Re: How much plutonium?????

["Zack Clayton" <zack.clayton@epa.state.oh.us>]

Cathy,

You have hit on a topic that has generated a lot of interest on this list.  First I would refer you to the URL at the bottom of the email:  
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html 
This will get you a lot  :-)  of prior discussion on this,  particularly the plutonuim issue.

A quick answer to the plutonuim problem is:  
IF you atomize the plutonium,
AND disperse it to every man woman and child on earth,
AND it stays in the lung after it is inhaled,
AND it decays so that  the alpha particle hits a cell nucleus,
AND the DNA in the nucleus is damaged,
AND the cell misrepairs the damage,
AND the misrepair doesn't kill the cell,
AND the misrepair is such that it initiates a cancer,
AND the cancer isn't killed by other body defenses before it establishes itself,
AND you get this result for every man woman and child on earth,
THEN yes, it could.
What do you think?  Keep in mind there have been 100's of pounds of plutonuim dispersed over time starting in August 1945 when well over a kilogram was vaporized over Nagasaki, Japan before it had a chance to fission.

I don't remeber seeing a Curie content for a human before, but there are several topics that talk about dose from a human.   Check out internal dose, spousal dose, background dose, daily banana dose, and K40 K-40 40K   ( all ways to write 40 potassium) and be prepared to weed out a lot of extraneous posts.  Most of them calculate the internal dose as mostly from K40.


Zack Clayton
Ohio EPA - DERR
email:  zack.clayton@epa.state.oh.us
voice:  614-644-3066
fax:        614-460-8249

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