Re: Low Doses and LNT

[Al Tschaeche <antatnsu@pacbell.net>]

Tsurikov Nick wrote:

> 1. How come that radiation exposure of employees in nuclear industry is
> monitored and the airline industry is exempt?

Because the perception is that the airline crews get exposed to "natural
background" and natural background is exempt from control.
> 
> Maybe I am mistaken, but I think that any person inside the plane at, say
> 25,000 feet, is exposed to external 'cosmic' radiation at a level of
> about 0.3 - 0.4 mrem/hour.  Am I right?

Approximately.

> I wonder what the reaction of John and Jane Doe will be if they will
> decide to go to Hawaii for holidays and half of the passengers in the
> front section of the plane will wear personal radiation monitors.  In
> addition to it, drinks will be served by the flight assistant with the
> TLD badge on the chain around her neck...

Visible dosimeters probably will never happen.

> 2. Another quite funny situation can occur if John Doe happens to be a
> building contractor, who is putting soil through the mesh to obtain a
> certain grade (say 5 mm) of material for cement mixing.  If traces of
> uranium and thorium (and, therefore, daughter product - radium) are
> present in this particular soil component (which is usually the case),
> then it is a "PRODUCT" (see Regulation and Licensing of Technologically
> Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (TENORM) - draft at
> http://www.webpub.com/~crcpd/).  The draft suggest the exempt limit of 5
> pCi per gram of Ra-226 or Ra-228.  Since John produces a "MATERIAL WHOSE
> RADIOACTIVITY IS TECHNOLOGICALLY ENHANCED BY CONTROLLABLE PRACTICES" it
> is a TENORM and, therefore, subject to different regulations.  Am I
> right?  

Could be.  Ask the CRCPD if that is their intent.


> Let's try to educate anti-nuclear special interest groups first.  Let's
> have a Joint Conference of, say, Radiation Protection or Health Physics
> Society and guys like Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth.  Let's
> broadcast it like presidential candidates' debates, let's invite all the
> media.  Some sort of open forum.  Any questions asked and answered.  For
> example, what we are going to do when coal,oil and gas will run out?  And
> let's see what happens....

Would you be willing to set such a meeting up?  If so, where and when? 
I'd love to attend.

Al Tschaeche antatnsu@pacbell.net