Only an idiot would think that Uranium 238 with a half-life of
4.5billion years is called radioactive.The issue would be the decay products leaching into the sea with medium half-lives, certainly not Uranium itself.
One of the plants that was supposed to "burn" nuclear waste.
Fukushima is still spilling radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean
Its got U235 in it as well
The issue, any sane person would have thought, would be the total amount of radioactivity, not where it came from.
U235 and 238 times 4 billion tonnes is more radioactive than 500g of caesium 137 or whatever..
Let alone the 6.1 x 10^10 tonnes* of K-40 emitting its 1.33 MeV beta particles and 1.46 MeV gamma rays!
*Volume of seas 1,338,000,000 cu.km.0.7%, in fact, which therefore means that the oceans contain 28 million tons of U235.
I make that around 6 x 10^10 tons, then. We'd obviously all better avoid seawater. And bananas.
And to think that millions of people travel hundreds, even thousands of miles to splash around in it!
I assume the sample was Pu238 as it is an isotope known for its heat generated from decay. However it has a short half-life and gives off more gamma than Pu239. I wouldn't recommend anyone directly handling it.
If you can provide the number of roentgens of exposure to this sample vs banana or other equivalents it would be far more useful than some unsubstantiated sweeping statement.
And fish f*ck in it.
Herring sandwich anyone?
"In the 1940s some 26 workers at US nuclear weapons facilities became contaminated with plutonium. Intensive health checks of these people have revealed no serious consequence and no fatalities that could be attributed to the exposure. In the 1990s plutonium was injected into and inhaled by some volunteers, without adverse effects. In the 1950s Queen Elizabeth II was visiting Harwell and was handed a lump of plutonium (presumably Pu-239) in a plastic bag and invited to feel how warm it was."
That's why they gave her Pu239. Alpha decay to U235. Almost no gamma.
Well I doubt whether you would understand it if I did. sweeping statements are, after all what you deal in.
Pu-239 doesn't get warm through decay. Either this was prewarmed and bogus or the real Pu238.
I agree, but why the invitation "to feel how warm it was".
I doubt you would have clue. Especially if you think Pu239 gets warm from radioactive decay.
From
"Plutonium-238 has a half-life of 88 years and emits alpha particles. It is a heat source in radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which are used to power some spacecraft."
and
"Alpha decay, the release of a high-energy helium nucleus, is the most common form of radioactive decay for plutonium. A 5 kg mass of 239Pu contains about 12.5×1024 atoms. With a half-life of 24,100 years, about 11.5×1012 of its atoms decay each second by emitting a 5.157 MeV alpha particle. This amounts to 9.68 watts of power. Heat produced by the deceleration of these alpha particles makes it warm to the touch."
So while Pu-238 gets hot, Pu-239 only gets warm. But warm it does get.
Well done. You just won the twerp-of-the-year award. Have a look at the picture of the plutonium-238-oxide pellet:
Yule note that it is not red merely because someone painted it red.
Of course it does.
Oh FFS put tour tinfoil hat back on and go back to sleep.
Because it was warm.
I dont think it, its an established fact.
All radioactive elements get warm through decay.
Many thanks for posting this extract. Alpha particles themselves are not transformed to heat energy. It is their kinetic energy, amongst others, that contributes to the thermal energy we're discussing. For Pu239 this is 1.9W/kg.
For reference for Pu238 this is 560W/kg but then it's half life is correspondingly shorter.
Yes dear, we know that. We also know that why Pu238 gets red hot whereas PU239 gets faintly warm.
For reference, 2W/kg is about the same power to weigh ratio as a human or mammal body under moderate exercise. And Pu is much heavier, so its more energy per surface area than that, which is why it feels 'warm'
Construction started 40 years after the end of the war.
Its purpose was not to make plutonium, but to burn it. All uranium-fuelled power generating reactors make some plutonium as a by-product, but (unless you mess with the fuel cycle) not weapons-grade. MOX lets you get useful energy out of what would otherwise be a toxic and troublesome waste product.
We've been messing with the ecology since we developed spears, flint tools, and skin-covered boats. These technologies were quite sufficient to wipe out the original American and Australian megafauna.
238 has the shortest half life, 88 years (hence the high heat production). 239 as used in fission weapons is 24,000 years but ISTR that a weapons "pit" is warm to the touch.
The real danger is from inhaling or ingesting alpha sources like these isotopes, and Polonium 210 even more so. Often colloquially described as toxic.
Yes, if you mean by "breeders" what are more normally called (weapons) plutonium production reactors.
In fast breeders (i.e. using fast neutrons) the cycle is paradoxically quite slow. The long fuel dwell means that (as in ordinary power reactors) they produce a lot of Pu 240, which conveniently means the product is of no use for making fission weapons.
I just said "Pu238 as it is an isotope known for its heat generated from decay".
I may not have been the smartest in this thread, but you ought to try reading my post before mentioning paint.
Except that someone did to see once, and nothing happened.
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