Chemistry web site & plutonium

["Bjorn Cedervall" <bcradsafers@hotmail.com>]

Radsafers,

Just searched for the best estimate for the half-life of plutonium 239 - is 
it 24300 years (I have seen this commonly quoted), 24100 years, or 24065 
years (ICRP, 1983) or yet some other value?

This is my first topic. Now - the second one - is again about websites. The 
following,
http://www.webelements.com/
seems to be a nice approach but checking plutonium 239 and finding a 
half-life statement of "more than 20 000 years" (OK formally correct but 
still not the kind of information one would expect) sends me a warning 
signal.

After the recent EPA and NIEHS-NIH "entertainment" research I think that we 
all should check those websites that we are particularly close to workwise 
or whatever - especially those intended for the broader non-scientific 
community. 20000 or 24100 may not seem that much of a difference but I still 
find it disturbing because it may be quoted and used. With the trashing of 
radiation books (I am aware of too much of that) we will become more 
dependent of what's on the Internet.

It can be very troublesome correcting more important errors once they are 
out in the media. Take the following example: 12 years ago I was involved in 
a newspaper argument about whether freons and krypton were the same things - 
I did my best to clarify and correct the difference between atoms and 
molecules but to my knowledge it still popped up in about 30 articles in 
some 6-7 newspapers etc - this was over the course of one year.
It all began with someone writing about krypton in a well-intended 
health/quackery etc magazine that the ozone layer could be destroyed bu 
nuclear power (I asked that individual several times for refs. but never got 
any). Then it was picked up by a politician of the Center party (she 
referred to the magazine in question) - and wrote about it in a newspaper 
and also brought it up in Swedish Parliament. She was the vice minister of 
environment BTW.
The Parliament discussion was very confusing ("the atmosphere could be 
influenced", "there could be effects" etc - no one in Parliament disagreed) 
and it became evident that she didn't understand the difference between 
radioactive and radiative (she had found a report about greenhouse gases... 
I went through that 100 page report and can say that there was nothing about 
radioactivity in that report).

What do we learn from this? That we bear a responsibility to help maintain 
as high quality as possible at the sources of information.

If these latter reflections are facts or not may be discussed but they 
definitly reflect my personal thoughts and opinions,

Bjorn Cedervall  bcradsafers@hotmail.com
PS. We used to have a consumer article department store chain in Sweden 
called "EPA" - there was a widely used concept 30 years ago - "EPA quality" 
and it meant "bad stuff that quickly breaks into pieces" - kind of 
coincidence -ain't it?

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