RE: Deadly Plutonium ?

["Elizabeth M. Brackett" <brackett@bright.net>]

Also interesting is that they discount neptunium. The article said it is
far less radioactive than plutonium.  It does have a much longer half life,
but it has an equal or smaller ALI than plutonium, depending on the form.  

I also wondered about the dose rates listed.  These seemed unusually large
for uranium sources. 

Okay, Al, I give. I take back my statement about the risk of cancer.  My
point was simply that for the case of inhalation they said there was an
"increased risk of cancer" whereas for ingestion they effectively said you
would die immediately.  I don't have any desire to start yet another debate
on the LNT or at what level you see effects.

Liz Brackett

At 12:01 PM 2/7/2000 -0600, you wrote:
>What I find interesting is the belief that an alpha particle from Plutonium
>is much more hazardous than an alpha particle from Uranium.  If you compare
>the ALI in 10CFR20 you only get a factor of about 12 between Pu and U with
>Pu being the lower value.  The news article states that there might have
>been as much as 328 grams of Pu present in 89,000 metric tons of Uranium
>feed.  When you do the specific activity conversions for Pu and U you get
>about 328 Ci of Pu (conservative estimate based on the isotopic distribution
>on recycle Pu rather than weapons grade Pu) and 63,000 Ci of Uranium
>(natural Isotopic).  No matter how I look at it I can not see how the Pu
>contribution would dominate the internal health effects.
>
>The article also states that the radiation emitted by the feed plant ash,
>when measured a foot away, was commonly 10 to 20 Rem per hour.  This must be
>in error and probably should be 10-20 mRem/hr.  That would be far more
>realistic for these materials.  Can anyone confirm.
>
>A. Joseph Nardi
>Supervisory Engineer
>Environment, Health and Safety
>Westinghouse Electric Company
>Phone: (412) 374-4652
>Email: nardiaj@westinghouse.com
>

******************************
  Elizabeth M. Brackett, CHP 
     Sr. Health Physicist     
     MJW Corporation, Inc.       
       (330) 644-3757        
  mailto:brackett@bright.net 
******************************
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