Radiation Age and the prudent person

[Hedges]

Considering how inept governments have been, I don't mind any of the 8 things on the Gates Foundation Diabolical List (NIH report):

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger​

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education​

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women​

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality​

Goal 5: Improve maternal health​

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases​

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability​

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development​

Doing everything humanly possible to prevent unnecessary death ...
And nothing at all to prevent unnecessary birth??

If so, the man is pure evil, will bring about far more human suffering than anyone else ever.

 

[Supervstech]

How to get rid of Radon around your property?

 

[Bob B]

A few yeas ago, a friend of mine went into business doing radon mitigation .... you have to be pretty well certified around here to do that.
He let me borrow his radon detector and I put it in my lower level for the weekend. You could watch the radon levels change with barometric pressure .... but the levels in my house didn't get high enough to need mitigation.

After reading up on it at that time, if found that it is absolutely a major risk.

I'm kinda surprised we don't hear more about it from health departments and such.

 

[Hedges]

How to get rid of Radon around your property?

Around, you don't worry.
Seeping up into the crawl space and then the house, vapor barriers and ventilation.
Through a slab? Seems more difficult. I think of things like sealing the slab and trying to excavate to and draw air through gravel under the slab.
Google might give an answer for what is done today.

 

[svetz]

Radon is heavier than air, has a half-life around 4 days, and emits only alpha and beta as it decays.

So, it's only dangerous if you breathe it in?

As silly as it sounds, could treatment be as simple as moving to fresh air, doing a hand-stand (okay, not so simple since I can't do one), and coughing? Do it when exiting the basement or space you think/know has Radon?

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

So, it's only dangerous if you breathe it in?

Pretty much.

As silly as it sounds, could treatment be as simple as moving to fresh air, doing a hand-stand (okay, not so simple since I can't do one), and coughing? Do it when exiting the basement or space you think/know has Radon?

Statistically, breathing in a possible small amount of Radon gas once or twice is not the issue. It's the accumulative effect of exposure over time that gets you.

 

[12VoltInstalls]

How to get rid of Radon around your property?

3”+ stone bed under the concrete floor with 4” perforated pipe under constant negative pressure with inflow venting and the exit pipe on the roof. “Virtually no cost at all”. Ya, right. But it’s been done.

 

[Supervstech]

Radon is heavier than air, has a half-life around 4 days, and emits only alpha and beta as it decays.

So, it's only dangerous if you breathe it in?

As silly as it sounds, could treatment be as simple as moving to fresh air, doing a hand-stand (okay, not so simple since I can't do one), and coughing? Do it when exiting the basement or space you think/know has Radon?

Contrary to popular belief, the lungs are not just bags open to the windpipe… they are a very dense sponge, and air enters into the passages through membranes, etc. Being upside down won’t help much… expelling gasses takes many breaths, and a lot of clear air entering, mixing, and being expelled.
Cody’s lab did a video where he inhaled super dense gasses, and had a terrible time getting them out. He explained in the comments why inverting himself wouldn’t help.

 

[curiouscarbon]

I know this thread is focused on living near a nuclear power plant and preparing for the hopefully rare occurrence of containment failure.

Coal Ash Is More Radioactive Than Nuclear Waste

By burning away all the pesky carbon and other impurities, coal power plants produce heaps of radiation

www.scientificamerican.com

Talking about coal is on topic Maybe? I think coal doesn’t have a bad enough rap for being radioactive. People focus on the particulates a lot. But that’s not all that’s dangerous.

People living in coal stack shadows need to prepare for radiation every single day. But I’m not sure what advice to give them other than wear a fresh P100 mask every day and move somewhere else ASAP..

 

[stienman]

I think coal doesn’t have a bad enough rap for being radioactive.

From the article:

McBride and his co-authors estimated that individuals living near coal-fired installations are exposed to a maximum of 1.9 millirems of fly ash radiation yearly. To put these numbers in perspective, the average person encounters 360 millirems of annual "background radiation" from natural and man-made sources, including substances in Earth's crust, cosmic rays, residue from nuclear tests and smoke detectors.

For comparison, a chest x-ray delivers 10 mrem. A banana contains about 450 mg of potassium, and when eaten exposes the consumer to about 0.01 mrem due to its K-40 content. An airline flight across the US exposes a person to 3.5mrem.

So living within a mile of the smokestack of a coal plant for 5 years is equivalent to one chest x-ray.

Living within a mile of a coal plant is equivalent to the radiation exposure due to eating 1/2 of a banana every day.

It increases a person's normal daily radiation exposure by less than half a percent.

It takes 3.5 years of living near a coal plant to give you the radiation you'd get flying round trip across the US.

People living in coal stack shadows need to prepare for radiation every single day. But I’m not sure what advice to give them other than wear a fresh P100 mask every day and move somewhere else ASAP..

I think this is a little overboard, but perhaps for some people the 0.5% decrease they'd experience moving elsewhere might be worth the trouble.

The article is very carefully worded to sound worse than it is, providing the quote, "In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy."

That's because a properly operating nuclear plant produces almost no additional radioactivity to the environment. They are much more strictly monitored and regulated for radiation exposure than any other industry in the world.

I'd say the particulate emissions of a coal plant, and their danger to humans living nearby is of significantly greater concern than any other aspect of either plant.

 

[stienman]

That is an interesting article, and useful to consider, nonetheless.

 

[curiouscarbon]

Thanks for your clarification.

That's because a properly operating nuclear plant produces almost no additional radioactivity to the environment. They are much more strictly monitored and regulated for radiation exposure than any other industry in the world.

I guess is what I’m trying to communicate.

The question boils down to the accumulating impacts of daily incremental pollution from burning coal or the small risk but catastrophic consequences of even one nuclear meltdown. "I suspect we'll hear more about this rivalry," Finkelman says. "More coal will be mined in the future. And those ignorant of the issues, or those who have a vested interest in other forms of energy, may be tempted to raise these issues again."

Will grant, for one year it’s 0.5%. If I move there have a baby and they spend their first 20 years there, can you honestly tell me to be calm?

Should I not grow my own food?

I think it’s a serious thing for people to not downplay.

Not trying to be disrespectful. Just paying respect that there’s kind of an economy of damage awareness and sometime the discussion bends towards “well it’s relatively less harmful but still absolutely harmful therefore complaining is unjustified”. And hope to just nip that nuclear miscommunication in the bud ?

By the way, this cool project PurpleAir got started in part because of coal pollution causing health problems for residential humans. https://www.purpleair.com/

 

[curiouscarbon]

I'd say the particulate emissions of a coal plant, and their danger to humans living nearby is of significantly greater concern than any other aspect of either plant.

?

 

[stienman]

If I move there have a baby and they spend their first 20 years there, can you honestly tell me to be calm?

I wouldn't presume to tell you what to do. But when you indicate that your standard for radiation exposure is this strict, then I feel it's important to remind others that it's a strict exposure, and if they intend to adopt it then they have additional concerns, such as flying, food choice, radon (which, even well below the epa limit, is very much above your limit), and other daily places, activities, and things which expose them to additional radiation.

I'm not bashing your standard at all. Indeed I have friends who've been treated for cancer who assiduously avoid bananas and other unnecessary exposure because they've already received several lifetimes worth of a typical person's exposure and the effects are cumulative. That extra 0.5% would concern them, but that's like swatting flies outside ignoring your house full of hornets if you haven't reduced radon in the house to 400 times lower than the EPA limit. (I could be wrong with my calculations, but it looks like a 4 pCi/L EPA limit is 800mrem/year, so getting your own house down to that level of radiation means your pCi/L radon level in your home needs to be under .01 pCi/L - an exceptionally low level in areas where radon is present.)

 

[stienman]

That said, now that I've done the calculation and considered it, I need to reduce my radon level. 800mrem/year is a 22% increase of the average radiation exposure. Just because I can sell the house in this condition, doesn't mean I should live in it like this...

 

[svetz]

...pend their first 20 years there, can you honestly tell me to be calm?

I think that depends on what radiation is being emitted and the half-life. For example, 100 years of buildup of something with a 200 year half-life might be substantial even if the single-year output is negligible.

The cellphone app isn't good enough for something like that. Not sure if the cheap cellphone gadget is either.

Does anyone know (upnorthandpersonal?) if there is a place someone can send a small packet of top-soil to to see how bad it is? Or, are they better off getting a decent scintillation meter and sweeping the yard?

Should I not grow my own food?

Another good question.

From the discussion, something that emits alpha/beta particles isn't all that harmful unless ingested. But if the plants are sucking it up (see the mention of tobacco doing that) and then you eat the plants I could see where "safe" levels in the yard might not be "safe" to have a garden.

 

[Supervstech]

I live in Charlotte, NC, and there are several 200year old neighborhoods.
Some had coal delivery pits, and the topsoil is too toxic to grow edible plants.
Would that be a radiation issue as well?

 

[Hedges]

Growing your own food, organics, all wonderful rainbows and unicorns.

Michelle had a wonderful idea:

Obamas to Plant Organic Vegetable Garden at White House

WASHINGTON - Michelle Obama will begin digging up a patch of the South Lawn on Friday to plant a vegetable garden, the first at the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt's victory garden in World War II. There will be no beets - the president does not like them - but arugula will make the cut...

www.organicconsumers.org

Unfortunately, so did Bill:

Toxic Sludge Taints the White House

When First Lady Michelle Obama decided to plant a vegetable garden at the White House, she faced a problem that many new homeowners in America run into. Previous residents of her house had applied sewage sludge to her lawn, but left no warnings to alert the her about the potential toxicity of...

www.prwatch.org

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

My recollection had been that it was industrial waste from dredging a river, but this article said sewage sludge. Must have mix it up with another case, so toxic that thousands of affected cattle had to be culled.

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

Does anyone know (@upnorthandpersonal?) if there is a place someone can send a small packet of top-soil to to see how bad it is? Or, are they better off getting a decent scintillation meter and sweeping the yard?

I would usually do this in my lab, or send it to one of the other labs we work closely with. I know that you can get those kinds of analyses done here in Finland through STUK (the national radiation/nuclear authority) but not sure in your region. Should be possible to ask whatever agency is the authority on your end.

 

[curiouscarbon]

I wouldn't presume to tell you what to do. But when you indicate that your standard for radiation exposure is this strict, then I feel it's important to remind others that it's a strict exposure, and if they intend to adopt it then they have additional concerns, such as flying, food choice, radon (which, even well below the epa limit, is very much above your limit), and other daily places, activities, and things which expose them to additional radiation.

I'm not bashing your standard at all. Indeed I have friends who've been treated for cancer who assiduously avoid bananas and other unnecessary exposure because they've already received several lifetimes worth of a typical person's exposure and the effects are cumulative. That extra 0.5% would concern them, but that's like swatting flies outside ignoring your house full of hornets if you haven't reduced radon in the house to 400 times lower than the EPA limit. (I could be wrong with my calculations, but it looks like a 4 pCi/L EPA limit is 800mrem/year, so getting your own house down to that level of radiation means your pCi/L radon level in your home needs to be under .01 pCi/L - an exceptionally low level in areas where radon is present.)

Thanks, this helps a lot.

This thread is specifically about radiation, so I was kind of hesitant to mention coal, because of the overlapping issue of that radiation is not the only compound from coal burning that is harmful.

So I definitely acknowledge, with my continually updating model, that being downstream of a coal stack is a measurable increase in both direct and accumulated ionizing radiation exposure, but on the order of long airplane ride or an extra chest x-ray every few years.

The numerous other compounds that are not radioactive can still cause diseases like cancer etc, but by nature they feel off topic to me. Trying to navigate that complication.

The radoneye sensors indicate around 0.1 picocuries per liter when placed outside in this area, very consistent.

Thank you again for your insight.

I think it’s dangerous to live down range of a coal plant primarily because of the particulates (which can be tracked on purpleair website for USA) which also deposit in the alveolar tissue and cause increased health care costs. Cancer survivors also have better survival rates when they breathe air with lower PM2.5 pollution. (pm2.5 is just a size but the common sources determine the specific risk to life) But they are not radioactive so I will stop elaborating on those ?

Basically, I would strongly avoid living downwind of a coal stack first because of the particulate, but there is a compounding factor of risk of being exposed to both particulates and ionizing radiation in my estimate.