Comments on burning radioactive debris

5 CommentsChronological Reverse Threaded delete replyengineerpoet wrote on May 1 A Bequerel is one radioactive decay per second. 200 Bq/kg sounds like a lot, but it isn't; some granites have over 1500 Bq/kg of potassium-40 alone. If the wind is blowing to the east, this stuff will fall into the Pacific; for all intents and purposes, it will vanish. Cs-137 and Sr-90 have half-lives of about 30 years and will disappear all by themselves. This appears to be nothing to worry about. I would be more concerned about conventional air pollution from the burning. edit delete replymercedo wrote on May 1 engineerpoet said A Bequerel is one radioactive decay per second. 200 Bq/kg sounds like a lot, but it isn't; some granites have over 1500 Bq/kg of potassium-40 alone. If the wind is blowing to the east, this stuff will fall into the Pacific; for all intents and purposes, it will vanish. Cs-137 and Sr-90 have half-lives of about 30 years and will disappear all by themselves. This appears to be nothing to worry about. I would be more concerned about conventional air pollution from the burning. if they were burnt, radiation will be 33 times concentrated in ashes and caesium will be evapolated in around 670 Celsius and we humans breathe them as a matter of fact, US west coast is contaminated. some might fall into the ocean but others reach the US soil nonetheless delete replyengineerpoet wrote on May 1 mercedo said radiation will be 33 times concentrated in ashes That's good. It reduces the disposal problem by 97%, and makes the material inert. All you'd have to do is sink the ash in the deep ocean and all the radioactives would decay before the water returns to the surface. caesium will be evapolated in around 670 Celsius I'm assuming that the incinerators will have scrubbers, so most of it will be captured. we humans breathe them That depends on the winds. If it's carried to the east, it'll mostly fall into the ocean. US west coast is contaminated To a trivial extent. We only know this because 1.Cs-137 does not occur naturally 2.Cs-137's decay energy is unique 3.This allows extraordinarily small amounts to be detected. I'd worry more about chemical contaminants from spilled oil and things. The US Coast Guard just sank a derelict Japanese ship that was washed out of a ship-breaking yard and drifted all the way to Alaska. There were concerns of fuel on board; how much more is out there, in packages too small to make the news? Trivial amounts of radioactives are nothing compared to the normal background. Worrying about them is a waste of time and a distraction from real hazards. edit delete replymercedo wrote today at 12:52 AM Our land is tiny yet densely populated..that's good if it were stored securely in a safest place, but few believes the burnt ashes will be stored securely and separately from humans for nearly 30 years Japanese made 54 nuclear power reactor but don't know how to discard the reactor after its use, so although all must have been abandoned in ten years some keep on being used for more than 25 years.. I mean they Japanese lack vision I don't think they can deal with well such a very sensitive material as heavily radioactive waste In a sense we can say they were waiting for a natural disaster to stop the operation of reactor economically. USA is far away from here so the damage must be much less than that in East Japan, but here in West Japan we have to defend ourselves because Fukushima is just next to us. Fukushima already emitted 168 times more radiation than the atomic bomb exploded in Hiroshima and 5 times more than that in Chernobyl nuclear disaster and still radiation leakage never stops robi2106 wrote today at 8:22 AM Despite the disaster, I still don't understand Japan's efforts to ditch nuclear power. It is still massively efficient. Why not move to the liquid thorium reactor plan that will solve many of these issues highlighted by the Fukushima disaster?