|
My personal experience has shown me that the risk from
ionizing radiation is not unique. There are there other types of radiation
that have the similar risks. When I was in the Navy I was warned of the
risks of death from SONAR and RADAR. Whenever people were going to work on
the ships masts we had to tag out the RADAR so that we did not accidentally kill
the workers with the microwave radiation. It was not a joke the the people
who had been killed in the past.
Whenever divers were in the water near the ship, we had to tag
out the SONAR so that we did not kill the divers with emissions from the
SONAR.
Later when I was working on an oil refinery design, I was
laying out the area around the emergency flare. There was a circle on the
plot plan around the flare. It was the limit of the flare death
zone. If the flare were ever to be used in a design emergency, anyone in
within the circle would be killed by the radiant heat from the flare.
There was a similar but larger death zone for an LNG unloading terminal we
designed, based on radiant heat from a possible LNG explosion. Near Long
Beach, California there is a huge natural gas tank next to the Long Beach
Freeway. I am sure the freeway is well within the radiant heat kill zone
for the tank if it were to explode. In addition, the next time you drive
by an LNG or propane tanker truck you might consider what its radiant heat kill
zone might be. When I was a child, I often played near the propane tanks
we used for cooking and heating water. There was no kill zone marked
around them. I suppose the blast effects are to be considered a different
type of hazard. But for the thousands of people killed by LNG and propane
fires and explosions I have never seen a differentiation between the ones who
were killed by blast effects and those who were killed by the radiant
heat.
In addition, just yesterday a 3-year old child died from
radiant heat trapped in a Chevrolet Suburban in Dallas. At least two other
Texas children have died in hot cars this year. About thirty children a
year are killed in the US each year by radiant heat.
Don Kosloff dkosloff1@msn.com
2910 Main St, Perry OH 44081
|