Thanks very much Franz -- this is one for my reference files.
.....but as I recall from reading the McEwan et-al report, the Pu contamination was very much localized at one small part of the atoll, where the "safety test" was performed -- correct ? .....in other words, the high explosives were unable to spread the Pu very far & wide -- a point relevant to the present discussion on dirty bombs, etc.
I would appreciate if you could clarify this for all of us.
Thanks in advance.
Jaro
-----Original Message-----
From: Franz Schoenhofer [mailto:franz.schoenhofer@CHELLO.AT]
Sent: Wednesday June 12, 2002 3:54 PM
To: AndrewsJP@AOL.COM; newsonline.errors@bbc.co.uk
Cc: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Re: The Kitchen Table Atom Bomb...review
<SNIP>
France has done it at Mururoa and of this I know quite well, because one of
the most important tasks of my "Terrestrial Group" in the framework of the
International Mururoa Study, conducted by the IAEA, was to check the areas
for contamination, where the atmospheric safety tests had been conducted. I
have to admit, that those areas are uninhabitable, so the decontamination
criteria have not been so strict as they probably would be for Manhattan,
but we could show, that there was practically no possibility for people
visiting those areas to incorporate enough plutonium to suffer from it: The
large particles with enough plutonium in them could not be resuspended and
therefore not inhaled. The smalls which might get airborne contained to
little plutonium, so no harm was to be expected from inhalation. So I was
twice in an area with "a lot" of plutonium on the ground without any
protective clothing - except for plastic overshoes in order not to
contaminate the laboratory(!) and I have not suffered any illness, nor have
the friends in my group. Therefore not even the dispersal of some dozens of
gramms of plutonium (where to get them from?) would in my opinion not do any
harm, at least not in the long term. Gamma-emitters like Cs-137 or Co-60
would do even less.
Best regards,
Franz