----- Original Message ----- From: "Julia Thompson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 7:01 AM Subject: Re: Nukes found with reactor vessel woes-NRC
> Jon Gabriel wrote: > > > > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > On > > > Behalf Of Dan Minette > > > Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 12:40 AM > > > To: Killer Bs Discussion > > > Subject: Re: Nukes found with reactor vessel woes-NRC > > > > > > One quick question before I respond. You don't eat bannanas, do you? > > > > *snort* > > > > Jon > > I remember that article Maru > > I don't. (Then again, I'm pregnant.) I'm going to want a recap. :) > > I think it had something to do with potassium? Yes, potassium is radioactive. I actually have told two stories about that on brin-l. The first involves a friend of mine who borrowed a sensitive radiation meter for a talk at his son's school. He was walking by my office, walked in and was describing what he was going to say, when we both noticed that the background radiation reading had gone up about 30%. He searched my office with the meter for the source and found it was the big jar of pretzels I had on my desk for friends to come and nibble. The pretzels had light salt (NaCl KCl), and the meter picked up the radiation from the potassium. The second example was when I needed a potassium source to test a natural gamma tool. I went to a super Wall Mart and bought about 12 of those blue Morton light salt containers as the source. After we used them, I brought most of them home, and we've been using them as our salt for over a year. So, for health reasons, I am using my radioactive salt as part of our food. :-) The point is that radiation has been around much longer than humans. It is a natural part of our environment. In order to remain healthy we must ingest potassium, which is radioactive. The changes in background radiation from human activity is far smaller than the natural variation in background radiation. Since we do not see a correlation between this natural variation and genetic damage, health risks, etc., we can set a fairly low limit to the risks from low level radiation. In addition, we can set a correspondingly lower limit to the damage done by the very small increase in background radiation due to human activities. Now, there are acute instances of very high exposures; and those can cause damage. Being near a nuclear bomb when it goes off can kill you in many ways. Radiation damage is one of the least likely (unless you count being burnt by the flash as radiation damage), but it does exist. However, it no more reasonable to use the danger posed by nuclear weapons as an argument against nuclear power than it is to use the dangers of napalm to argue against oil as an energy source. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
