[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

RE: Pu in DU?

At 13:15 20/05/99 -0500, you wrote:
>If your DU comes from recycled reactor fuel or from a gaseous diffusion
>plant that once used recycled fuel as feed then you may well have some Pu.
>This was noted at the Portsmouth GDP in the late 1970s and residual
>transuranics (TRU), including Pu, Am, and Np were found in small quantities
>in the mid-1990s.  An enrichment plant will put everything with an atomic
>mass of 238 or so into the same cylinder without asking which element it is.
>The people I spoke with were quite certain they were seeing legitimate Pu,
>Np, and Am based on their analytical techniques.
>
>On the other hand, if no recycled fuel was ever present in the stream from
>which your DU originated, you shouldn't have any Pu at all.  
>
>Andy
>
Thanks for your reply Andrew. I've had quite a few, and of course they
contradict each other. Some say that it's impossible, but quite a few think
it's likely. We are doing a survey around a site in Britain, and one of the
things we've found is small amounts of depleted U contamination. The Pu is
also elevated above bomb fallout levels slightly and I'm just wondering
about the source of the Pu.

By my reckoning, it would take only about 2ppm of 239Pu in DU to make the
radiological hazard from 239Pu the same as from the much greater mass of
238U. If other TRU are present also, then this would further increase the
hazard potential. So what are the 'small quantities' of Pu, Am and Np that
were found in DU at Portsmouth GDP? Is this in the open literature anywhere?


As I said, I'm nothing to do with any of the campaigning about DU that is
going on, but if there's TRU isotopes in DU, I think it shows that the
military and others are being somewhat disengenuous when they say that DU
is much less hazardous than even Nat-U.

Thanks

Keith Bradshaw Southampton University UK
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keith Bradshaw
01703 596600 OR 596587

Geosciences Advisory Unit
School of Ocean and Earth Sciences
Southampton Oceanography Centre
European Way
SOUTHAMPTON
SO14 3ZH
UK
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html