Comments by "Stephen Villano" (@spvillano) on "Radioactive Drew"
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It's good for qualitative measurements, that radiation is present and an approximate level, but when looking for health physics level measurements, well the counters are orders of magnitude higher and require annual calibration and recertification.
The last military base I worked at had a health physics professional. He had detection gear I've never seen or heard of before and I began my military career working on boosted nuclear weapons. Most of which had price tags that well, one could drive around town in style on that kind of bread laid out on a new car.
And the reality of it is, if there is an actually imminently hazardous level of radiation present, the Radiacode detectors would be saturated and essentially worthless.
Basically, they're good for radiation spectrometry to determine what is emitting what, even a general idea as to level, but for occupational or residential hazards, one needs the really expensive equipment to ascertain the actual risk.
Note that they had to put the detector onto the sample, because by the time one moves an inch, the beta radiation is being intercepted by air, reach two inches it's undetectable, the gamma is blocked by the glazing due to its low energy level from uranium and alpha particles are blocked by one's epidermis or even a plain sheet of paper.
Real risks in that environment are for the cleanup and demolition crews, as it's crushed tiles and cumulative exposure to the dust that has traces of the uranium oxide in it, creating an ingestion and inhalation hazard. For residents, it'd be a trace and likely not easily measured, given the granite that originated the soil remaining present and the natural presence of uranium/uranium decay chain and potassium-40 in the granite.
Oh, for entertainment value, get a Radiacode unit, go up to a friend's granite countertop in their kitchen and put the detector down on it. It'll prove the existence of that trace amount of uranium and uranium decay chain, as well as potassium-40 in the granite. Both also being present in most ceramics in trace amounts.
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Well, an upside is, for the dining ware, if the glaze remains intact, it's still safe to eat off of.
As for military sources, there was a changeover to tritium for self-illuminated devices. It shares the failure of phosphor with the old radium types though, the phosphor will fail before the tritium has decayed away. Had to replace one compass that I served with for my entire career for that reason. In theory, I could've had it serviced, but given some internal improvements in the current model and minimal cost difference, I just replaced it.
Had a laugh and gave a lesson in a different forum, where people were freaking out over Florida authorizing phosphogypsum usage in highway construction. It was used in construction and roofing tiles for decades, but "it's radioactive" freak-outs got it restricted. It's around as radioactive as an average granite kitchen counter - for much the same reason.
So apparently, phosphogypsum is evil, but granite is cool or something. Complete with a promise of driving down a Florida highway and contracting acute radiation syndrome, talk about overreaction and failed risk analysis.
I guess they should've stayed on the battlestar, as earth's way too hostile for them.
Actually examining the risk would be to look for dust liberated for potential exposure for sensitive individuals, form the isotope is in chemically, as in bioavailability or ability to become lodged in tissues such as lungs, etc. Nope, anything radioactive is evil, so excuse me while I go turn off the sun and all of the stars and put all the black holes into shoeboxes.
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@jackieow well, we had run-flat tires on our vehicles, available for civilians at an absurdly high price. :/
But, I do recall one incident, where we were looking for a potentially damaged nuclear warhead. But, the detectors we had to search for potential tritium or even plutonium leaking or burning were G-M tube based, hence rather useless for the latter (with the window open, we could detect beta). Fortunately, the warhead was still intact within its carrier.
The old saying is a good saying, "The right tool for the right job"! But, with more advanced tools, one requires training or well, there are a number of effects that can lead the untrained astray badly. Things like dead time with G-M, pandemonium in scintillators, yeah, without training, the tools are like handing a brain surgeon's instruments to someone off of the street.
Hell, it's been so long, I've forgotten through disuse a great deal.
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There's only one problem with all of that gear.
If you're needing all of that protection from carrying around fallout, you're walking through an intense radiation environment unprotected. Yeah, you're not contaminating your clothing or eating or breathing particulates or iodine gas, but you have no protection against hard beta, x-ray and gamma, not to mention neutrons.
The crew from the Castle Bravo shot cab became trapped, due to a shift in the winds and the yield of the device unexpectedly being doubled. The ended up sheltered in place beneath around a meter of earth for around 8 hours, improvised sheets to keep the dust off of their clothing and ran to the evacuation helicopter. Around two weeks later, it was safe to walk around the atoll without protection. But, during the peak after detonation and fallout, those first 8 hours had lethal levels even within the less buried areas of the shot cab bunker.
One can now safely remain on the islands exposed, but the food and water remain unsafe due to cesium-137 contamination.
As for protection for me. I live around a mile from TMI, in an area ringed with military depots, within a state capitol. I'd be right in the middle of the fireball.
Oh, a note of caution with potassium iodide, the Wolff-Chaikoff effect occurs when one receives a massive dose of iodine - it literally shuts off the thyroid gland, inducing instant hypothyroidism. That's great if one is in a thyroid storm, not very good if one likes remaining mobile and conscious. Dose with care and as directed. Doctor was considering using the Wolff-Chaikoff effect with me during a severe thyroid storm that nearly killed me. Fortunately, the thyroid blockers took effect quickly enough that it wasn't needed.
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Uranium was used as a pigment in the paint under the glazing of both tiles and dinnerware from around 1900 - 1942, when the Manhattan Project diverted all uranium (formerly a waste product that took 3 metric tons of uranium ore to produce 1 gram of radium, the rest was considered waste and plentiful.
That, on top of being used as a pigment for literally centuries.
So, either humanity is extinct due to the ubiquity of uranium glazed tiles or homes have never burned until the LA fires. Or traces of uranium oxide aren't exceptionally harmful, given we evolved alongside them in the environment in granite, for one example, making it into granite bound aquifers and hence into our drinking water, into the soil when the granite erodes, into plants that we eat from that soil and more ubiquitous, potassium-40, which trees love to take up and bananas and Brazil nuts are high in.
Indeed, a great amount of the heat of the earth's core is from radioisotope decay, largely potassium-40 and uranium/thorium decay.
The reality of it is, there's anything from 0.25% to 25% uranium pigmenting the paint under the glaze and if the glazing is intact, the only thing one could have as a risk is if one's laying on the tile 24/7/365 and receiving beta radiation, as the gamma is too low level and rare to even escape the glazing and alpha particles certainly won't escape the glazing. Radon is a modest hazard, if there were tons and tons of the thinly painted tiles around - say, in a warehouse and such warehouses are long emptied of such tiles.
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@jackieow first off, only suicidal idiots run around in fallout. At the Castle Bravo debacle, the men trapped in the shot cab (the crew that actually pushed the boom button) stuck a plain G-M tube based radiac meter out of the door, saw levels that measured between holy crap and I'm dead already and closed the door. Room measurements were much better, but still lethal within the day, so they found where the film was stored, which was the best buried place and stayed there until early evening. They sealed up and called it good, as HEPA filtration wasn't a thing yet - that came out of Castle Bravo's accident and subsequent research). Then, the radiation had dropped as the hottest radioisotopes decayed. A quick trot off to an impatiently waiting helicopter, they went to their ship. 12 days later, it was safe for the troops to stomp about and stomp about they did.
Something like Chernobyl, yeah, all bets are off, as long lived radioisotopes are about and nobody wants to spend a century or two inside of a bunker. That said, wearing an N95 mask, I'm not going to really give a toss about alpha emitters, they're stuck inside the mask and my epidermis is blocking them.
BTW, I was on our radiological survey team back in the Army and I originally worked on Pershing missiles, both 1A and II (for all of the microseconds those existed before being treaty driven to extinction, thankfully).
Now, in an ideal world, one would have both a G-M tube and radiation spectrometer scintillation detector, sealed and HEPA filtration shelter a couple of meters down and Scotty to beam you out. Alas, none of us are named Musk.
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