One pound of Plutonium

["Jesse H. Coleman" <radshoals@airnet.net>]

RADSAFERS,

Plutonium is the element that the antinukes love to hate.
How often have they said that one pound of plutonium could
kill everybody on earth?  Well, it just ain't true.  Federal
Guidance Report No. 13 provides the exact answer about how many
people could be expected to be killed by that pound of Pu.
(For the moment, buy into the LNT theory and go with the flow.)

FGR 13 says that the risk factor (cancer mortality) for inhalation
of type S, Pu 239, with an AMAD of 1 micron is 8.45 E-07 per Bq.
With a half life of 24065 years, I calculate a specific activity
of 2.3E+9Bq/g, using equation 4.29 in Cember's 3rd edition.  This
gives a cancer mortality of 1.9 E+3 per gram or 880 thousand per
pound.  That means that one pound of Pu-239 contains enough activity
to cause "only" 880 thousand fatal cancers, a far cry from the about
4.5 thousand million people on earth.  Inhalation pathway, etc, etc.

A similar calculation for Pu-138 indicates 260 million.  More, but
still not enough to wipe us all out.

Returning to my "More toxic than Plutonim" train of thought, we
can repeat these calculations for as many of the isotopes in the 3
natural chains as data are provided in FGR 13.  I found information
tabulated on 21 of them.  Of these, 14 were "more deadly" than
Pu-238 and 16 more so than Pu-239.

For example, one pound of Ra-226 could cause fatal cancers in
12 million people, worse than Pu-239.

Also, one pound of Pb-210 could cause fatal cancers in 520 million
people, worse than any isotope of plutonium.  Lead-210, with its
22.3 year half life is the collection point for radon daughters
and is found in low concentrations almost everywhere.  Especially
in tobacco.  Could we not say that smokers inhale radioactive
material worse than plutonium with every puff?

Most of the "worse than Pu isotopes" have short half lives and
are found in extremely low concentration in nature and thus
present virtually no hazard.  But that's not the point.

When compared to any isotope of plutonium, nature provides us
with worse radioactive materials.

I also did these sorts of calculations using ALI information
from FGR No 11.  I got almost identical results assuming that
lower ALI indicates increased toxicity.

The only reason that we are not concerned with these natural
radioactive materials is that dilution is the solution to
this pollution.

Also, these "more deadly than plutonium" materials are being
constantly produced, always have been and will still be here
long after the last plutonium finally decays away.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Jesse Coleman

RADSHOALS@AIRNET.NET