Chernobyl
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Richard Goodwin 
  To: silver-list@eskimo.com 
  Sent: Friday, April 23, 2010 8:43 AM
  Subject: Re: CS>A closer look at americium 241 from a smoke detector


  If a radioactive substance is moved from one place, e.g. in the ground, to 
another place, e.g., in a smoke detector, how is that "adding" to it?

  All the radioactive matter on earth is somewhere right now.  When we use it, 
we move it from wherever it is to some place else.  We don't create it.

  Actually, you could make an argument that by mining radioactive substances 
and concentrating them into reactors, bombs, or other "products", you are 
making the world a bit safer, since it is easier to avoid exposure to reactors, 
bombs, etc, than to the same substances all spread out in the ground.

  I never have understood quite why people get all wrapped around the axle 
about some things.  For example, we take aluminum out of the ground, where it 
is one of the more abundant elements in the earth's crust, and we make beer 
cans out of it.  But if we then put that aluminum back in the ground, e.g., by 
throwing empty beer cans into the dump, people get all in a lather about 
pollution.  Why?  We are just putting the aluminum back where we found it.

  And "wasting water".  People get all wound up about using too much water.  
But it's not like it gets used up.  It's still there after whatever we use it 
for.  And it comes back to us from rain, etc.  Why all the furor?  

  Yeah, I know, there can be local shortages, but overall the total amount of 
water on earth doesn't really change, does it?

  Dick




------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  From: Bob Banever <bbane...@earthlink.net>
  To: silver-list@eskimo.com
  Sent: Thu, April 22, 2010 8:58:34 PM
  Subject: Re: CS>A closer look at americium 241 from a smoke detector


  Alan,

       Yes of course.  Best not to add to it.  I'm sure you would agree.

        Cheers.
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Alan Jones 
    To: silver-list@eskimo.com 
    Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 4:37 PM
    Subject: Re: CS>A closer look at americium 241 from a smoke detector


    Better go live in a lead box, even the natural world is full of it. 



    On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 6:12 PM, Bob Banever <bbane...@earthlink.net> wrote:

      No amount of radiation is trivial.  No level is safe and all ionizing 
radiation causes damage to DNA.


    -- 
    Alan Jones

    "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor 
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to 
the people."  (Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution)