One more pound of plutonium

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

Radsafers and all,

I appreciate the comments on my previous posting on this topic.

The purpose of my postings on this subject is to debunk some of
the claims made by the antinuclear radicals concerning plutonium.

In particular, the purpose of my postings is to show that
numerous natural radionuclides are more radiotoxic than plutonium.

A world wide war is currently being waged.  On one side are those
who think that all nuclear technology is so dangerous that it
must be stopped now.  On the other side are people who believe
that muclear technologies are safe and beneficial.  My crystal
ball tells me that in a few decades, us US RADSAFERs will still be
flaming each other about curies vs Bq and if LNT is really true
or not.  We'll have lots of time to talk about it because all our
reactors will be shut down and no new ones will be built.

Dr. Raabe says that all risk factors in FGR No. 13 are wrong.
Probably so.  Maybe they should be zero for very low doses.  Maybe
you and others can change EPA's mind on the subject.  I hope so.
But suppose that FGR 13 is finalized in its current version.  What
can we do then?  We will, of course, use it.

I used FGR 13 to show that over a dozen naturally occuring
radionuclides are more radiotoxic than any isotope of plutonium.

I get almost the identical result when I use inhalation ALIs from
FGR 12.  Behold:

The inhalation ALI of Pu-239 is 6E-4 MBq/yr.  With a specific
activity of 2.3E+9 Bq/g, this inhalation ALI is 260 ng/yr
(expressed on the basis of mass instead of activity).  Similarly,
the inhalation ALI of Pu-238 is 1.1 ng/yr.  I repeated these
calculations for 24 radionuclides in the U, Th and Ac chains
(the ones listed in FGR 12) and found that 13 of them have lower
inhalation ALIs than any isotope of Pu and are therefore more
radiotoxic.  That's what is important.  Nature provides many
radionuclides that are more radiotoxic than plutonium.  They are
very dilute.  Therefore, if plutonium is also in the environment,
and is very dilute, it cannot be the environmental danger that
so many people claim.

Wes Van Pelt asked the very good question that if Pb-210 is more
"dangerous" than plutonium, how much Pb-210 is produced in the
lower atmosphere from the decay of radon?  The calculation is
straightforward.  NCRP Report No. 78, page 12 estimates the
worldwide annual input of Rn-222 into the atmosphere at 3E+9 Ci
or 1.1E+20 Bq.  Using activity = lambda * number of atoms, I
calculate that this is 5.3E+25 atoms of Rn-222 each year.
Each of these atoms transforms into a Pb-210 atom.  Using
Avagadro's number, I calculate that the annual production of
Pb-210 is about 18 kg or about 40 pounds.  I feel safe from
that one pound of plutonium that is supposed to kill everybody
on earth.

By the way, of the 30 thousand police that Germany used to
guard that shipment of spent fuel last week, an officer was
killed when he was hit by a passing train.

Its been a long day.  If anybody cares to check the
calculations, I would appreciate it.

Have a good day.

Jesse Coleman

RADSHOALS@AIRNET.NET