-=> Quoting Wayne Chirnside to Leonard Erickson <=-

 -=> LEONARD ERICKSON wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-
 
 WC> Really now, last I looked the half lives of plutonium
 WC> and uranium ran into hundreds of millions of years.
 
 LE> Sure, and they aren't *dangerous. Or no more dangerous than the
 LE> original ore.

 WC> Plutonium isn't found in ore, it's bred in reactors.

Wrong. Plutonium *does* get created in nature. Micoscopic amounts but
it is created. 

 WC> Plutonium is deadly dangerous, a speck of plutonium oxide
 WC> in your lungs and you're dead.

Sorry, completely false. Plutonium is *not* especially toxic. It's
thirty times *less* toxic than arsenic. And it takes a lot more than a
"spec" of arsenic to kill you. 

Plutonium oxide is pretty inert chemically, too.

Inhale a bit of plutnium oxide, and you'll be at a higher risk for
cancer because it's right next to the lung tissues. 

 WC> The amount launched in the Cassini space probe to power it's
 WC> RTG power source if equally dispersed could have killed most
 WC> everone on the planet. Much was mentioned about this at the time
 WC> of launch.

And it was utter bullshit. First of all, dispersing it that way was
impossible. Second, as noted above it ain't anywhere *near* as toxivc
or otherwise dangerous as you have been told.

 Now refined uranium fuel pellets previous
 WC> to their use is actually safer than uranium ore
 WC> just because of those short half-lived isotopes
 WC> you mention in the next sentence.

And those are what are gone in the 300 years. Hell, most of the really
dangerous ones are gone in *months*.
 
 LE> The intensity (and thus *hazard* of a radioactive material is
 LE> inversely proportion to the halflife.

 WC> Yes and I was most unhappy when I found out my brother the geologist
 WC> had stored a significant amount of pitchblend in the basement where
 WC> I loaded my 35 mm film developing canister.

Human bodies are rather more resistant than film. Also, film fogging
accumulates (that's why it's used to track total exposure). At low
levels damage in the body accumulates a lot slower.

 WC> I lost hundreds of dollars in film and chemicals never
 WC> guessing what lay right behind me stored on a shelf.

Film yes. But it shouldn't have had any effect on the chemicals. the
only ones it'd effect would be the ones that are light sensitive. 
And I was under them impression that very few of them are. It's the
*film* (and printing papers) that are the problem.

 WC> Radioactive strontium, cesium and iodine are rather deadly and 
 WC> concentrate in different parts of the body but I fear not finding
 WC> them in nature but in a reactor breach.

Compare the risks of that with the risks from the various chemicals and
other products moved thru your town everyday on the streets and on the
rails. 
 
 WC> In fact it is these very daughter products that make uranium
 WC> and plutonium used in a nuclear reactor so much more deadly
 WC> in the first place. It's a fact you can hold a freshly
 WC> manufactured near pure uranium pellet in your hand for
 WC> a couple of minutes with no significant harm.
 
 LE> Actually, you could probably hold it there for a *lot* longer than that
 LE> without exceeding the exposure limits.

 WC> I'll allow 30 minutes or so. I don't believe there's a minimum
 WC> safe level. Airline stewardesses die from a greater proportion 
 WC> of cancers because they fly high and so part of the Earth
 WC> atmospheric shelter is bypassed.

It's all a matter of *relative risk*. The radiation from the uranium is
predominantly alpha and beta particles. Which aren't at all dangerous
unless coming frtom inside your body (well, ok, a *strong* beta emitter
on your skin for an extended period would produce some local damage).

 WC> Theoretically a single cosmic ray striking just the right place 
 WC> in one's DNA could doom one to a deadly cancer.
 
Right. Ditto for gamma rays from natural radioactives. 

Well, mostly right. It's not hitting DNA. It's more likely the free
radicals created as they slam thru. And a *lot* of things create free
radicals in the body. That's why ant-oxidants (in the proper doses) are
good for you, and why they are prescribed for some types of radiation exposure.

But alpha particles can't penetrate a sheet of paper. Beta particles
can't penetrate much more than light clothing.

 WC> Don't try this with the same pellet at the end of it's fuel cycle
 WC> as you'll wind up dead. Plutonium isn't safe from the get go because
 WC> it  can spontanously burst into flames generating plutonium oxide
 WC> fumes easily inhaled and quite deadly, examples avaialable
 WC> by researching Rocky Flats and other sites where such has occured.
 WC> Yucca Flats permanent nuclear storage facility is not geologically
 WC> stable having had a quake there that caused significant damage to
 WC> surface buildings just 18 years ago. Scientists have said
 WC> this site may never be suitable for permanent storage yet
 WC> politicians have given it the go ahead.
 
 WC> Bear in mind this stuff only needs to be jarred around some so
 WC> that a sufficient quantity generates enough heat to cause
 WC> a steam, non-nuclear, explosion sreading this crap far and wide.
 
 LE> That's utter bullshit. The waste that is that active is still stored
 LE> underwater at the reactors. After a year or two (maybe less, I don't
 LE> have references handy) the most active (and dangerous) daughter
 LE> isotopes have decayed. And the rods are less radioactive and not
 LE> generating anywhere *near* the heat required for that.

 WC> Put enough of it in a confined space and it will.

Nope. By the time it comes out of the water storage it's not active
enough to do that. Also, where the hell is the steam coming from, as
there's no *liquid* in materials that will be stored.

 WC> Dan Rather spoke atop a huge concrete dome on a Pacific atol
 WC> where debris from a bomb test was stored and he declared
 WC> he had at most 30 minutes safe there and it would remain
 WC> deadly for tens of thousands of years.

And he was simply repeating the misinformation hed been given. 

 WC> I don't have the half lives for cesium, strontium or
 WC> iodine at hand but they are not hard to look up and I 
 WC> know plutonium remains dangerous for a VERY long time.

Plutonium is *only* dangerous if it gets inside the body and stays
there. It's not that radioactive.

Again, the hazard is inverserly proportional to the half life. That
means that the hazard from something that has a half life of 12 hours
is double that of something that has a halflife of 24 hours. Now
consider that plutonium has a half-life of thousands to *millions* of
years, depending on the isotope. 

Pu 244 looks to be the one used for (some) reactors and for bombs, as
it's the only isotope that's fissionable. It's got a half life of 82
*million* years. Which means it's barely radioactive.

The main reasons that cesium, strontium and iodine are problems is
that they are easily taken up by the body (one of the reasons for
sticking them down there, as well as a reason for converting the wate
into not very soluble "glass" coated in ierven less soluble glass,

To figure the hazard, you need to worry about specific isotopes. 

"How rtadioactive" something is is measured in curies, which are based
on the number of atoms that decay per second. And the longer the
halflife, the fewer per second. Which means fewer emitted particles,
which means less damage possible.

If something has a half-life of a year, in 300 years, there will be
1/(2^300) of it left. that's 1/2e90. (2e90 is a 2 followed by 90
zeros). Which is essentially non-existent, there are only 6e23 atoms of
something in a "mole" of it. So that means that in 3.4e66 moles of
that isotopoe, there'd only be one atome left. 

A mole of something with atomic weight 250 would be 250 grams. A mole
of something with atomic weight 1 would be one gram. 

So, let's take a ton of something with atomic weight 50. that'd be
20,000 moles. Which would be about 12e27 atoms. And that means that
after about 93 half lives, there'd be *one* atom of it left.

After a mere 20 half-lives there'd only be about a gram of it left.

You begin to see why 300 years is *plenty* for shortlived isotopes? 

And as I said the only way the long lived ones are dangerous is if you
get them inside you. Which could happen far more easily from burning
wood or coal or oil.

 WC> It's worth noting that plans under way anticipate
 WC> using a uranium - plutonium mix in reactors making such
 WC> expended fuel rods far more dangerous for far longer
 WC> as well as to create a nuclear weapons proliferation
 WC> nightmare.

Sorry, but most existing reactor designs already do that. They use
uranium and in the process *create* plutonium. Hell, we'd *reduce* the
hazrd if we built the reprocessing plant that was supposed to be built
30-40 years ago. All the spent fuel would have been shipped back and
had the plutonium removed and used to fuel reactors. Note that the
plutonium level required to run a reactor is a long way from what's
needed to build a bomb.

 LE> It's only going to be moved to the long term storage sites *after* it's
 LE> gotten to that point.

 WC> So far as I know NONE has been moved to a permanent storage site.

Because nobody will let them buoild one because "it's not safe enough".
 
 WC> Nor am I aware of any such safe permanent storage site nor
 WC> means to transport it. Casks designed to transport
 WC> such materials and designed to withstand enormous heat
 WC> and collisions have already been found to have sagged in the middle
 WC> with resulting cracks rendering some of them unusable.

And they are probably overkill. After all, if they are subjected to
those sorts of forces, what has happened to do so, and what will *that*
do to the surroundings *regardless* of what's in the casks?

 WC> This DID happen in the USSR during their weapons development program
 WC> and there are very questionable storage tanks at the Hanford
 WC> Washington site as well.
 
 LE> Yes, and they hold very different sorts of waste. Stuff that happens in
 LE> weapons production and research isn't dealing with
"spent" fuel either.
 WC> 
 WC> One word, MOX, latest thing in long term projections for nuclear
 WC> power generation and it produces just these sorts of very hazardous
 WC> wastes.
 
 LE> It's dealing with enriched uranium or plutonium. Enriched to 90% or
 LE> better. Power reactors don't use fuel that's anywhere *near* that
 LE> level.

 WC> It ain't the uranium I'm worried about, it's the transuranics,
 WC> proposed MOX fueled reactors and fast breeders.

Never heard of MOX. And frankly, there are quite nice designs that
aren't breeders. But they aren't US designs, so they aren't likely
here. Canada's heavy water based reactors for example. 
 
 LE> You are comparing apples and oranges.

 WC> I'm unaware of apples or oranges being used in either 
 WC> nuclear reactors or weapons.

Don't get disingenious. you know perfectly well what I meant. Or if you
don't, you ddon't have a decent grasp of English.
 
 LE> And such liquid waste as is going to need long term storage is going to
 LE> be converted to something solid before they try storing it.

 WC> Ya huh, you mean like at Hanford?
 WC> Where the stuff is sitting adjacent to the Columbia river?
 WC> They _talk_ about cleaning up that mess but has anyone
 WC> _done_ anything?
 WC> I do agree however most liquids will be solidified but that presents 
 WC> it's own problems.
 WC> Were you aware critical masses of liquids have occured
 WC> in laboratories by using improperly shapped containers
 WC> resulting in the grizzly deaths of some unfortunates?
 WC> Then to the incident in Japan where workers striving
 WC> to increase efficiency put 5 times the amount of
 WC> material to be reprocessed into a bucket?

I'm probably more aware of the weirdnesses of critical mass than you
are. Are *you* aware that you can have an indefinite amount of material
*wiythout* reaching critical mass if you shape it correctly?

 WC> Result, critical mass, alpha, beta, gamma and neutron radiation
 WC> as well as blue air. Two workers died rather quickly, 30 or
 WC> so other later and estimates for the neighborhood run to
 WC> a few thousand possible related deaths over the years.
 WC> How long did that reaction go unchecked? Something like a
 WC> day? Hey nuclear fuel reprocessor workers... ever hear of
 WC> _criticality_. Not in this celibrated case.

And Bhopal occured because the *local* staf (*not* Union Carbide
people) ignored safety regs. Ditto for many industrial accidents all
over the world. People fail to observe safety regs or don't stop to
thing and bad things happen.

Contrary to what you appear to believe, radioactive materials are no
worse than many other things as far as this sort of hazard goes. And
they have a *better* safety record. It's just that accidents involving
radiuoactives get a lot more ppress than *more* dangerous chemical
spills, and the like.

Hell, we just had an electroplating outfit shut down. They'd been
violating safety regs all over the place and had *drums* of of stuff
like cyanide and liquids containing toxic metal solutiuons all over the
lot. Corroding driums. Who knows how much ground water contamination
there may be? And how many people have had a fraction of their lifespan
removed. Not counting the folks who werre *working* there. And this had
been going on for years.

That same industrial area has plants that could kill thousands if they
had a bad accident. 

 LE> Those tanks at Hanford are a royal mess. Mostly due to nobody wanting
 LE> to spend the money on doing something better.

 WC> Right next to the Columbia river too :-(

Not *that* next to it. That's a *big* place. There are tankls "near"
the river. But not as near as some makes out.

 WC> Hey it was handy for cooling those graphite reactors and such
 WC> during the weapons program but a bit of a liabilty now
 WC> don't you think?

Actually, it was more important because the area was *isolated*. And
they had lots of cheap electric power from the dams.
 
 WC> You say these radioactive elements only remain active and dangerous
 WC> for three hundred years?
 
 LE> I said that after 300 years theyt werre no more radioactive than the
 LE> original *ore*. That's not the same thing.

 WC> Once again, transuranics and plutonium.
 WC> Radium has a very short half life but it's created by the decay
 WC> of other unstable materials. Just where in the world does one find
 WC> plutonium ore pray tell and tell me again it's as safe as
 WC> _plutonium ore_? after three hundred years?

Ok. that does it. You are not pat=ying attention or you are being
willfully obtuse.

I specifically said that reactor waste will be no more radioactuve than
*uranium* ore after 300 years. Plutonium while a component of the waste
(and only because we don't extract it) isn't trhe problem.

 LE> The point being that if its no more active than the original ore, then
 LE> it *doesn't* need the insane levels of protection that people are
 LE> calling for.

 WC> MOX fuel, Plutonium.

If we buld that sort of thging, we won't be leaving the plutonium in
the wadste, we'll be extracting it to use in reactors.

 WC> Now the location of that plutonium mine is exactly where?
 WC> Hey while you at it where can I mine some americium or einsteinium
 WC> while I'm out and about?

Again, you are completely ignoring the point. 
 
 WC> Well a great deal of the heat
 WC> from the Earth's core is generated by nuclear material, thorium
 WC> perhaps as my recollection isn't perfect.
 
 LE> Actually, much of it is generated by potassium-40. and it's generated
 LE> in the *mantle*, not the core.
 
 LE> Much of the heat is leftover heat from the formation of the planet.
 LE> Thing is, a few hundred miles of rock provides a *lot* of insulation.
 LE> So the (rather small) quantity of heat generated by radioactives deep
 LE> in the earth is trapped and accumulates. Which raises the temperature.

 WC> Uh, my reference for this is Marty Leipzig a world renowned
 WC> oil petrogeologist along with another degree or two and 
 WC> expertise in both palentology and Earth's geology.
 WC> Marty it seems ran the math one time for someone in 
 WC> in a religious skeptic echo and converted the heat released
 WC> by radioactive decay over the biblical 8,000  year
 WC> old biblical Earth. We melted. IIRC tungstun melted as well.
 WC> Marty gets to play with substantial amounts of man made 
 WC> radiologicals in his explorations.

And you cannot possibly have understood what you read. 

And that and the rest of these things tell me that you aren't willing
to listen to me or are incapable of it. I don't care whicj, I'm not
going to ewaste my time of someone who is either an idiot who can't be
bother with detaiuls or someone who enjoys yanking other people's
chains. Either way, you just got kill filed.


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