Radiation in Denver versus Tokyo... Denver needs to be evacuated immediately

[mooncliff]

According to this, the total annual background exposure in Denver is 11.8 MILLIsieverts per year, which is 11,800 microsieverts per year, which is 32 microsieverts per day, which is 1.3 microsieverts per hour.
http://isis-online.org/risk/tab7
Current rate in Tokyo is 0.049 microsieverts per hour. The Denver rate is 27 times the current Tokyo rate, primarily due to radon gas in Denver, but that is not quite right and is an overestimate because it depends what is included and excluded, outdoors versus indoors, etc.


The International Commission on Radiological Protection recommends evacuation of a locality whenever the excess radiation dose exceeds .1 rem per year. But that's one-third of what I call the "Denver dose." Applied strictly, the ICRP standard would seem to require the immediate evacuation of Denver.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...444059332.html

[Chris Coles]

Re: Radiation in Denver versus Tokyo... Denver needs to be evacuated immediately

Denver suffers from the long term effects of the incident at Rocky Flats where they used to manufacture the triggers for Hydrogen bombs, (small saucer shaped ingots of Plutonium). A similar event to that here in the UK some years earlier at Calder Hall, where the dust filters were contaminated with radioactive dust and caught fire. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Flats_Plant
http://www.lm.doe.gov/rocky_flats/Sites.aspx

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Radiation in Denver versus Tokyo... Denver needs to be evacuated immediately

Denver suffers from the long term effects of the incident at Rocky Flats where they used to manufacture the triggers for Hydrogen bombs, (small saucer shaped ingots of Plutonium). A similar event to that here in the UK some years earlier at Calder Hall, where the dust filters were contaminated with radioactive dust and caught fire. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Flats_Plant
http://www.lm.doe.gov/rocky_flats/Sites.aspx

Ah, Rocky Flats.
I've heard atomic safety experts suggest we declare the site a "national sacrifice zone" (along with Hanford and many others). I agree.
Put up a big wall around it, pour a concrete cap over the whole thing, and check back in 10,000 years.
It's not possible to clean it up, we can only move the damn stuff to another place and worry about it in the new location, having stirred it up and spread it around in the process. The fire of 1969 at Rocky Flats made such a widespread mess around Denver that we can likely neither clean it up nor isolate it, ever, for any amount of money. Seems to be a workable situation, life goes on in Denver.

It's easy to mistakenly think that the "triggers" for hydrogen fusion bombs might be some kind of electronic circuit or mechanical device to set off the bomb.
Triggers are really small plutonium nuclear fission bombs used to start the larger hydrogen fusion reaction. If a plant makes triggers for nuclear bombs, that plant is making nuclear bombs.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Radiation in Denver versus Tokyo... Denver needs to be evacuated immediately

It's easy to mistakenly think that the "triggers" for hydrogen fusion bombs might be some kind of electronic circuit or mechanical device to set off the bomb.
Triggers are really small plutonium nuclear fission bombs used to start the larger hydrogen fusion reaction. If a plant makes triggers for nuclear bombs, that plant is making nuclear bombs.

I was merely using the wording that was their PR when this all became public and have no knowledge otherwise. But from a pure safety aspect; surely it would have made sense NOT to manufacture all the components on the one location? As I understood it; they were manufacturing ONE component.

Over the longer term, the one saving grace is that all soil becomes buried by further layers; so in time, the radioactivity will become just a part of another layer that a future archaeologist will identify and date relative to that deposit.

[c1ue]

Re: Radiation in Denver versus Tokyo... Denver needs to be evacuated immediately

Denver suffers from the long term effects of the incident at Rocky Flats where they used to manufacture the triggers for Hydrogen bombs, (small saucer shaped ingots of Plutonium).

If the making of nuclear bomb triggers some 16 miles away only raises the background radiation to that extent, once again it highlights the anti-nuclear alarmism over Fukushima.

Which is, I believe, the point mooncliff is making.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Radiation in Denver versus Tokyo... Denver needs to be evacuated immediately

If the making of nuclear bomb triggers some 16 miles away only raises the background radiation to that extent, once again it highlights the anti-nuclear alarmism over Fukushima.

Which is, I believe, the point mooncliff is making.

The Denver situation does seem to support that, because the 1969 fire was nearly as bad an event as can happen without a blinding flash and mushroom cloud.
Back in the cold war we were naive about these things. See the suicidal antics of Louis Slotin and The Demon Core here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core

In hindsight the activity at Rock Flats should probably have been done at a more remote location hundreds of miles from any large city.

[astonas]

Re: Radiation in Denver versus Tokyo... Denver needs to be evacuated immediately

Ah, Rocky Flats.
I've heard atomic safety experts suggest we declare the site a "national sacrifice zone" (along with Hanford and many others). I agree.
Put up a big wall around it, pour a concrete cap over the whole thing, and check back in 10,000 years.

I would agree, if it weren't for the fact that the stuff is leaking into the groundwater, and hence spreading. There's no easy way to truly isolate these sites anymore. THAT would have had to be done with a better initial design.