[ RadSafe ] FW: Reporter's question about lower limits of detection (BUSBY)

[Richard D. Urban Jr.]

And just how did you calculate that volume... RPM's???  Were you driving with the owners of these cars?  What gear were they in?  What speed were they driving?  Correct tuning or improper air-fuel mixture?  Uphill, Downhill, standing still or moving slowly in traffic/debris fields, A/C on or off.. ?  Distance's from Fuku, time after event, direction to plume...?  How many thousands of cubic meters of air had entered these filters PRIOR to Fuku ???

50% eff but not 'sure', Really?  You always seem to 'ASSUME' alot.  

Your numbers, just as the rest of your drivel, is again more ABSOLUTLEY CHERRY PICKED B.S.   

Any REAL scientist would not publish anything with your levels of uncertainty.

Please just go away.  Don't come back until you have something actually 'quantifiable'.

Radmax


-----Original Message-----
>From: "Busby, Chris" <C.Busby at ulster.ac.uk>
>Sent: Aug 7, 2011 5:39 AM
>To: parthasarathy k s <ksparth at yahoo.co.uk>, "The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing	List" <radsafe at agni.phys.iit.edu>, SAFarber at optonline.net, "The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing	List" <radsafe at agni.phys.iit.edu>, "The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing	List" <radsafe at agni.phys.iit.edu>
>Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] FW: Reporter's question about lower limits	ofdetection
>
>
>
>Dear Radsafers,
>It was my intention to show that the levels in Japan in air were not trivial. I do know this because I have measured it in several car filters for which the engine size is known and the number of km driven after the incident is known. The efficiency of the filters is assumed to be 50% but this is not known for sure although I have asked the manufacturers. The filters showed between 1.2 and 3Bq per cu metre of Cs-137. This can be compared with the attached data from Harwell. The results were from my lab and also from Harwell who we paid to do the analysis. 
>I am interested to learn that the levels were higher in the USA during the atmospheric tests than in the UK: Stewart Farber says 100mBq/m3. Probably because the US is where many of the tests were done.
>But my argument was about Japan, not levels in the USA. I am quite aware that the levels in the USA were far smaller, as we would expect. But i see a maximum of 0.116pCi is 4.29mBq/m3 The average is 0.7mBq/m3. Compare with the graph attached. But I think it depends on where you live, doesnt it? And what other stuff comes along as a passenger.
>
>
>Cheers
>Chris
>
>Oranges:
>
>The US EPA made excellent measurements of airborne Cs-137 in the US released
>from Fukushima after the accident. Air particulate samples were taken all
>over the USA by the EPA. Based on calibrated Hi-Vo samplers and calibrated
>counting geometry for air filters, the highest levels of Cs-137 in air
>measured were seen in HI, CA, AZ, NV. Cs-137 levels were reported as
>[picoCuries per cubic meter]:
>
>Minimum: 0.000238 pCi/m^3
>Maximum: 0.116
>Average: 0.0189
>
>The above EPA data can be seen at:
><http://oaspub.epa.gov/enviro/erams_query_v2.simple_output?Llocation=EPA+Reg
>ion&subloc=09&media=AIR-FILTER&radi=Cesium-137&Fromyear=2011&Toyear=2011&uni
>ts=Traditional>
>
>
>Open air testing of 500 nuclear bombs by the US and Soviets, ending in 1963,
>led to many years of significant ongoing nuclear fallout from the mid 1950s,
>reaching a peak level of total terrestrial deposition in 1968. After 1968
>the environmental inventory of Cs-137 and Sr-90 continued to drop steadily
>with minor blips in the US from small nuclear bomb tests by India and China.
>Chernobyl added no more than 1% to the environmental fallout inventory in
>the US.
>
>During the MANY YEARS of nuclear test fallout airborne Cs-137 in essentially
>the entire Northern Hemisphere, including the US, was roughly about 0.1
>pCi/m^3. Peak levels of airborne Cs-137 during the period of open air
>testing were commonly measured at 0.5 pCi/m^3 and higher.
>
>As noted above, the EPA measured a SHORT TERM average of airborne Cs-137 in
>the US from Fukushima of 0.0189 pCi/m^3  in those states having the highest
>measured concentrations.
>
>The LONG-TERM average level of airborne Cs-137 in the US during the many
>years of atomic bomb fallout during and for a few years after open air
>testing ended was about 5 times higher than the average SHORT TERM peak
>levels of accurately sampled and measured airborne Cs-137 seen in the US
>from Fukushima [based upon a few measurements fading away to essentially
>nothing after a short time].
>
>Given that what is important in calculating total radiation dose is the
>ratio of the time integrated concentration of airborne exposure to Cs-137 in
>this case,  the total exposure of people in the US from open air testing
>fallout is at least 500 times greater than the total exposure from
>short-term peak airborne Cs-137 in the US measured after the Fukushima
>accident [in looking at the areas in the US that had the highest recent
>airborne Cs-137 levels].
>
>And yes, I consider total time-integrated exposure to Fukushima airborne
>Cs-137 and Sr-90 in the US that is about one part in 500  [or less] of the
>time integrated radiation exposure from nuclear bomb test fallout in the US
>to be trivial. -Oranges