going to be less than 100 rads/hr for the initial rates. Doing some rough calculations says you need to reduce that by a factor of 16 to keep from getting ill.  That takes 4 half thicknesses of shielding (2^4=16), which can be obtained by about a foot of earth or 10 inches of brick or cement. A typical frame house will give roughly one half thickness, if you shelter in the innermost lower part OR the basement/crawl.

HVLYou need three additional half layers, the old CD books say pile up dirt but that’s impractical. My solution is: Sandbags. I have an 8″ brick walled above ground basement , so I only to add bags above to get the protection from the fallout coming from tree foliage and the roof.  When I first started thinking about this, I was focused on digging something but then realized that wasn’t practical. Not only would people think I’d totally lost it, but it’s not needed and would be a PITA to keep free of water, ventilate, and would be claustrophobia inducing to boot. Not to mention a tough thing to remove if I move.  Polypropylene bags come in white, OD, and beige and are 37 cents a pop in lots of 100. They store small, can be filled when needed, carried, and can be used to create a defensive fire position if that’s ever needed. I want the stuff I buy to serve multiple purposes, which these do.

 

 

 

 

Deflating the Rational Man theory; how likely are man-made crises?

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I mentioned the Rational Man theory long ago, this is the idea that a person (or a leader of a country) will always act in a rational manner and to maximize their own safety and self-interests.  Preparing for a crisis/emergency usually involves assessing the relative likelihood of that event occurring, so we need to know that. There a number of potential crises that hinge upon the actions of leaders, such as EMP attacks, limited war, bioweapons, state sponsored terrorism.  Most people discount the probability of these because there’s no real point to the action. We know the attacker will almost surely suffer far greater losses than the victim, and will probably cease to exist in the aftermath.

However, history is full of what seem now to be senseless acts, mostly carried out by dictatorships or police states. A partial list:

  •  The invasion of Kuwait
  • The invasion of South Korea
  • The attack on Pearl Harbor/invasion of Russia

Knowing these have actually happened (and in recent memory) would tend to make one skeptical of the “it can’t happen” mindset. I tend to lapse into complacency, but I am reminded by current events how things could unravel if the Rational Man fails.  Here’s a few potential scenarios to contemplate:

Russia’s ambition leads to war

The current administration’s total lack of response to Putin’s land grabs lead to an attack on one of the Baltic states, or the western Ukraine, by Russian forces.  NATO and/or the US gets backed into a corner and launches an attack on those forces. Neither side is willing to suffer a defeat, and the fighting slowly escalates until the stakes are so high as to rationalize the use of battlefield or even strategic nuclear weapons.  Where it stops, who knows.

North Korea

Kim Jong Un uses a WMD to attack the US, or another putative US ally. The US retaliates and kicks off Korean War 2, and God knows what else. China is a wild card here, just as in the first war.

China

A territorial dispute or international incident at sea leads to a clash between US and Chinese armed forces.  Local Chinese commanders ignore Beijing and escalate. The risk here is not the normal deliberate civilian leadership, but the Chinese military. They are believed to be aggressive and spoiling for a fight. Taiwan is another flash point, the day may come where China believes the risk of US involvement is low and decides to take Taiwan by force. Where this leads is totally unknown, but will not be good.

Iran

Similar to North Korea, but probably less likely to commit an overt kamikaze run by directly attacking the US. However, once they cross the nuclear threshold expect an eventual Iranian proxy attack (by some splinter group) or a preemptive strike by Saudi Arabia/UAE/Israel to prevent it.  Again, where it ends up is unknown.  It’s VERY difficult to imagine Iran not wanting to strike a blow against the Great or Lessor Satans, once they have a viable weapon.

ISIS/Al Quaida/Boko Haram/Your extremist group name here

Nuclear device detonates in large city, WMD attack, power grid shutdown, etc.

I’m looking around and thinking how dangerously unstable the world seems lately, so many flash points and a big power vacuum left over from our exit from foreign affairs.  As many astute people have pointed out, it can lead to a war by miscalculation, since the aggressor is led to believe there will be no response to the offensive act.  This is usually true to a point, but invariably the US reacts and squashes said aggressor.  Many billions of dollars and thousands of lives are lost each time, but no one never learns.  So I suppose it’s prudent to plan for something like this, at least in part.