-=> LEONARD ERICKSON wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-

 -=> Quoting Wa yne 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.

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

Incredibly minute amounts.... that's why I didn't mention it.
In fact I doubt plutonium was ever actually found in nature before
being created in the laboratory through bombardment.

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

 LE> Sorry, completely false. Plutonium is *not* especially toxic. 
 
I didn't say chemically toxic though if pure enough it tends
to burst into spontanious combustion which isn't
good for one's lungs.
It IS however a very prodigous producer of alpha particles 
which are well known to cause lung damage and lung cancers.
So radiologically it is very toxic indeed.

 LE> It's
 LE> thirty times *less* toxic than arsenic. And it takes a lot more than a
 LE> "spec" of arsenic to kill you.

Common aresenic is not a  prodigous alpha particle emitter and once
again I must point out I said "deadly dangerous" and I clearly meant 
that in the context as a radiological danger and not mere 
chemical toxicity.

 LE> Plutonium oxide is pretty inert chemically, too.

Chemically pretty inert -if not near pure- as I don't consider spontanious
combustion to be chemically inert but it's that nasty outpouring 
of large numbers of alpha particles that has killed quite a few people 
such as firefighters fighting fires at Rocky Flats.
Radiologically it's extremely dangerous, and after all that's what we
were talking about, especially to lung tissue if inhaled in small
quantities.

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

 Of course, it's a prodigious alpha particle emmiter.
 A simple sheet of paper will block penetration but unfortunately 
 we don't have paper lung liners :-(

 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.

 LE> And it was utter bullshit. First of all, dispersing it that way was
 LE> impossible. 
 
Flight was impossible, breaking the sound barrier was impossible 
and we've only approached 1/2 the reactor operating years for ONE 
"credible" major reactor failure but we've had three commercial
and two land based military reactor critical failures.
Suppose Cassini had orbited the Sun to gain a gravitational boost
to exploit it's mission then through slight course
correction error entered the Earth's atmosphere at just the right 
angle at some 25,000 Miles/hour? 
We've already slammed a Mars exploration craft into that planets tenuous
atmosphere with just such a mistake destroying that craft.

 LE> Second, as noted above it ain't anywhere *near* as toxivc
 LE> or otherwise dangerous as you have been told.

I said dangerous, holding to context one would presume as in fact 
I did mean radiological consequences.
No need to repeat the out of context dismissal.

 LE>  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.

 LE> And those are what are gone in the 300 years. Hell, most of the really
 LE> 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.

 LE> Human bodies are rather more resistant than film. 
 
I'm aware of this but it is often used in badge type dosimeters
to insure safety. I lost a LOT of film over an extended
period but fortunately did my enlarger prints on the opposite side
of the room. I'm also aware of thre inverse square law.

 LE> Also, film fogging
 LE> accumulates (that's why it's used to track total exposure). At low
 LE> levels damage in the body accumulates a lot slower.

 Yeah, it took me maybe 7 minutes to load, agitate the developer
 then process so it could be handled in low light level green
 lighting for short periods at levels that made visability just
 possible at when working further processing the film.I was only in 
 proximity during loading film and developing, 7 minutes, 
 and it still fogged quite appreciably.

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

 LE> Film yes. But it shouldn't have had any effect on the chemicals. 
 
I'm certain it didn't but how the hell did I know brother geologist had
pitchblend in the basement answer me that? 
I tried to blame it on my errors until the christmas he came home,
mentioned the pitchblend and took it with him when he
left. After that no more fogged film.
I was not in the habit of nor did I ever carry a geiger
counter, electroscope or cloud chamber into the basement.
In fact I've never owned nor used a geiger counter outside
of science class.

 LE> the
 LE> only ones it'd effect would be the ones that are light sensitive.
 LE> And I was under them impression that very few of them are. It's the
 LE> *film* (and printing papers) that are the problem.

I doubt silver bromide is that sensitive as it was stored
and used across the room from the pitchblend.
The chemicals I used were no doubt not sensitive to radiation at all
or at most minimally you DID have to keep the out of moderate
lighting and I used very expensive developers to _push_
the slower fine grain ASA rating films so I could shoot at reasonablle 
speeds and maintain a quality image at large enlargemnets.
Nor were the chemicals stored near the pitchblend.
Only loading the film developer canister and initial developer 
agitation was done there.

 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.

 LE> Compare the risks of that with the risks from the various chemicals and
 LE> other products moved thru your town everyday on the streets and on the
 LE> rails.

How to compare? Anhydrous ammonia when transported is well marked
and when driving I give it wide berth.
Nuclear material shipments are not widely advertised for security
purposes. It _might_ be low level contaminated boots and
gowns, it _might_ be yellowcake or it could be something far worse.
That radiological sign doesn't identify high level materials
and I don't think the powers that be want to advertise such
transports.
          
 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.

 LE> It's all a matter of *relative risk*. The radiation from the uranium is
 LE> predominantly alpha and beta particles. Which aren't at all dangerous
 LE> unless coming frtom inside your body (well, ok, a *strong* beta emitter
 LE> 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.

 LE> Right. Ditto for gamma rays from natural radioactives.

About time we agreed on _something_ ;-)

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

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

Aluminum foil stops beta.
I always dress in my aluminum foil suit and hat before venturing out 

 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.

 LE> Nope. By the time it comes out of the water storage it's not active
 LE> enough to do that. 
 
Ah so all those federal regulations in place regarding storage
dispersal distances at Yucca Flats are just BS huh?
National Geographic even touched on this in an older rather
comprehensive article on Yucca Flats.

 LE> Also, where the hell is the steam coming from, as
 LE> there's no *liquid* in materials that will be stored.

From low level wastes where it's not considered neccessay
to store in dry form, from water intrusion which reputable geologists 
will not rule out at Yucca Flats as it's geologically rather active.
 
 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.

 LE> And he was simply repeating the misinformation hed been given.

I've read a LOT of material by PHD's in nuclear physics as 
well as material from the Union of Concerned Scientists
who are fairly dripping with doctorates as well.

 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.

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

It's a big time alpha emitter, in pure form is subject to 
spontanious combustion and consequent emmission of lung damaging
particles that will lead to deadly cancers.
Collect enough of the pure stuff the weight and shape of a standard 
shot put and tell me it's not dangerous.
I SAW a PBS film of a scientist stacking pure slabs of plutonium,
he dropped one at just the wrong point, blue air - dead
scientist in well under 12 hours.
Tell him and his family it's harmless.

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

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

2 million years is overnight compared to uranium and the plutonium
I was speaking of was that salvaged fron BOMBS.
Sure it'll be diluted before it's used in a MOX reactor but it's still
deadly. What did we buy off the USSR, 60 TONS of the stuff!!!

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

A technology that is not proven or are you aware of tests spanning
such materials in glass for 500 years?
Reactor embrittlement was not foreseen and is now a major
lifetime limiting problem for reactor vessels.
 
 LE> To figure the hazard, you need to worry about specific isotopes.

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

 Alpha, beta, gamma and neutron varieties enter into this.
 There are many measures of radioactivity.

 LE> If something has a half-life of a year, in 300 years, there will be
 LE> 1/(2^300) of it left. that's 1/2e90. (2e90 is a 2 followed by 90
 LE> zeros). 
 
The very short lived Americium in my smoke detector has a longer
half life then that. You're selecting to make your point and it's
not relavent. BTW what material are you talking about and
is it used in reactors" I think not as it'd be too
unstable and impractical with regard to refueling cycle duration.

 LE> Which is essentially non-existent, there are only 6e23 atoms of
 LE> something in a "mole" of it. So that means that in 3.4e66 moles of
 LE> that isotopoe, there'd only be one atome left.

Well I'm not too worried about your theoretical material, if
it's in safe storage, OTOH if it's in the room with me my doom is 
very close at hand indeed :-(

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

I took high school chemistry and physics, Avagadro's number.

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

Let's deal with *real* materials instead, preferably those used
in the nuclear power industry shall we?

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

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

300 years would be fine for my Americiumm, of course my smoke detector 
would not work but no-one in their right mind would fuel a nuclear
reactor with this material.

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

 Or an explosion, it happened, and again was covered in 
 National Geographic. Guy defied all medical wisdom by living
 but has organs removed and extensive medical care done.
 No-one could be in the same room with this man so radioactive was he.
 Surely dead now as I read about this in my youth.
 Why did the sample explode? Lab workers were on a work slowdown strike
 and ignored a synthetic radioactive element that transformed into
 a more reactive short live element that blew up destroying
 much of the lab and killing several scientists.

 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.

 LE> Sorry, but most existing reactor designs already do that. They use
 LE> uranium and in the process *create* plutonium. 
 
Why be sorry, I'm aware of this but dilluting weapons grade plutonium
for use in MOX reactors with that as the initial fuel is new
territory and a great many scientists strongly oppose this
for numerous reasons.

 LE> Hell, we'd *reduce* the
 LE> hazrd if we built the reprocessing plant that was supposed to be built
 LE> 30-40 years ago. All the spent fuel would have been shipped back and
 LE> had the plutonium removed and used to fuel reactors. Note that the
 LE> plutonium level required to run a reactor is a long way from what's
 LE> needed to build a bomb.

 But it can be processed into such and far more easily then centrifugal
 extraction of uranium for a bomb.

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

 And it's vulnerable to interception and accident during that move.

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

 LE> Because nobody will let them buoild one because "it's not safe
enough".

Just because it's true doesn't make it wrong.

 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.

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

They were just sitting there when the slumps and cracks occured,
no such crash tested casks were ever employed in transport.

 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.

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

Not familiar with them.

 LE> You are comparing apples and oranges.

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

 LE> Don't get disingenious. you know perfectly well what I meant. Or if you
 LE> 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?

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

Yes AAMOF,  a long narrow cylinder would be such an example.

 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.

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

Bhopal was toxic not radiological to steal your arguement
methodology.

Big snip.

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

Oh I listen, I stay currently informed and vary my opinions based
upon new knowledge. Thus once upon a time I was VERY pro-nuclear,
now I'm quite opposed preferring instead alternative non-polluting
energy sources.
 
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