[ RadSafe ] Radioactive wood pellets...

Mon Jun 15 18:11:38 CDT 2009

Dear Franz / Bjorn:

After a re-read of the article, especially the issue of problematic
combustion, could these be compressed peaty soils rather than wood?
Peat-forming soils were common in the Gomel forests (and in general the
forests of the region) and contain radionuclides, significantly higher than
the levels of wood in the area.  They also burn moderately well though are
sometimes inconsistent in caloric value and are occasionally compressed into
pellets for fuel.

Is there more detail in the laboratory reports about these pellets?

Dan ii

<<The alarm was raised after someone in the northern Aosta Valley region,
who had bought the pellets, sent them for analysis because they did not burn
well.>>

--
Dan W McCarn, Geologist
8, Le Buisson Sainte Anne
78860 Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche 
+33.(0).6.47.86.05.25 (Mobile - France) 
+1-505-240-6872 (Skype - New Mexico)
HotGreenChile at gmail.com (Private email)

-----Original Message-----
From: Franz Schönhofer [mailto:franz.schoenhofer at chello.at] 
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 23:58
To: 'Dan W McCarn'; 'Dutch Radsafers'
Cc: 'WILLIAM LIPTON'
Subject: AW: [ RadSafe ] Radioactive wood pellets...

Dan,

The more I read of your comments on RADSAFE, the more I regret that we have
not met personally, when you were in Austria!!!!! And this regret is now
going on for years......

The topic about wood pellets has now been going on for quite a time on
RADSAFE, putting forward not a single fact about concentrations, but all
kind of speculations - culminating in the speculation that a "secret nuclear
accident" or a release may have occurred! What a nonsense! 

For instance this Syd Levine, who thinks since long that he could teach me
and the Europeans about radiation protection of the environment, might
accept that we have excellent radiological surveillance systems all over
Europe and the USA could sure learn from us. In any case they could learn a
lot with respect to radioecology. Any radioactive releases in Europe will be
detected more or less online. I also recognized that many RADSAFErs had no
problems to recognize my humor relating to the regulations - but he
obviously had. 

I am deliberately not going to post any links on RADSAFE about contamination
of forests, wood or pellets, because anybody really interested in it should
take the time to do it him- or herself. Contamination of the area under
discussion can also be found in IAEA documents and of course in others, like
scientific papers and conference contributions. If someone does not want to
spend half an hour to search for the valid documents he or she seems not to
be really interested in the topic!!! For really difficult questions, not to
be solved by a simple Google search you are of course welcome to contact me
and I promise to try my best to answer your questions!

Dan, your question about the origin of the pellets - "did they really come
from Lithuania" - is a very good one. When I still was working at the
Institute for Food Control and Research in Vienna (now more than ten years
ago) we frequently had to measure mushrooms from "Lithuania", but we found
out that they actually were from Bjelorussia. This declaration was according
to EU regulations correct, because they had been imported to Lithuania and
so Lithuania was the country of "origin". They usually did not exceed the
then valid maximum permissible concentrations of Cs-137. Be sure that I
would have eaten them as well if they had exceeded this value!

Finally a few words on the nuclear power plant(s) in Ignalinja, Lithuania. I
have been there a few years ago, unfortunately late afternoon, when the
visitor center was already closed. A very calm setting in the woods, very
close to the Russian border, I could not distinguish which one of the two
Chernobyl type blocks was running and which one was the block which had been
shut down a few months before, which was a condition of the European Union
for Lithuania to become a member. My dose rate meter did not show any
elevated radiation levels at the fence. Lithuania is considering building at
the site one (or two?) new nuclear power plants and several states in the
vicinity (especially Poland) have expressed their interest in participating
in this project.  

Finally I would recommend those commenting on such topics to think twice and
Syd Levine probably should think three times before commenting.

Best wishes to everybody!

Franz 

Franz Schoenhofer, PhD
MinRat i.R.
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Wien/Vienna
AUSTRIA

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] Im Auftrag
von Dan W McCarn
Gesendet: Montag, 15. Juni 2009 21:17
An: 'Dutch Radsafers'
Cc: 'WILLIAM LIPTON'
Betreff: RE: [ RadSafe ] Radioactive wood pellets...

Dear Group:

The results of preliminary tests on biomass power projects using
contaminated wood and forest material near Chernobyl demonstrated that most
of the Cs-137 contamination remains in the bottom ash. Wildfires from the
non-commercial forests contaminated by Chernobyl tend to loft contaminants
for redistribution. While I was at the Sosny Labs near Minsk, we considered
using contaminated forest material as fuel for biomass power engineering
projects. This would serve two objectives: 1) Remove contaminants from the
soil profile, and 2) Provide the economic drive for remediation.

I hate to toot my own horn, but then if I don't, who will?

McCarn, D., Dubovik, L., Iakoushev, A., and Grebenkov, A. (1996): The
Ecological-Commerce (ECO-COM) Zone Concept for Developing Biomass Energy
from Contaminated Resources: A New Demonstration Zone for the Republic of
Belarus, in International Topical Meeting on Nuclear and Hazardous Waste
Management, Seattle, Washington, August 18-23, 1996, pp. 1417-1424.

Grebenkov, A. and McCarn, D.W. (1996): The US-Belarus Joint Projects
Associated with Remediation of the Chernobyl Contaminated Sites,
Environmental Opportunities in Central and Eastern Europe and the Newly
Independent States, in Partnerships for Solutions Forum, Colorado School of
Mines, Golden, Colorado, p. 19-35.

There were/are concerns in the Gomel Province, Belarus that wood ash
containing significantly elevated concentrations of Cs-137 would be used as
potash fertilizer in private vegetable gardens, since that is an historical
method of fertilizing gardens there.

Sadly, the projects were never financed because of the deteriorating
political situation in Belarus at the time.

One concern that I have is whether the wood pellets really have an origin in
Lithuania. Could they be bootleg from Belarus?

Best, 

Dan ii

--
Dan W McCarn, Geologist
8, Le Buisson Sainte Anne
78860 Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche 
+33.6.47.86.05.25 (Mobile - France) 
+1-505-240-6872 (Skype - New Mexico)
HotGreenChile at gmail.com (Private email)

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On Behalf
Of Cary Renquist
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 19:44
To: Dutch Radsafers
Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] Radioactive wood pellets...

I recall that Stewart Farber's wood ash analysis in the NE US yielded
~20,000 - 30,000 pCi/g.

Cary 

---
Cary Renquist
cary.renquist at ezag.com

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On Behalf
Of John R Johnson
Sent: Monday, 15 June 2009 08:59
To: WILLIAM LIPTON; Bjorn Cedervall; Dutch Radsafers
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Radioactive wood pellets...

I agree.

It would be interesting to know the fallout at the latitude and longitude 
that the pellets were harvested from. See NCRP report 52 at 
http://www.ncrppublications.org/Reports/052 for background information.

***************
John R Johnson, PhD
CEO, IDIAS, Inc.
4535 West 9th Ave
604-676-3556
Vancouver, B. C.
V6R 2E2, Canada
idias at interchange.ubc.ca

----- Original Message ----- Latitude and longitude
From: "WILLIAM LIPTON" <wlipton at sbcglobal.net>
To: "Bjorn Cedervall" <bcradsafers at hotmail.com>; "Dutch Radsafers" 
<radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 7:26 AM
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Radioactive wood pellets...

The major concern is not the wood pellets, themselves, but the source of the

contamination. Is there a serious lack of control somewhere?

One theory offered is that this is due to Chernobyl fallout. This is 
plausible, and should be investigated.

Bill Lipton
It's not about dose, it's about trust.

________________________________
From: Bjorn Cedervall <bcradsafers at hotmail.com>
To: Dutch Radsafers <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 9:39:32 AM
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Radioactive wood pellets...

I agree of course with the comments that relate to the lack of quantitative 
(meaningful) data for the wood pellets. This far we have not seen any of 
that.

I may mention that we had radioactivity levels on a court desk in Sweden 
some years ago (it was about releases - Bq values). According to one of my 
friends (PhD in the nuclear field, math smart and with very relevant 
experience) who was present these lawyers et al. understood nothing about 
radiation doses etc but they took a (very) costly decision in the matter.

My personal ideas only,

Bjorn Cedervall bcradsafers at hotmail.com

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