kutulu

The real power in chem and bio weapons is in their intimidation factor. They scare the hell out of people.

Look at the TV show 24. This season, a bio weapon is released in a large hotel. A couple hours later, everyone dies. Could that really happen? The vial couldn't have had more than 20g of material in it. If the hotel was 30 floors, and 200x200ft that's 12 million cubic feet. The concentration of the virus in the air at equilibrium would have been about 0.5 ppm. Could that concentration really kill an entire hotel in a few hours?

I know nothing about the effectiveness of bioweapons, I would like to know what typical concentrations of an airborne virus would be needed for people to have a good chance of infection. We live with carcinogen concentrations way above that in our ambient air.

The same thinking applies to the idea of people poisoning the water supply. In a city of 2 million people, they use the bathroom about 5 times a day (1 gallon each time), drink about a half gallon of water, use about a gallon washing their hands, a few gallons to cook and clean their dishes, we wash our clothes, water our lawns, fill our pools, etc. A city that large probably uses way more than 100 million gallons of water each DAY. How much of a toxin would a potential terrorist need to poison the water supply? A shitload.