Yes, You Can Be Too Careful

Hundreds of billions of dollars are to be spent 'remediating' U.S. sites even though there is no scientific basis for claiming any health or other benefit. - Theodore Rockwell

In 1988, and earthquake registering 7.9 on the Richter scale devastated Soviet Armenia, leaving more than 25,000 people dead. Four years earlier, in far more densely populated Mexico City, an 8.1 earthquake (with a 7.8 aftershock thirty-six hours later) killed 9,000 people.

Seven years after the Armenian quake, they were still trying to get electrical power to the cities for more than two hours per day; Mexican Power and Light restored power to its 3,200,000 customers in seventy-two hours.

While Mexico isn't exactly the most advanced country in our hemisphere, compared with the communist paradise of Armenia it is Beulahland. Its buildings were built to stronger, more earthquake-resistant standards; when people were trapped in collapsed buildings, there were tools to get them out, and power to run the tools. There were hospitals for the wounded, and sanitary conditions prevailed for the survivors. In short, Mexico had a superior infrastructure and was richer than Armenia. Its wealth saved the lives of thousands of people who would have otherwise died.

There have been many attempts to determine a reasonable estimate for the value of a human life in the United States. One of these I can remember set the figure at $20 million, contending that for every $20 million taken out of the economy, the lowered standard of living for all would cause the premature death of one person. [This sounds a lot like collective dose to me; except that we can - on occasions like Armenia - count the dead.]

While I can't vouch for this particular figure, the Armenian-Mexican situation shows clearly that there is a relationship of this nature. And it may be logically inferred from this that government, by wasting or compelling others to waste money, has a detrimental effect on the well-being of its citizens. [In 1980, Congress commissioned the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program, which was expected to show that the utilities were responsible for acid rain. It found, to the amazement of the scientists involved, that this was not true. But Congress, which had paid $500 million for the study, ignored it and mandated scores of billions of dollars in unnecessary "scrubbers" to remove an insignificant fraction of power-plant emissions. At $20 million per life, politicians killed hundreds with this single vote.]

Theodore Rockwell, in an article "What's wrong with being cautious?" [from Nuclear News, June 1997. A large part of this chapter is blatantly taken from this excellent article.] suggests five different kinds of harm that originate in the Linear No-Threshold hypothesis:

• Billions of dollars wasted
• Ridiculous regulations imposed that degrade the credibility of science and government
• Destructive fear generated
• Detrimental health effects created
• Environmental degradation accelerated. (This final item refers to the incredible amount of ash and sludge - equal to about 100 truckloads per day - produced by a coal-fired 1,000 megawatt power plant, compared with less than a Volkswagen full per year of actual high-level wastes from an equal-sized nuclear plant.)

Rockwell gives an example of a forklift driver who moved a small spent fuel cask from the fuel-storage pool to another location. As the cask had not been completely drained prior to being moved, some water was dribbled onto the blacktop along the way. But since storage pool water is defined as a hazardous contaminant - by the regulators, not plant employees who had earlier used the pool for unauthorized midnight swims - it was deemed necessary to dig up the entire path of the forklift, some two feet wide by one-half mile long. It doesn't stop here.

Because the paving contractor used thorium-rich slag from a local phosphate plant as aggregate in the new pavement, it was more radioactive than the material that had been dug up - which was marked with the ominous radiation symbol and hauled away for expensive, long-term burial. Fortunately, it was only taxpayers' money.

Dirty Bombs

We have been led to believe - on the basis of the LNT theory and collective dose - that terrorists could mount an effective attack by the use of "dirty bombs," i.e., bombs that spread radioactive materials by use of conventional explosives. At present, such bombs would be an effective weapon, since the fear of radiation, as in Goia and Three Mile Island, would doubtlessly cause panic and result in deaths from heart attacks, auto accidents and the like. But if we understand the actual effects of radiation, we can respect it without allowing it to overcome our rational thought. Let's look at the worst case.

Terrorists park a car bomb filled with strontium 90, which has a long half-life (twenty-nine years) and the propensity for replacing calcium in bones. At noon, with the maximum numbers of people walking down Wall Street on the way to lunch, the bomb is exploded, and strontium 90 is blasted into the air. Radioactive debris is scattered by the wind over an area of many blocks.

Let's look at this scenario as graduates of Hormesis U. First, where are the terrorists going to get a carload of strontium 90? It is a product of nuclear explosions and found in reactor "wastes." Like so many other "waste" radionuclides, it is a valuable commodity being used in medical and agricultural tracers as well as in RTGs (radio thermo-electric generators) for navigational beacons and weather stations. Medically, it is used for treatment of eye diseases and bone cancer. It is a valuable commodity and certainly not widely available in quantities like the ammonium nitrate and fuel oil used in the Oklahoma City bombing.

The EPA's Radiation Information website [www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/strontium.htm] tells us that "swallowing Sr-90 with food or water is the primary pathway of intake."

The same source tells us that strontium 90 is a beta emitter. Graduates of Hormesis U. know that beta radiation can travel only a few feet through air and causes minor burns (beta burns) to exposed skin. Knowing this, what action would be required after a terrorist went to the trouble and expense to disburse this most dreaded of radioactive materials in the canyons of Manhattan? I would suggest a warning to the local inhabitants not to lick the pavement or buildings. After that, I would wait for a rain that would wash the dust down the sewers leading to the Atlantic Ocean, where there are already quadrillions of curies (septillions of becquerels) that will still be there long after the vestiges of strontium 90 have disappeared. A potential problem: the sewer rats might be affected bio-positively and take charge of the large metropolitan cities.

So much for dirty bombs.

Hormesis U.: A Review

Before leaving dear old Hormesis U., here is a short review to see if you've got a handle on the curriculum. You should know...

• Elements are identified by the number of protons in the nucleus (atomic number).
• Isotopes of elements have different numbers of neutrons (n + p = atomic weight).
• Atoms of some isotopes are stable, while others are radioactive and, over time, will disintegrate (decay) into other elements of a lower atomic number.
• Alpha and beta particles have a short range (a few inches and a few feet respectively).
• Gamma rays and X-rays can penetrate several inches of steel or feet of concrete.
• The half-life of a radioactive isotope is the time it takes half of the original amount to decay; after thirty half-lives the original amount is considered to be gone.
• The longer the half-life, the lower the activity of an isotope.
• A curie is 37 billion becquerels.
• A pCi is a picocurie and is equal to one-trillionth (10^-12) of a curie.
• Absorbed doses of radiation are measured in rads or grays; 100 rads equal 1 gray.
• Biological doses are measured in rems or sieverts; 100 rems equal 1 sievert.
• The absorbed dose and the biological dose are the same for gamma and X-rays. 
• A fatal acute dose is about 4 sieverts or 400 rems (50% fatalities in thirty days) when received in a relatively short time (a few days or less).
• Radiation sickness occurs at about 1 sievert or 100 rems (50% of those exposed over a short time). 
• Doses below 1 sievert or 100 rems (100,000 millirems) have no immediate biologic effects but are generally thought to increase the risk of cancer in the future.

Thanks for your attendance at Hormesis U. No doubt you'll find the rest of the information on radiation hormesis much more understandable now than when you were a mere freshman. Oh, and be sure to send in your contribution to the Alumni Fund.

Radioactive Isotopes

About three-fourths of the elements have two or more stable isotopes and many have radioactive (unstable) ones, some of which can be useful, and others of which can be dangerous if we come into contact with them. A few of the more common radioactive isotopes and beneficial uses are noted in Table 2.

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Table 2 - Some Common Radioactive Isotopes
3H = Tritium = Luminous watch dials
14C = Carbon 14 = Radioactive dating
60Co = Cobalt 60 = Food irradiation
40K = Potassium 40 = Biological tracer
99Tc = Technetium 99 = Medical diagnosis
131I = Iodine 131 = Thyroid-function diagnosis and treatment
238Pu = Plutonium 238 = Spacecraft power supplies, pacemakers
241Am = Americium 241 = Smoke alarms
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All of the elements heavier than lead in the periodic table have multiple isotopes, and all are naturally radioactive; most of them decay into one of the stable lead isotopes. Uranium and thorium have the greatest number of isotopes - uranium with 22 isotopes and thorium with 28 - though most of these are not naturally occurring. As a rule of thumb, elements are happiest when they have about the same number of protons and neutrons. When there is a sizable difference, they tend to decay until there isn't.

So, what about this radioactive business? How does it work? How dangerous is it? And for how long?

A very interesting subject: Don't miss the next chapter.

Isotopes of Hydrogen

Hydrogen offers a simple example of isotopes. Figure 4 shows three forms of the element: The first is just regular hydrogen, designated at H or 1H, which has one proton and no neutrons. [It has a name, protium, but it's only used by real physics nerds or trivia freaks.]

The second form, deuterium or 2H, is known as "heavy hydrogen." It has the obligatory single hydrogen proton, but also has a neutron in its nucleus. [Deuterium is the form of hydrogen that makes "heavy water," the substance on which many World War II spy novels are based. These stories are based on a factual February 1943 raid on the heavy water concentration plant operated by the Nazis in Vemork, Norway. While an earlier attempt resulted in disaster - all thirty-four commandos were either killed in glider crashes or executed by the Germans - the second raid was a textbook example of guerrilla warfare and bravery. Disabling the Vemork plant was a major setback for the Axis A-bomb program.]

Finally, the form of hydrogen known as tritium, or 3H, is seen to have two neutrons.

All three forms are known as isotopes with 1H making up 99.98% of the total hydrogen that we know about - and presumably in the universe. Both "regular" hydrogen and deuterium are stable isotopes, meaning that they don't change over time.

But tritium is anther story: it is an unstable isotope that will eventually decay or disintegrate into stable 1H. [All tritium undergoes "beta-decay" in which the neutron changes into a proton and an electron - a feat of amazing atomic legerdemain.] It is this process - where atoms go to pieces - that we normally call radioactivity.