More fun with nuclear: radioactivity numbers

[c1ue]

Nuclear power definitely has its dangers, and radiation certainly is dangerous as well at high levels, but the breathless alarmism of anti-nuclear activists continues to muddy the water with ham handed attempts to scare using large numbers.

The latest:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30319

“In Feb. 2010, an enormous tritium spill took place from this facility. In just a few minutes, 147 trillion becquerels of tritium went up the stack – comparable to the releases from some nuclear reactors in an entire year,” said Jeff Brackett of Safe and Green Energy (SAGE), a Peterborough group opposing the relicensing of the SSI facility.

Wow! 147 trillion becquerels of tritium!

Well, the radioactivity of tritium is 357 terabecquerels per gram, or 3.57 x 10 exp 14. The above 147 trillion becquerels equates to a release of of 2.42 grams of tritium.

A Curie is another way to express radioactivity. The above release of tritium equates to 23350 Curies. Unsurprisingly the curie unit is never used.

Now for the second point: the tritium release mentioned.

Was the tritium released as a purified substance? If so, some danger is conceivable to at least a few persons nearby. However, while the blurb above doesn't say so, the release occurred when water containing tritium was spilled into Lake Ontario:

http://jagadees.wordpress.com/2010/0...ium-into-lake/

Workers at the Darlington nuclear station filled the wrong tank with a cocktail of water and a radioactive isotope Monday, spilling more than 200,000 litres into Lake Ontario.
Ontario Power Generation is investigating how the accident happened and officials say hourly tests of the lake water show that the level of tritium – the radioactive isotope of hydrogen – poses no harm to nearby residents.
The spilled water contained 0.1 per cent of the plant’s allowable monthly release of tritium, said OPG spokesman Ted Gruetzner.

200,000 liters. Poured into a lake which contains 1.638 x 10 exp 15 liters of water. Resulting in a radiation increase of 0.09 becquerels per liter in Lake Ontario.

Now, don't get me wrong - the accident is a bad thing and should definitely be investigated and hopefully never repeated.

However, the clear advocacy being demonstrated here does no one any good.

[charliebrown]

Re: More fun with nuclear: radioactivity numbers

http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/tritium.htm

The risks from tritium are small, due mostly to:

1. it is a low energy beta emitter;
2. chemically behaves like water in the body (forms HTO or T₂O - water);
3. has a 12.3 year half-life.

While not impossible, a large enough dose to cause any significant harm to a person is unlikely. It is a hazard, and should be treated like any other. Some basic precautions can minimize the risks, such as not handling a broken sign or sight with bare hands, ventilating an area where tritium is stored and proper disposal of used or damage tritium objects.

[ASH]

Re: More fun with nuclear: radioactivity numbers

1. chemically behaves like water in the body (forms HTO or T₂O - water);

As an academic aside, water made from heavy isotopes of hydrogen (deuterium or tritium) doesn't behave exactly like normal water in the body, due to differences in chemical bond length (shorter bonds), chemical bond strength (stronger bonds), and ground state vibrational frequency (lower zero-point energy). In particular, substituting heavier isotopes of hydrogen in water can in principle slow down biochemical reaction rates with potentially toxic effects. However, in practice, heavy water isn't very toxic, and you'd need to consume an awful lot -- liters -- before it poisoned you by mucking up the rate of chemical reactions in your body. So if it's dilute, there shouldn't be any chemical hazard.

[Starving Steve]

Re: More fun with nuclear: radioactivity numbers

Some bad news for California residents ahead, and soon: Electric rates are going to rise and to new record highs.

By not building real power plants which generate adequate amounts of electric power to meet California's future power needs, rolling black-outs and electric rate increases lie ahead. The environmentalists ( the eco-frauds ) and their California Air Resources Board have made it all but impossible for power companies such as PG & E to construct not only new atomic power plants in California, but also new coal-fired power plants and new natural gas and oil-fired power plants. Not only have these power plants been banished in the state, but also the construction of new hydro-electric dams have been opposed and banished, even outlawed in the state, by the pressure from so-called, "conservationists" in Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, among other such groups.

Being an official moron, I try in my mind to run the economics of a shortage of electricity, when green energy projects (mostly windmill and solar panel projects, large and small) fail to adequately meet the state's future power needs. A shortage of electricity means higher power rates, ahead in order to ration supply. And that means an increase in the cost of living in California.

Rising costs of living means more pressure on the budgets of California residents. More stress on the monthly budgets of California households means less money available to be spent on mortgage payments and rents. That downward pressure can only be met in three possible ways: either the state's households ( and businesses ) move out of California, or the state's households ( and businesses ) pay less for their homes and less for their rents, or somehow the state's residents and businesses earn more money..... Unless resolved by a wave of inflation in earnings, those higher electric bills mean either a decline in California's real estate value lies ahead, and from people/businesses moving out of the state, or by people/businesses bidding less for their real estate. ( This has never happened before. )

The public hysteria cultivated by the environmental lobby about trivial amounts of emission and negligible environmental impact from power plants, be they conventional, atomic or hydro-electric, means a shortage of electric power in California in future. That shortage can only be met by rolling black-outs, total system brown-outs, or by higher electric power rates for everyone to pay. And that means more stress on the budgets of Californians lies ahead, and maybe even a darker future as well.

[shiny!]

Re: More fun with nuclear: radioactivity numbers

Hi ASH. Good to see you again! I've missed your posts.

[ASH]

Re: More fun with nuclear: radioactivity numbers

Hi ASH. Good to see you again! I've missed your posts.

Hi shiny! Thanks -- nice to 'see' you, too.

[Chomsky]

Re: More fun with nuclear: radioactivity numbers

Hi ASH. Good to see you again! I've missed your posts.

+1 - where have you been?

[ASH]

Re: More fun with nuclear: radioactivity numbers

where have you been?

Hi Chomsky. Nowhere special. For awhile, things at work got a little busy, so I didn't have much time to read, and didn't feel much like writing. Also -- and perhaps more importantly -- I found I had nothing to say. Q1 of 2012 surprised me. I really didn't think the ECB's long-term refinancing operation (LTRO) would work at all, and when it worked for awhile, that threw me for a loop. Also, domestically, I really didn't have any strong feelings about the direction of the economy -- or, rather, it sure looked to me like the mainstream consensus was more-or-less going to pan out in the near term (i.e. painfully slow recovery for the foreseeable future, but no cliff-diving without a major exogenous shock, such as Europe imploding). There didn't seem much point in posting "I'm clueless, and the mainstream view seems plausible." Lastly, I didn't see that many science- or foreign policy-related posts to the forum, so there was less bait to attract me. Anyway, I hope everyone has been well, and I hope I get my bearings soon.

[vinoveri]

Re: More fun with nuclear: radioactivity numbers

Q1 of 2012 surprised me. I really didn't think the ECB's long-term refinancing operation (LTRO) would work at all, and when it worked for awhile, that threw me for a loop. .

Be interested to hear your views on my you were skeptical of the LTRO.

I sort of had the opposite view. Perhaps its these multi-year bail-outs that just seem to go on and on that make me think there is no end to it (at least in sight). TPTB seem to have a strong interest in keeping the game going, and with the apparent break-down in some elements of the rule of law, the assumption of power by technocrats in Europe, I'm beginning to lose hope that markets (or even politics) will "fix" the system via an adjustment.

[Polish_Silver]

Radon Found in my home! Ban Granite!

I recently tested my bedroom for radon, and it was found to be 4.7 pC/litre. (Pico curies/litre )

They (authority figures) recommend countermeasures at 4pC/litre.

According to their stats, radon is killing more Americans than drunk drivers!

Supposedly it is all naturally occuring radon from the granite bedrock which is ubiquitous here.

My basement is about 50% concrete slab, 50% bare bedrock.

Radon mitigation is usually done by adding air pipes and fans for ventilation.

What if the problem is that sneaky nuke plant, a mere 30 miles from here ?

Banning granite would have economies of scale relative to household mitigation,
except for the externality that, without granite, the continents would just sink into the ocean.

Maybe thats what happend to Atlantis ?

[jtabeb]

Re: More fun with nuclear: radioactivity numbers

Good to see you back. Sorry you are not finding you interests fulfilled here, that sucks.

Try this...

http://simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf

Maybe it willbe enough to spark some interest to keep you around for a bit.

(which proposition do you find most compelling? Which would you prefer to be valid?)

Interesting at the very least, least I thought so.

[c1ue]

Re: More fun with nuclear: radioactivity numbers

http://simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf

Maybe it willbe enough to spark some interest to keep you around for a bit.

The paper reads like the millionaire joke: to become a millionaire, start with a billion dollars. Its argument is as follows:

1) Assuming an advanced civilization with computing equivalent to God, then any simulation run on said computing equivalent to God will be indistinguishable from 'reality'

2) Since reality cannot be distinguishable from the God simulation

3) It is inevitable that God simulation capability will eventually be developed

4) It then follows that there will be more God simulations than the single example of reality

5) Odds therefore dictate the existence we believe we are in is a simulation

Unfortunately, unless you are technotopian, 1) and 3) are false assumptions. Even if we had God simulation power this instant, we simply do not know enough details on human culture, existence, and so forth even a mere 300 years in the past in order to document it much less model it.

How then would some society with literally unimaginable computing power get the information necessary to model its own distant past? Or is the expectation that somehow Facebook and its ilk will provide this 'data'.

What a horrifying thought.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Radon Found in my home! Ban Granite!

"Increased absurdity" is the proper title for your post. Everything from the environmentalists to-day is absurd and the biggest bunch of non-science there is.

One of the most important discoveries in recent years is that the human body, all living things in fact, repair cell damage done by radioactivity. Otherwise, nothing would be able to survive on this planet, because radiation is everywhere.

Another important point: Very long half-life radiation is harmless. It's all but non-radioactive. Pu-239 has a half-life of 24,100 years, and Pu-242 has a half-life of 376,000 years.

Another important point: The so-called, "synthetic radioactive elements" on the periodic table between #93 and #106 are not synthetic. They are found naturally on Earth in trace amounts, everywhere.... Plutonium, #93 on the periodic table, for example, and with some of its isotopes having a very long half-life, is all but non-radioactive. Plutonium is also a natural and very rare element on Earth.

On another issue, not related to radiation, but another issue that demonstrates how arbitrarily the eco-frauds have in recent decades scared the public with and destroyed industry with: the regulation of mercury and mercury vapour in the environment.

As I have often recalled here, the kids in our neighbourhood and not far from the old mercury mine in New Almaden (south of San Jose) played around with mercury as a children in San Jose, and once we flooded an entire classroom floor with Hg at Union Middle School. ( This was in 1960. ) The principal had fits, and he had the floor washed with a mop and water. We were moved to a different classroom until the floor was clean. But none of us exhibited any ill-effect from the mercury nor mercury vapour in the classroom while we were in there playing with the mercury. The entire floor had large balls and pools of mercury on it, and our hands were soaked in mercury and had pin-point balls of Hg on them.

To-day, if this would have happened, the entire classroom would have been demolished, and/or a special clean-up team with breathing-tanks would have been called in from the EPA in Washington. All of us children would have been in hospital, and the story would have been on the TV news.

Now, I sleep next to a large and rich sample of mercury rock ( native red cinnibar) from the extraction oven at the old mercury mine in New Almaden. The park ranger there found the rock for me, but he was afraid to touch it or breathe the air around it.... That's how insane and fearful the EPA has made the public, including the park ranger. My rock was supposed to have been roasted in the extraction oven, but it was left over after the Hg mine closed.

The old mine at New Almaden, open since before 1848, was ordered by environment regulators to close forever in 1962. To-day, the mine and the few over-grown and rotted foundations and walls of an all but unknown ghost town well above the mine are part of the New Almaden Historic Quicksilver Mining Park. There is also a large historic hotel below the mine, Club Almaden. An old clay (adobe) one-story building from the mid- 19th C. exists in the tiny village of New Almaden, not far away. There is also a tiny post office made of stucco in the village as well. The old and historic Hacienda Cemetery from the gold rush days in California is in the village, too......... The vitality of all of this ended when federal and state environmental regulators, quite arbitrarily, demanded the closing of the mining operation at New Almaden in 1962.

[jtabeb]

Re: More fun with nuclear: radioactivity numbers

I think you mis-state the tenants of causality in the paper , not sure if that is intentional on your part or not. I just thought the prospect was rather intriguing considering that current cosmological theories offer many possible avenues for the genesis and potential end of the universe. ( but, I also thought the matrix was a brilliant movie, to each his own, I guess)

[c1ue]

Re: More fun with nuclear: radioactivity numbers

Re-examining the conclusion of the paper, 2 of the precepts above should be changed, but the conclusion is not:

Based on this empirical fact, the simulation argument shows that at least one of the following propositions is true:

(1) The fraction of human level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero;

(2) The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor simulations is very close to zero;

(3) The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.

What empirical fact is behind 1)? Do we have a survey of all human level civilizations, past, present and future? The answer is no - and not just no, but unknowably no.

What then is the empirical fact behind 2)? Since we don't actually have a post human civilization, how can we even know what fraction are or are not interested in anything? How can we as humans derive any information whatsoever on post-humans? It is literally like baboons extrapolating what a post-industrial human society would be like: i.e. it ain't gonna happen.

And lastly, the empirical facts behind 3)? Utterly ludicrous.

Somehow a complete lack of empirical facts is converted a la "a miracle occurs" into a series of conclusions about future behavior, especially since the entire procedure is an extrapolation of future events.

I can even tell you the mechanism of "a miracle occurs": this is a variation of the Drake equation, where a series of not merely unknown but unknowable variables is slapped together into some equation.

Since the variables are not just unknown but unknowable, the result of the equation can be skewed to any direction desired merely by the choice of actual values of said variables, these choices by definition being 100% arbitrary.

Furthermore since there is no way to actually test the behavior of the equation, the relationships described therein are equally arbitrary.

So to summarize:

A series of variables which are completely unknown and unknowable, arranged in an equation which is untestable, yields truth

I think not.