[ RadSafe ] Half-life nonsense

[Brennan, Mike (DOH)]

I deal (mostly) with environmental rad, but I also talk with people who use rad in the medical field.  For the medical folks, "long half-life" is anything more than about 100 days.  For me, Long half-life is when it is more convenient to write it in scientific notation.

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Jerry Cohen
Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2012 1:09 PM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Half-life nonsense

Lets see if I understand this correcly---If it is man-made, it is bad (ie. 
hazardous)
but naturally occuring is OK. Right???
By that standard, aspirin is a poison, and hemlock is OK

At the HPS meeting in 1980, I gave a paper intended to address the longevity 
nonsense by proposing a change in definition. We proposed that:

Radionuclides with a half-life less than one million years be considered 
radioactive,

Radionuclides with a half-lifes between one million and one trillion years are 
radiopassive,and

Those with half lives greater than a trillion years (eg. I-129) are 
radioquiescent (ie. stable elements)

Somehow, the idea never caught on.





________________________________
From: John R Johnson <idiasjrj at gmail.com>
To: Jerry Cohen <jjcohen at prodigy.net>; The International Radiation Protection 
(Health Physics) Mailing List <radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu>
Sent: Fri, July 13, 2012 4:22:42 PM
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Texas LLRW Site

Jerry

Isn't it because it does not occur in "nature". If I-129 is present it must
be "man made" and likely an indication of other isotopes being made.
John
On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 3:38 PM, Jerry Cohen <jjc105 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>
> I wonder what makes I-129 a "radionuclide of interest". Its exceedingly
> long
> half-life makes it essentially a stable element, no different than the
> stable
> iodine that occurs naturally in most soils.
>
> Jerry Cohen
>
>
> Dear Radsafe,
>
>    From:    _jpreisig at aol.com_ (mailto:jpreisig at aol.com)    .
>
>
>    Hope you are all doing well.  HP  abstracts for the HP Society
> Meeting in Sacramento,
> California are out now, as a supplement to Health Physics magazine.
> Always interesting
> reading.  One item is on DU by Bob Cherry.
>
>    Operational Radiation Safety (another HPS journal)  has an article on
> Decommissioning of the
> Brookhaven Lab High Flux Beam reactor.  Fuel and spent fuel are  gone.
> Heavy Water is gone.
> Interesting reading.  I guess that's one way of totally stopping  the
> tritium leak source term.
> The offending leaking fuel storage pool was drained.  Goodbye.  Wonder
> what they'll do with the
> Brookhaven Medical Research Reactor.  I don't think there was anything
> wrong with it..
>
>    There's an abstract on the new Texas LLRW (Low Level  Radioactive
> Waste) facility and some
> modeling they did.  The radionuclides of interest are C-14, Tc-99,  I-129,
> possibly among others.
> I guess tritium is not that big a deal in such a facility, due to its short
> half-life.  These radionuclides
> are particularly mobile in the groundwater environment, as referred to in
> my earlier RADSAFE
> postings.  These Texas folks did some computer modelling and describe  what
> they did.  Wonder why
> they didn't just use Femwater-BLT (Suen and Sullivan???),  Lewater, Lewaste
> or similar computer
> codes.  Last I heard, Femwater-BLT was available for use on a personal
> computer.  It is or was
> available for a fee from the RSICC, the Radiation Shielding Information
> Center at Oak Ridge
> National Laboratory (USA).  Other Radiation computer codes are  available.
> Finally, if you see a computer
> code you are interested in, you can search it out on the internet, and then
> email the original
> programmers/designers for information on how to obtain such a computer
> code.  No big deal.
>
>    These newfangled small, modular reactors are also  addressed in an
> abstract.  Sounds like
> some of them will be deployed by the TVA, in the Tennessee Valley.
> Newfangled nuclear
> electricity for people/homes/businesses previously not on the electricity
> grid.
>
>    NJ Nuke plants and workers, thanks for the 50% of the  electricity (in
> NJ) that you are providing to
> air condition part of my home this summer!!!!  Take Care...
>
>    Regards,    Joseph R. (Joe) Preisig,  PhD
>
>
>
>
>
>
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> ________________________________
>
> From: "JPreisig at aol.com" <JPreisig at aol.com>
> To: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
> Sent: Thu, July 12, 2012 8:44:56 PM
> Subject: [ RadSafe ] Texas LLRW Site
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