Comments on Nuke Pro: WIPP Plutonium Aerosolization is More Dangerous than Fukushima

for all of us non scientists...can you explain all...

2014-03-18T16:45:32.595-07:00

for all of us non scientists...can you explain all this...or better yet are you saying all of southeast oklahoma and northern texas has been contaminated? and that many deaths will occur?? if so how soon?

But then the mass required to induce cancer change...

2014-03-02T01:52:01.470-08:00

But then the mass required to induce cancer changes with the isotope. One microgram of Pu-238 will most likely cause a fatal cancer. The cancer risk coefficients per becquerel for the alpha-emitting isotopes of plutonium are all about the same. So you can divide the half-life of the isotope in question by the half-life of Pu-238 to find the mass required to give the same cancer risk as Pu-238. For Pu-239 it is about 275 micrograms.

Cancer risk coefficients for most radionuclides are available here: http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/federal/402-r-99-001.pdf

The inhalation risks for the plutonium isotopes are on page 93.

.144 grams or 144000 micrograms. However WIPP ...

2014-03-01T21:46:31.988-08:00

.144 grams or 144000 micrograms. However WIPP is now backpeddling on their figures. Keep in mind on the 3000 foot away first sample, they stated in the town hall that the reading was 46 Bq, but 98.7% of that was "background" and reported .64 Bq.

hmmmmmmmm

Good point, and will improve my method. That sai...

2014-03-01T21:42:26.002-08:00

Good point, and will improve my method. That said, very little was the high activity (and therefore low mass) of the U-238 that you mentioned, it was almost all U239 and U240 which have much longer half-lives

Pu-238 87.7 years
Pu-239 24100.0 years
Pu-240 6560.0 years
Pu-241 14.4 years
Pu-242 375000.0 years
Pu-243 4.95 hours
Pu-244 8.0E7 years

I will recalc and edit when I can

You can't just plug "plutonium" into...

2014-03-01T20:11:19.738-08:00

You can't just plug "plutonium" into WolframAlpha and expect it to use the proper isotope. It is Plutonium-238 which if a microgram is inhaled and absorbed into the lungs will almost certainly give you fatal lung cancer. Based on the activity you entered and the mass it returned, it is using Plutonium-244 which has a half-life of 79 million years and a specific activity of 690,000 Bq/g. Plutonium-238 has a specific activity of 634,000,000,000 Bq/g. The WIPP release, if it were all Pu-238, would amount to 520 micrograms.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=mass+of+330e6+bq+of+plutonium-238

Thx. Here is some links I found about the subject...

2014-02-26T01:49:45.252-08:00

Thx.

Here is some links I found about the subject:

http://justpaste.it/ejs9

Right, there was 461g .46kG right next to the Pa...

2014-02-25T15:03:26.243-08:00

Right, there was 461g .46kG right next to the Panel 7 remote radiation sensor, within inches. How much more can be strewn about the whole place?

0.1 microgramme kills. If that is what has left th...

2014-02-25T14:22:35.897-08:00

0.1 microgramme kills. If that is what has left the facility, there must be 100's of kgs of it blown around inside.