Letters to the Editor

• Sugerman gets it wrong

  [Read the article: Our rosy future, according to Freeman Dyson]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  "(a) a new nuclear fuel rod

  (b) a used nuclear fuel rod

  (c) 50g of metallic plutonium

  (thanks SusanMc(from another thread), for trying to help, but blockquote didn't work; i used Jim White's suggestion of br's instead.) MacK, you intimate i should pick (b) because it's the most highly radioactive. HOWEVER, a mere *speck* of plutonium, gotten into your lungs will kill you - i'll take my chances on the radioactivity. if the plutonium were finely powdered there would be no question whatsoever. you could hold in your hand polonium 210 all day, but ask Litvinenko what happens if you swallow it. it was a snotty trick question from a snotty trick person."

  Good grief, do you distort. You rant that a speck of metallic plutonium in your lungs would kill you -- maybe, actually maybe not -- in your stomach perhaps, but then quite possibly not -- plutonium is chemically highly toxic and the stomach acid would cause absorbtion --

  Polonium 110 is dangerous in a different way to Plutonium -- you could hold polonium in your hand and probably suffer no ill effects, ingest it and that is another story (its an alpha emitter - alpha's have trouble going through paper or skin, but then they have a high interaction with matter/tissue, so if it was to be in your bloodstream, it would kill tissue and blood-cells rapidly.)

  But the question here is what could you hold in your hand and the answer is simple Plutonium metal, at least in small quantities (bigger quantities is problematic for another reason.) The reason is that as it happens, Plutonium is not very radioactive, hence the half-life in the millions of years.

  Similarly an unused, new nuclear fuel rod is not very dangerous (since it contains uranium in one form or another or plutonium), though I would not advise holding it, since the radioactivity from chain reactions in the rod would make it more dangerous than smaller quantities of material.

  Finally, exposure to a used nuclear fuel rod would be extremely dangerous, since it contains a cocktail of isotopes, many with very short half lives, minutes, days, months and years, radiating like crazy for 2-5 years after it is removed from the reactor, and is a fairly dangerous item to have contact with, but is pretty well impossible to steal, since it would quickly kill the thief, unlike say weapons grade plutonium.

  You describe me as snotty -- well, frankly, having seen what you say, the distortions of the truth you are willing to make, who cares what you think of me. You deserve snotty . . .

  Permalink Sunday, September 30, 2007 02:20 AM