Nukes

[xoggoth]

If I was PM I'd be pressing the button all the time, bloody French and their strikes, Spanish boats in Gibraltar waters, Argentines threatening the Falklands, Swiss and their tax havens, Chinese and their fake phone chargers and ivory trade, Jamaicans and their whinging about slavery etc. Not to mention the damn Scots. And Northerners!

99% of the UK budget would be spent on new nukes.

[AtW]

Perhaps QE could be used to replace Trident? It's not like it would create inflationary pressure, sounds like a perfect solution - it should allow to cut higher rate of tax to flat 10% to reward hard working taxpayers...

[xoggoth]

If Corbyn look like getting in there's no point wasting our nukes. Put them all in balloons, set the timers and just let the wind take them where it will. Kharma.

[AtW]

Korbyn said he won't press a button.

OK.

How about touchscreen?

Or proximity sensor like in Terminal 5, Heathrow toilets? This might require two people doing it at the same time to be on a safe side...

[VectraMan]

But the boats do need to go out to sea - and that's what costs the dosh.

Which is the craziest thing of all. We have at least one submarine at sea at all times in case of surprise attack by the CCCP. Like the company I work for, nobody seems to have noticed that things have moved on since the 80s.

Even if you believe there is a threat and nuclear weapons are necessary, trillions could have been saved by leaving the submarines in their dock and only sending them to sea at times of heightened tension (now probably).

[VectraMan]

You have to realise, there has already been a nuclear war. It happened in 1945 when one side had the bomb and the other side did not. The side with the bomb decided, after some agonising, that better to nuke a city than let Stalin get to Tokyo first as he did in Berlin.

FTFY.

[Chuck]

Even if you believe there is a threat and nuclear weapons are necessary, trillions could have been saved by leaving the submarines in their dock and only sending them to sea at times of heightened tension (now probably).

Yes, because that won't escalate the situation at all.

The idea of fakes, or empty boats, is a nonsense. Does anyone think that all those good people who work at Faslane do not talk about what goes on in the local pub/barn dance/ceilidh. Anyway, it would cost just as much to build the infrastructure to pretend we have missiles as to build the real thing.

I'd love us to get rid of them, but while there are nutjobs like Putin around, and who knows who's to come over the next 40-50 years, I like to think they give us a tiny bit of protection that we wouldn't otherwise have.

[NotAllThere]

Even better - just build peaceful nuclear reactors on the territory of your potential enemies and you'll be making money during peace time and during war time you don't even need a missile to deliver the payload...

When nuclear reactors explode, the explosion isn't caused by fission, and while very dirty, isn't anywhere near as powerful as a nuclear blast. That's why Chernobyl still exists. It's quite difficult to get nuclear material to fiss.

[stek]

When nuclear reactors explode, the explosion isn't caused by fission, and while very dirty, isn't anywhere near as powerful as a nuclear blast. That's why Chernobyl still exists. It's quite difficult to get nuclear material to fiss.

Nuclear reactors can't explode, that's not to say there can't be an explosion in a nuclear facility, ie gas, electrical....

[DaveB]

Can't they?

Well the Chernobyl reactor went prompt critical, which, oddly enough, is pretty close to what happens in a nuke.

I'm not sure that any other reactor technology (other than fast) has a positive void coefficient.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prompt_criticality

Yeah, but the explosion was caused by superheated steam generated when water from ruptured water hit the melting fuel rods, rather than an actual fission explosion. The core got very hot, very fast but it didnt actually go bang itself.