[ RadSafe ] Educating the "antinukes"

Wed Aug 10 12:50:00 CDT 2011

Franz,  Give up! An old adage states," Never try to teach
 a pig to whistle. Your effort is doomed to fail, and it will 
annoy the pig.

________________________________
From: "franz.schoenhofer at chello.at" <franz.schoenhofer at chello.at>
To: Richard D. Urban Jr. <radmax at earthlink.net>; The International Radiation 
Protection (Health Physics) MailingList <radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu>
Sent: Wed, August 10, 2011 10:05:39 AM
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] FW: ...detection (BUSBY)

Dear RADMAX, Richard etc. 

Your comment is refreshing!!!!! It does not need elevated degrees at University 
to understand the shortcomings of the Raman-Spectroscopist. His reasoning and 
"scientific sampling"  is just rubbish, directed by his anti-nuclear motives. 
They are not at all rational and should be refuted! It is not really difficult 
to detect the presence of radionuclides, but for quantitative results more than 
airfilters from cars are needed. 

The claim that almost everywhere in the Western World, South East, Far East etc, 
etc, aerosol samplers, well calibrated for throughput of aerosols exist seems 
to  be ignored by the Raman Spectroscopist. Besides national surveillance 
systems there exists at least one supranational one of the CTBTO. So what, Mr. 
Raman Spectroscopist? Maybe you should investigate a littleoscopiszt on the net 
before issuing your more than ridiculous car filter "research"? Who has funded 
that? Greenpeace? 

Best regards to anybody except the Raman Spectroscopist!

Franz

---- "Richard D. Urban Jr." <radmax at earthlink.net> schrieb:
> UHHHHH...  (Oh No, they're on to me. Circular argument not working, 'but 
>there's a hole in the bucket Dear Liza)...

No Chris, your responses to the questions about your assumptions just add up to 
MORE uncertainty in your calulations.  Nothing you have said solidifies your 
argument.  So you can do the math, but your cherry picking of numbers to plug 
into the formulas just proves those questioning you, and STRONGLY indicates your 
motives.  ALL you have found is the mere PRESENCE of RAM (not disputed by anyone 
here).

To ALL, sorry to have provoked ire, I was demanding Chris to not bother with his 
post's UNLESS they are rational, which to me means something QUANTIFIABLE... he 
is obviously not going to convince anyone here, but his posting gives him 
credence to his layperson audience

BTW Chris, FYI... I don't claim to be anything other than I am... a mere lowly 
little un-degreed Radiation Protection Technician who for the last 23 years of 
my life have spent a goodly portion of time ACCURATELY calulating airborne 
radioactivity concentrations using CALIBRATED air samplers with MEASURABLE 
VOLUME (that are STATIONARY btw), and filters of KNOWN efficiency proven over 
hundreds of measurements, using known formula with built in uncertainties for 
counting variables...  and I'll spell EFF FEET any damned way I feel like.

RADMAX

-----Original Message-----
>From: "Busby, Chris" <C.Busby at ulster.ac.uk>
>Sent: Aug 10, 2011 2:48 AM
>To: "The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List" 
><radsafe at agni.phys.iit.edu>
>Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] FW: ...detection (BUSBY)
>
>OK, thats as far as we can take this, I think. Thank you for your thoughts.
>For myself, every question about the assumptions would lead to my calculations 
>being a minimum  i.e. the real activity is higher than I found. What I found was 
>bad enough. 
>
>Best regards
>Chris
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: radsafe-bounces at agni.phys.iit.edu on behalf of radbloom at comcast.net
>Sent: Wed 10/08/2011 00:42
>To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
>Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] FW: ...detection (BUSBY)
> 
>
>
>
>
>Chris, 
>
>  
>
>Your answer is interesting.  In this instance, it is not clear that 50% mass 
>collection of air particulate would be the same as 50% radioactivity collection 
>given that your additional research with the manufacturers of auto filters shows 
>particles of less than 5 to 6 um AMAD (is this the right unit - this is activity 
>median aerodynamic diameter and it seems unlikely that auto manufactures would 
>use this unit [more likely they would care about mass median diameter]?) would 
>not be collected at all.  I'm a little concerned about the reported efficiency 
>with cut off range.  Does this mean some manufacturers report 96% efficiency for 
>particles greater than 5 um AMAD (I'm using your unit, but think it might not be 
>right) and some report the same efficiency for particles greater than 6 um 
>AMAD?  I don't have your reference at this time, but I have to wonder if the 
>atmospheric particles are measured at some great height or if they are measured 
>at ground level.  Also, now that you've led me to think about that, I would 
>guess that the cars would make their own dust clouds, and elevate any settled 
>dust.  Also, I wonder how a speeding (or idling) car would perturb the particle 
>sizes that would impinge upon the air filter.  I don't think you can conclude 
>that if indeed 11% of the atmospheric particles are above 3.2 microns (would 
>that be physical measurement, or some distribution, i.e., mass median diameter 
>[MMD], AMAD, etc.?), that the air radioactivity would be larger, because you 
>don't really have any studies indicating what particle size distribution from 
>Fukishima was airborne during the collection period.  I don't see the origin of 
>your factor of "4 to 5," and am pretty sure you can't really get there from 
>here.  These do seem to be interesting qualitative measurements, but there 
>are so many uncertainties in the many variables you need 
>to quantitatively determine the concentrations, that I don't think you can get 
>to a meaningful quantitative measurement.  Also quantitative measurements should 
>include estimates of uncertainty (always an interesting exercise), and in this 
>case, information regarding the radioactive particle distribution would also be 
>needed. 
>
>
>  
>
>As I think about this a bit more, you stated previously that the filters were 
>collected after 150 km of driving - that's about half the distance between 
>Fukushima and Tokyo.  Where did the driving take place?  Was the driving in 
>multiple areas, in a straight line or was it circling some location?  Would 
>temperature, humidity, rain, etc. influence the cited filter collection 
>efficiencies?  I'm not sure what one could to do with a number like this, the 
>average air concentration over a distance of 150  km. 
>
>
>  
>
>
>Rambled and pondered enough, 
>
>
>
>Cindy 
>  
>
>----- Original Message -----
>
>
>
>
>From: "Chris Busby" <C.Busby at ulster.ac.uk> 
>To: "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> 
>
>Sent: Tuesday, August 9, 2011 1:30:06 PM 
>Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] FW: ...detection (BUSBY) 
>
>Cindy, 
>
>I already answered this one . 
>
>The activity on the filter is the activity on the filter, as you say. But we 
>dont know how much of the particles in the air are trapped. So we can only use 
>the activity in the filter as a indication of the activity in the air. I assumed 
>50% mass wiould stick in the filter. This was based on my reasearches on DU 
>particles and filters. Actually now I have gone to the manufacturers and I do 
>know.  The manufacturers tell me that they trap 96% of all particles above 5-6 
>microns AMAd and let the rest through. The particle size spectrum of atmospheric 
>partciles over the land has been measured (Christian Junge, Atmospheric 
>Radioactivity 1963 Table 28). Using this we can see that actually only 11% are 
>above 3.2 microns. So that means we can calculate that there is more 
>radioactivity in the air than I thought, by a factor of 4 to 5. 
>
>Is that helpful? 
>Cheers 
>Chris 
>  
>
>
>-----Original Message----- 
>From: radsafe-bounces at agni.phys.iit.edu on behalf of radbloom at comcast.net 
>Sent: Mon 08/08/2011 20:47 
>To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List 
>Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] FW: ...detection (BUSBY) 
>  
>
>
>Chris, 
>
>  
>
>I'm confused.  How could the activity on the filter be larger if your 
>assumptions change?  Isn't the activity on the filter simply what you measure, 
>i.e., the activity on the filter? The calculations  (and assumptions) are all 
>related to determining activity concentrations.  Granted the you could say that 
>the there would have been more or less activity on the filter if collection 
>efficiency, air flow, etc. changed, but all that is getting you back to 
>concentration. 
>
>
>  
>
>I would also imagine the uncertainty in the  guestimated  air flow is pretty 
>large and the other contributors' comments regarding particle size 
>distributions, collection efficiency, etc., and driving scenarios (fast, slow, 
>stop and go, idle time) add to the confounding of such calculations. 
>
>
>  
>
>Cindy 
>
>
>
>--- 
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--
Franz Schoenhofer, PhD, MinRat
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
Austria
mobile: ++43 699 1706 1227

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