TNT Equivalent - Examples

Examples

• Conventional bombs yield range from less than 1 ton to FOAB's 44 tonnes.
• The MythBusters homemade diamonds episode used 2.5 tons of ANFO to make diamonds.
• Minor Scale, a 1985 United States conventional explosion utilizing 4,400 tonnes of ANFO explosive to simulate a 4 kilotons of TNT (17 TJ) nuclear explosion, is believed to be the largest planned detonation of conventional explosives in history.
• The Halifax Explosion in 1917 involved the accidental detonation of 3,000 tons of TNT.
• The Little Boy atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and the Fat Man atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, both exploded with an energy of about 12.5 kilotons of TNT (52 TJ). The nuclear weapons currently in the arsenal of the United States range in yield from 0.3 kt (1.3 TJ) to 1.2 Mt (5.0 PJ) equivalent, for the B83 strategic bomb.
• During the Cold War, the United States developed hydrogen bombs with a maximum theoretical yield of 25 megatons of TNT (100 PJ); the Soviet Union developed a prototype weapon, nicknamed the Tsar Bomba, which was tested at 50 Mt (210 PJ), but had a maximum theoretical yield of 100 Mt (420 PJ). The actual destructive potential of such weapons can vary greatly depending on conditions, such as the altitude at which they are detonated, the nature of the target they are detonated against, and the physical features of the landscape where they are detonated.
• The energy contained in 1 megaton of TNT (4.2 PJ) is enough to power the average American household (in the year 2007) for 103,474 years. For example, the 30 Mt (130 PJ) estimated upper limit blast power of the Tunguska event could power the aforementioned home for just over 3,104,226 years. To put that in perspective: the blast energy could power the entire United States for 3.27 days.
• Megathrust earthquakes record huge M_W values, or total energy released. The 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake released 9,560 gigatons of TNT (40,000 EJ) equivalent, but its M_E (surface rupture energy, or potential for damage) was far smaller at 26.3 megatons of TNT (110 PJ).
• The total energy of all explosives used in World War Two (including the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs) is estimated to have been 3 megatons of TNT.
• The total global nuclear arsenal is about 30,000 nuclear warheads with a destructive capacity of 5,000 megatons or 5 gigatons (5,000 million tons) of TNT.
• The approximate energy released when the largest fragment of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacted Jupiter was estimated to be equal to 6 million megatons (or 6 trillion tons) of TNT.
• The maximum theoretical yield from 1 kg of matter by converting all of the mass into energy (by mass-energy equivalence, E = mc2) yields 89.8 petajoules or the equivalent of 21.5 megatones of TNT. No practical method of total conversion exists today, such as combining 500 grams of matter with 500 grams of antimatter. However, in the case of proton-antiproton annihilation, approximately 50% of the released energy will escape in the form of almost-undetectable neutrinos. Electron-positron annihilation events emit their energy entirely as gamma rays.
• The approximate energy released when the Chicxulub impact caused the mass extinction 65 million years ago was estimated to be equal to 100 million megatons of TNT. That is roughly 8 billion times stronger than each of the bombs that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the most energetic event on the history of Earth for billions of years, far more powerful than any volcanic eruption, earthquake or firestorm. Such an explosion annihilated everything within a thousand miles of the impact in a split second. Such energy could also power the whole Earth for several centuries.
• The amount of energy given in the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami was more than 200,000 times the surface energy and was calculated by the USGS at 3.9×1022 joules, slightly less than the 2004 Indian Ocean quake. This is equivalent to 9,320 gigatons of TNT, or approximately 600 million times the energy of the Hiroshima bomb.
• On a much grander scale, supernova explosions give off about 1044 joules of energy, which is about ten octillion (1028) megatons of TNT, equivalent to the explosive force of a quantity of TNT a trillion (1012) times the mass of the planet Earth.