Re: One pound of Plutonium

[Wes Van Pelt <VanPeltW@idt.net>]

Jesse H. Coleman wrote:
> 
> 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?
> 

Jesse and Radsafers,

It would be interesting to now calculate how many pounds per year of
Pb-210 are created worldwide in the lower atmosphere due to radon decay.

Wes
-- 
Wesley R. Van Pelt, Ph.D., CIH, CHP                KF2LG
President, Van Pelt Associates, Inc.     
Consulting in radiological health and safety.
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