RE: How much plutonium?????

["Heinmiller, Bruce" <heinmillerb@aecl.ca>]

The claim is without merit, Cathy.  If I've interpreted Eisenbud correctly,
more than this amount of Pu-238 has been dispersed in the atmosphere from
weapons testing and satellite re-entry, and many thousands of times this
amount of Pu-239/Pu-240 has been dispersed in the atmosphere world-wide from
weapons testing, and I can't imagine a more effective means of distribution
to the world's population than this.

The number of decays per second in the body is (roughly averaging over age
and sex) nominally 6000 or 7000 for adults (say, plus or minus about 1000
for world demographic uncertainties), most from primordial K-40 and
cosmogenic (and a bit of weapons-testing) C-14, and to a lesser extent, from
primordial Rb-87.  There's also a relatively minor contribution to the
average activity from radionuclides such as Cs-137, H-3 (mostly
weapons-testing), and other natural and man-made radionuclides.

Bruce Heinmiller CHP
heinmillerb@aecl.ca

> ----------
> From: 	Cathy Lee[SMTP:cathy_lee86@hotmail.com]
> Reply To: 	radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
> Sent: 	Monday, May 08, 2000 8:58 AM
> To: 	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: 	How much plutonium?????
> 
> 
> Dear Scientists,
> 
> please forgive this intrusion of I,
> a layperson, into your arena.
> 
> I recently read that half a kilo of plutonium
> could induce lung cancer in everyone on the planet.
> 
> I was wondering if any of you could tell me about the
> scientific merits of this claim.
> 
> Also, has anyone actually calculated the number of radio
> active decays in the body, say, per second. I would
> be interested to
> know!
> \
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Cathy
> ________________________________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
> 
> ************************************************************************
> The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
> information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html
> 
************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html