Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Technology => Topic started by: thedoc on 20/10/2015 00:50:01
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Heather Henry asked the Naked Scientists:
Hello. I am researching a novel that is in the planning/design stage. The novel is set in the near future and involves a dome large enough to cover a city. I would like to talk to scientist(s) who can tell me about the environmental after effects of a nuclear bomb and to scientist(s) who can help me with my concept of how this dome is constructed and how it works. (I don't know whether this is possible, but I am thinking of the dome as a kind of pliable membrane.) On other projects I have consulted with professionals or students, but I am not really sure what kind of scientists I need to consult with. Thank you. Heather Henry
What do you think?
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There's an article on Wikipedia on this topic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domed_city
Creating a dome over a city is not particularly hard, or so very expensive.
The Eden project is an example of that kind of structure, although not over a city:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_Project
But creating a sealed dome over a city is much, much harder and much, much more expensive.
The only sealed system like that I'm aware of is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2
This required large air conditioning systems to remove the heat, and a building containing bellows that expanded and contracted as the air warmed up in the sun and cooled down at night. it was also very expensive; it cost hundreds of millions for just a few acres.
So if you want to cover a city and seal it off, it had better be a small one.
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the environmental after effects of a nuclear bomb?
It is fortunate that we have only two examples of nuclear bombs impacting a real city: Hiroshima & Nagasaki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Events_on_the_ground).
I recently visited the Nagasaki atomic bomb museum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagasaki_Atomic_Bomb_Museum), and nuclear war really is a horrifying event.
There have been many above-ground atomic bomb tests conducted around the world, usually in deserts or on remote islands. Some of these still have fragments of glass formed when the intense heat melted the sand.
Left to themselves, wildlife will eventually return, although the rate of mutations will be higher than normal. One example of this is the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor (http://www.livescience.com/52458-wildlife-populations-chernobyl-disaster.html). The accident at this reactor released much more radiation than a nuclear weapon, but without the blast effects.