Scientists say ceramics could store nuclear waste permanently
nosp...@my-deja.com
August 3, 2000
Web posted at: 3:50 PM EDT (1950 GMT)
By Correspondent David George
LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico (CNN) -- Nuclear waste can remain radioactive
for centuries, but up until now barrels used to store it have had a
lifespan of only 100 years. U.S. scientists, however, think they may
have found a better way to safely store the dangerous atomic waste for
thousands of years.
Spent fuel rods from U.S. nuclear power plants -- scientists call "high-
level nuclear waste" -- is the stuff that will not die. It is a problem
the nuclear industry has never solved to the satisfaction of its
critics.
Each nuclear power plant generates an average of 20 metric tons of
highly radioactive waste each year, waste that will emit deadly
radiation for decades, perhaps even centuries.
Currently, spent fuel rods are stored in drums and other containers.
The long-range plan is to entomb them inside Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
But that controversial plan is a long way from being implemented.
And even if the waste is buried forever, one burning problem remains:
What happens in the future when the steel drums deteriorate and the
still-radioactive rods come in contact with the Earth?
Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory think they may have found
the answer.
"We have proposed a set of materials, a set of crystaline ceramic
oxides, which appear to have very high radiation tolerance," said
research scientist Kurt Sickafus.
In a series of experiments, some involving computer simulations, some
conducted in the laboratory at extremely cold temperatures, Sickafus
and his colleagues found that a class of ceramic crystals
called "fluorites" could stand up to radiation.
The atoms in the fluorite compounds actually move around, in effect
jumping out of the way of deadly radioactive isotopes, without breaking
down.
That keeps radiation from escaping. The Los Alamos scientists think
that combining radioactive waste with crystaline fluorite ceramic
oxides could produce a material that, while radioactive, would never
contaminate.
"So you're essentially in the end relying on the high stability of
these rock-like oxides to hold your radioactive constituents and keep
them out of any environmental situations where they would come back to
interact with the living environment," Sickafus said.
Los Alamos researchers say more work is needed to come up with just the
right chemical combination to produce the most durable ceramic crystal
for long-term nuclear waste storage.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Joseph S. Powell,III
ceramics.
Also space shuttle tiles, fine china, sinks, tiling....
<nosp...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:8mf19u$49e$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
JASON A. KAATZ
Steve Bara
"JASON A. KAATZ" <ka...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:0aqj5.24363$RG6.2...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> Ship out into deep space toward the sun and destroy it.
>
lately? Tons of radioactive material in the atmosphere, where it'll do
considerable damage. Gee, maybe that wasn't such a good idea.
Declan O'Reilly
shipping it up by the ton , with the cost of a launch , ounces of the stuff
would be more like it , not to mention the fact that "when" we start to send
it to the sun , the container will probably be engineered to survive
re-entry and impact on earth without breaking open.
Declan O'Reilly
Steve Bara
factor. Even a few ounces at a time of plutonium is going to ruin
somebody's day if it happens to open up on the way down, worse yet if it
gets spread out. Figure a few stray atoms of the stuff is enough to give you
a particularly nasty cancer if it lands in your lungs, then see how that
works out for a single ounce of material that gets dispersed. I suppose
it's possible to engineer containers to survive reentry and impact, though I
have doubts about anything engineered at that scale with those kinds of
risks associated. The other thing to consider is that maybe what we're
calling nuclear waste right now might be useful to us later on, we have no
idea whether some of these isotopes and metals being generated will have
future value if we can store them properly until such time as we can find
ways to handle them. I don't give that a high probability, but it's at
least conceivable that we'll be looking at some of this material as a fuel
source or useful material at some later date. Either way, I think the
discovery of materials that can be used to house the waste until we can find
some better way to deal with it is a great thing, since it affords us time
to decide what to do with the material for the long term storage that it
requires.
"Declan O'Reilly" <centa...@home.com> wrote in message
news:U8Mj5.111915$7I1.2...@news1.rdc2.on.home.com...
Gregory Greenman
> We've had a string of explosions at launch recently, so it's definitely a
> factor. Even a few ounces at a time of plutonium is going to ruin
> somebody's day if it happens to open up on the way down, worse yet if it
> gets spread out. Figure a few stray atoms of the stuff is enough to give you
> a particularly nasty cancer if it lands in your lungs, then see how that
> works out for a single ounce of material that gets dispersed.
Steve,
Cancer from a few stray ATOMS of Plutonium?? Oh Puleeezz!
There are a few stray atoms of Plutonium in your backyard right now.
Some are left over from atmospheric weapons tests - some were
formed when the trace amounts of Uranium in the soil of your
backyard absorbed stray neutrons.
You've been listening to too much anti-nuke hype if you think that
a few ATOMS is really a concern.
Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist
Declan O'Reilly
The other thing to consider is that maybe what we're
> calling nuclear waste right now might be useful to us later on, we have no
> idea whether some of these isotopes and metals being generated will have
> future value if we can store them properly until such time as we can find
> ways to handle them.
So the solution that fits, would be to store the waste in the moon ,or on
the moon . Right now as it is , we have waste that is being stored in an
unsafe manner , i don't buy all of the anti nuke arguments , however i would
be foolish to ignore it as well.
The worst case being , an ounce of PU gets dispersed over a continent ,
would not be good , but PU leaching into ground source wells , probably
would be worse.
Declan O'Reilly
brem...@antispam.net
centa...@home.com says...
From a previous post of his, Mr. O'Reilly says:
> Yeah that was always a possibility , however ,
> nobody was thinking of shipping it up by
> the ton , with the cost of a launch ,
> ounces of the stuff would be more like it,
> not to mention the fact that "when" we start
> to send it to the sun , the container
> will probably be engineered to survive
> re-entry and impact on earth without breaking open.
BUT, the original post said that there is an average of 20 metric
tons of high level waste generated per year. Taking the old
calculator, at an ounce a trip, that would be
706,000 launches per year.
Then he says:
> So the solution that fits, would be to store the waste in the moon ,or on
> the moon . Right now as it is , we have waste that is being stored in an
> unsafe manner , i don't buy all of the anti nuke arguments , however i would
> be foolish to ignore it as well.
> The worst case being , an ounce of PU gets dispersed over a continent ,
> would not be good , but PU leaching into ground source wells , probably
> would be worse.
So, the solution that fits is to have 700 thousand launches to
the moon per year, and somehow get the stuff stored on the other
end. Is it possible that you have not well thought out this
strategy, Mr. O'Reilly.
The storage problem is somewhat (if not greatly) overblown. If
nothing else, look at how far the waste spread from the natural
nuclear reactor in Africa. Four thousand million years should
have been a long enough test.
Mike Bremseth
--
Brem...@earthlink.gov
Change gov to net
Declan O'Reilly
.
>
> BUT, the original post said that there is an average of 20 metric
> tons of high level waste generated per year. Taking the old
> calculator, at an ounce a trip, that would be
>
> 706,000 launches per year.
as we converse, if my idea was in the realm of fantasy , then fine .
> Then he says:
>
> > So the solution that fits, would be to store the waste in the moon ,or
on
> > the moon . Right now as it is , we have waste that is being stored in an
> > unsafe manner , i don't buy all of the anti nuke arguments , however i
would
> > be foolish to ignore it as well.
> > The worst case being , an ounce of PU gets dispersed over a continent ,
> > would not be good , but PU leaching into ground source wells , probably
> > would be worse.
> So, the solution that fits is to have 700 thousand launches to
> the moon per year, and somehow get the stuff stored on the other
> end. Is it possible that you have not well thought out this
> strategy, Mr. O'Reilly.
Well , to be honest
Basically 700 k launches is clearly ridiculous, but if the nuclear power
industry is winding down , as i have been reading of late , whether this is
true or not , then at least should we not be looking at the most hazardous
waste to remove to the moon.
I would imagine that of all the waste generated , some of the waste is going
to be hotter than others.
You are right that this was a knee jerk soloution to a problem , that as you
say below is overstated. Then how dangerous is the waste if stored in that
New Mexico repository.
> The storage problem is somewhat (if not greatly) overblown. If
> nothing else, look at how far the waste spread from the natural
> nuclear reactor in Africa. Four thousand million years should
> have been a long enough test.
>
> Mike Bremseth
Declan O'Reilly
Steve Bara
amount of plutonium. I'm hoping someone with more experience in this matter
can step in and tell us exactly how many atoms it would take to cause cancer
if it settled in your lungs. I think you'll be surprised how small an
amount it actually is, but I'm willing to accept that I might be wrong about
this and I've been deceived into thinking plutonium was one of the most
potent carcinogens around.
"Gregory Greenman" <mor...@home.com> wrote in message
news:3990C4A7...@home.com...
Interim Books
>A single molecule of PCB can cause cancer, as can an astonishingly tiny
>amount of plutonium. I'm hoping someone with more experience in this matter
>can step in and tell us exactly how many atoms it would take to cause cancer
>if it settled in your lungs.
Please note the wording. *Can cause cancer*, not *Will cause cancer*.
D.
-------
Visit our search engine! http://www.interimbooks.com/pagescout/
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Interim Books | 322 Pacific Ave | Bremerton, WA | 98377
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brem...@antispam.net
says...
> I think you'll be surprised how small an
> amount it actually is, but I'm willing to accept that I might be wrong about
> this and I've been deceived into thinking plutonium was one of the most
> potent carcinogens around.
Steve, you have been terribly deceived. The following excerpts
from Petr Beckmann's classic book, The Health Hazards of Not
Going Nuclear (1976) should let you see how.
(p.138 ff) "When eaten, plutonium is hundreds of thousands of
time less toxic than .. diptheria or botulism toxin. Caffeine is
only 10 times less toxic than Plutonium...
... the real danger .. is breathing it in the form of fine dust
particles. .. eventually causing lung cancer. Even so, this
danger... has been exaggerated beyond all reasonable bounds. ...
... The fact is that the amount ... committed to the atmosphere
in early atmospheric tests ... was not a few ounces, but almost
three tons; yet somehow mankind survives.
During ... conditions of the early nuclear weapons industry, the
exposures to plutonium far exceeded the present maximum
permissible limits. Yet of 17,000 plutonium workers, ... not one
has died of plutonium-related health problems.
Included in this figure are 25 plutonium workers from Los Alamos
[1944-45] who had twenty-five times the presently permissible
amount of plutonium deposited in their lungs. (Tamplin and
Coochran advocated a reduction of the present maximum permissible
lung burden by a factor 117,000 ...) ... According to Gofman's
estimate of lung damage, these 25 workers should have developed
1,500 individual lung cancers. In fact, all twenty-five are in
good health."
Interim Books
>The storage problem is somewhat (if not greatly) overblown. If
>nothing else, look at how far the waste spread from the natural
>nuclear reactor in Africa. Four thousand million years should
>have been a long enough test.
Is there any information on the web on that? I read about it years
ago and have always been curious to find out more.
Interim Books
<centa...@home.com> wrote:
>Basically 700 k launches is clearly ridiculous, but if the nuclear power
>industry is winding down , as i have been reading of late , whether this is
>true or not , then at least should we not be looking at the most hazardous
>waste to remove to the moon.
The nuclear power industry is far from the only generator of waste.
Steve Bara
<brem...@antispam.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.13fe225c8...@news.earthlink.net...
> In article <8n0bd5$90v$1...@tikehau.netreach.net>, fr...@op.net
> says...
>
> > I think you'll be surprised how small an
> > amount it actually is, but I'm willing to accept that I might be wrong
about
> > this and I've been deceived into thinking plutonium was one of the most
> > potent carcinogens around.
>
> Steve, you have been terribly deceived. The following excerpts
> from Petr Beckmann's classic book, The Health Hazards of Not
> Going Nuclear (1976) should let you see how.
>
what he's saying below.
> (p.138 ff) "When eaten, plutonium is hundreds of thousands of
> time less toxic than .. diptheria or botulism toxin. Caffeine is
> only 10 times less toxic than Plutonium...
>
And how is he measuring this? By calculating the LD50 for the various
chemicals? Toxic is toxic, and amounts do matter, and I have to question
how he can rank direct toxins against long term carcinogens. Do you see an
obvious way of comparing something that causes mutations which MIGHT lead to
cancer (or might be filtered out by the immune system hundreds of times a
day) against chemicals which are directly poisonous by their very nature?
I'm sure you could eat various amounts of radioactive chemicals and not die
from immediate poisoning effects, but to say that this is a fair way to
measure their potential danger is very misleading at best.
> ... the real danger .. is breathing it in the form of fine dust
> particles. .. eventually causing lung cancer. Even so, this
> danger... has been exaggerated beyond all reasonable bounds. ...
>
And how does he establish what the reasonable bounds are for this exactly?
It's nice rhetoric, but I don't see numbers or studies being cited here, and
that's what I'm more interested in. Is there a reason why he uses this sort
of political posturing rather than refer directly to numerical evidence? It
sure sounds like he's trying to convince us of something, but if the
situation was so clear-cut as he implies, no rhetoric would be necessary, he
could simply point at the numbers and the information would speak for
itself.
> ... The fact is that the amount ... committed to the atmosphere
> in early atmospheric tests ... was not a few ounces, but almost
> three tons; yet somehow mankind survives.
>
Yet somehow many forms of cancer have doubled, tripled, or quadrupled in
frequency. Some of that might be due to better diagnostic capabilities
nowadays, but I think the drastic changes in breast cancer frequency for
example are something to really wonder about. Some of these cancers were
rare or unheard of early in our lifetimes, and now they're getting rather
common. Doesn't that merit a bit of research into the contaminants which we
know are linked to these problems? I know there's not a direct line
pointing from one thing to another, maybe the increase in cancer has other
causes, but for some reason your source sounds like the people who work for
the tobacco industry. Did you notice that about his method of argument?
> During ... conditions of the early nuclear weapons industry, the
> exposures to plutonium far exceeded the present maximum
> permissible limits. Yet of 17,000 plutonium workers, ... not one
> has died of plutonium-related health problems.
>
Weird, I thought there were a series of lawsuits filed by families on behalf
of plutonium workers that died of various cancers... are you entirely sure
that this 1976 statistic is currently accurate? Maybe long term
cause/effect is hard to determine. The delay in cancer growths allowed the
tobacco industry to claim innocence for years, but do you really doubt that
smoking increases the chances of getting lung cancer? Does it have to be a
one to one correspondence before you accept that something is harmful over a
long term? Cancer doesn't grow every time a cell reproduces incorrectly,
most often your body is able to correct the problems or the cell dies on its
own. Just because it's not a 100% direct cause/effect doesn't negate the
cause/effect.
> Included in this figure are 25 plutonium workers from Los Alamos
> [1944-45] who had twenty-five times the presently permissible
> amount of plutonium deposited in their lungs. (Tamplin and
> Coochran advocated a reduction of the present maximum permissible
> lung burden by a factor 117,000 ...) ... According to Gofman's
> estimate of lung damage, these 25 workers should have developed
> 1,500 individual lung cancers. In fact, all twenty-five are in
> good health."
>
It's very possible they DID grow 1500 individual lung cancers, and their
bodies caught them in time that they never were ill for even a moment. I
think either you or your source is confused about the way cancers grow,
because this argument would only make sense if he tracked these workers for
their entire lifetimes rather than 30 years.
Precancerous lesions form in your body all the time. Sometimes your immune
system catches them. Sometimes it doesn't. Just because you can't say with
100% certainty that X amount of a chemical will cause N number of cancer
cases, it doesn't mean that a chemical is safe either. Do you have any
post-1945 numbers about how many of these workers died of cancer? I think
it's handy that he looked at the effects 20-30 years out and not 30+ years
out instead, where the numbers will change significantly. Plenty of people
smoke for 20 years without getting lung cancer, then when they turn 55 or 65
they're right in the hospital wondering what happened, by your source's weak
logic the lack of cancer for the initial 20 years of smoking should mean
that smoking is considerably less harmful than we know it to be. We DO know
that an extremely minute amount of plutonium will cause cells to form
precancerous lesions, the only thing we can't say with 100% certainty is how
many of these will get by the immune system and turn into serious cancers.
Just because you don't get the cancer the day after your contact with
plutonium, or even 10 years later, doesn't mean it isn't happening. I think
if you look at post-1976 numbers for the industry your source is commenting
on, you'll find different numbers than what he conveniently found early on,
so why would you use such a dated source when we have more information
today? Is it maybe because his results are dependent on the short range of
his study? If not, show us some new numbers.
brem...@antispam.net
says...
> > from Petr Beckmann's classic book, The Health Hazards of Not
> > Going Nuclear (1976) should let you see how.
> >
> Yeah, he's an unbiased kinda guy, right? 8)
The issue is not whether or not he is biased - which he is, of
course - but rather if his facts hold up.
> Seriously though, let's look at
> what he's saying below.
>
> > (p.138 ff) "When eaten, plutonium is hundreds of thousands of
> > time less toxic than .. diptheria or botulism toxin. Caffeine is
> > only 10 times less toxic than Plutonium...
> >
> And how is he measuring this? By calculating the LD50 for the various
> chemicals?
Yes, the parts I was too lazy to type contain that information.
> Toxic is toxic, and amounts do matter, and I have to question
> how he can rank direct toxins against long term carcinogens. Do you see an
> obvious way of comparing something that causes mutations which MIGHT lead to
> cancer (or might be filtered out by the immune system hundreds of times a
> day) against chemicals which are directly poisonous by their very nature?
> I'm sure you could eat various amounts of radioactive chemicals and not die
> from immediate poisoning effects, but to say that this is a fair way to
> measure their potential danger is very misleading at best.
Not at all. This establishes that, as a heavy metal poison, PU is
not as toxic in the short term as are many other things.
> > ... the real danger .. is breathing it in the form of fine dust
> > particles. .. eventually causing lung cancer. Even so, this
> > danger... has been exaggerated beyond all reasonable bounds. ...
> >
> And how does he establish what the reasonable bounds are for this exactly?
> It's nice rhetoric, but I don't see numbers or studies being cited here, and
> that's what I'm more interested in. Is there a reason why he uses this sort
> of political posturing rather than refer directly to numerical evidence? It
> sure sounds like he's trying to convince us of something, but if the
> situation was so clear-cut as he implies, no rhetoric would be necessary, he
> could simply point at the numbers and the information would speak for
> itself.
I gave you that part of his writing to show how he developed his
argument and conclusions. Obviously, his next step would be to
justify that statement.
>
> > ... The fact is that the amount ... committed to the atmosphere
> > in early atmospheric tests ... was not a few ounces, but almost
> > three tons; yet somehow mankind survives.
> >
> Yet somehow many forms of cancer have doubled, tripled, or quadrupled in
> frequency. Some of that might be due to better diagnostic capabilities
> nowadays, but I think the drastic changes in breast cancer frequency for
> example are something to really wonder about. Some of these cancers were
> rare or unheard of early in our lifetimes, and now they're getting rather
> common. Doesn't that merit a bit of research into the contaminants which we
> know are linked to these problems? I know there's not a direct line
> pointing from one thing to another, maybe the increase in cancer has other
> causes, but for some reason your source sounds like the people who work for
> the tobacco industry. Did you notice that about his method of argument?
Ignoring the tobacco industry red herring, re-examine the
argument. PU as the "most dangerous" argument claims something
similar to "if an ounce, or few ounces were scattered in the
atmosphere, it could kill...." He is showing that argument is
fallacious, because tens of thousands of ounces actually have
been put into the atmosphere, and everyone isn't dead or
cancerous.
And yes, cancers maybe have increased. But, we also know that
some of this is because of longer life, and the distribution of
toxic chemicals into the environment. All this then would make
the contribution of PU even less, i.e., all cancers cannot be
attributed to PU.
After 30 years, it would be incredibly difficult to assign a
cause to anyone's cancer. Many of those workers were also exposed
to Mercury, Beryllium, etc.
And, do you really want to defend the argument that these workers
somehow defeated 1,500 cancers, and that is why they are not sick
vs. the PU didn't cause 1,500 cancers, i.e., the terrible effect
wasn't there. Doesn't Occam's Razor come in here, perhaps.
> Precancerous lesions form in your body all the time. Sometimes your immune
> system catches them. Sometimes it doesn't. Just because you can't say with
> 100% certainty that X amount of a chemical will cause N number of cancer
> cases, it doesn't mean that a chemical is safe either. Do you have any
> post-1945 numbers about how many of these workers died of cancer?
These were.
> I think
> it's handy that he looked at the effects 20-30 years out and not 30+ years
> out instead, where the numbers will change significantly.
Publishing in 1976, those were the available numbers. No
conspiracy here.
> Plenty of people
> smoke for 20 years without getting lung cancer, then when they turn 55 or 65
> they're right in the hospital wondering what happened, by your source's weak
> logic the lack of cancer for the initial 20 years of smoking should mean
> that smoking is considerably less harmful than we know it to be.
Except you want us to believe that PU is much more harmful that
tobacco smoke. By that reasoning, we shouldn't have to wonder.
And all the workers were adult when they were exposed to PU. So,
adult age +30 years is to to be 50 years of age or so.
> We DO know
> that an extremely minute amount of plutonium will cause cells to form
> precancerous lesions, the only thing we can't say with 100% certainty is how
> many of these will get by the immune system and turn into serious cancers.
> Just because you don't get the cancer the day after your contact with
> plutonium, or even 10 years later, doesn't mean it isn't happening. I think
> if you look at post-1976 numbers for the industry your source is commenting
> on, you'll find different numbers than what he conveniently found early on,
> so why would you use such a dated source when we have more information
> today? Is it maybe because his results are dependent on the short range of
> his study? If not, show us some new numbers.
Or it is dependent upon the fact that I had him readily
available. Again, if PU is as harmful as you would believe, 30
years should have been more than sufficient for effects to start
appearing.
If someone else who has access to more recent figures doesn't
respond, I shall look for some.
Steve Bara
<brem...@antispam.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1400efd72...@news.earthlink.net...
> In article <8n5c64$lcn$1...@tikehau.netreach.net>, fr...@op.net
> says...
> >
> > <brem...@antispam.net> wrote in message
> > news:MPG.13fe225c8...@news.earthlink.net...
> > > Steve, you have been terribly deceived. The following excerpts
> > > from Petr Beckmann's classic book, The Health Hazards of Not
> > > Going Nuclear (1976) should let you see how.
> > >
> > Yeah, he's an unbiased kinda guy, right? 8)
>
> The issue is not whether or not he is biased - which he is, of
> course - but rather if his facts hold up.
>
1976 ideas, but I think you'll find that science has progressed considerably
in that time as it relates to cancer study. Also, we should have complete
lifetime data on most of the 1945 era plutonium workers by now, which is
going to be considerably more revealing than looking at the 1976 numbers.
Remember, people can smoke cigarettes for MANY years before the effects pile
up enough to cause significant illness, but that doesn't mean it's a healthy
behaviour over long terms.
> > Seriously though, let's look at
> > what he's saying below.
> >
> > > (p.138 ff) "When eaten, plutonium is hundreds of thousands of
> > > time less toxic than .. diptheria or botulism toxin. Caffeine is
> > > only 10 times less toxic than Plutonium...
> > >
> > And how is he measuring this? By calculating the LD50 for the various
> > chemicals?
>
> Yes, the parts I was too lazy to type contain that information.
>
Guess what, you can't compare LD50 ratings of toxins with mutagens.
Mutagens and toxins aren't the same thing. Toxins kill you directly and
relatively immediately, while mutagens work indirectly by causing lesions
that lead to POSSIBLE cancers, and take a considerably longer amount of time
for their effects to compound. Plutonium is a comparatively weak direct
toxin, but it is a very potent mutagen. Using one effect to downplay
another is merely posturing, and it seems like a very deceptive tactic
indeed. Do you think it's a good idea to use a source who creates
intentionally misleading arguments like that, or does it just muddy an
already tricky issue?
> > Toxic is toxic, and amounts do matter, and I have to question
> > how he can rank direct toxins against long term carcinogens. Do you see
an
> > obvious way of comparing something that causes mutations which MIGHT
lead to
> > cancer (or might be filtered out by the immune system hundreds of times
a
> > day) against chemicals which are directly poisonous by their very
nature?
> > I'm sure you could eat various amounts of radioactive chemicals and not
die
> > from immediate poisoning effects, but to say that this is a fair way to
> > measure their potential danger is very misleading at best.
>
> Not at all. This establishes that, as a heavy metal poison, PU is
> not as toxic in the short term as are many other things.
>
And this is an essentially useless and misleading "fact" since mutagens and
toxins are two different things with two entirely different effects. There
are some very potent mutagens that you can eat by the handful without
poisoning yourself, but that has no bearing on their ability to create the
lesions that might lead to cancer depending on your body's ability to repair
itself. Your source is playing a word game to disguise the real issue,
which is the mutagenic properties of the chemical rather than the direct
toxicity. Since the mutagenic properties have been ranked in the short 24
years since this newsflash of a report from your source, you might want to
consult some data from this decade and see what the numbers are for
plutonium as a mutagen rather than telling us plutonium isn't the most
powerful toxin.
> > > ... the real danger .. is breathing it in the form of fine dust
> > > particles. .. eventually causing lung cancer. Even so, this
> > > danger... has been exaggerated beyond all reasonable bounds. ...
> > >
> > And how does he establish what the reasonable bounds are for this
exactly?
> > It's nice rhetoric, but I don't see numbers or studies being cited here,
and
> > that's what I'm more interested in. Is there a reason why he uses this
sort
> > of political posturing rather than refer directly to numerical evidence?
It
> > sure sounds like he's trying to convince us of something, but if the
> > situation was so clear-cut as he implies, no rhetoric would be
necessary, he
> > could simply point at the numbers and the information would speak for
> > itself.
>
> I gave you that part of his writing to show how he developed his
> argument and conclusions. Obviously, his next step would be to
> justify that statement.
Real scientists report the results and THEN their hypotheses based on the
results. This guy is a politician or worse, but he's not showing much
acumen as a scientist if he can't tell the difference between an LD50 and a
ranking as a mutagen. The fact that he's using posturing and rhetoric to
mislead and confuse the issue doesn't increase his value as a source. If
the data was there to show plutonium as a safe chemical with few risks as a
MUTAGEN (note I'm talking about the actual issue in the thread, unlike your
source), then all he or you need do is show some data. Got any data from
the past decade that ranks plutonium as a mutagen? Note that cancer
research has progressed considerably since your source made his statements,
even though he was off-topic by using an LD50 to confuse the issue of
plutonium as a carcinogen by ranking it as a toxin instead.
> >
> > > ... The fact is that the amount ... committed to the atmosphere
> > > in early atmospheric tests ... was not a few ounces, but almost
> > > three tons; yet somehow mankind survives.
> > >
> > Yet somehow many forms of cancer have doubled, tripled, or quadrupled in
> > frequency. Some of that might be due to better diagnostic capabilities
> > nowadays, but I think the drastic changes in breast cancer frequency for
> > example are something to really wonder about. Some of these cancers
were
> > rare or unheard of early in our lifetimes, and now they're getting
rather
> > common. Doesn't that merit a bit of research into the contaminants
which we
> > know are linked to these problems? I know there's not a direct line
> > pointing from one thing to another, maybe the increase in cancer has
other
> > causes, but for some reason your source sounds like the people who work
for
> > the tobacco industry. Did you notice that about his method of argument?
>
> Ignoring the tobacco industry red herring, re-examine the
> argument.
It's not a red herring, it's a direct copy of his arguments used in another
obvious situation where tobacco smoking is a powerful mutagen and yet people
are able to confuse the issue using the time delay and indirect nature of
cancer causality (mutagens cause the misreplications and lesions that MIGHT
cause cancer or might get nabbed by the immune system or die on their own
accord, hence you don't see a 1 to 1 causality).
PU as the "most dangerous" argument claims something
> similar to "if an ounce, or few ounces were scattered in the
> atmosphere, it could kill...." He is showing that argument is
> fallacious, because tens of thousands of ounces actually have
> been put into the atmosphere, and everyone isn't dead or
> cancerous.
>
And more recent data shows a considerable increase in nearly every form of
cancer, including forms which were extremely rare early in our own
lifetimes. Doesn't it strike you as odd that when you were a child very few
people got certain cancers, but now these things are increasingly common?
Part of this is due to increased accuracy in diagnosis, but we can look at
the drastic increase in breast cancer (which tends to be easier to diagnose
than many other types of cancer) and say without doubt that something has
changed within our lifetimes to cause this disease to increase drastically.
> And yes, cancers maybe have increased. But, we also know that
> some of this is because of longer life, and the distribution of
> toxic chemicals into the environment. All this then would make
> the contribution of PU even less, i.e., all cancers cannot be
> attributed to PU.
Good point, and well taken, there can always be alternate causalities in
something this long term. Cancer itself is a very complex disease and it's
easy to show that not every pre-cancerous lesion ends up as a tumor. It's
also easy to show that increasing the number of mutagens that you are
exposed to increases your RISK of developing a full blown cancer. There's
plenty of room here for people with agendas to distort things, in both
directions, but the numbers are there ranking plutonium as a mutagen, and
it's very unreasonable to use cheap tobacco company arguments to downplay a
real and tangible risk. The LD50 arguments and the rhetorical posturing
really damage your source's credibility. If the issue was as clear cut as
you and your source imply, these tactics wouldn't be necessary at all.
> >
> > > During ... conditions of the early nuclear weapons industry, the
> > > exposures to plutonium far exceeded the present maximum
> > > permissible limits. Yet of 17,000 plutonium workers, ... not one
> > > has died of plutonium-related health problems.
> > >
> > Weird, I thought there were a series of lawsuits filed by families on
behalf
> > of plutonium workers that died of various cancers... are you entirely
sure
> > that this 1976 statistic is currently accurate? Maybe long term
> > cause/effect is hard to determine. The delay in cancer growths allowed
the
> > tobacco industry to claim innocence for years, but do you really doubt
that
> > smoking increases the chances of getting lung cancer? Does it have to
be a
> > one to one correspondence before you accept that something is harmful
over a
> > long term? Cancer doesn't grow every time a cell reproduces
incorrectly,
> > most often your body is able to correct the problems or the cell dies on
its
> > own. Just because it's not a 100% direct cause/effect doesn't negate
the
> > cause/effect.
Didn't see your response to this. Got any post-1976 data? I'll even take
data from the early 90s, I think that's when many of the workers you refer
to started getting ill. Isn't it odd that it's hard to find a RECENT source
that doubts the carcinogenic properties of plutonium, or do you have an
explanation for that?
> >
> > > Included in this figure are 25 plutonium workers from Los Alamos
> > > [1944-45] who had twenty-five times the presently permissible
> > > amount of plutonium deposited in their lungs. (Tamplin and
> > > Coochran advocated a reduction of the present maximum permissible
> > > lung burden by a factor 117,000 ...) ... According to Gofman's
> > > estimate of lung damage, these 25 workers should have developed
> > > 1,500 individual lung cancers. In fact, all twenty-five are in
> > > good health."
> > >
> > It's very possible they DID grow 1500 individual lung cancers, and their
> > bodies caught them in time that they never were ill for even a moment.
I
> > think either you or your source is confused about the way cancers grow,
> > because this argument would only make sense if he tracked these workers
for
> > their entire lifetimes rather than 30 years.
>
> After 30 years, it would be incredibly difficult to assign a
> cause to anyone's cancer. Many of those workers were also exposed
> to Mercury, Beryllium, etc.
>
Accepted. There can always be alternate causalities. It's easy however to
take human cells in culture, expose them to plutonium, and measure the
number of precancerous lesions that are formed. In fact, that's how
responsible scientists, unlike your dated source, assign rankings to various
chemicals for their mutagenic potentials.
> And, do you really want to defend the argument that these workers
> somehow defeated 1,500 cancers, and that is why they are not sick
> vs. the PU didn't cause 1,500 cancers, i.e., the terrible effect
> wasn't there. Doesn't Occam's Razor come in here, perhaps.
>
Not really. There are plenty of people who smoked for their entire
lifetimes and never got cancer, but it's easy to show tobacco smoke is a
potent mutagen. Just because precancerous lesions form in your body all the
time, probably several every day, it doesnt mean that they're all going to
become tumors OR that it's safe to increase your exposure to mutagens like
plutonium just because it takes a long time to get sick. Occam's Razor
doesn't always work in situations with multiple stages of complexity like
this one. You don't get a one to one causality between carcinogens and
tumors, but you CAN show that an exceedingly small amount of plutonium will
cause precancerous lesions if you put it near living cells for an extended
period of time. Lesions don't always develop into cancer, your body can
stop and repair a fairly high number of these lesions during your lifetime.
That doesn't make it safe to smoke, nor does it make it safe to expose
yourself to powerful mutagens just because there isn't a one to one
correspondence with actual tumors.
> > Precancerous lesions form in your body all the time. Sometimes your
immune
> > system catches them. Sometimes it doesn't. Just because you can't say
with
> > 100% certainty that X amount of a chemical will cause N number of cancer
> > cases, it doesn't mean that a chemical is safe either. Do you have any
> > post-1945 numbers about how many of these workers died of cancer?
>
> These were.
>
How about some from this decade? I can show you a lot of healthy people in
their 30s and 40s who've smoked since their 20s, but after 40 years the
cancer numbers tend to separate the smokers from the nonsmokers.
> > I think
> > it's handy that he looked at the effects 20-30 years out and not 30+
years
> > out instead, where the numbers will change significantly.
>
> Publishing in 1976, those were the available numbers. No
> conspiracy here.
>
No, there's no conspiracy on his part (other than distorting the issue of
toxicity with the issue of carcinogenicity), but on YOUR part I'm wondering
where your recent sources are. If what he's saying is accurate, shouldn't
you be able to talk about entire lifetimes of plutonium workers by now?
Most of these people would be in their 70s and 80s now, so you should have
complete data to cite rather than telling me it's safe for the first 20 odd
years.
> > Plenty of people
> > smoke for 20 years without getting lung cancer, then when they turn 55
or 65
> > they're right in the hospital wondering what happened, by your source's
weak
> > logic the lack of cancer for the initial 20 years of smoking should mean
> > that smoking is considerably less harmful than we know it to be.
>
> Except you want us to believe that PU is much more harmful that
> tobacco smoke.
If you put tobacco tar and plutonium next to living cells, you can measure
how many precancerous lesions are formed. Since this sort of thing wasn't
as well understood in 1976, I can see where your source might have
misunderstood the issue at hand, but I don't see why you don't have access
to more recent numbers and rankings of chemicals for their carcinogenic
properties.
By that reasoning, we shouldn't have to wonder.
> And all the workers were adult when they were exposed to PU. So,
> adult age +30 years is to to be 50 years of age or so.
>
Most smokers get lung cancer pretty late in their lives, closer to their
60s, if they get it at all. Got any numbers for how many of your plutonium
workers kicked before reaching 70? I think that comparing cancer rates in
their population versus the general population would be pretty easy to do
nowadays, in fact I think you should have access to these numbers from the
lawsuits these workers and their families filed later on. Any reason you
haven't spoken on that issue and are still using a 24 year old study as a
source?
> > We DO know
> > that an extremely minute amount of plutonium will cause cells to form
> > precancerous lesions, the only thing we can't say with 100% certainty is
how
> > many of these will get by the immune system and turn into serious
cancers.
> > Just because you don't get the cancer the day after your contact with
> > plutonium, or even 10 years later, doesn't mean it isn't happening. I
think
> > if you look at post-1976 numbers for the industry your source is
commenting
> > on, you'll find different numbers than what he conveniently found early
on,
> > so why would you use such a dated source when we have more information
> > today? Is it maybe because his results are dependent on the short range
of
> > his study? If not, show us some new numbers.
>
> Or it is dependent upon the fact that I had him readily
> available. Again, if PU is as harmful as you would believe, 30
> years should have been more than sufficient for effects to start
> appearing.
>
Not necessarily, you can smoke for 30 years and remain comparably healthy.
You can smoke your whole life and not get cancer. That doesn't mean tobacco
smoke isn't a pretty powerful mutagen. Since you don't understand the issue
of indirect causality and the fact that the body's own repair system will
"fix" many of these lesions for 30+ years before the system breaks down and
you get the cancer, at the very least you should be able to look at more
recent information on the subject. Also, you should be able to find
research that understands the difference between toxicity and
carcinogenicity. What we understood about carcinogens in 1976 and what we
know now is quite different, and there's nothing limiting you to 30 year old
data on this exact subject, even convenience (medline and other similar
internet services are pretty convenient).
> If someone else who has access to more recent figures doesn't
> respond, I shall look for some.
>
Great, I'm eager to see more recent data on this subject. It would be
especially interesting to see numbers ranking plutonium as a mutagen against
various other chemicals, including trace amounts of plutonium in the
rankings. I bet you could find that sort of information from a source like
medline if you had access to a computer, though I guess in 1976 very few
people had such easy access to data.
JASON A. KAATZ
with a cone that has a degree of survive if an accident does occur/
However, as it approaches the sun it is doubtful would have anymore effect
that radiation emitted from the sun already has. There is much more a
higher risk from UVb than there is from radiation on earth -- I believe even
NASA has established UVb monitoring facilities in different areas of the
earth that are now in operation.
There is probably far more debris spread by a comet than any other factor in
space. On earth we have several thousand hits per days of various forms of
debris of all sizes according to NASA. I believe the issue would warrant
careful study without question. More than likely there are already some
published studies on getting into deep space and the sun -- I have not seen
any of late -- however, I am sure that has been given some consideration.
"Steve Bara" <fr...@op.net> wrote in message
news:8mnrr6$a1j$1...@tikehau.netreach.net...
>
> "JASON A. KAATZ" <ka...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> news:0aqj5.24363$RG6.2...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> > Ship out into deep space toward the sun and destroy it.
> >
JASON A. KAATZ
nuclear weapon we ended up with the fall out ending up in the rain -- it has
been detected in milk and in farm environments over the years. We sure as
hell get enough of it coming in fro space in the form of debris entering
the earth orbit and what is left in micro particles to rather large
stones -- thousands of hits each day.
JASON A. KAATZ
research facilities generate a hell of a lot of waist as do nuclear
faculties. I believe they Soviets indicated a willingness to accept out
waist as well for a price -- however, I believe the smart move with to get
it as far away from earth as possible.
"Declan O'Reilly" <centa...@home.com> wrote in message
news:JG6k5.114067$7I1.2...@news1.rdc2.on.home.com...
>
> The other thing to consider is that maybe what we're
> > calling nuclear waste right now might be useful to us later on, we have
no
> > idea whether some of these isotopes and metals being generated will have
> > future value if we can store them properly until such time as we can
find
> > ways to handle them.
>
> So the solution that fits, would be to store the waste in the moon ,or on
> the moon . Right now as it is , we have waste that is being stored in an
> unsafe manner , i don't buy all of the anti nuke arguments , however i
would
> be foolish to ignore it as well.
> The worst case being , an ounce of PU gets dispersed over a continent ,
> would not be good , but PU leaching into ground source wells , probably
> would be worse.
>
> Declan O'Reilly
>
>
brem...@antispam.net
says...
> Great, I'm eager to see more recent data on this subject. It would be
> especially interesting to see numbers ranking plutonium as a mutagen against
> various other chemicals, including trace amounts of plutonium in the
> rankings. I bet you could find that sort of information from a source like
> medline if you had access to a computer, though I guess in 1976 very few
> people had such easy access to data.
Ok, Steve, some more recent data. While not complete, it
certainly makes it seem that - regardless of what is known about
PU causing potential cancers, it just doesn't happen.
First - a pointer to more data - if anyone wishes to dig further.
http://tis.eh.doe.gov/ohre/related.html
The kicker:
http://tis.eh.doe.gov/ohre/roadmap/histories/0454/0454toc.html#Ti
ssue
"Long-Term Follow-Up Studies of Plutonium Workers (1991
and 1992)
FISHER:
You mentioned just a few minutes ago, in conjunction
with your long-term medical follow-up of plutonium
workers, that among the most important findings is
one single case of bone cancer. Would you like to
take an opportunity to elaborate on the long-term
follow-up and biological effects of exposure to
plutonium?
VOELZ:
The last examinations we did on that group of 26
workers exposed in 1944 and '45 were in 1991 and
'92. We've had no deaths in that group since that
time. As of that examination, 7 of the 26 had died,
compared to approximately 13 or 14 deaths that
would have been expected had they died at the rate
of U.S. males, adjusted for age and calendar year of
death. So our death rate has been close to 50 percent
of what could be expected in this group. The one
cancer that seemed to have the potentially closest
relationship to plutonium, might have been the bone
cancer, simply because it's a rare tumor, and finding
one in 26 people puts it well in excess of what would
be expected.
In another study, we've looked at all the people at
Los Alamos that have been exposed to plutonium.
That study will be published in the December [1994]
issue of Health Physics. We just had a news release
on it last week from our public information office. In
that study, only one individual has [contracted] a bone
tumor—the same individual I was talking about in the
group of 26. When you put it in the larger context, of
all the people who have been exposed to plutonium, it
turns out to be well within the expected number
[incidence] of bone tumors. [There] doesn't appear, in
the plutonium exposed people at Los Alamos, that we
have any excess of bone tumors."
For another PU effect:
http://apha.confex.com/apha/128am/techprogram/paper_17163.htm
"4216.0: Tuesday, November 14, 2000 - 3:22 PM
Pulmonary Fibrosis in Plutonium Workers
Interpretation: Inhaled plutonium may cause lung fibrosis in
humans, especially at absorbed lung doses above
1,000 rem."
So, I think you will have to agree that the hazards of PU have
been greatly demonized, and are in fact much less than one might
think.
Of course, this doesn't mean I think that it is a good thing to
be around, or "to take a bath in it" as a deceased neighbor of
mine claimed he would do.
Mike Bremseth