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.

Chernobyl - Symbol of Unconcerned Totalitarianism

One can hardly compare the Chernobyl fire in the Ukraine to the alleged "Three Mile Island disaster" in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Thirty-one firement and plant workers were killed in the former, while the only victims at TMI were from media-caused anxiety. Volumes have been written by analysts on the mistakes made a both power plants. But Chernobyl, with its graphite reactor designed to produce weapons-grade plutonium as well as electricity - and with no containment building - cannot even be compared with the pressurized water reactor (PWR) at TMI in which the nuclear reaction is stopped by the laws of physics when there is a loss of coolant water. Of course that hasn't stopped the anti-nuclear, anti-technologists from trying. But perhaps the strangest story out of Chernobyl was that the Soviet hierarchy, who had strongly supported the anti-nuclear activists in the United States, were apparently led to believe their own propaganda about radiation dangers.

The accident at Chernobyl provided both good and bad news for anti-nuclear activists. For decades, they had been attempting to come up with some reasonable way that radioactive products from nuclear power plants could be spread over the countryside. The best they'd been able to come up with for U.S. power plants went like this:

(a) A loss-of-coolant accident occurs, and the emergency core cooling systems fail to operate, leading to a meltdown of the fuel assemblies inside the reactor.

(b) Although the nuclear reaction stops when the coolant is lost (the water acts as a moderator to slow down the neutrons so they can be captured and allow the reaction to continue), there is still heat generated from the decay of the "daughters" of the reaction. This is supposedly so intense that it melts through six inches of steel in the reactor vessel, and continues through many feet of high-strength, reinforced concrete.

(c) But it can't stop there. The molten mass must then continue to melt through perhaps a few hundred feet of earth until reaching an aquifer. There the steam generated causes "blow holes" to develop, and the steam carries the radioactive products back to the surface. (Hold on, we're almost there.)

(d) The weather must cooperate with a gentle breeze blowing toward a populated area. (Too much wind and our "cloud" dissipates; under calm conditions, the product settles to the earth at the facility and is taken care of there.)

But the graphite fire at Chernobyl provided an actual way that about 90 million curies of radioactive material could be efficiently spread around the countryside. Yes, the anti-nukes got their dream of a large scale nuclear disaster - which had been becoming more and more difficult to conjure up, given the fact that Three Mile Island showed that the uncovered fuel elements couldn't even melt through the reactor vessel.

But there was bad news for them also. There weren't any bodies on the streets. Aside from those who died on-site, mostly firemen who expired from burns with possibly complications from radiation, there is no sign of a cancer epidemic or any other chronic problems.

Oh, sorry, there's one. The governments involved are going broke (broker?) from the payments they are making to victims. Victims? Didn't I just say there weren't any victims? Yes, but I meant from the radiation. The victims as defined by the governments involved are those who were traumatized by fear of radiation or from the trauma of being evicted from their homes and forced into refugee camps.

Of the radionuclides escaping from the burning graphite reactor at Chernobyl, the one of most concern was cesium 137. A gamma emitter with a half-life of thirty years, this reactor product settled to Earth over much of Europe. Yes sir, it did. But nobody seemed to notice it settled right on top of soil that already contained naturally occurring radioisotopes such as U238, Th232, and K40. In a mistaken spirit of humanitarianism, the Soviet Army evacuated its citizens when the dose from the Earth exceeded 0.5 cGy (500 mrad) per year. [One of the purposes of this book is to show how some authorities - even nuclear officials - have no connection with reality and, indeed, make recommendations and rules that cause great harm. This example shows nationality is no barrier.]

They apparently didn't notice they were already sitting on "highly radioactive" dirt. Figure 5 shows the Chernobyl contamination relative to naturally occurring radiation. Is it any wonder that the "Project Team's Main Recommendations" included the following?

"Measures with less impact on traditional agriculture should be investigated; better public information is needed, particularly on doses and risks, and studies of the acceptability to people of living in contaminated areas." [Emphasis added.]

Table 11 – Chernobyl Cs 137 Burden in Various Areas vs. Natural Background
Location	Range (Bq/m^2)
European Cs 137 contamination outside former USSR	20,000 to 23,000
Cs 137 contamination inside former USSR	40,000 to 5,000,000
Natural radionuclides in soil of above areas	177,000 to 6,500,000
Source: Table 2 in 1997 statement by U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) member Zbigniew Jaworowski

Table 11 gives another look at the Cs 137 "fallout" and the natural radionuclides in the top 10 cm (about four inches) of soil in several locations around Chernobyl. Note the range of natural soil radiation. Wouldn't you think that someone would have noticed a variation in the detrimental effects of natural radiation when some areas had thirty-six times the soil radioisotopes of others - if indeed there were any detrimental effects? Would you think one area would be known as Cancervania - because of regular affliction of the populace from radiation, while another area would go by Vitalia, because of superior health derived from a dearth of radiation exposure? But we don't see Europe having such disparities in cancer or other immune disorders on the basis of location, do we?

Well, actually we do: the health resorts are almost always located on springs with a high radon content.

Getting a Handle on Radiation Doses

How many atomic explosions in our cities would you accept before deciding that nuclear power is not safe - no complexities, just a number? - Ralph Nader, 1974

A significant source of confusion regarding the measurement of radiation parameters is the simultaneous use of two systems of units. As noted in chapter 7, "activity" is measured in curies in the USA system and Becquerels in the International System of units. A similar duality is found in the measurement of "doses" of radiation, as will be discussed in this chapter.

The question arises as to which units should be used in this book. Personally, I think in terms of the USA units and find that most people actively involved in radiation related disciplines in the United States do likewise. On the other hand, most scientific papers are written using the S.I. values - certainly all the recent ones on hormesis.

Since neither way will satisfy all readers, it will be the policy herein to use both in the next few chapters - generally the S.I. units followed by the USA units in parenthesis unless a quotation or other source is expressed in the USA units... in which case the S.I. units are given parenthetically. Hopefully this repetition will get you accustomed to both systems of units and the relationship between them. Later chapters will use the same units as found in the source material. The plan is for you to become familiar with both by then and to make any necessary conversions in your head. (Or refer to Table 6 on page 51 or to Table 7, coming up on page 56, another good place for a bookmark.)

We will start with the more familiar (at least to me) USA units.