AW: Correction: 0.026 mR/hr 1' from 120lb KCl, 2x background

[Franz Schönhofer <franz.schoenhofer@CHELLO.AT>]

Franz Schoenhofer

PhD, MR iR

Habicherg. 31/7

A-1160 Vienna

AUSTRIA

phone (international) -43-699-1168-1319

phone (national) 0699-1168-1319

 

 

Russ, Stewart and others,

 

First of all I did not know, that potassium chloride (KCl) was used as a

water softener salt, to my knowledge sodium chloride (NaCl) is used for

it. Maybe systems are in use in the USA which prefer KCl. Discharged

NaCl is not environmentally friendly and neither is KCl. KCl is known as

an efficient “quick melt” thawing salt, though because of its

environmentally negative impact in Europe on a large scale there is

increasingly used a wizard salt, which to my knowledge contains mostly

urea. Nevermind, because of global warming we will need in Europe no

thawing salt at all in the future and I can rely in Vienna on the

community snow ploughs and even more on our excellent public transport

anyway……

 

Fertilizers are very well known not only to contain potassium and

thereby K-40, but also NORM, depending on the way it was produced,

reaching from uranium, thorium and radium isotopes and their progeny.

Increased doserates are therefore no surprise for me. I have seen about

thirty years ago the bunkers of the biggest fertilizer factory in

Austria, which have contained thousands if not millions of tons of

fertilizer. I am still concerned about the radon concentration in these

bunkers and even more on the gamma dose rates people receive there and

during transport in lorries. I would have very much wanted to find out,

but never had a chance.   

 

This problem is the same everywhere in the world. “Everyone” responsible

knows about it. Where are the regulations? Where are the controllers?

When LNT will be out of business this problem will be obsolete anyway.

Or should customers all over the world buy these fertilizers and thawing

salts and put them below their beds in order to benefit from the

hormetic effect…..

 

Best regards,

 

Franz

 

 

 

 

 

 

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----

Von: owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

[mailto:owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu] Im Auftrag von Russ Johnson

Gesendet: Mittwoch, 27. Oktober 2004 20:40

An: radsafe@list.Vanderbilt.Edu

Betreff: Re: Correction: 0.026 mR/hr 1' from 120lb KCl, 2x background

 

Interesting topic, thought I'd jump in. We have a professor here that

bought a 50 lb bag of commercial garden fertilizer at our local Walmart.

He uses it in one of his classes as a low dose rate gamma source demo.

Just for kicks, I surveyed it with a pancake GM meter and saw a solid

0.15 mR/hr at contact with the bag. GMs are known to over-respond at low

energy (which this isn't), but in any case we're still talking mR, not

microR. I can't imagine tons of that stuff sitting in one place! 

-Russ 

farbersa@optonline.net wrote: